Archeologist Warlord: Book 3

by E. M. Hardy

  Martin checked back with his eyeballs and confirmed that the chang gun bombers had indeed disabled their target—probably striking a key component of the pyramid in the latest run.

  The fight was far from over, however.

  While the andros and hieracos along the current front collapsed, another line of rogues continued to stand vigil a short distance away from the bombed-out pyramid. This was the very edge of the pyramid behind the one they just destroyed—a pyramid which the chang gun bombers could very easily bomb until they disabled some vital component.

  Good, Martin thought to himself. Things have changed now that we can hit the pyramids directly. With time and effort, we’ll be able to slowly but surely push them back toward wherever they’re striking from.

  Unfortunately for Martin’s plans, however, the lead rider landed his staff and waved toward the nearest walker. Martin obliged with the partition of his consciousness controlling the construct.

  “What do you need doing next?” panted the man as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Martin shifted his vision, checking the man’s aura, and it was indeed stained grey with fatigue.

  His chi reserves were extremely low while his prana core was very nearly depleted. He shifted his vision to check on the other flier squads and found the same thing with them all. Eight squads of eight each, hauling the heavy crystals up into the air and dropping them repeatedly on the same target for almost four hours straight. They could only do so much, even with the aid of prana in the mandala patterns and the blood bound to their staves.

  “Excellent work,” Martin said with a reassuring pat on the man’s shoulder. “Your fliers made all the difference in this stalemate we’re dealing with. Have your people get some grub, get some rest, and we’ll resume bombing the next pyramid in around two hours. Your people deserve the—”

  Martin stopped mid-sentence as his eyeballs picked up movement within the bombed-out pyramid.

  The broken pyramid remained within the twelve-mile control radius of the pyramid behind it. This was precisely why rogue dolls were already swarming all over the broken pyramid, carrying mud and morphing their hands into the various tools required to fix the damage.

  He suddenly remembered something about the implacable rogues: if there’s one thing the rogue constructs were good at, it was keeping calm and carrying on.

  His eyeballs could already see the little constructs patching up the walls of the pyramid, spraying mud on damaged pillars and buttresses that would hold up blocks of hardened rock and ceramic. Behind them moved other teams of dolls patching up the shattered interior components, reconnecting ceramic lines here and there. Another patrolling eyeball off in the distance monitored a line of dolls hauling loads of crystals from the nearest pyramid, no doubt fresh replacements for the damaged components.

  Martin clicked a non-existent tongue as he turned his attention back to the weary leader of the bomber squad.

  “Scratch that. The rogues are already starting to fix the pyramid you just bombed out, and we need to prevent them from completing their repairs and re-extending their control radius. I’m sorry to say this, but you and your team need to gear back up again.

  “I have a plan, but I will need your support with what I’m going to do. I’ll get in touch with more details in a couple of minutes.”

  To his credit, the squad leader didn’t express a single iota of displeasure as he marked his assent with a blank face. Martin nodded solemnly with his walker as the man returned to his people to brief them on their new tasks.

  For his part, Martin used his multiple consciousnesses spread out across different walkers to update the various leaders and commanders of the allied army. There was no time to form an assembly, to get opinions. He had to act now while the line of defenders to the next pyramid was thin.

  He had to storm the disabled pyramid and hold it long enough for the bombers to blow down the next pyramid—give Martin enough time to learn more about his enemies before they came rolling right back in. If they waited too long, they risked the rogue dolls repairing the damage and undoing everything the bombers had done so far.

  And besides, Martin concocted a plan that sounded crazy enough to work—especially if these pyramids functioned the way he assumed they did.

  ***

  “Ready… aim… LOOSE!”

  Hundreds of blood-bound arrows tore through the air, all aimed right at the gigantic androsphinxes towering over the rogue-infested sands of the Bashri Wastes. The best samurai archers of the Taiyo contingent spread out all over every available vantage point they could find, from natural rock formations to towers purpose-built by Martin’s dolls.

  They sharpened their gaze, each individual archer marking his target up to three miles away. The streaking projectiles unleashed their focused energies on their limbs, sending them hurtling to the ground in a thundering crash of ruined ceramic.

  Once the nearby androsphinxes were put down, the Imperial bomber squadrons came up. They flew over the heads of their allies, each team of eight chang gun riders towing their precious crystal bombs with them.

  Instead of dropping their bombs on the closest pyramid, however, they targeted the mass of hieracosphinxes at the designated zones—blasting open a corridor toward the ruined pyramid a few hundred meters away from the front line.

  The chi-masters and sahir casters acted immediately after the bombs and arrows found their mark. The former bombarded the front line of hieracos with waves of force that sent them hurtling to the ground while the latter raised boulders from the earth and sent them crashing into the rogue formations. Entire companies of jinn materialized from the Invisible World, joining the battle with their bonded humans.

  The more magically-gifted of the jinn wove shrouds of shadows over the hieracos, throwing them into confusion as they began clawing at their darkened surroundings. The more martially-oriented jinn led the charge against the shattered ranks of the hieracos, slashing and striking with their weapons to clear the way.

