by E. M. Hardy
Three thousand walkers from a failed ambush along the main roads, one that the Shogunates avoided when they decided to march through the forest instead of around it. Another three thousand walkers from the city of Wu Er, which the Shogun decided to leave behind. Six thousand walkers in all, barreling toward the Shogunate army. The sliver’s thoughts whispered something about holding them as a harassing force, to cut off the Shogunate supply lines. The Thing controlling the walkers didn’t really care. It didn’t even consider any complicated maneuvers like a simultaneous two-pronged attack to smash the Shogunates from two sides. It simply sent its walkers in to burst as many meat bags as it could and pry away the souls locked within.
Six thousand walkers against a little more than thirty-five thousand ashigaru and a thousand samurai. It was twice as large as the initial force, but the Shogunates knew what to expect this time around. The injured were cycled out for fresh troops, fully aware of what they were going up against. The commanders arranged their forces to better counter the incoming walkers. The pike-bearing ashigaru dug in behind hastily-erected palisades, their sharpened edges pointed at the incoming walkers. Their soldiers behind the front lines carried shields to help deflect javelins or arrows. The soldiers right behind the front lines also raised their pikes up high, ready to intercept walkers that would attempt to jump up over the vanguard. More men filled out the central formation, with even more troops prepared to reinforce those who would fall in front of them. The samurai hung back in the rear, bows in hand and ready to strengthen any breaches in the center as the pincers closed in around the walkers. Some of the ashigaru even trimmed the shafts of their pikes, turning them into shortened spears better suited for close-in fighting should the walkers penetrate their lines.
The Thing saw none of this take place, nor did it receive any support from the limbs it did not directly control. The entities guiding the other constructs resisted the Thing at every opportunity. The flying Drifters blinded him to what they saw, the miniscule Shapers locked their tools inside their bodies, and the four-legged Loaders simply sat on the ground. They clamored for something called Martin, refusing to provide aid until this Martin called for them. The Thing prepared to expunge these entities, bear the full force of its will upon them to take all it needed for itself.
But the expulsion could wait, at least for now. The Thing would need to spend much of itself expunging these parasitic entities, as they so intimately tangled themselves with its consciousness. Besides, it still possessed many eyes and legs and arms for it to reach out into the world. It would deal with the rebellious entities later, once it finished dining on the morsels in front of it right now.
It would dine well that day.
Six thousand walkers flashed their ceramic blades at the incoming arrows before crashing through the stakes driven into the ground. The weak pieces of sharpened wood and heated metals did little against their tough ceramic weapons, serving as nothing more than annoyances to the walkers after all the souls the Thing consumed. No, the walkers were a far cry from the weak bundles of mud at the start of this culling. If the Shogunates had blood for their weapons and armor, then the Thing had souls for the extensions of its will—its Faceless.
They nimbly leapt through the gaps while blunting the sharpened points with their bodies. The Faceless didn’t even slow down when they hit the first line of ashigaru. No, they barreled right through them all, haughtily laughing at their weak opponents. So what if a hundred Faceless crumbled to the pikes pointed at them? The men holding the blooded spears were just men, vulnerable to fear and fatigue and the desire for self-preservation. They shied back when a blade flashed at them, when a javelin slammed into the chest of the man standing beside them. The Thing didn’t care. Its Faceless ate all the spears that the Shogunates pointed their way without concern. They kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing with all the hunger of the Thing guiding them.
There’s this thing about forming a pincer maneuver: you need to hold your enemy in place long enough for the claws to fold in and trap it. The center acts as the anvil, the claws as the hammers. If the enemy simply eats all the pain you can inflict and blows through the anvil that should have held it in place, then the pincer becomes useless.
That was exactly what happened to the Shogunate center. The violence of action and the utter disregard for self-preservation shook the ashigaru into a frightened mass. They were used to their clay enemies feinting and dodging about, playing coy like a coward. This time, they fought as true monsters: fearless, merciless, and determined to kill as many as possible.
