I won my first campaign tonight as Sun Jian. A key battle was fought next to the Yangzi in the Lujiang commandery, where Cao Cao brought two stacks against my one and I still pulled a Pyrrhic Victory out of it. He never recovered and ended up offering vassalage for peace. It was awesome, definitely the highlight of the campaign, and my generals were Sun Ren and her husband, Zhang Fei (plus a generic strategist, Han Ran). Being a 3k fan for years and having played more than my share of DW: Empires with all sorts of crazy combinations of favorite officers, everything came together and inspired me to write a little piece. Hope you all enjoy.

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Sun Ren found her husband sitting on the banks of the Yangzi, sipping wine and staring at the horizon as it slowly brightened with impending dawn.

A dawn that could well be their last.

“Are you certain you ought to be drinking on the morning of this battle?” she asked, carefully modulating her tone to be playful and teasing rather than reprimanding.

Zhang Fei glanced over his shoulder at her, and she felt as though the chill morning air warmed a little as his broad tiger features brightened with a smile. “It is for the ambiance,” he proclaimed, turning back to the Yangzi and sweeping his free hand out in a broad, encompassing gesture. “A single cup of wine for a doomed man.”

She moved to his side, seated herself in the grass. “A single cup? I am impressed, husband.”

He scowled at her, not seriously, and offered her a drink. Sun Ren hesitated, then took it, letting the bold flavor burn pleasantly in her mouth before she swallowed and returned the cup. “The scouts have returned,” she said. “They report some four and a half thousands, infantry and cavalry, with much support of bowmen.”

Zhang Fei’s scowl deepened as it became genuine. “Has Han Ran got our trebuchets in good order?” he asked. “If we are to have any chance –”

“The shot has been doused with oil, as per your command. Our archers, too, have prepared fire arrows.”

Her husband nodded sternly. “I dislike this defensive arrangement, my wife. I would prefer to march out and meet them in open battle, not wait like a tortoise cowering in its shell. Are their forces not separated by some li? If we allow them to link up…”

Sun Ren smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You are brave, my husband, but Lujiang’s terrain is too harsh for us to navigate quickly without exhausting the men, and we could not bring the trebuchets. They are a substantial advantage if we pick where the battle takes place. No, the Ji militia and the Pearl Dragon units must hold the line. I have already sent our cavalry to conceal themselves in the forest to the east of where I expect to meet the enemy.”

With another nod, Zhang Fei finished the cup of wine. “I put my trust in you, light of my life. Heaven will decide whether Cao Cao’s forces will dance to your tune.” He grinned, his huge eyes widening. “I hope they do. It would shame me to return to your father having lost a battle outnumbered only two to one.”

Sun Ren pulled Zhang Fei’s serpent spear from where he had planted it in the earth and handed it to him. “Come, then. If we leave Han Ran to run the battle, none of us will be going back to my father at all.”

Zhang Fei’s laugh boomed across the Yangzi as they returned to their camp.

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Flaming shot poured from the sky, slamming with devastating explosive force into the ranks of massed archers brought by the armies of Cao Cao. Massively outranged, the numerically superior force rushed forward; as their front lines came within sight of Zhang Fei’s infantry, a storm of fiery arrows boiled into the air and rained down on them in searing tides.

And yet, Sun Ren could see it would still not be enough. She dug her heels into her horse and spurred it forward, thundering across the vast coastal plain on which they had carefully chosen to meet the bulk of the enemy force. Zhang Fei was right before her, serpent spear poised, his shout ringing out even over the sounds of the artillery fire and men screaming. There was another sound, like thousands of thunderbolts crashing, as the front lines of the two forces came together. Sun Ren was vaguely aware of some of the enemy splitting away, distracted by the flanking attack of Zhang Fei’s cavalry, but she was suddenly surrounded by enemy soldiers and had no time to keep track of the larger situation. Her bow in hand, she felled man after man with shots to the chest and throat and face.

