by E. M. Hardy
“Are you done?”
The old man huffed, shaking his head. “See? Even in the end, in the face of a betrayal that will end all that we Sages have built, you still choose to close your eyes and ears. Yes, Empress, I am done—and so is the Empire with you at its helm.”
“We doubt that very much, former advisor Mo Louyang.” She leaned in close to the man and buried her knife in his heart all the way to the hilt. The man gasped in surprise and shook in his death throes before collapsing in on himself, blood pouring out and staining his precious robes. She pulled the dagger out, flicked the blood off, and stalked over to a kneeling Feng Jiahao.
“No! Wait, Zi Li! Listen to Louyang! If Ye Heng is behind all this, then you will need our help to—”
“That is Empress Zi Li, to you, traitor. We… *I* am the Daughter of Zi Yun and Zi Wei; sister of Zi Tao, Zi Ren, and Zi Zhenya. And today, I avenge them on the blood of their murderers… and Ye Heng will follow soon enough, no matter where he hides.”
The Empress ignored the man’s blubbering, and executed him in the same way she did Louyang. The elderly advisor was only able to exhale a shuddering breath as the blade slid through his ribs and into his heart, the Empress’ eyes burning with unholy glee as she watched the man breathe his last.
And through all this, Suhaib’s eyes remained glued to Empress Zi Li. He was memorizing every single detail of her face, from the porcelain-like complexion of her cheeks to the pale-pinkness of her lips. Even as she stood there, blood staining the attendant’s robes she wore to disguise herself, Suhaib could not help but take in everything about her. So smitten was the young prince that the intrigues occurring at that moment slipped through his awareness.
“Suhaib, I know this is the first time you have truly fallen in love with someone other than yourself, but you need to snap out of it.”
Fortunately for the love-struck prince, his jinni Uhi had pulled herself from the Invisible World and tugged at the bond tying them together—bringing him out of his reverie.
The Empress noticed the movement, and turned her attention back to the prince. She lost all traces of anger and outrage that surged from her just moments before, replacing them with grace and dignity as she sashayed towards him in her bloodied robes. She then lowered her head, clasped her hands together, and bowed before him.
“A thousand apologies, Prince Suhaib Ma’an, for all that you have endured and witnessed today. You have been caught within the machinations of a plot that we have been guarding against for the longest time, and we regret it greatly that you and your people had to suffer the consequences. We will arrange for suitable reparations once we have brought our court back in order.”
“No, Suhaib! You idiot!” hissed Uhi, as she tried to reach out to her bonded partner. Her pleas, however, fell on deaf ears as the young prince walked forward as if in a trance. And before anyone could do anything, he found himself laying his hands on the Empress’ clasped fists and lowering himself to one knee.
“Please, raise your head, Empress Zi Li. If anyone should be grateful, it should be me.” He grinned like an idiot, taking in her smell as their eyes met for the first time in such close proximity. “A few minutes later, and my head would no longer be on my shoulders.”
The Empress met his grin with one of her own before nodding toward the female Balancer standing behind Suhaib, her clawed hand holding steady as invisible wires wrapped around his neck and hands without his awareness. “It is alright, Si-Shi-Er. Kindly undo your webs, for we do not think the prince from Ma’an means us harm.” The agent hesitated for a moment before obeying, dislodging the wires from a surprised Suhaib. “We doubt that you would have lost your head. We ordered our agent to play along with the ploy of the Sages, but we gave explicit orders that no harm would befall you… at least, that was the plan.”
The prince’s grin softened into a grateful smile as he enjoyed the feel of his hands upon hers. The Empress did not shrug him off, so he took advantage and simply savored the instant.
It was a moment that did not last long. One of Martin’s eyeballs managed to break through the cloud of Renese staff riders patrolling the skies above the Red City. It screamed through the sky, pursued by three riders that were preparing to blast it away with a wave of Chi. They were called off by the Balancers on the ground, but not before a wave knocked the eyeball off-course, causing it to careen toward Suhaib and Zi Li.