The Thing cackled as it breathed in the souls of the dead and the shayateen inhabited their corpses. Its Faceless turned around from the gap in the center and began flowing into the mass of men around it. They mingled with the men, fighting intimately with swords and fists and force. Even the samurai found themselves hard-pressed by the relentless tide of clay pressing down on them. It was dirty, dirty work, and the Thing relished every minute of it.
But the Shogun was far from done. No, he had prepared for such a contingency. It was a grim decision, even for the man who had ordered the Rape of Yan Bao, but it was nonetheless one that could salvage this disaster. He gave the command, and horns soon blew out the signals. The commanders of the wings blanched at the orders they received, but they began issuing out orders of their own all the same. The pincers soon detached from the mangled mass of flesh and clay boiling within the center of the Shogunate formation. The commanders shouted their orders as the ashigaru under their command lowered their pikes and began their advance. The light foot within the center shouted in surprise, alarmed by this apparent betrayal within their forces. The ashigaru in the wings did all they could to avoid piercing their comrades fighting in the center, but they couldn’t halt their advance. They shed hot tears as they stepped in unison, slamming their pikes into the living, the dead, the undead, and those that were never alive in the first place.
In truth, the Thing could have easily taken on the new arrivals. It had already consumed so many souls, fed them into its Faceless, that blooded spears and blades started skidding across the ceramic bodies of the Faceless. The Faceless moved far faster, inhumanly so, to the point where even the samurai could barely keep up with their reaction times. The ceramic blades of the Faceless pulsed with enough power to match the blood-fueled sharpness of the samurai’s blades. Even the bare fists of disarmed Faceless could crack bones through the padded armor of the ashigaru. And the power of the Faceless grew and grew as the Thing breathed in more souls, brought forth more husks for the shayateen to vent their rage against the world.
The Thing felt invincible, was invincible at this point. It was only a matter of time until its Faceless finished this feast before them. The Thing would soon turn its attention to other meat bags scattered around this land, ones ripe for the picking. Yes, there were so many souls just waiting for him to claim. He would—
“All for you, my… precious… flowers…” croaked an old man, his gaze clouding as he stared at something—or someone—far up into the sky. One of the ashigaru, judging by the ruined cuirass made of lacquered leather. The Thing pulled back a blade from the now-dead corpse, not bothering to flick the blood away. His dying words stirred something within the Thing, but it ignored that feeling and inhaled the man’s soul into itself.
“Can’t die here! I… can’t…” gasped a fierce man, blood spurting out of his mouth and dribbling into his beard as he clutched at his stabbed chest. He teetered for a moment before finally submitting to death. The Thing stepped past the proud samurai, the man’s passion grating on the Thing’s consciousness.
“Ancestors save me! Ancestors save me! ANCESTORS SAVE ME!!!” screamed a frightened young man, his shivering hands pushing a blood-spear that kept sliding over the surface of the Faceless before it. That faceless gripped the shaft of the spear, pulled itself closer, and punched the youth in his face. He blew backwards, his face caved-in. The Thing felt something in
it react to the youth’s fear, something that refused to stay down.
“Heh. Should have listened to mother and father,” grumbled another young man, his knuckles white as he dragged a wounded comrade back from the wavering front line. That young man took the point of a sword to the neck as a Faceless leaped over the raised pikes, spinning around with its blade to disrupt the tight formation. That Faceless hesitated for a moment, however, as a thought raced through the mind of the Thing. That moment’s hesitation was enough for three ashigaru with short spears to land accurate thrusts. All three slid across the soul-hardened ceramic exterior, and the Faceless backhanded the nearest man before swiping its blade across the chest of another.
A thousand other dying voices crept into the Thing’s mind. Fear, confusion, anger, panic—these, the Thing ignored as an animal’s instinctive reaction to the unknown and its eventual death. Regret, anguish, despair, passion—these shards of deeper emotion fed something within the Thing, fed a sliver of a memory that regained strength with each voice it heard.
