Archeologist Warlord: Book 2

by E. M. Hardy

  “Young master,” she sobbed, nearly choking in relief. “Thank the ancestors you have returned. I… I can’t believe you’re back!”

  Ishida’s two blades absorbed the blood of his latest kill, the pulsing veins greedily lapping up the precious lifeforce before it bled away. “My mother and sister, Okabe. Where are they?”

  “In the lady’s room, young master. The lady and the young mistress lock themselves in their rooms so that they can’t hear the guards when they… when they take us by force.”

  Ishida gnashed his teeth together, focusing on the memorized pattern of his mandalas to calm himself down. He cursed the Shogun, cursed at how he allowed such depravities to run rampant once more in the Isles.

  “How many guards in the house?”

  “Ten guards in total, young master. All samurai.”

  “Four down, six to go,” Ishida murmured to himself. “How many along the way to my mother’s room?”

  “Two guard the lady’s room at all times, young master.”

  “Thank you, Okabe.” Ishida bowed deeply, gravely and with utmost respect unsuited to a Daimyo. “Thank you for enduring the unendurable as you watched over my family. I will reward you for your loyalty, for the courage of all the attendants, when I finish these barbarians before freeing the Isles from the Shogun’s madness.”

  Okabe’s eyes grew wide as saucers for a fraction of a second before she returned his bow with an even deeper one, her nudity forgotten. “It was difficult, young master… no, my lord. It was difficult, my lord, but I… There will be time for gratitude later, my lord. You must hurry, before the guards discover your people!”

  “And you must hurry as well,” commanded Ishida, grasping his long katana in one hand while sheathing his short wakizashi. “Dress yourself, rouse the other servants, and tell them their lord has returned. Once we have finished here, spread the word that my men and our Sahaasi allies will arrive at sunrise to liberate the rest of Chishima from the Shogun’s dogs.”

  Okabe nodded just as a cry of alarm sounded off in the west wing of the manor, signaling the inevitable discovery of Ishida’s infiltrators. The young daimyo and his retainer dashed ahead, blood-blades and mandala tattoos glowing with power. They thundered through the hallways now, stealth forgotten as wooden planks groaned under the force of each step.

  Ishida rounded the corner to his mother’s room, blade drawn, right in time to catch one guard by surprise.

  “Intruders!” roared the samurai, his blade already unsheathed and ready to strike. Ishida recognized this man, his crooked nose and scraggly beard. He was with Inagaki when the Shogun executed his father, and took great delight in seeing the head of the old lord of the Ishida clan tumble from its body. Ishida inhaled, cycling as much prana as he could into his arms and legs as he rushed headlong into the samurai’s waiting stance.

  To be fair, the man’s blade should have been able to counter Ishida’s reckless lunge. Samurai reacted much faster than your average man, especially those trained well in the arts of wielding a blooded blade. The extra power, speed, and reflexes granted by the precious weapons were simply too much—especially when paired with extensive training and combat experience. Ishida recognized the man’s experience, his confidence, and promptly disregarded it all.

  The combined effects of blooded blades, prana-infused muscles, and weeks of intensive training under the wickedly sharp khukuri blades of the gurkhas gave Ishida an insurmountable advantage over the veteran samurai.

  Ishida parried the man’s katana with his own, knocking it aside as he lunged into his space. The samurai attempted to backpedal, to step back in a flash and bring his blade to bear, but the young daimyo simply moved faster than his opponent. His blooded wakizashi blurred, burying itself in the man’s trunk as he moved a quarter of a second too slow. He rolled with the stab of his wakizashi, dropping his long katana to the floor and slamming an elbow into the man’s face. As he spun to deliver the elbow, he pulled out his wakizashi and reversed his grip—impaling the stunned man in the heart.

  Ishida Nagatoshi pulled the short blade out of the dead man’s bleeding chest as Iwasaki flashed ahead, his mandala tattoos glowing as he rushed into Lady Ishida’s room.

  “Hold!” shouted a rough voice from inside. “Hold, or the ladies die!”

