by E. M. Hardy
His archers made short work of that one andro a few moments after it crashed into the walkers. He was also able to seal the breach created by the andro relatively quickly, bringing in walkers to beat back the smaller hieracosphinxes.
Then the second andro came crashing in, followed by even more of the gigantic constructs rushing headlong into the walkers.
The towering behemoths reached down with their massive limbs, swatting away and stomping down his walkers like a child going to town on his toys. And through all this, the smaller hieracos continued launching themselves at the walkers, leaping into the walkers’ weapons heedless of their own casualties.
The androsphinxes didn’t care that they crushed and batted away their own allies, for they only cared about breaking apart the threat before them. The crushed line of pikes opened up enough space for the swarm of smaller hieracosphinxes to launch themselves into the formations, demolishing walkers from within.
There were simply too many of the constructs for him to advance any further, especially with the andros shattering formations meant to counter the savage attacks of the hieracos.
The savage hieracos threw themselves at his walkers, taking advantage of every breach with relentless aggression, while the towering andros broke down any attempt to organize the walkers into a usable formation. It was stupidly simple but brutally effective—especially since they had the numbers to maintain such a frenetic assault.
“Damn it all,” Martin complained to no one in particular as he pulled his walkers back, trying to salvage as many as he could before he lost them all. The walkers that dove deepest into the mass of rogues served as the rear guard, sacrificing themselves so that the rest of the walkers could pull back beyond the effective range of their enemies.
Martin cursed even harder at the miserable results of the failed breakthrough. He needed information about these mysterious rogues. His walkers may hold back the rogues if they fought conservatively at the lines, but what use were kills when the enemy could so easily replace their casualties?
Correction: what use were kills when the enemy literally swarmed all over his own walkers the moment they crossed the invisible threshold?
Sure, the rogues mindlessly massed up at the limit of their borders while Martin’s walkers tirelessly ground them down. Day after day, week after week of endless destruction without receiving casualties, in turn, should have accounted for something.
His walkers regularly destroyed more than a hundred times their number each day as they spread out across the border to demolish as many constructs as they could. Huge piles of rubble littered the border even before he assembled eighty thousand-odd walkers to attempt a breach.
And yet the rogues never ended. On the contrary, their numbers only swelled the more damage that Martin dealt to their army. Their lines were already frighteningly dense when he first encountered them, numbering a couple hundred thousand.
A few short weeks later, and they covered the sands of the Wastes in their millions like ants swarming over a perceived threat to their nest.
Martin’s suspicions about the production capabilities of the pyramids were also confirmed when his eyeballs watched columns of dolls haul mud from far away in the distance and bring them into the structures. Other rogue dolls ambled toward the front lines, scooping up the rubble from the fallen rogues that would serve as more raw material for their war machine.
A few hours later, and hieracosphinxes would march out from the smaller pyramids. Larger pyramids, however, would spit out the androsphinxes about once a week.
That was not the worst thing, however.
What really got to Martin was the swarm of rogues coming in from beyond the horizon. Somewhere out there, beyond the range of Martin’s eyeballs, sat enough pyramids to pump out sphinxes like no tomorrow.
The rogues apparently built enough pyramids—hundreds, if not thousands—to sustain the steady influx of constructs despite their losses. More rogues arrived with each passing day than Martin could destroy with his walkers. They massed up like bacteria in a petri dish, buttressing the front lines as they responded to the threat hampering their progress.
This unceasing production prompted Martin to try attacking the closest half-built pyramid he could reach.
He sorely needed information about these rogues—what they wanted, how they operated, how they could be defeated. He was also running out of time, with the rogue pyramid almost completed. If that happened, they’d be able to extend their range by another dozen miles or so—one step closer toward the Emirate of Ma’an.
If he didn’t do something, find some way to check their advance, they’d be able to threaten the Emirate itself within a year. A few years after that, the rest of the Bashri Basin before swarming over his main pyramid at the Qleb Sierra a few years later. They’d reach the edges of the Empire a decade after that, then swallow up the rest of the land a few years later.
Even his precious blood-weapons lost all their potency after the first week of fighting. He quickly went through the hundreds of vials of spare blood he brought to feed the weapons, while good old fashioned wear and tear broke the weapons down over time.
And never mind blood-bows and blood arrows.
He stopped using up his stock of the precious projectiles in the first three days of fighting. He even reserved the remaining blood vials solely for the arrows, expending them all in this one desperate attack to try and reach the half-built pyramid that was now being swarmed by andro and hieraco.
He was down to using ceramic blades, spears, and mauls. Those weapons were reliable and easily crafted by dolls on the field, but they still broke down after an hour or two of flailing at the sturdy ceramic hide of the rogues. Even the mandala carvings on his walkers ended up drained of chi, weakening and slowing his constructs down in combat.
His constructs weren’t alive so they couldn’t replenish prana on their own, and there weren’t enough living things in the desert to easily replenish his stores of chi. His walkers were thus fueled solely by the pnevmatic generators in his pyramids—generators that performed significantly less effectively after he released the tormented souls that provided extra power to his core.