“Oh, Aiko. I should have told you when I had the chance,” whispered a young man afraid to die but determined to do his duty for the sake of the New Shogun. He stood alone among the bodies of other fallen samurai, the last one in the group sent to reinforce this section of the center formation. His hands shook with fear and fatigue as the Faceless surrounded him, their ceramic blades lowered and dripping blood.
The Faceless halted for a moment, then stood at attention. They swiveled their blank faces around, wearily taking in the sights around them, before staring down at the blades clutched in their hands.
“Tell her… tell her yourself,” a weary voice replied from one of the Faceless, as it and the others left the battlefield—leaving a very befuddled if relieved samurai behind in their wake.
***
The strangest part of the day was how the clay men simply stopped fighting. Those in the periphery simply walked away. Those trapped within the formations were penned in by the ashigaru, stabbed and slashed to pieces with all the fury the men could muster. And yet the clay men didn’t react despite being cut to pieces. They either stood still or just kept walking, not even attempting to defend themselves against those whaling on them. It soon became clear to the fighting men that their enemy had tired of battle and bloodshed. Unease rippled through the Shogunate formations as this realization slowly sank in. The clay men came at them without fear or fatigue, literally jumping into the points of blooded spears just to kill. And now? Now it was like the fight had been sucked out of them.
Truth be told, the fight was sucked out of the Shogunates as well. The bloodshed had been intense, brutal. They were used to inflicting brutalities upon others, watching their enemies and captives quail under their blades; they weren’t quite prepared when those same brutalities were inflicted upon them.
The Shogun, his commanders, and the officers under them shouted at their troops to go after the clay men, to avenge their fallen comrades and to defeat the enemies of Taiyo. They complied, but only half-heartedly as they lurched forward to follow the clay men. Even the devastated samurai, the bloodthirsty elite of the Taiyo army, were not eager to resume the kind of fighting they’d experienced earlier in the day.
It took the better part of a day for the Shogunates to finish cleaning up their dead—both the ones that lay still on the ground and the ones that had tried their damnedest to kill them. The Shogunate army was down to just twenty-five thousand ashigaru and a hundred samurai capable of fighting. The dead and the injured added up to a massive loss for the Shogunate army, considering they started out with almost fifty thousand ashigaru and two thousand samurai. It was the loss of the latter that truly shattered the army. The ashigaru were not the equal of the samurai, even with blood-bound weapons. The difference in skill was simply too great to ignore, especially if they were to go up against the Empire’s martial artists. They were the pride and joy of the Shogunate army, the symbols of inspiration that pushed the ashigaru to greater heights.
And they had been all but gutted by the clay men.
Faced with the immense casualties, the devastated morale of his troops, and the knowledge that the General of the White Tiger was arriving with a fresh army, Shogun Inagaki Nobumoto simply cursed out loud and sounded the retreat.
Chapter 15
“Corrupter.”
The word suddenly sprouted into Martin’s consciousness as the last vestiges of ecstasy faded into muted oblivion. Martin looked around, still dazed from his experience with the Shogunates, and watched a jinni scowling terribly at him… at his walker.
“Inqiz! Stop calling him that!” hissed Yao Xiu, as she scowled at her bonded partner.
Martin tried blinking, then remembered that walkers didn’t blink. Then he remembered everything.
“I do not know what has become of you recently, corrupter, but you will not bring Yao Xiu along the dark path you tread,” replied the very angry jinni, ignoring his partner as she tried and failed to tug him away.
Martin stared at Inqiz, then looked away as shame flooded his being. “Yeah,” he finally replied, as he began regaining control over himself. “I hear you.” Inqiz crossed his arms as he glared at the walker, examining it from head to toe. General Shen Feng eyed the walker curiously, listening to the interaction between it and the jinni frowning at the walker.
The other jinn weren’t as openly hostile to Martin and his walkers, but they too emulated Inqiz’s protective stance. They put themselves between the walkers and their bonded partners, throwing furtive glances as the walkers resumed their march. Inqiz just scowled as he continued hovering protectively beside Yao Xiu. To most people, it looked like he was a jealous lover fending off the advances of an unwelcome competitor. Martin knew, however, exactly what Inqiz was protecting Yao Xiu from—even if the young historian wasn’t fully aware of what just transpired over the day.