  Ishida swallowed a thick glob of saliva as the threat registered in his mind. Iwasaki remained where he stood, half his body inside the room and half outside.

  “Your comrades have fallen,” cautioned Iwasaki. “The estate is ours. Soon, the island will be ours. Lower your weapons, and you will be spared. Harm the ladies, and you will be kept alive long enough to watch your own family suffer the same fate inflicted upon ours.”

  “Lies!” shouted the voice within the room. “It is you who will lower your weapons, traitorous scum. It is your people who lie dead at the feet of my comrades. Come the morrow, and the garrison will arrive to flay your skin, bind your dirty blood into a piss-soaked blade dipped into a pile of shit. Take one step further, and the Ishida women die!”

  Ishida cursed silently as he listened to the two opponents trading threats. He knew Iwasaki was shouting down the lone guard to buy Ishida time… but time for what? He looked around, and saw his answer: a ceiling hatch.

  He undid the straps of his armor, quietly shedding the pieces as Iwasaki kept exchanging threats and insults with the guard. He sheathed his long katana, depositing it with the rest of his armor before inspecting his wakizashi. It was considerably shorter than his katana, but it was still too long to be safely wielded in the tight confines of the ceiling. He pondered his predicament for a second more before pulling out a wickedly curved knife from his belt. It was the khukuri preferred by the ghurka; Ishida had received this one from Venkati before leaving the lands of Sahaasi. He had taken the time to bind his blood to the weapon along the trip, spending most of the month gradually weaving his life essence into the blade.

  And so he deposited both katana and wakizashi with his armor. He hesitated for a few moments longer, not wanting to part with his precious blades. Practicality won out in the end, however, as the blades would be too long and bulky. All it would take is one snag, one knock, and he would reveal himself. And besides, he would not be able to wield them properly in such a confined space.

  Prana pulsed through Ishida’s fingers and hands as he pulled himself up along the walls, reaching the ceiling hatch even without the aid of a ladder. He undid the clasp, gently lowered the hatch, and slipped inside. He immediately fought the urge to sneeze as dust, cobwebs, and the remains of dead insects assaulted his nose. Slivers of light from oil torches pierced through cracks in the ceiling, granting enough light for Ishida to slowly crawl his way through the roof space. He focused on the two shouting voices, using them to guide his way and find his mark.

  He kept crawling, shifting his weight on the wooden braces while avoiding the thinner ceiling panels. Slowly, ever so slowly, he crawled until he found himself under the shouting guard. He peered through a crack in the panes, saw the man with his back to the wall. The edge of his katana lay on the neck of his mother, the edge of his wakizashi on that of his sister. The slightest twitch of a muscle, and blooded-enhanced edges would glide through their exposed necks like a leaf in the wind.

  Ishida paused, considering his options. Both prana and blood-binding may bolster his efforts as a warrior, enhance his battle capabilities, but they would do nothing to take those blades away. Even this close and with the element of surprise, Ishida would still not react quickly enough to prevent the already-twitchy samurai from ending the lives of his mother and sister.

  Then he remembered Qiu Ja’s lessons on chi manipulation. If Venkati and his mandala patterns taught Ishida how to work prana from within, then Qiu Ja’s brief lessons on cultivation taught him to read and project chi. Ishida inhaled deeply, generating as much prana as he could within himself while drawing in ambient chi from the area. He didn’t purify the chi through his
mandalas, a process that would have produced prana. No, he took in the raw energy and cycled it inside his body, holding on to it for later use. He positioned himself right above the guard as Iwasaki held his ground. Ishida closed his eyes, felt the power build up within him. He fed more and more prana into himself, into the muscles of his body, as well as into his blooded khukuri. He stilled the rising glow of his mandala tattoos as well as the pulsing veins of his long dagger, focusing on the ambient chi as it filtered through his senses.

  There.

  One fleeting moment, where the chi around the guard shifted. In his tension, in his worry about how late his companions were at coming to his aid, the guard shifted the edge of his blade. It hovered a few millimeters away from the necks of his hostages. The guard’s focus slipped as well, his aura shifting from one of constant vigilance to one of jittery anxiety. Ishida identified that instant of indecision, of the samurai’s shuffling feet and relaxing elbows to ease out the tension in his muscles.

