Dusk ran red with blood as the setting sun stained the battlements of Liangshan’s second stronghold a dark gold. Banners hung limp in the evening breeze. The footsteps of the patrol guards dragged along the fortress walls, while the smell of cooking smoke drifted now and then from the kitchen behind the mountain. It was an ordinary evening in the first year of Xuanhe, yet it was destined to mark an extraordinary beginning.
