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Legacy of the Lunar Spear	By : CPascal42 Category: +A through F > Dynasty Warriors Views: 9784 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dynasty Warriors, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Chapter 9

Regrets

Ling
trotted Firestorm down the road ignoring the stares of the soldiers as she
passed. They had all watched as Li Jue�s
bleeding body bounced down the road attached to her stirrup. An unforeseen problem arose when the man�s
body got tangled up in Storm�s hooves at one point, but her faithful steed
bucked Jue�s body off and kept going.
Now she was returning to the main camp after ditching her victim�s body by
the rear guard and she was finally seeing the same fear that she saw in their
eyes when they heard �Lu Bu was coming�.
Suddenly her grief wanted to overwhelm her, it had been only this
morning when she had seen him up there on the gate�No, crying would only make
her seem weak. Lu Bu�s daughter was not
weak. Finally, after being in denial for
two days, she let the impact of the horrible events hit her. Lu Bu was dead, Chan was dead and she was
married to Cao Cao�s favorite cousin.
What she had known here entire life was now gone and there was only one
thing she wanted-revenge.
Ling had managed to get through the
first night with Dun because she genuinely liked and respected him. It was a pity that he could have enough
respect for her to marry her, yet he still did not understand her at all. All of it meant nothing, if he got trampled
in the process�well that was just how things turned out sometimes. Thinking back to this morning she couldn�t
help but wonder how she didn�t kill those men.
It was true; there were only two men strong enough to lead the country,
Liu Bei and Cao Cao. Certainly this
would all play out and they would be the last ones standing. Eliminating them would have been bad, even if
it did make her feel better for the few seconds before Dian Wei sliced her in
half. Cao Cao probably would end up winning;
everything was slanted in his favor. She
needed to wait it out, let Cao Cao build his empire, then avenge her father and
salvage something out of the ruins. Her
father wouldn�t want her to just die needlessly. If she was going to honor his memory, she needed
to kill Cao Cao and come away with something substantial. As Dong Zhuo fell�so would the �hero of
chaos�.
Then there was the question of what
to do after Cao Cao was disposed off? If
Liu Bei got over his annoying tendencies perhaps she could ally with him. Or did she want his head too? He was there and according to the boys he was
the one who insisted that Lu Bu would betray them. It was Cao Cao who gave the ultimatum though,
and it was his sword that took his head.
Yes, he was the true enemy. Why
Xiahou Dun decided to break down and show her mercy she didn�t know, but it was
convenient. He was granting her access
to the man she wanted to kill. She began
to feel bad for him, the man was beginning to really like her....but no. Xiahou Dun needed to stay alive so that she
did not become property of someone else, someone further away from the
throne. That meant staying by his side
in battle, helping him train and keeping his eye socket from becoming a pus cistern.
Liao
blocked the road and forced her horse to come to a halt. He walked over to her side and quietly and
touched her arm. �Are you alright?� he whispered.
�Mmmm.�
�You need
to be careful Ling; they still consider you to be the enemy. You can�t just shoot your mouth off like
you�ve been doing.�
I am the enemy. �Really?�
Liao
grabbed her hand. �Ling Qi, are you trying to get yourself killed?�
�I�m still
alive.�
�You have
to let him go.�
�It may be
easy for you�.but��
Liao
squeezed her hand tightly. �Don�t throw this away. You are protecting General Xiahou�.I can only
hope it is because you are trying to make things work. This can be really good for you Ling; you
just have to accept that he�s gone.�
�How long
has he been gone Liao?� She pulled her hand away. �Two days?
How quickly you move on.�
�Ling..� Liao
watched her ride back to Cao Cao. �You�re
going to end up like him.�
Ling looked
ahead and saw Cao Cao sitting along at the campfire. Great.
Now she had to return the horse that was rightfully hers and
grovel. She looked down at her hands as
he caught sight of her. Last night when
Dun finally blinked off to sleep, she couldn�t help but think of Diao
Chan. Chan had initially come into their
lives for the expressed purpose of having Lu Bu kill Dung Zhuo. That had worked out quite well, but her
problem was she fell in love in the process.
