by E. M. Hardy
Just because you’re being offered a good bargain doesn’t mean you can’t get a better one, though.
“I don’t know, Martin. What exactly do you need from me… and what are you willing to give me for my help?”
“Vulture,” Martin huffed in annoyance, shaking the walker’s head to emphasize his displeasure.
“Thank you,” came the reply from a very smug League executive.
Martin thought for a moment, the walker looking up at the dusty, grimy walls of the alley they were in. “Right. I just need a little advice on this situation, on what you’d do if you were in my position.”
Isin was already shaking her head even before Martin finished talking. “Just advice? All you need is advice? Fiery Jahannam, Martin, I can give you advice all day if you want to.”
“That’s all I’m asking, Isin.”
Isin narrowed her eyes as she considered Martin’s proposition. “Fine. I’ll give you my advice. In exchange, I want to know how your people ran things in this world of yours. What was it called again?”
“Earth?” Martin responded, mindlessly, clearly surprised by Isin’s demand.
“Silly name,” Isin remarked with a shake of her head. “I mean, we’re all standing on dirt, true, but can’t you come up with a better name than ‘dirt’ for the land you call home?”
Martin shrugged with the walker’s shoulders. “Don’t ask me; I wasn’t there when folks named our world. But wait… what do you need this information for?”
Isin savored the taste of the meat for a few more moments before finally swallowing it down. Martin was the type of person that appreciated honesty, so she decided to lay her cards on the table… or at least ones she didn’t mind sharing. “I plan to make it to the Council one day, Martin, and I want to study all options when I finally get my chance to steer the League toward the future. The League is still young, formed just a few decades ago by a couple of influential but very ordinary traders who got tired of emirs messing around with their businesses all the time. The League of Merchants is now the single most powerful entity in the Bashri Desert, poised to take direct political control instead of just hiding in the shadows like in years past.”
She flicked the skewer into the trash bin beside her table and left behind one big and five smaller coins. “Your world intrigues me, Martin. From what little you share, I can guess that countries and empires over there are run by entities very similar to the League. No passing down titles, no spoiled princes and princesses running around the place. I want to learn how your governments run things. I want to see which will work, which will not for us. I want to make sure the League of Merchants lasts for many years, many decades, instead of disappearing like a drop of water in the sands of the Bashri.”
The walker straightened its shoulders as Martin realized what Isin was talking about. “That’s asking a bit too much for just a little advice on dealing with a rebellion, don’t you think?”
“I know,” Isin responded with a wide grin on her face, hooding her eyes to hide the glee behind them. “But that’s not all I’m offering. I can also offer to help advise you not just on this rebellion, but on dealing with politics. You’re too honest for your own good, Martin—and idiotically naïve. Others may find it charming, but I find it glaringly unacceptable. You didn’t even consider the possibility that the Maharaja is stalling for time, lying through the skin of his teeth and telling you what you want to hear just so you hold off on your attack. I live and breathe intrigue, Martin, and I can help you process all that information so that you can actually do something useful with it instead of just bumbling around until you break something.”
Isin knew the tips of her daggers broke the skin. Now it was time to twist them in to secure the kill. “That’s not all, of course. When I gain enough merits to not only join the Council but gain a commanding voice in its decisions, I will make sure that the League of Merchants will push through with laws and edicts favorable to your cause. For example… abolishing slavery across all League-controlled emirates.”
Martin’s walker perked up visibly at her declaration, and that’s when Isin knew her daggers truly found their target.
“I thought you were a believer in slavery, something about the weak serving the strong for the greater good?”
Isin shrugged. “Your aid will do more for the greater good than slavery.” Isin still believed that the weak should serve the strong, but she didn’t need to tell Martin that little morsel of information. She wasn’t lying, however, about Martin’s aid being worth so much more than a few whipped peasants tilling the soil or hauling goods around. She’d do whatever it takes to position herself as a prominent voice whispering in Martin’s ear, influencing the man that controlled thousands upon thousands of tireless clay men. If freeing slaves was the price to secure Martin’s trust, then so be it.
Before she could say anything else though, the bean-seller across her table laid down a red-bag of black beans on his table—signaling that he had successfully set up a meeting. “We’ll continue this later,” she said, beckoning Martin to follow her with his walker. Martin simply nodded and followed, the walker trailing behind Isin while the eyeball kept track of things from high in the sky.
***
“I don’t like this,” Martin whispered after half an hour of twisting and turning through increasingly dilapidated buildings. Well-maintained mud brick structures turned into crumbling adobe buildings, which in turn gave way to tightly-packed shanties with tight and foul-smelling pathways. “He’s leading us deeper into covered alleys. I’ll have to bring my eyeball closer to the ground to keep track of us as we go along.”