  Everything exploded in a flurry of action and violence.

  Ishida took hold of the chi he stored up, blasted it down at the samurai’s shifting muscles. The force of the blast knocked the man’s blades away from the necks of the two women, who immediately sensed the change and ducked away. The samurai wasn’t completely disabled, however. He recovered half a second later, pulling the muscles of his arms to swing his blood-weapons at mother and daughter.

  Except the weight of Ishida’s body and the khukuri buried in his skull prevented him from connecting his blades.

  Ishida’s tattoos burned bright as they expended prana while the veins of his blooded khukuri burst with wicked red light—all releasing death in a single instant. The half-second bought by a blast of chi coupled with the samurai’s half-second of vulnerability gave Ishida a full second to work with. It was all the time he needed. He pushed down with every ounce of prana he could muster in his feet, breaking through the fragile ceiling panels. He positioned himself perfectly, two legs crashing into the samurai’s shoulders a quarter-second before the heavy head of the khukuri came down on the skull. He twisted the knife down with a sickening crunch, the weighted head of the khukuri adding more force to his movement as he bore down on the man—forcing him to his knees right after death.

  Ishida quickly flipped around, surveying the damage. His sister, Shioyo, bore just a slight graze on her neck—a single red line that would easily heal on its own. His mother, however, clutched her upper arm as a red splotch began staining the sleeve of her kimono.

  “Mother, move your hands for a moment; let me see the wound.”

  Lady Tatsume sat still for a moment without a reaction, still shocked from the sudden burst of violence. “Nagatoshi? Is… is that really you?”

  “Yes, mother. Now please move your hand. I need to see how deep the cut—”

  Ishida was interrupted as his sister squealed and sobbed, enveloping him in a crushing hug. “It really IS you! Oh, thank the ancestors! Thank them all! The Shogun said that the Maharaja betrayed the Taiyo, executed you and everyone you brought with you. He said that we would soon follow you in death once he finished his campaign on the mainland, and, and… oh, brother Naga, I can’t believe you’re alive!”

  The young lordling furrowed his brow, wanting to push his sister away to check on his mother’s injuries. He did not have the heart to do so, not with the way she burrowed her face into his chest as she wailed away with desperate relief. The older Lady Ishida quickly recomposed herself and shot Nagatoshi a rueful smile. “I am glad the Shogun is a liar, my son. I am gladder still that you came back to us whole.” She glanced down at Nagatoshi’s chest, his shirt opening up enough to reveal the still-glowing tattoos on his chest. “If not slightly different.” Lady Tatsume shifted to get a better look at her son before hissing in pain, tightening her grip on her shoulder.

  Ishida gently rubbed his younger sister’s head as he turned to his retainer for help. Iwasaki beat him to the punch, however, by approaching the lady with a bandage in hand.

  “If I may,” he said, his face cast down slightly to avoid directly looking into the Lady’s eyes.

  “Please,” she said, loosening her hold on her shoulder. Iwasaki approached, wrapped the bandage around the slash, and began focusing on the wound. Ishida nodded in satisfaction while Lady Tatsume stared wide-eyed at Iwasaki, who began using chi to accelerate the healing.

  “Is that a Renese healing technique?” Lady Tatsume asked, as she watched the warm glow of light suffuse her skin.

  “A variant, mother,” Nagatoshi replied for his retainer while the man continued healing the Lady. “He is transforming the prana he stored inside himself into chi that can be utilized beyond the confines of the body. In this case, Iwasaki is using it to heal your wounds.”

  Lady Tatsume quirked a brow at Nagatoshi’s confusing explanation. Even Shioyo managed to control her sobs, her eyes widening as she took in the spectacle before her. “Chi healing is a technique that only Imperials with their ability to harness chi can pull off. And even then, only a select few have mastered the control needed to heal the body in such a way. Tell me, Iwasaki, ever since when did you find time in your exile to not only discover you have a talent for controlling chi, but develop it enough to stand among the ranks of Imperial martial artists?”