Now if Chan was capable of playing two powerful men against one another
even with her lack of substantial intelligence, just imagine��Lord Cao, I am
sorry I didn�t ask before borrowing your horse.�
�Well you
did me a favor, so I will let that slide.� Cao watched her dismount and hand
her mount off to his bodyguard. �Please,
sit with me a while.�
�Just as
long as it�s not on your lap.�

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Liao sat down
against the tree he had designated as his secluded resting spot for the
night. No matter how hard he tried he
couldn�t get the image of that carcass out of his head. It wouldn�t have been as bad had his head not
been up there looking down at him�.Fengxian
I am sorry. He covered his eyes
again with his hand trying to stop the tears from falling again. His best friend and he couldn�t do a damned
thing to save him. If Ling wasn�t here,
he would march over to Cao Cao and demand that he be executed. At least he wouldn�t have to live with
this�but Ling was the most important thing in Lu Bu�s life. She was planning something and he couldn�t
let her follow through with it. At least
then he could still help Lu Bu, even while serving another lord. Yes, he did believe that Cao Cao was the best
choice for reunification and he respected the man�..but Ling wouldn�t see his
decision as anything but treachery.
�Hey�Um�Liao,
can we talk?�
Liao looked
up and quickly brushed off the tears that had formed in his eyes. �Yuan�sorry I didn�t hear you come up.�
Xiahou Yuan
sat down and quickly spoke his mind. �Is Ling going to try and kill my
brother?�
�Is your
brother going to try and kill Ling?�
�I asked
first.� Yuan smiled.
�She�s
usually only like this in battle.� Liao plucked a few blades of grass out of
the ground. �She hasn�t mourned him.
Ling thinks if she shows emotion people will think she�s weak because she�s a
girl. That�s why she�s acting like she
is. She�ll calm down�I hope.�
�So�is she
going to hurt Dun?�
Liao was
surprised that Yuan thought his sibling to be such a weakling. �I think your brother is capable of defending
himself.�
�Look, he�s
really into her. At first I thought it
was because of the eye and part of me still does. But I think he genuinely wants to be with her
and if that�s the case, he needs help. I
know my brother and he�s bad with women.�
�So I�ve
heard.�
�Yeah, that
lady kind of had it coming though.� Yuan
scratched his head. �Anyhow, he asked
Cao to make her an officer and that means he really likes her. We just
want him to be happy and frankly if left on his own they�re going to kill each
other.�
�Does your
brother know that you think so highly of him?�
�Nope.�
Yuan bit his lip. �Will you help us?�
�Us?� Liao
was surprised that there was another individual dumb enough to get involved in
Xiahou Dun�s personal life.
�Yeah,
Cao.�
�Cao
Cao?!?!?�
�Yup.� Yuan
smiled.
�I want her
to be happy, I owe her father that much.� Liao sighed. �But if he hits her��
�Relax! He likes her.
So you�ll help?�
�I�ll do
what I can. But Ling is very
tight-lipped when it comes to everything.
The only one who could ever make her talk was Lu Bu.�
�So we�ll
win her over!� Yuan said happily. �With
my romantic thoughts and Cao�s scheming, how can we loose?�
�You really
don�t understand Ling at all.�
�But you
do!� Yuan smacked his arm.
�Not well
enough.�

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Xiahou Dun
inspected the tent that his wife had pitched for their stay tonight. It was actually well done, something he
didn�t really expect. She even went so
far as to make a desk and chair out of a crate and barrel for him. Unfortunately there was the unaddressed issue
of the cot being a single sleeper. Was
he going to let her sleep on him�..no she could find a spot on the ground. He tossed off his eye patch scarf and threw
it on the �desk� then rummaged through her things and found her mirror and
looked at his eye. It pissed him off
that he couldn�t see it well since he could only look at it straight on. Any rotation of the mirror allowed his nose
to obstruct his line of sight.
Frustrated he put the mirror down.
He had been trying to compensate for his handicap on the ride, but
anyone who came up on his left side startled him. He had at one point forced his horse all the
way over to the left side of the road, but when Cao had asked him a question he
looked away and almost got struck by a branch.
Ling saved him on that one; she quickly nudged the horse with her left
knee and got the animal to move far enough to avoid a collision. Letting his wife ride in the saddle in front
of him was hardly an option�.and right now he was doubting whether he wanted
her near him at all.
