The Siberian wilderness was a place of profound, soul-crushing emptiness. For days, Meng Tian's company of ghosts had moved through it, their white camouflage a near-perfect match for the endless expanse of snow and skeletal birch trees. After the violent success of their raid on the Klyuchi Pass bridge, they were now pushing east, towards their second objective: a critical Russian fuel depot on a remote tributary of the Amur River.
According to their maps, the fastest route required them to pass through a small, seemingly insignificant logging town named Sosnovka. It was marked on the charts as little more than a collection of huts, a place where they could, with caution, use the silver coins the Emperor had provided to purchase desperately needed supplies—dried meat, flour, and, most importantly, fuel for their small cooking stoves. It was a calculated risk, but a necessary one.
They approached the town under the cover of a grey, overcast dawn, moving not as a military unit, but as a scattered group of local fur trappers, their weapons carefully concealed. But as they drew closer, Sergeant Lin, his senses honed by a lifetime of survival, held up a hand, halting the advance.
"Something is wrong, General," he whispered, his breath misting in the frigid air. He pointed with his chin. "Look."
Meng Tian raised his field glasses. The town was too quiet. A funereal stillness hung over it. There were no columns of smoke rising from the chimneys, no sounds of axes or saws from the nearby logging camp. The few locals they could see on the single muddy street moved with a sullen, fearful haste, their shoulders hunched, their eyes fixed on the ground. And there were patrols. Too many patrols. Squads of heavily armed Russian soldiers moved through the town with a proprietary arrogance, their greatcoats dark against the snow. This was not the sleepy, forgotten backwater their intelligence had promised. This was an occupied town.
"We proceed with extreme caution," Meng Tian commanded. "Lin, you and I will enter first. Major Han, hold the rest of the men in the tree line. If we do not return by midday, assume the worst and proceed to the secondary rally point."
Disguised as a weary trapper and his son, Meng Tian and Sergeant Lin entered Sosnovka. The atmosphere was thick with a tense, unspoken fear. They made their way to the town's only tavern, a rough, smoky establishment that smelled of cheap vodka, boiled cabbage, and unwashed bodies.
As they nursed mugs of weak, lukewarm tea, trying to appear inconspicuous, the tavern door burst open. A Russian officer, his face flushed with drink and authority, strode in, followed by two brutish soldiers. They dragged a local man, a trapper with a wild, terrified look in his eyes, into the center of the room.
"This is the one!" the officer roared in Russian. "He was seen speaking with the strangers near the old mill! Where are they?" he demanded, backhanding the man across the face. "Where are the Chinese spies?"
The man whimpered, swearing he knew nothing.
"Lies!" the officer shouted. "We know they are here! We know they have been asking questions about the railway schedules, about the troop movements to the west! You are collaborating with them!"
Meng Tian and Sergeant Lin exchanged a single, horrified glance over the rims of their mugs. Their blood ran cold. They were not the only Qing presence in this remote, frozen wasteland. Shen Ke's agents, the Emperor's own Spymaster, were active here as well. They were here on their own mission, the one Meng Tian knew about from the capital: to gather intelligence for the Emperor's official invasion plan. The two secret arms of the Emperor's will, one for a war of attrition, one for a war of surgery, were now operating in the same small, claustrophobic space, completely unaware of each other.
Meng Tian knew he was in an impossible situation. He had to identify the other Qing agent. He could not risk his own mission being compromised by a friendly spy who might mistake his elite marines for a Russian patrol. Nor could he risk his own men accidentally eliminating one of the Emperor's intelligence assets. And he certainly could not make direct contact without revealing his own unauthorized presence in the region, a report that would undoubtedly find its way back to the suspicious Emperor.
He finished his tea, paid the tavern keeper, and left with Lin, melting back into the town's sullen quiet. He found a high vantage point in the loft of an abandoned stable, a position that overlooked the entire town square. He needed to find the ghost.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the physical world. He focused his mind, reaching for the strange, intuitive power that had become his greatest weapon and his most terrible secret. He activated his Battle Sense, but he was not looking for the flow of battle, for the pathways of violence. He was trying to do something new, something more delicate. He was trying to sense the "qi" of his own people, to find a familiar energy signature in a sea of foreign hostility.
The town below transformed in his mind's eye into a map of living energies. The Russian soldiers were dull, brutish red auras, their energy aggressive but undisciplined. The fearful locals were faint, flickering shades of grey, their life forces dimmed by oppression. It was a sea of red and grey.
He pushed his sense further, searching, probing. And then he saw it.
It was a single, disciplined, tightly controlled pinprick of blue light, the same color as the auras of his own elite marines. It was hidden in plain sight, emanating from a small cobbler's shop on the far side of the square.
He focused his perception on the source. He could not read the man's thoughts, but he could feel his state of being. He sensed a mind trained in layers of deception, a body that was a coiled spring of readiness hidden beneath a placid, humble exterior. The man was mending a boot, his movements slow and methodical, but his inner energy was that of a patient predator, watching, waiting, listening. This was Shen Ke's man. There was no doubt.
Meng Tian opened his eyes, the vision fading, leaving him with a cold certainty. He now had a critical, unforeseen problem. The Spymaster's agent was dug in, observing the Russians. If Meng Tian's company of one hundred elite, heavily armed marines moved through this area, their presence, no matter how stealthy, would be an anomaly of an immense scale. The cobbler would spot them. He would not know who they were, but he would know they were not Russian and not local. He would report the presence of a mysterious, unidentified military force operating in the region. That report would go directly to Shen Ke, and from Shen Ke to the Emperor. And Meng Tian's secret mission, his act of honorable treason, would be exposed.
He was trapped. The Emperor's own secret plans were now interfering with each other.
He made a difficult, instantaneous command decision. He and Lin slipped out of the town and returned to the treeline where Major Han and the rest of the company were waiting.
"The town is compromised," Meng Tian said, his voice a low, firm command, offering no further explanation. "The Russian presence is too strong. We cannot risk contact. We are abandoning this route."
Major Han's face fell. "But sir, our supplies… to go around the town will add at least three days to our journey. We do not have the rations to sustain such a delay."
"Then we will hunt," Meng Tian said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "And we will endure. I will not risk this mission on a convenience." He looked at his men, his gaze hard as iron. "We move out. Now."
He turned and led his company back into the vast, unforgiving wilderness. He had successfully avoided a disastrous collision with the Emperor's other secret war. But in doing so, he had been forced to deviate from his own carefully laid plans, to plunge his men into a more perilous journey with dwindling supplies. The board was more crowded and far more dangerous than he had ever imagined. And he was beginning to realize that his most dangerous opponent in this war might not be the Russians, but the unseen actions of his own Emperor.