Suhaib held Zi Li by the shoulders, putting himself between her and the crashing construct. It swerved at the last second, slamming down on the bricked flooring with enough force to send a few stone shards flying toward Suhaib, though he was able to shield his face with an arm while Uhi redirected the larger shards away.
“Empress Zi Li,” Martin’s voice crackled through the broken construct. There was none of the chipper, flippant cheer that Martin usually possessed. “You need to get in touch with General Shen Feng as soon as you can. He is besieging my pyramid in the Leizhu Swamp as we speak, and he’s not listening to a damned thing I’m telling him.”
Chapter 23
Martin knew that he shouldn’t blame the general since he was just following orders and all that jazz. He had seen the courier arrive in the general’s camp, huffing and puffing after a long and hurried journey from the capital. He had dismissed the issue at the time, ignoring the way that Shen Feng had moved his troops about while he focused on his campaign in the Bashri Desert. The general had endorsed Martin’s vassalage to the Empress, and she herself had approved of it. If anything, he thought that the gruff Feng had finally stopped considering Martin as a threat and was pulling back his forces where they were needed more.
And then everything went to hell, starting at the Red Court.
It happened in the afternoon, after the Empress finished holding court that day. That was when the walker he had posted at the Court to serve as a liaison with the Empress was suddenly knocked out from behind. Or more accurately, it was demolished from behind. Multiple blows strengthened by Chi rained down all at once on the walker’s head, neck, torso, and legs—effectively shutting it down in an instant.
Taken aback by the sudden attack on his liaison, Martin had re-routed some of the eyeballs exploring the Renese countryside toward the Red City. For once, the ever-churning imperial capital was ground to a halt. Everything was closed off, with guards directing shops to shut down and telling people to go back home. Worse still was the fact that a large group of staff-riding imperials covered the airspace above the Empress’ palace. Though Martin’s eyeballs were faster and more agile, they could not penetrate the groups of chang gun riders. They would give chase and fling Chi-empowered attacks from a distance, but they always returned to maintain a tight, protective net over the palace and its surroundings.
Martin did, however, get to see Suhaib’s group get encircled by imperial guards. They were just about to square off, but one masked assassin somehow managed to hold the prince hostage. He was brought to his knees and looked like he was choking or something. That kicked the fight right out of his men and women, and they lowered their weapons as a result. Instead of trying to get his eyeballs closer, Martin pulled them back at safe distance and relied on their telescopic vision to keep an eye on how things were going down at the court.
He saw dark-robed assassins flitting this way and that, scattering attendants on their way and engaging with the palace guards as they made their way to the Empress’ residences. “Damn,” Martin thought to himself as he realized that this was a coup of some kind. Someone had spent a lot of time planning this attack, though Martin thought it was strange that none of the Imperial guards or soldiers were attacking the palace in force. They were actively targeting him and Suhaib’s people, yet they seemed to be surprised at the presence of these assassins.
And that was when Shen Feng’s forces chose to move out from the military camp set up beside the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid.
His troops began systematically demolishing the dolls and cow-boxes that
were helping clear up and set up facilities around the camp. It stung Martin, the way that they callously destroyed the constructs that only a few moments earlier were pumping out swamp muck and setting up mosquito nets to help make their stay in the swamp more comfortable.
“What is going on? Why are you attacking? What have I done? What do you want me to do?”
All of Martin’s pleas fell on deaf ears, and every eyeball he sent to communicate with Shen Feng was destroyed on sight. Still, he kept enough eyeballs hanging back in the air to keep track of all that was happening. Fortunately for him, he still had 499 walkers locked away inside the pyramid, but they were badly outnumbered by Shen Feng’s forces. More than a thousand troops—1,375 soldiers to be exact—began moving out from the camp, making a beeline for his pyramid while pulling catapults and ballistae along with them.
That was not the end of it, however.