  The immortal jinni never truly died, just faded back into the Invisible World when struck with mortal blows, which was the reason why they were often sent ahead to take the first blows of each battle.

  And that was exactly what they were doing at that moment.

  The elite forces of the allied army rushed into the gap created by their archers, manipulators, and spell-casters. Samurai charged in with their blood-bound katanas, slicing up hieracos left and right while their ashigaru escorts fended off reprisals with their long pikes. Venkati’s ghurkas followed behind them, slashing wildly with their khukuri knives to force their enemies back as the regular troops covered their flanks.

  No spears or halberds for the ghurkas this time, for they slammed into the rogues intending to break their lines.

  The armies affiliated with both the neutral emirates and the League of Merchants pressured their respective fronts, pushing as hard as they could into the swarm of rogue constructs without getting cut off from their allies. Even Prince Mufeed didn’t complain as the men and jinn of Ma’an fought alongside their former enemies in the League of Merchants.

  Or at least he didn’t complain as much as he normally did.

  It was at that point where Martin gathered himself, focused his attention to the tens of thousands of walkers massed up, behind the lines of men and jinn fighting at the front...

  …and roared with every ounce of vigor he could muster within himself.

  To be more precise, he roared with all fifty thousand walkers he committed to what would most likely end up being a suicidal charge right into the thick of the rogues. This was the awaited signal for the others in the allied army to open up a gap in between their fighting formations—a gap that led straight to the blasted pyramid in front of them.

  Thousands of ceramic feet thundered through the dirt, sand, and rocks of the Wastes as they charged toward their intended destination. The lead element of the walkers crashed into their hieraco counterparts, still r
eeling from the volley of force waves, blood-arrows, and sahar-propelled rocks. The caster jinn lifted their veil of shadows covering the way to the pyramid, allowing Martin a clear shot toward his intended destination.

  Walkers with blood blades led the way, cutting apart the hieracos as they dove deep into their lines. This assault was not an orderly one, with walkers steadily marching lockstep to their destination. No, this was a mad dash to secure an objective inside rogue territory before they inevitably buried his walkers with their swarms.

  The hieracos along the way quickly regained their bearings, savaging his walkers as they piled all over them.

  Martin, however, prepared for this by following up his vanguard with blood pikes and stout tower shields crafted from ceramic.

  While the blade-equipped walkers cut forward aggressively, others with pikes stepped in to hold the breach and stab deeply into any hieraco attempting to retake lost ground. In the meantime, teams of walkers set down their tall tower shields, driving their spiked bottoms deep into the dirt and sand to create impromptu barricades that further solidified the breach for other walkers to pour into.

  The archers, casters, and manipulators at the front lines provided support to Martin’s walkers, prioritizing the now-rampaging androsphinxes.

  Having detected a major breach against the swarm, the gigantic constructs all over the land eschewed their stoic plodding for a frenzied rush toward the source of the intrusion. The infantry near the front assisted the walkers, pushing against the tide of hieracos threatening to overwhelm the walkers.

  It was up to Martin, however, to ‘drill’ his way to the pyramids. The allied army may have scored a small victory disabling one pyramid, but countless other pyramids reaching beyond the horizon continued churning out andros and hieracos. The weight of millions of constructs would continue pressing down on any breach, which was why anyone attempting to forge into the swarm was most certainly doomed.

  This was why Martin sent only walkers to take and hold the ruined pyramid. They would create a safe corridor for his dolls to reach the ruined pyramid, and they would die to the last as they held out for as long as they could.

  The diminutive little constructs were ferried by cow-boxes into the fray, protected on all sides by walkers furiously fending off the hieracos attempting to crush them with sheer numbers. Martin brought the dolls right behind his vanguard as they pressed further into enemy territory, digging into the dirt and sand to set down their lines of power as they went along.

  He dropped off some dolls to assist the walkers by spraying mud on the tower shields slammed into the dirt, repairing the damage caused by the hieracos and strengthening their defenses. They did the same for damaged walkers, reconstructing limbs torn off by hieracos that managed to rush their way through the gauntlet of spears and blades and shields.

  Martin finally achieved his objective a mere fifteen minutes after the initial charge, the very tip of the spear reaching the blasted pyramid.

  His walkers thickened their formations around the entrance of the pyramid while his dolls built miniature walls, allowing him to hold a fortified control point where he could launch sorties into the pyramid itself.

  The first squads of walkers rushed into the pyramid, armed to the teeth with blood-blades arrayed every which way. Surprisingly enough, however, the interior of the pyramid was defended only by a few dozen hieracos along with rogue dolls attempting repairs within the facility.

  The hieracos appeared fresh from the production vats, some with the surface of their skins still moist and pliable. The toddler-like rogue dolls, however, fought just as savagely as their combat-capable counterparts. They morphed their adaptable limbs into makeshift weapons, wielding them clumsily against Martin’s walkers in a futile attempt to ward them off.

