Archeologist Warlord: Book 3

by E. M. Hardy

  “We kept our eyes and ears open, watching out for any vulnerability we could exploit. While my cell was tasked with taking down the Empress, other cells must have studied the demon calling itself Martin, learned as much as possible about the way it operated. And they found it… or at least I think they did. No doubt about that if they managed to destroy the demon and its puppets.”

  The man chuckled, and Cui Dai resisted the urge to batter him to a pulp. He revealed more useful information in the previous few minutes than he did in the previous months, so she was in no mood to discourage him from his gloating.

  “Details,” she demanded flatly, without a hint of anger or sadness in her voice.

  Okuda’s chuckle threatened to devolve into cackling once more, but Cui Dai would have none of it. She slammed her hammer down on another toe, causing the man to howl out in pain.

  “I make no idle threats, Okuda Naosuke. Speak true, give me what I want, and this ends quickly. Deceive me any further, and you will know endless suffering for decades on end.”

  “Do you think you even have decades!?” raged Okuda, spit dangling from his cracked lips. “No, you and your Paper Empress will have a few years at most. If your collection of ruined states doesn’t topple you first, then the clay demons from the south will finish the job!”

  Cui Dai struck at the man’s kneecaps with a chi-enhanced swing of her hammer that caused even the flesh around the limb to gelatinize. Cui Dai revived Okuda from his unconscious stupor with a quick heal, slapping him awake.

  “Give me an educated guess,” she demanded once more, “on how you Rats managed to slip through Martin’s considerable defenses to destroy him so quickly he wouldn’t even know what was going on.”

  She gave the man a few minutes to sob before slapping him a few more times to regain his attention.

  “They… they must have found his weakness,” he croaked. “The others have always talked about how the demon controls his puppets. We bounced around a few ideas, with the most prominent one being he had some sort of ‘brain’ controlling his constructs. If they found it, then it was only a matter of having jinn raise their veils of darkness while the others shadow-walked with enough crystal bombs to destroy this brain of his.”

  Cui Dai grimaced from behind her mask. That would explain how the Rats could manage to pass through Martin’s defenses undetected and unchallenged. What disturbed her the most, however, was the fact that the Rats managed to contract with jinn that would agree to such a scheme.

  Enin chose to respond to her ritual, bond with her for as long as she lived in exchange for anchoring Enin to the Visible World during her lifetime. She felt nothing but unconditional trust from her jinn, but could such trust be perverted into something malicious and destructive?

  She shook herself free from her thoughts, focusing back on Okuda as he groaned in pain. The Rats could have very well chosen to assassinate the Empress with their knowledge of binding veils. But sahar like her and the jinn they contracted with would be able to identify any unnatural veils of shadow being woven as long as they knew what they were looking for.

  Martin, however, had no such links to the jinn and the magics they brought with them.

  He might be able to spot the auras of the Rat agents, but he did not have any way of piercing through the veils of shadow made by the jinn. Those veils would enhance the shadow-walking abilities of the Rat agents, who doubtless would have enhanced their abilities further by training under Martin’s obelisks.

  She nodded to the lead healer, who breathed a sigh of relief before proceeding to fix Okuda’s injuries. Cui Dai turned on her heel, preparing to walk out of the dungeons when Okuda screamed out after her.

  “You promised a quick and painless death!”

  “Yes, I did… I just didn’t say when.”

  Okuda kept screaming after her even as she shut the door to the dungeon and walked out to collect her apprentice. Cui Dai really didn’t care for the Rat’s fate; she was too busy worrying about how to tell all this to Her Augustness, whose wedding was supposed to commence in three days.

  Chapter 11

  Hobogetur should have been celebrating, roaring in victory while mocking the defeated khans kneeling before him. He should be waving their heads around, screaming at the top of his lungs and basking in the glory of a lopsided battle.

  An assembly of hordes nearly four times the size of his own, without the aid of the Mud Men, should have overrun his heavily outnumbered riders. Despite all this though, his Fate Riders always came out on top of every engagement. Their ability to glimpse the future coupled with their ability to cycle chi, cultivate prana, and bind blood to their weapons gave them an overwhelming advantage against their mundane foes.

  It was an achievement never before attained by any khan in the history of the Grass Peoples. It was a battle that would be told and retold around the campfires for generations, yet Hobogetur felt nothing but frustration at how slow their progress was—especially now that they could not train more Fate Riders.

  “Stop crowing and just do it already,” spat Tokhtamysh, leader of the Blooded Horde.

  Blood soaked through the bandages wrapped around his shoulder as a gash on his head covered his right eye in blood. Chapar, the leader of the Verdant Horde, stared blankly at an empty spot on the ground, while Bayarma of the Resolute Horde practically snarled as she struggled against her restraints.