This failed assault made him realize just how deadly the rogues were when he fought them inside their area of control. He also realized that he could not win this fight on his own. The various emirates, the League of Merchants, maybe even reinforcements from the Ren Empire and the lands around it… their combined might could inflict enough casualties to slow or even push back the endless tide of rogues.
“Hmm? What?”
Martin’s eyeballs focused on their respective targets, causing Martin to grunt in annoyance. His latest breakthrough attempt seemed to galvanize the rogues in some way, force a reaction from their seemingly mindless expansion in all directions.
He spotted more andros and hieracosphinxes divert from the borders of other pyramids, move out toward the half-built pyramid that Martin attempted to hit. Not only that, but Martin’s eyeballs spotted dolls swarming over existing and half-built obelisks all along the border. Lines of dolls coming from the horizon shifted, carrying their cargo of mud toward the obelisks.
Martin realized why in a few hours: the rogues were converting their obelisks into pyramids.
Though pyramids allowed the rogues to pump out walkers on the open field, they also took significantly longer to build than obelisks. Starting from scratch, the rogue dolls in other parts of the desert finished building their obelisks in about a month. They would need about three months to complete a pyramid from the ground-up.
Three months for a pyramid… if he sustained his attacks on the rogues, kept them on edge to the point where they kept building pyramids instead of obelisks, then he could buy more time for his allies to assemble their forces.
Even a single month would buy enough time for the people of the Bashri Basin to call up their troops while the Empire sent in reinforcements. Another month and they cou
ld begin chipping away at the rogues, thin their numbers and strike out at the pyramids before they were completed.
“Perhaps my failed raid wasn’t as stupid and pointless as I thought,” Martin mused even as his walkers resumed their previous task of grinding away at the rogues from the border. Having detected a major breach, the rogues ceased expanding in all directions and focused instead on ‘reaching out’ toward whatever tried to hurt them.
“Interesting,” Martin thought to himself as he watched millions of rogue constructs ‘blobbing’ near the area where he attempted a breach. “I might be able to do something with this...”
***
“Welcome to Al-Taheri, General Qiu Ja. I’m happy to see you alive and well.”
“Thank you for the kind words,” the freshly-reinstated General of the Vermillion Bird said with a respectful nod of her head. She and the five thousand troops following her were decked out in full ceremonial garb, ready to link up with the other forces assembling in the city.
She took off her phoenix helmet, breathing a sigh of relief as she savored the air kissing her sweaty face. Beads of perspiration dripped from her brow into the rough ceramic-topped road leading to the city itself.
She wasn’t alone in this, however. The troops under her command were just as sweaty as their commander, unused to the glaring sun and oppressive heat of the Bashri Basin. Sweating like a pig during the day and balls freezing off during the night were human sensations that Martin did not miss at all.
“Her Augustness would have been completely justified in demanding my head as recompense for my failures,” Qiu Ja quipped as she dismounted her horse. “I never imagined that she would not only spare my life but reinstate me back into my former position. I honestly still have trouble believing all this is true.”
“We need all the competent and experienced troops we can spare to deal with the rogues,” Martin said with a shrug from the walker he sent to greet her.
Qiu Ja grimaced at Martin’s attempt to cheer her up. “Some have called me a coward for doing what I did, that I should have fought to the last man and woman rather than face the humiliation of surrender.”
Martin shook the head of his walker to refute her claim. “Then they can join Inagaki’s dead buddies in whatever hell they’re burning in. When you saw the hopelessness of your situation, you chose to prioritize the lives of your men and women. You could have fought on, urged your troops to die a pointless death. You instead preserved five thousand souls that will now contribute to the defense of the Empire.
“Although now that I think about it, I must admit that you’re lucky you surrendered to Venkati and not to Inagaki.” A cold shudder passed through Martin’s consciousness as he remembered the doomed city of Yan Bao.
“You can thank the big lug for your current fortune. He insisted that Empress Zi Li spare you, give back your old position, otherwise he would halt the direct export of bananas and turmeric to the Empire. He’d just route it through the League of Merchants instead.”
Qiu Ja furrowed her brows, fighting back a smirk as she turned toward the man riding beside her. “My life for bananas and turmeric? Really?”
Maharaja Venkati’s roar of laughter cut through the dry air, his aura flashing bright orange with glee. “Do not underestimate the power of fruits and spices, good general—especially not with the League of Merchants so cutthroat with their tariffs!”
“That does sound a lot more believable when you put it that way,” Qiu Ja responded, painting her aura with yellow mirth to mask the shade of pink embarrassment underneath.
Martin would have smiled if he could; Qiu Ja still had a ways to go when it came to concealing her aura. Not that he was an authority on the matter, for he found it virtually impossible to mask the aura bleeding from his constructs and obelisks.
Shogun-Elect Ishida Nagatoshi sniffed his disapproval, hiding a scowl on his lips. “Ancestors, Venkati, your happiness disgusts me. How can you be so… so fresh in this heat?”
“Conditioning, my dear friend,” replied the ruler of the Sahaasi Dominion—the only participating nation in Inagaki’s rebellion left relatively untouched by the ravages of war—as he flexed a bicep. “The deep jungles of the Sahaasi are hot and humid, the heat sticking to your skin and pits.