“Setting up shop in the seedier parts of town is standard for junior executives,” replied Isin with a terse whisper. “But I agree: our man is leading us too far from the rendezvous point and is intentionally blocking your eyeball’s line of sight.” Isin stopped, checked her surroundings, and turned around. “I’m calling this meet off. Better to be safe than—”
The walker rushed forward, knocking Isin out of the way. To her credit, Isin rolled with the push and immediately dove for cover inside a side-alley just in time for three arrows to miss her completely. Martin then moved to shield her, two additional arrows skidding harmlessly over its tough ceramic skin.
“Five archers covering six men rushing us,” Martin exclaimed, the information doubtless provided by the eyeball overseeing the whole thing. “They popped out from their ambush site the moment you turned around.”
Isin clicked her tongue and immediately scanned her surroundings. No, the side-alley was a dead-end, with a family of wide-eyed beggars huddling behind garbage-filled baskets for cover. “No exit from here,” Isin declared, sneaking a peek at her assailants from the corner of the shanty shielding her body.
“Go back the way we came. I’ll block a few arrows, buy you time to escape,” said Martin through the walker, as it gripped its baton. “I’ve got a team of walkers already running toward your position. Go!” And with that, Martin rushed out to meet the attacking force head-on.
Isin clicked her tongue again, hating the moron’s false heroics. She wasted a moment wondering if Martin would be so willing to charge into that if he had an actual life to lose. She swallowed her envy of his pseudo-immortality and ran out of cover, making sure that the walker stood between her and those archers. She ducked low as she ran, narrowly avoiding an arrow aimed for her neck, and dashed back out of the alley.
She kept running, retracing the route she took on her way here. She glanced behind and saw three pursuers chasing after her. Isin cursed, recognizing all three of them as League operatives assigned to Ozhan. The local executive most likely flipped and decided to back the hawks. It would prove to be an unhealthy decision for him once Isin got in touch with the Council—if she managed to make it out of this chase alive.
Isin felt her legs go rubbery all of a sudden, her knees buckling under the sudden loss of strength in her muscles.
“So much for spotting a League operative from miles away,” she whispered, ruefully, as her limbs locked up. Her lungs started to constrict, and she knew it was only a matter of time until the poison froze her lungs and stilled her beating heart.
And right after I got Martin to trust me, she thought as her tongue and lips refused to cooperate with her mind. She heard the pounding of feet all around her, and steeled herself for the thrust of a blade to end her life.
It never came.
A half-dozen walkers burst out of another alley, hurling javelins at Isin’s attackers. They found their mark, killing two of her pursuers outright and ensuring the last one died a slow, lingering death from a pierced gut.
Not that it matters, Isin thought. Her lungs were locking up, and she found herself unable to breathe. Wish you got your walkers here earlier. Stupid pothead. Darkness curled around her still-open eyes, death calling out to her.
Then she was yanked back to life as a surge of energy washed over her. Something hot and powerful pushed itself into her body, penetrating every single bone and muscle. She felt both elated and shocked—refreshed by the life coursing in her body, but horrified by an unspeakable feeling of violation as something dark and sinister merged with the life-giving force.
“Isin!” Martin shouted out loud, bringing the senior executive from the League of Merchants back to the land of the living. “Isin! Stay with me!”
Isin stood up, hocked out a breath, and began dry-heaving as she shivered violently, sweat pouring out from every pore of her skin.
“Okay! You’re sweating. That’s good. Yes, the healer says that’s a good sign, that I pushed in enough chi to kick you back to life, and that it is flushing the poison out of your body. Uh… the chemist says it’s… spotted tree frog poison? Mixed with… uh… venom from a type of pufferfish and—”
Isin lashed out and punched the face of the closest walker, stinging her knuckles in the process.
“Wha? What the hell was that for!?” Martin shouted back, backing the nearest walker away from Isin while other walkers secured the perimeter.
“What in the fiery pits of Jahannam did you do to me!?”
Martin’s walker shrank back, tucking its head into its shoulders at Isin’s outburst. “I, uh… I saw you down and dying. Figured it was poison or venom or something and that I needed to purify it somehow. A friend of mine was nearly assassinated by someone, a dirty knife to the abdomen. Was too late to save her in time, but I was able to see how she was healed by someone else using chi. I tried copying it, consulting a few martial artists near my walkers on how to heal with chi. I also got in touch with a few chemists, apothecaries, in a few emirates for what the most likely culprit was. I hope that—”
“Okay, okay. I got it,” snapped Isin, interrupting Martin and cutting off his bumbling explanations.
The dazed executive shook her head, still upset and panicky from her ordeal. She knew Martin was probably talking to a dozen people right now, seeking answers from a multitude of experts from the Bashri all the way up to the Empire. The problem was that the energy flowing within her, coursing through her body, felt dirty and despicable somehow. The revulsion from the forcefulness of the experience started to subside as the minutes passed, so she gave herself time to adjust. She finally regained her bearings after a few more breaths and a few moments to recollect herself.
“I guess you saved my life. Thanks for that, but I have to ask: is it normal for it to feel so… disgusting? As if you have tar flowing in your veins and the taste of rotting meat in your mouth?”