Like a withdrawing tide, the enemy ranks fell back and parted, and a single challenger rode forth. He was huge, even larger than her husband, with protruding muscles and a gaze fierce enough to freeze the blood. He held an enormous mace almost casually, as though it weighed nothing at all, and he leveled the weapon at Zhang Fei.

“I am Xu Chu, style Zhongkang, the Tiger Warrior of Lord Cao Cao!” he bellowed. “Come and fight me, feckless renegade, if you dare!”

Sun Ren could see the bloodlust in Zhang Fei’s face, and knew instinctively he would throw caution to the wind and grapple alone with this monster. He had boundless confidence in his own strength, after all. But she was the tactician, and she knew that they had many more foes to fight this day; if Zhang Fei spent the bulk of his strength battling a single enemy, it might well cripple them.

So as Zhang Fei hurtled forward, spear spinning, curses pouring from his mouth, Sun Ren drew back her bow and shot Xu Chu in the heart.

The fact that he did not immediately fall from his horse was a testament to his strength; he stared at her, eyes wide, a look of utter shock and incomprehension on his face. In his mind, Zhang Fei had already accepted the duel; to intervene was dishonorable.

But Zhang Fei had not accepted, not formally. And honor was useless to the dead.

Zhang Fei brought his spear around in a great and terrible arc, unhorsing Xu Chu in one bone-crushing blow. The men around him quailed, their fighting spirits crumbling in the face of Zhang Fei’s fury and the arrows of Sun Ren.

They felled four more generals that day, the two of them working in concert. And as the sun set on a plain littered with bodies, they stood together in triumph, their forces greatly reduced but the enemy’s utterly shattered.

Neither of them had been gravely injured, though Zhang Fei now sported a long crimson slash across his right shoulder from a lucky sword blow by one of Cao Cao’s generals. In the aftermath, as the day cooled into twilight, they once again sat on the banks of the Yangzi, Zhang Fei submitting to Sun Ren’s careful ministrations as she cleaned, stitched, and dressed his wound.

“That traitor Cao Cao has been steadily losing commanderies for three years now,” Zhang Fei observed. “Surely this must have been the greater part of his forces. We should be able to sweep up the rest of his lands in a few seasons.” He grinned fiercely, then just as quickly frowned when he saw the look on Sun Ren’s face. “What is it? Are you so concerned by this scratch?”

Sun Ren shook her head, finishing her work on the wound. “It is not a scratch, and you must avoid strenuous action for at least a month to keep it from reopening,” she chided him. “But it is not that.”

“Then what? Tell me what troubles you, my wife, and if I cannot crush or kill it I may at least be able to share your worry.”

She gave him a wan smile. “Do you remember when my father first approached your elder brother and offered my hand in marriage?”

“I do.” Zhang Fei’s expression sobered, and his tiger eyes dulled slightly as he gazed past the horizon to the east. “But he had already found a principal wife, and so turned to me. I did not expect to be sent to live in the Southlands. I was unhappy, angry.” He tenderly put a hand on hers. “But then I met you, and those terrifying maids of yours, and knew ours was a destined pairing. I will still die on the same day as my brothers; our fates are interlinked. But here I have found contentment I never thought possible.”

Sun Ren lowered her gaze to the waters of the Yangzi, almost black in the dimness of twilight. “As we push northeast into Cao Cao’s domain, we draw ever closer to your brother’s kingdom beyond. ‘Two dragons cannot share one sky.’ My father, by the authority of the Jade Seal delivered to him by Heaven and safeguarded these decades, has declared himself Emperor of Wu. Your brother, as an Imperial Kinsman, will no doubt take up the Han dynastic line when the puppet Xian is deposed.”

Stroking his beard, Zhang Fei nodded. “These things are true.”

“Then tell me, my husband,” Sun Ren said, looking him in the eye. “When you see your brother again, it will quite likely be on the battlefield. On that day, for whom will you fight?”

Zhang Fei opened his mouth to reply, but no words emerged. His eyes widened, and Sun Ren knew for a certainty that this possibility had not occurred to him.

Finally, agonizingly, he said, “I… do not know.”

They sat together a while longer, watching the last light fade and night descend. The Yangzi flowed on, unperturbed.