  Iwasaki turned to his liege, Nagatoshi, in a silent request for permission. The young daimyo shrugged and shook his head. “I am sorry, mother, but we have little time left for lengthy explanations.” He peered outside a window, seeing the rays of the sun already peeking out from the hills of his island. “My forces and our Sahaasi allies should be assaulting the beaches now. I need to gather the other strike teams, fortify our positions to fend off any reprisals before the troops arrive. That means I have to go now, Shioyo.” Nagatoshi gently pushed his sister away from the crock of his arm.

  “But you just got here! You have no idea how worried mother and I have been, watching the actions of these animals while fretting over whether you’re alive or dead. I—”

  “That’s enough, Shioyo,” Lady Tatsume reprimanded with a gentle touch. “Ishida Daimyo has responsibilities he must attend to. I am sure he will have time for his family later on, when he has secured our borders.”

  Shioyo almost shook her head, almost screamed out her denial, but then remembered her place. She was a scion of the proud Ishida clan, the ruling tribe of Chishima. She bit her tongue and nodded her assent, letting her brother go and quickly regaining her bearings.

  Nagatoshi, however, moved in to give her a tight hug of his own. “It is good to be home, little Shioyo, but mother is right: I have responsibilities to attend to. She is also right in saying that I will run right here as soon as I finish everything I need to do.”

  Ishida Nagatoshi, Daimyo of the Ishida clan and the soon-to-be architect of the Taiyo Renewal, donned his arms and armor before stepping out of his manor, ready to retake the Isles of Taiyo from Inagaki and his cronies.

  Ishida didn’t know it yet, but the object of his scorn already lay dead on the battlefield, nothing more than a pile of burning cloth and blackened meat.

  Chapter 20

  Martin’s split consciousness watched from multiple vantage points as a volley of arrows whistled through the air. Many of these arrows were the regular kind—wood, steel, feathers, glue, and nothing more. Some of these arrows, however, pulsed with glowing red veins of power. These flew straight and true, each guided by the will of their masters to destroy a designated target. Any that found their mark would pierce through the toughest armor, shatter the thickest of shields. The Imperial martial artists met this volley with successive waves of force, the master practitioners channeling as much chi as they could to disrupt the trajectory of the deadly projectiles.

  This would normally not have been enough.

  Every single samurai was an accomplished swordsman and archer, not just capable of slashing their way to victory but also able to unleash blooded arrows at ke
y targets. By contrast, the martial artists were an eclectic bunch of highly specialized individuals. Some were skilled in pummeling targets with their mauls while others were granted the finesse to handle delicate blades and thin tufted spears. Some could shake the ground with the weight of their heavy boots while others flew through the air with their chan-gun staves. Some could unleash gouts of fire while others could blast away foes with waves of force. The martial artists functioned best when working together in small teams, complementing each other’s strengths and covering their weaknesses.

  The only problem here was that there simply weren’t enough force-capable martial artists to push away the flood of arrows coming at the Imperial army. They were used to dealing with a handful of blood arrows coming in at a time, maybe even dozens coming in. But thousands of samurai pouring obscene numbers of blood arrows at Imperial formations? That changed everything. Martin could not even contribute force waves of his own since his closest obelisk was a mile and a half away—too far from the army. And even if the Imperials fought under the shadow of an obelisk, he would still have to drain every single drop of chi in the area. That would drain the energies that Renese soldiers and martial artists relied upon to bolster their capabilities. And even if he could, he wouldn’t want to since the master practitioners of the Empire were much better at channeling force than he ever could. These practitioners were just too few, however, and they were going to be overwhelmed by the number of blood arrows mixed in with regular arrows.

  Martin held his breath—figuratively speaking—as he watched the arrows fall down toward their intended targets… and exhaled in relief as the Imperial’s newest troops came into play: the Imperial sahir corps with their bonded jinni.

  A wall of sand rose up from the feet of the Imperials, blowing the arrows away from their trajectories. At the same time, a veil of shadows crawled up the sky, obscuring the samurai’s aim and preventing them from correcting the flight paths of their blood-arrows.