“Disgusting? That’s not right. Give me a second.” Martin’s walker cocked its head, and Isin had no doubt that Martin was off somewhere—probably talking to the Renese healer he consulted for this strange healing ritual. The walker craned its neck to the side. “Ah. Yeah, the healer said that chi-healing should fill you with a sense of wholeness, of completion. Not… whatever it is you’re feeling.”
Isin spat out the taste on her tongue and wiped the drool off with a sleeve.
“Um. That’s probably my fault,” Martin followed up after a few awkward moments. “The, uh, healer says my chi isn’t exactly the purest out there, that the energy I can call up is tainted somehow.” Martin’s shoulders slumped, clearly disappointed by his answer.
Isin spat one last time, rinsing the last of the icky taste with her spit. “All good, pothead. I’m breathing again—something that the local exec and his lackeys soon won’t have the luxury of enjoying, when I’m done with the lot of them.”
Martin hesitated then nodded once again with one walker. Eyeballs flitted up in the sky as more walkers converged on her location. “You good to go?”
“Yes… Yes, I’m good, Martin Fuller.” Isin mustered up all the bravado she could gather and plastered a forced smile on her face. “And besides, we still need to talk about how you and I can profit from a crumbling empire.”
Chapter 09
“You disobeyed our orders, Martin Fuller.”
Martin wanted to groan out loud, but he choked the anger back down and kept his tone flat, even, and devoid of emotion. He forced his walker’s head to look down and away from the Empress, a sign of both submission and non-confrontation. This may be a private audience, a very discreet dressing-down, but he needed to win the Empress’ approval for his actions. He would need every ounce of humility and self-control he could gather if things were going down as Isin thought they would.
“Circumstances on the ground have changed, Your Highness. The Maharaja’s forces not only outnumber my own nearly two-to-one, but they are also aided by a contingent of bushi from Taiyo. More importantly, I have obtained new information that suggests things may not go as smoothly as we first anticipated.”
“You disobeyed our orders,” repeated the Empress, cutting Martin off in the middle of his explanation.
He ignored her comment and barreled on. “The Maharaja decided to play it safe. He held his ground in front of the fortifications I built in a pass instead of circling around or forcing his way through. He is camping out instead of rushing to pressure the Empire. This action suggests that the Shogun and the Maharaja have plans in place to disrupt the reinforcements we’re expecting from the Khans.”
“You. Disobeyed. Orders.”
“If nothing goes wrong, then the Maharaja loses when the Khanate Horde arrives and tramples him into submission. If something does go wrong, however, I would rather have my walkers intact to provide aid just in case the Shogun’s plan proves to be more disruptive than we are prepared to handle. He has already weakened the Empire during his time as a Sage, but I worry that his treachery is not quite finished just yet.”
“YOU DISOBEYED ORDERS!” the Empress shrieked, finally losing her patience with the way Martin kept ignoring her statements.
“BECAUSE THEY WERE THE WRONG CALL!” Martin shouted back, no longer able to restrain himself as he shot up from his prostrate form, no longer able to tolerate kneeling in front of the petulant woman calling herself Empress. Guards hefted their weapons while the Balancer agents beside the Empress stiffened, gathering chi into their bodies and weapons. Even General Shen Feng tightened up, shifting his hand closer to his sword while angling himself to face Martin’s walker.
“You want me to break myself on the enemy, to kill as many as I can and raise their dead to fight for me. The only problem is that the Maharaja held his forces back instead of continuing his march to the
Empire. He came to me with a flag of truce, and then he even gave me hints that things in this war aren’t what they seem. Not only that, but he brought out General Qiu Ja, and I can confirm that she at least is very much alive and well. He then dangled the lives of five thousand other soldiers he holds captive back in his lands. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, Zi Li, but you simply cannot throw away the lives of five thousand soldiers like so much trash in the street—not when you have other options on the table!”
Martin glanced at the Balancer nearest the Empress, a masked woman clutching fine threads filled with chi—threads that could restrain and then cut his walker to pieces if she wanted to. He knew her as Cui Dai, a historian with talents far deadlier than she let on. He also knew that she was fanatically loyal to the Empress, and that she would be the first to cut his walker down if the Empress so wished it.
Except he couldn’t back down, not with what was at stake.
“Now imagine I followed orders. Imagine I left the fortifications I built and attacked the Maharaja’s forces out in the open where they have the advantage with their numbers. I could very well defeat him, scatter his forces as I leave the field to the undead shayateen. But I guarantee you that the Maharaja and his Shogunate allies will inflict heavy casualties on my walkers. They will also very likely push through with their threat to execute their hostages, all five thousand of them.
“Let’s say this exact scenario plays out … and then the Maharaja’s warning comes true. What if the Empire finds itself under attack from a new direction, or finds itself weakened and unable to respond to whatever the Shogun has planned out? I would need at least two months to replenish my losses to an acceptable amount. Two months is an awfully long time for things to go wrong, and it would be much safer for the Empire if I still have fifteen thousand walkers to help react to whatever push the Shogun has in mind.”