Through his other eyeballs, Martin could see that virtually every garrison in the nearby provinces was emptying out and heading toward his pyramid in the swamp. Martin estimated more than a dozen thousand soldiers heading his way, not counting the more than one thousand troops in the swamp. Worse still was that even more troops began marching through the roads coming from nearby provinces. It was as if all the garrisons in this part of the Empire were making a beeline for him.
The sudden meltdown in the capital more than a hundred miles away, the attack on the Empress’ palace, Shen Feng’s own attack on his pyramid, the coordination of the reinforcing troops… the timing was just perfect—too perfect. Whoever was behind this had been working on it for a long time, and had to be in a very high position of power to get away with it.
But that was something he could worry about later. Shen Feng’s troops were nearly at the pyramid’s doorstep, and Martin only had moments to react to these sudden turns of events.
His first concern was bringing up some of his own reinforcements.
He had a train of cow-boxes transporting mud gathered from the Leizhu Swamp to the Qleb Sierra and the expansion of his network in the Bashri Desert. He had about 200 that he could gather within an hour of the swamp, with another 200 further out. Most of his cow-boxes were already in the Bashri, and it would take too long for them to arrive.
Martin reviewed the progress of his walkers making their way through the Bashri. They were too far away to provide any help in time to deal with Shen Feng’s forces. The closest batch of 1,000 walkers was 4 days away at full run. Still, he diverted half of his Bashri-bound walkers back to the Leizhu Swamp, which was a total of 4,000 walkers running as if the devil had lit their butts on fire. These walkers would arrive in batches of 1,000 walkers, and Martin hoped that he could hold on to the pyramid long enough for him to beat back the Renese offensive.
He could also churn out additional walkers from the Qleb Sierra Pyramid. It was more than three hundred miles away from the Leizhu Swamp, and it would take his walkers a day and a half if he had them run all the way. Such were the perks of untiring, unfeeling ceramic constructs that could go on and on and on—as long as they were within the range of the grid that was wirelessly feeding them power.
If he could weather this first attack with the 499 walkers he kept locked away in the pyramid, he could then continually produce more walkers to handle the other Imperial reinforcements. The vast number of production vats in the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid could help with that.
The only problem was that he couldn’t build any more walkers. He was already at the limits of his control over his constructs, with the majority being deployed in the Bashri. He had to lose those walkers if he wanted to build more, and it frustrated him to no end that he was caught so completely unprepared by this sudden and unprovoked treachery. “Protected vassal… yeah, right,” Martin mumbled to himself as he groped for solutions to the production bottleneck.
He could always destroy his walkers; have half the walkers break apart the other half to free up control for more walkers to be built where they were needed. Such an action did not gel well with him, and yet he did not have time for squeamishness. He needed walkers to defend the swamp pyramid now, and he just decided to go ahead and get it over with.
Martin was no stranger to losing constructs. His experience with the akinji had taught him that he would feel no pain from the ‘death’ of his walkers, no matter how enmeshed his senses were within their clay bodies. All he would feel was a dull pressure as they broke up, allowing him to focus on the task ahead. Still, this experience felt strange even for Martin. It was not easy for him to ‘kill’ himself, viewing the whole sordid affair from both the killer’s and the victim’s perspectives.
He started by demolishing 55 walkers in the group that was still making its way to the Bashri Desert Ruins. This was the number of production vats that were functioning in the Leizhu Swamp, and he planned to demolish another 55 walkers every two hours—the time needed to finish forming a walker.
In the meantime, his dolls started reinforcing the walls of the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid. Any tunnels and chambers near the walls were filled in with paste, adding bulk that could give Martin a little more time before Feng’s troops broke through.
Martin then thought about alternative solutions to avoid having to fight.
How about surrendering? Shen Feng had accepted his previous surrender with grace, and he thought that maybe another overture to surrender would work. However, Shen Feng and his troops were refusing to accept communications of any kind—at all. Maybe the orders he had received forbade him from treating with Martin? If that were the case, then Shen Feng would be determined to carry those orders out. And from the looks of his forces, bringing siege weaponry along with some soldiers who were wreathed in thick layers of Chi, he meant to demolish Martin’s pyramid to the ground.
