It takes them less than half a minute to jump through the branches with stealth that ought to put a panther to shame.   One of the men cloaked in black, eyes the long entourage from a small opening through the leaves.  At least a dozen more are crouching around him, slithering through the trees like snakes.  

The Emperor’s carriage is at the very front, yellow and gaudy and foolishly eye-catching.  The rest of the carriages trailed after the yellow one, probably containing women and treasures.  

He squints at the sky, waiting for the cue.  

A thin grey smoke rises in the horizon, not long later.  One of his comrades, perched on the tree on his left silently raises his bow.

The entourage in front is about to cross a river, when it comes to a sudden halt.  The window of the yellow carriage flutters a little and he can almost feel the way his comrade pulls the bowstring tighter, waiting for chance.  A middle-aged eunuch checks the situation in front before running to the yellow carriage to report something.   The window is flipped aside, but nothing more than a hand can be seen.

They are going to need more than that to do real harm.  Even if the tip of the arrow is poisoned.

He can see the ever suspicious General Min, famed for his battle prowess (and for good reason too) suddenly looking around all alert, as though all those years in the battlefield grants him the ability to sense something approaching, but, to his chagrin, not what.

The door of the yellow carriage flutters open, and a yellow-cloaked man clambers off of it.  

His comrade shoots, swifter than the wind itself.  He has always been the best in archery out of the lot.

The arrow flutters through the cracks of the leaves and gracefully slices through the air, coming closer and closer to the Emperor of Han.  

A gleaming sabre blocks it midway, held by General Min.  For a moment, everything grows eerily quiet.  A second for everyone in the entourage to process everything in.  A precious second in which they exploited to rain dozens of arrows to the same target.

“Assassins!” bellows General Min.  “Protect His Majesty!”

He puts himself in front of the Emperor, ready to block the incoming attacks with swords and shields, and if there need to be, his own body.   Armored guards circle the Emperor with shields, and that is when they know that their luck has run out with the bows.  It is time for the good old swords.

Eunuchs shrieks and women weeps, but they care more for the yellow-clothed one besieged in the middle of an iron and flesh fortress than anything else.

The Emperor of Han watches as more than two dozens of men jumps down to the ground, poised for attack.  From the grace in the movement of their limbs and the way they hold their swords, he can tell t