  The rogue dolls were shapers, not fighters. They didn’t even manage to reach the walkers before Martin slashed and stabbed them apart.

  They were simply too small and too slow to be a real threat, not against Martin’s walkers infused with chi via the mandala patterns carved on their bodies. A simple step forward, a flick of the wrist, and multiple dolls would often find themselves dismembered in all sorts of ways.

  He continued pouring walkers into the compromised pyramid, sending them everywhere he could and cutting down rogues wherever he could find them. His immediate goal was to prevent the rogues from repairing this pyramid, from re-extending their control radius back to what it was.

  This, however, was just a means to an end.

  What he really wanted was to learn as much as he could in the limited time he could hold on to the pyramid. His walkers were already hard-pressed to push back the tide of rogues, and it was only a matter of time until they overwhelmed his forces and retook the pyramid for themselves.

  The first obvious fact he gained was that everything inside looked practically identical to his own pyramid. He already suspected this to be so when his eyeballs checked out the damaged interior from afar, but his walkers confirmed those suspicions when they were able to get a closer look inside. The production vats looked and functioned exactly the same: oversized jugs filled with wet mud that would slowly harden its contents as it squirted out a construct.

  Though in this case, the vats sat idle to indicate the pyramid’s apparent disconnection from the main grid controlling the rogues. He also spotted pnevmatic generators scattered around the pyramid’s interior. Most of the large, chunky blocks of ceramic were damaged by the crystal bombs, but quite a few still hummed with the same power that fueled Martin’s constructs.

  Could the rogues operate much like himself, with one central consciousness directing all the individual constructs? Cut off the signal, and they go tumbling down even when they’re still within range of their generators?

  This little bit clued Martin in on the fact that the bombers destroyed some other vital component not related to the power generators. His walkers cleared up the mystery when they entered the deepest part of the pyramid and discovered a shattered column of crystal. The light of the afternoon sky filtered through the damaged ceiling and broken floors above it, no doubt ripped open by the last bomb dropped on the pyramid. That same light reflected from the remains of the crystal, illuminating the room with glittering shades of white and yellow.

  Found it, Martin thought to himself as he re-extended his consciousness. Just in time, too. His walkers were tough and hardy, using solid defensive tactics and equipped with superior weapons. All these advantages, however, could only hold off the endless tide of hieracos for so long.

  Each fallen hieraco created a platform of rubble that others behind it could use to jump-off into his mass of walkers—inevitably causing casualties before they could be put down. The fifty thousand walkers he committed to this assault were already down to forty-thousand, with the defensive lines starting to stretch thin as the weight of the hieracos threatened to collapse them entirely.

  He didn’t need to keep the corridor open forever, though. He only needed to do so long enough for the dolls to set up their underground lines toward the pyramid—a task they just completed, bringing a physical connection from Martin’s network right up to the entrance of the blasted pyramid.

  The remainder of the assault force, all forty thousand of them, began the task of retreating into the captured pyramid.

  He started by shifting his reserves through the corridor, piling walkers into the pyramid as dolls began sealing the entrance of the pyramid with thick layers of mud. He managed to stuff five thousand walkers into the pyramid before it filled up to capacity—much fewer than he expected.

  He set these walkers all over the interior, identifying chokepoints where they could hold off the swarm of hieracos for as long as they could. They then took up positions, preparing for any breach that may come through—especially on the upper levels of the pyramid. The hieracos may be distracted by the walkers outside the pyramid and the allied army knocking at its doorstep, but they could very easily sca
le the walls of the pyramid and begin chipping away at the recently-repaired walls to dig his walkers out of their pyramid.

  The dolls, on the other hand, spread out through the now-secured pyramid. They continually extended the physical connection, laying down a line from Martin’s network and hooking it up to the existing infrastructure of the pyramid. They buried this line within the clay floors of the pyramid, digging out the hardened material before spraying mud to cover it up.

  Martin began assuming control of the pyramid’s facilities one by one, from production vats to power generators.

  He could feel his consciousness slowly take over to the point where he ‘reached’ out and willed the production vats to begin churning out walkers. The dolls also slowly made their way toward the chamber containing the ruined crystal pillar, all while laying down a physical connection from his network along the way.

  The rest of the walkers in the assault force—the ones caught outside the pyramid—further reinforced their positions as best they could. They dug in deeper behind their shields to hold their positions, spears and blades flashing out to repel the swarming hieracosphinxes.

  All they needed to do was buy time for the dolls to take complete control of the facility, complete their repairs, while the allied army continued to provide as much support as they could along the front line.

  Martin’s allies fought hard, pulling rogue constructs from all directions and distracting them so they wouldn’t focus entirely on the damaged pyramid.

  But they were only human, limited by the frailty of their bodies and the supplies in their wagons.

  The archers were already running out of blood-arrows, carefully picking their targets and focusing only on the andros closing in on the captured pyramid.

  The chi manipulators and sahir casters were on their final rotations, many too fatigued to continue carrying on with such a massive and sustained barrage.