"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
The signal flare hissed as it soared into the sky, scattering sparks blossomed into a spectacle of color, forming in the air eight larger and one smaller, ring-shaped magatama, the family crest of the Daimyo of the Uesugi Clan, to whom the thousands of Japanese pirates defending these hills swore their allegiance.
The desolate, lonely hills seemed to have been seared with a hot iron at one corner, as unrest and turmoil rapidly spread.
A cacophony of horse hooves, shouts, and bowstrings twanged in unison.
Li Yan was clad in red armor, connected with saltpeter-treated cowhide, straddling a Black Mane Warhorse at the vanguard, capturing the attention of eighty percent of the Shangshan Legion's gaze.
The armor had been stripped from one of the Red Guards whom Diao Xiayan had killed; because they had to traverse the mountains, of the five Red Guards accompanying Kobayakawa, only this one wore the weighty armor.