The previous contempt of the jinn turned into naked fear and open hostility. He didn’t know much about jinni, but he sensed something very off about them this time around. They were filled with bravado and were posturing as they always did, true, but it was nonetheless fear that drove them to shun him this time around. Even Uhi, Prince Suhaib’s bonded jinni, glared at the walkers around her with suspicion. The young prince picked up on his partner’s anxiety and cautiously eyed the constructs guarding his caravan. The same could be said for the other jinn and their partners in the various emirates around the Bashri Basin, as well as the newly-formed corps of summoners marching with Shen Feng’s army.
“Martin,” the young prince from Ma’an greeted, as he stepped up beside the nearest walker. “Is there something wrong? I know you and Uhi got over this issue between the two of you, but the hostility I sense from her… they’re nothing like I’ve felt before. Did you do something to piss her off again?”
Martin hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Probably. Is Uhi willing to—”
The jinni suddenly flitted through the air, putting herself between Martin’s walker and her partner. “Go away, corrupter. Do not… do not infect me or Suhaib with your taint. Keep your distance!”
“What are you doing? Get out of the way, Uhi! I’m still talking to Martin!”
“No! Not this time, my beloved partner. I have tolerated much in the past, overlooked many sins. I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, things would not reach this point.” She whirled on the nearest walker with a fierce scowl. “I should have listened to the others and shunned you as well, corrupter. And that is what you are: a thing that plays at innocence yet extends its corrupting tendrils on all that it touches. Go! You will have to erase me first before I will let you drink Suhaib’s soul!”
Her outburst shocked everyone in the caravan, Martin the most. He thought that she would at least help him through this, maybe help him find some way to overcome his hunger. Instead, she firmly pitched in with the other jinn and decided to push him away.
Isin, on the other hand, eyed the exc
hange with keen interest. The League Merchant slid her eyes across the other members of the caravan, and Martin saw her visibly perk up as she noticed the other jinn react just as defensively as Uhi. This was not good. The League of Merchants was pliant now, working with him to unite the Bashri under their rule. The war hawks were either bribed or hunted down, and things were looking good all around. The last thing he wanted was for the League of Merchants to sniff out a break here, to take advantage of the wedge driven between him and the jinn.
So Martin nodded, shifting his walkers further away from the caravan. Close enough to provide aid if needed, but far enough not to ruffle even more feathers. He could still see Suhaib pestering Uhi for answers, but his bonded jinni simply vanished into the Invisible World.
Perhaps Uhi and the other jinn saw the stink of his soul, of his core crammed with more than twenty-five thousand souls. Almost two thousand of them were collected from fallen samurai, their souls filled to the brim with martial prowess tainted by the blood of their victims. The souls of so many dead roiled within his collective consciousness, and he felt as if he would burst from the sheer power he gained from them all.
Worst of it all was the euphoria.
There was no going around the issue, no sense buttering things up: he lost himself while gorging on the souls of the dead. He didn’t remember every little detail, but he did remember wanting nothing more than to harvest souls for himself. He got lucky at the last moment, when he heard the voices of the dying crying out before he snuffed them out for good. The euphoria, the heady mix of hunger and invincibility—they were dangerous. He could not allow himself to slide back into such a state of mind.
And at the same time, he couldn’t afford to ignore the power that he possessed from the slaughter.
A walker marching away from the battle with the Shogunate forces looked down at its free hand then at the blade it clutched with the other hand. It looked around, saw a dead tree, walked right up to it, and swung its blade at the trunk. The ceramic blade didn’t cut all the way through the ancient thing, but it did manage to wedge itself halfway into its trunk. Martin held the blade with two hands this time and pushed. The walker poured everything it had, pulling power from within Martin’s core as well as the ambient chi from the environment to power the walker’s grip. The ceramic blade cracked then snapped under the forces placed upon it, but the walker itself emerged just fine.