Now that he
could think more clearly, he regretted a lot of things he had allowed himself
to say. He slipped up and told Yuan that
she was the only woman he didn�t hate so that his compassionate brother would
stop bothering him about the eye. Now,
in hindsight, it was obvious that he had given his brother enough material to
start him on a quest to help him find marital bliss. Just what he needed. Yuan had inherited their mother�s passion for
life where Dun had received their father�s cold indifference. Naturally Yuan had developed the outgoing
personality and the sensitivity, where Dun had always preferred to be
anti-social and frigid. There was no
need for the world to know what his true feelings were on anything and only his
two closest friends, Cao and Yuan, could ever pry anything out of him.
But that
changed when he lost his eye. After the
rage and adrenaline had subsided, he was left with a throbbing pain, an upset
stomach and despair. He never doubted
himself before however after his bout with Ling he was very aware that he had
been beaten by a girl. Slowly everything
he had ever known was coming into question.
As he sat alone in the empty treasury that night he had a
revelation. At thirty years old he was
happy with his prospects. Cao was
getting ready to go to war and take control of the country by force, and he was
poised to be his second in command.
Possibly the Grand General. Then
that asshole had shot him in the eye and his future was in question. He didn�t need Yuan to tell him he couldn�t
defend himself well, there were enough cuts on his left side to tell him
that. He was a warrior, but now he
couldn�t fight. He was a general, but a
man that leads from behind isn�t worth following. Those two words were all that anyone had ever
used to describe him�.but what becomes of the man who can only see the right
half of the world.
Eventually
his depression had led him to wonder what options he had. Sure, cope with the impairment and
retrain. Sounded easy enough, but there
was something else that had come into the picture. Lu Ling Qi.
It pissed him off that he was having a more difficult time coping with
his loss than she was with hers. He had
asked Mao to go and ask Dian Wei if she was hysterical, then at least he could
take out some of his frustrations on her.
Mao returned, with that look of pity every one had adopted for him, and
told him she hadn�t done much of anything.
Dian Wei later confirmed that he had his ear pressed to the door the
entire night and he didn�t hear a single sob.
Just her pacing. How could a
woman deal with her life being destroyed better than he, a battle-hardened
warrior could? Certainly she was far
worse off�.then the thoughts crept into his head. Here alone in the empty dank room he couldn�t
help but feel lonely. No one could
understand what he was going through and he didn�t really care if they
did. If the army was forced to leave him
behind�.what would he have?
Nothing. His life revolved around the army, and that
was it. Sure if it came down to it Cao
would happily give him a desk job or something �safe�. He�d rather die. He didn�t want his life to be over and he
couldn�t help but think he was missing out.
Several months ago he had adopted Mao. Initially he told himself that it
was because he thought the boy had potential and he�d be a good
apprentice. But it was merely because he
didn�t want his line to end with him. He
wanted to leave something behind when he was gone, just like Yuan would. When Xia Pi rolled around he let that notion
carry him too far. Ling was available,
with the minimum amount of work, and she had an excellent pedigree. He didn�t want kids, but he hadn�t really
thought about getting married until that moment either. He respected her and she was turning out to
be a strong warrior like her father.
Like Mao, he thought she�d make a good officer, and she wouldn�t be able
to hold that position as a concubine. He
opted to give her a chance on that basis not realizing that he had allowed
himself to develop feelings for her. Respect was one thing, but emotional
attachment was another. In two days he
let her work her way under his skin�and that would not do.
�HEY! You
in there?�
�Yuan if
this is more of your romantic bullshit�.�
Yuan forced
his way into the tent. �Oooohh. So neat
and tidy.�
�What do
you want?�
�I just
wanted to talk. You know see how the eye
is�.�
�You always
want to talk.� Dun huffed and crossed his arms.
�Ooohhh. A
desk too, you must be special.�
�Yuan what
is it?�
�You seem
to be getting along well with your wife.�
�Not this
again.�
�Come on
brother...�
�Look, I
was nice to her so she�d be easier to deal with in bed.�
�Oh. So that includes letting her beat on Zhang
Fei and Mao then kill Li Jue and Guo Si.�
�That.� Dun
snapped. �was to win her allegiance for Cao.�
�It�s not a
crime to like your wife.�
�God, don�t
you ever quit? Look, I don�t appreciate
your meddling.�
�You told
me�.�
�I told you
a lot of shit to get you off my back.