What about letting Shen Feng break his pyramid? The idea left a sour taste in his mouth, having to let go of such a find. Martin, however, realized that he could not abandon the pyramid. It was the largest one he had found so far, housing big generator and production facilities within it. And then there was the abundance of convertible mud around and under the Leizhu Swamp. There were some smaller reserves in the Qleb Sierra, but the vast reserves in the swamp were essential for his plans to expand toward the Bashri. If Shen Feng ruined this pyramid, Martin would not only lose a large chunk of industrial capacity, he would also lose his ability to rapidly react to the invaders should their gates appear over Ren territory.
No, Martin could not let Feng destroy this pyramid, false orders or otherwise.
So it boils down to fighting, Martin thought as he witnessed Feng’s men begin surrounding his pyramid. Seeing that his troops were not being harassed, Feng ordered his men and women to advance while setting up their catapults and ballistae a few yards away from the main entrance of his pyramid. Through his eyeballs, Martin saw that most of Feng’s troops were clustered around a small number of men and women that were positively glowing with Chi. Their weapons varied from the usual pikes and swords that the regular infantry carried around. These soldiers wielded heavy battleaxes and war-hammers, though some of them carried nothing at all except nasty metal gauntlets.
Martin discovered soon enough what their role was in the whole scheme of things. These Chi-heavy troops circled Martin’s pyramid, tapping with their hands and weapons. They picked a location and began whaling away with their weapons and fists—Chi enhancing their blows and causing the granite blocks to chip away with each impact. Martin wondered why they had chosen this spot in particular, and realized that it was near one of the corridors that had yet to be filled in with paste. He shuddered to think what these Chi masters could do if they could pinpoint this weakness by merely tapping thick granite blocks. He immediately ordered his nearby dolls to congregate in the area and begin pouring out extra paste to fill out the rooms and hallways near the wall. He wanted to fill up the corridor itself, but he doubted the paste would have enough time to harden before the Chi masters—the martial artists—got thro
ugh the granite blocks.
The siege weapons, on the other hand, soon began their destructive work. Martin had hoped that these weapons would not be able to do any serious damage, considering the relatively small sizes of their payload. The smoothed stones and metal rods did not look like much, after all. That was until another set of martial artists lined up beside the siege weapons. They started channeling their Chi into the arms of the catapults and drawstrings of the ballista. As soon as the engineers manning the weapons cut them loose, their respective payloads blurred forward and slammed with alarming force into the gates. Martin’s dolls had spent a good amount of time filling up the entrance with paste, but he was now worried that the energies being flung around by those weapons would eventually break through the granite gates and the thick layer of paste behind them.
And so he waited inside the pyramid, filling up the outer corridors with paste and building as many barricades as he could. His production vats were steadily cooking away, but it would be another hour before the first batch of 55 walkers came out. He was thankful that the pyramids interiors were almost labyrinthine in design, with twists and turns that would confuse most people if they forced their way in without any idea of where to go. Unfortunately, he was worried that Shen Feng’s martial artists would simply ignore all the tunnels and just bash down his walls. One problem at a time, though.
***
While the martial artists and siege weapons were busy pounding away at the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid, Martin partitioned off a part of his attention toward his expedition in the Bashri Desert. If the worst happened and the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid fell, he would need new facilities to support his forces.
His constructs were steadily making their way toward Ma’an, with their batch of 2,000 walker bodyguards keeping watch. He had devoted a large number of eyeballs to monitor the area around Ma’an, as Suhaib warned him about the possibility that the akinji raiders were an advance force clearing the way for an invasion of his father’s emirate. Martin’s eyeballs floating in the area did not spot any major force marching toward his walkers, but he did spot numerous mounted units keeping tabs on his forces. That was fine; his network of eyeballs would give him sufficient time to withdraw his forces if a hostile force decided to attack en masse.