“This? This dry heat is far more pleasant in my opinion… so long as you have water with you.” Indeed, the big muscular man with an annoyingly flamboyant mustache wasn’t even breaking a sweat under the glaring Bashri sun. The same could be said for the ghurkas he brought along, marching dutifully to link up with the rest of the allied army.
Venkati leaned in closer to Ishida and whispered under his breath. “Though to be honest, try channeling that extra heat into your tattoos. Treat it like another form of chi. You won’t be able to draw life force from it, but you can at least eject it from your body more efficiently.”
Ishida narrowed his eyes at Venkati in suspicion even as he activated the mandala tattoos hidden underneath his clothing. The Shogun-Elect focused for a few more moments, right before he released a sigh, his eyes closing in pleasure.
“Damn you, Venkati. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
“You didn’t ask,” laughed the Maharaja as he waggled his eyebrows at Qiu Ja. The General of the Vermillion Bird furrowed her brow as she watched the entire exchange before trying her hand. The tattoo on her neck glowed with power after a few moments, her eyes widening with surprise. “Huh. That does feel better.”
“See?” Venkati said with a nod. “One of our gurus discovered this interesting property of our mandala tattoos while meditating under the shadow of an obelisk. The old masters are having an absolute blast debating with their spiritual counterparts in the Empire and the Sovereignty, everyone racing to unlock new techniques and abilities.”
Ishida cracked open an eye, his mandala tattoos glowing softly as they absorbed the excess heat in his body. “Interesting you should mention that. Our blood-binders are doing something similar, and have come up with quite a few inventive approaches to modifying our blood-bound weapons.
“One of those binders took inspiration from Martin’s walkers. If those clay men could benefit from mandala patterns carved on their bodies, why not our weapons? This is why we’ve begun etching mandala patterns upon newly-forged blades before binding them with blood.”
The Shogun-Elect grasped the hilt of his katana, pulled out a section of steel to showcase his weapon. The veins of blood no longer branched out in random outward directions but were instead drawn in concentric swirls that drew the eye back to the center.
“This new technique not only reduces the rate at which the weapons deplete their reserves of blood but also allows the user to project force well beyond the range of the weapon itself. I think it was inspired by the Empire’s martial artists that specialize in hurling waves of force. Watch…”
Ishida then drew his katana fully out of its scabbard as he urged his steed to canter slightly away from the road. He pulled upon the vital energies locked within the blood while simultaneously pulsing some of his prana into the weapon. He swung the crimson-glowing blade at an empty patch of sand, releasing an angry red line of light that lashed out from the edge of the blade.
The line hit the sand with a violent crash, spraying sand high in the air. Ishida’s tired and exhausted troops ignored their war leader’s demonstration as they were most likely equipped with the same weapons and trained in their use. The Imperial and Dominion troops, however, gawked openly at what Ishida just did. Ishida silently slid his blood-blade back into its scabbard, a confident smile on his face.
Qiu Ja harrumphed at the demonstration. “Well, that will certainly piss off quite a few of the martial artists under my command.” She turned around, glancing at the troops under her command. “Though I must admit that the jinn seem to have taken a liking to my people—especially the martial artists.”
Martin’s walkers and eyeballs followed the general’s gl
ance, taking in the hundreds of jinni floating alongside their partners. It looked like the Empire fully embraced the jinni and their magic, what with the size of the sahir corps escorting the martial artists, chang gun staff riders, mounted cavalry, and regular foot soldiers.
Martin felt pleasure flow through his core at the sight of it all. This advancement in capabilities was what really mattered in the end. The peoples of this world, of Copsis, were sharing their knowledge and innovating new techniques from their experience.
His walkers may be powerful in their own right, able to reproduce in a fraction of the time it took to raise and train a regular human being. They did not, however, possess the same potential for growth as the humans of this world did.
It was only a matter of time until they surpassed his walkers in strength and capability, especially now that his reshaped core no longer fed upon the tortured souls of the dead.
An eyeball floating in the sky eyed the three leaders as they began boasting and bragging about the capabilities of their troops. General of the Vermillion Bird Qiu Ja, Maharaja Venkati of the Sahaasi Dominion, and Shogun-Elect Ishida Nagatoshi led the troops of their respective nations to help deal with the rogues.
The powers they displayed here, the combat capabilities they could bring in the fight against the rogue constructs, may be enough to turn back the endless onslaught of rogues—especially when they linked up with the forces assembled by the various emirates in the Bashri Basin.
***
“And here they come.”
The dust cloud in the distance finally morphed into the marching boots and hooves of the forces assembled by the emirs to assist with the rogue threat. Dozens of banners rose up for miles on end, each indicating the emirate from which they came from.
There was a contingent from Ma’an, Prince Suhaib’s homeland. Various flags from the neutral emirates fluttered in the wind—Ulkucu, Tuzun, Arica, Ataman, and Ozhan. This included flags from the Emirates directly controlled by the League of Merchants—De’em, Sulba, Ramal, and Far’eh.