She means nothing and that is what it comes down to.�
Yuan
noticed that Dun was back to being himself�.which was good and bad. His kindness towards Ling was very unlike
him, but if he was back to being bitchy Dun�.she was in for it. �Look, I think you got something good. That�s all.
I know you think that means your going soft�.but..�
�Would you
leave me alone? I don�t need your sappy
lectures.�
�I�m just
looking out for you.�
�Fine. Then do it with your sword and not your
bleeding heart.�
�Did
something happen? You seemed really
happy with her at dinner��
�Must you
know everything?� Dun hollered. �If you�re so damned interested in my marriage
then why don�t you grab a chair and sit in the corner.�
�Okay�Point
taken. You don�t have to yell.� Yuan threw up his hands and walked out of the
tent. This was going to be a long
battle.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ling
watched Cao stare at her and she knew he was trying to gain the upper hand by
forcing her to grow uncomfortable with the silence. She really didn�t care, they could sit there
all night and she wouldn�t say a word.
After a good five minutes of nothing he spoke up.
�You had
your chance, why didn�t you take it?�
�We
lost. When that happens
you lose everything: land, family, possessions and usually your head. It�s the way of the world.�
�You can do
better than that.� Cao cocked an eyebrow.
�Fine. You and Liu Bei are the only ones capable of
keeping the country together. I was
about ready to eliminate you both, something that would have really screwed
everyone over. I may not like either of
you, but I hate Yuan Shao and the Suns annoy me.�
�Still, I
killed your father.�
�Thanks for
reminding me.�
�I asked
him to join us, he refused.� Cao sighed.
�Such a great warrior, a man without equal, it was a great loss.�
�I agree.�
�I lost my
temper�.he deserved a better death than I gave him. I could not imagine my soul being able to
rest if someone did that to me. I have
to apologize for that�.he did not need to see me give away those things he held
most dear.�
�You can do
better than that.� Ling wasn�t buying it.
�No I
can�t. You have to accept that as my
apology, I will not tell you I am sorry I executed him. It was his choice. You however have turned out to be just like
him. I would have never believed it if
someone had told me a girl had beaten Zhang Fei.�
�He was
still drunk and I doubt he will be so easy to beat next time.�
�True.� Cao
tried another tactic. �Dun has a great deal of respect for your abilities and I
trust his opinion like none other. He
has suggested I offer you a position in this army. What do you think of that?�
�Insanity
must run in the family.�
Cao had to
laugh. �Yes, I would have to agree with
you. He has surprised me more in the
last two days than anyone has in my entire life.�
�You�re not
dumb enough to trust me, so what are you after?�
�I want to
ensure you stay loyal to your husband. I
know you are perfectly aware of your situation; without him you are back to
being chattel. So you intend to keep him
alive, help him through this and heal that eye.
I�ll give you the remains of your father�s command if you continue to do
just that.�
�Does he
know that you treat him like this?�
Cao was
surprised that she took offense at it.
She must actually like him after all.
�No, but I am concerned. Other
than being my favorite family member he is also my best general. I want to do my best to make sure he is happy
and healthy. If you are the one he
chose�.well so be it. I�ll work around
my distrust of you if you can work around your grievances.�
�Despising
you for killing my father is hardly a grievance.�
�Then hate
me�but don�t hold it against him.�
�So you
expect me to serve you?�
�Do it out
of loyalty to your husband, not to me.�
�You are
crazy.�
�Not
really. If you do try anything stupid��
Cao looked over his shoulder at Dian Wei. �He will happily cut you down.�
Ling watched
as Wei gave her a smile. �I have already determined that I will protect him, so
it is not to appease you. I know I am
fortunate�.so I will continue to honor my oath to him.�
�Before you
can take command of your unit�you�ll have to swear loyalty to me in front of
them.�
�If I can
still manage to talk with the bile clogging my throat, sure.�
�Then when
we reach Xu Chang, you can rearm yourself.�
�Fine.�
�Your
husband is waiting for you in your tent.
Goodnight.�
- 8
- 9
- 10
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Legacy of the Lunar Spear