  Hobogetur eyed them from his seat, his eyes lazily sweeping over their bound and kneeling forms. Would it be quicker to just kill them now, place a new puppet to lead their headless hordes? That course of action would be problematic. He might eliminate the existing headaches and rule by force like the other khans before him, but not for long.

  The New Dawn Alliance did the exact same thing when they took the Plainsrider, Sunstrider, and Crimson Hordes. The slightest sign of weakness, however, and those hordes turned on their overlords—which was exactly what happened in the recent battle.

  All it took was one decisive defeat at the hands of the Three Brothers Alliance, and the three conquered hordes turned on their former overlords with fire in their hooves.

  He had Chuluun to thank for that since he and his ‘friends’ whispered all the words in the right ears.

  Fairer treatment from the Three Brothers and the promise of vengeance upon those who enthralled them. If it were the old him, Hobogetur would have never made those promises in the first place.

  A total of six Hordes under his direct control, every proclamation enforced by the whip and blade? That would have been much too tempting to pass up.

  Not today, however, because Hobogetur’s plans required far more than simple thralls.

  “Chuluun,” he muttered in a low, grave tone, as he turned toward his sworn brother. “Have you told them of our plans?”

  He turned an inquisitive glance in Hobogetur’s way, brows meeting in a worried glance at his normally brash brother’s uncharacteristically soft-spoken approach.

  “Not yet. I figured I would rather save the effort for their replacements. You know, after you cut off their heads and mount them on a lance for all to see.”

  Tokhtamysh grimaced, Chapar gulped, and Bayarma paled even as she bared her teeth in a show of false bravado.

  “Todogen? Your thoughts?”

  The wisest of the three brothers blinked, surprised at being called at a time like this. Hobogetur wrinkled his nose lazily, displaying the impatience he was so obviously trying to quash. Todogen coughed into a balled fist and straightened his back to gather everyone’s attention.

  “Did you notice that the Mud Men have been missing as of late?”

  It took a few moments for the bound khans to realize that Todogen was asking them an actual question, not a rhetorical one.

  Tokhtamysh responded first with a stiff nod. “That’s why we decided to pool as many of our riders as we could and attack your people. We thought we could take you without the Mud Men getting in the way, th
at your earlier victory was all because of the support they gave you.”

  But we killed you all the same, Hobogetur almost said out loud, biting his tongue to prevent himself from doing so. It was just so tempting to gloat, to lord his victory over his most hated foes. He needed their help though, so he forced down his pride and let his softer-spoken brother lead the negotiations.

  Todogen simply nodded at that. “True. But do you know the reason why the Mud Men have disappeared, their once-living clay bodies no more than dead statues now?”

  The three captives hesitated, then shook their heads. “We have our suspicions,” Tokhtamysh continued, “But nothing solid. All we know is that the Mud Men move no more, and that it was the perfect time to strike.”

  Todogen nodded once more. “Yes, that is a reasonable assumption to make. I would most likely do the same if I were in your position.”

  “Just how did your riders become so powerful in such a short amount of time?” Tokhtamysh dared, his abrasiveness slipping away with Todogen’s calm, curious praise of their decision.

  “We struck a deal with the devil,” Chuluun answered for his brother with a shrug of his shoulders. “Martin had been pestering us for so long, almost pleading that we work with him, that it’s almost pathetic. In a way, we have you to thank for that. If you hadn’t driven us off our grasses, driven us to despair, we would never have realized the true worth of all that he offered us.”

  “Your defeats at our hands was… good?”

  “In a way,” Todogen joined in, supporting Chuluun’s facetious tone with a more reassuring one. “We expected Martin to be a cruel overlord, holding our families hostage to compel us to fight his battles for him. We didn’t expect the support we received, from food and land for our tired people to training that unlocked powers we never thought we would ever possess.”

  Chapar and Bayarma joined in with Tokhtamysh’s eagerness, their curiosity replacing their earlier fear and brash bravado as the two brothers answered inquiry after inquiry. Hobogetur fought down the irritation that made him want to lash out, grinding his teeth at the roundabout way Todogen was taking things.

  They were captives bought with blood, dammit, not guests of honor to be regaled with tales and gossip!

  “Which brings us to our current dilemma,” Chuluun said after a half hour of pointless chit-chat. Finally! thought Hobogetur to himself as he breathed a sigh of relief that only he believed was quiet and subtle.

  “Indeed,” answered Tokhtamysh with more life and vigor in his voice than before. “You wouldn’t be wasting your time—and ours—if you didn’t have something else in mind.”

  “Quite true. You see, we have a huge problem right now. Brother Hobogetur, would you mind recounting what you saw on your adventure to the sandy deserts of the south?”

  Would you like me to bash your face in? Hobogetur almost responded to Chuluun, the way he intoned his inquiry as if he were commanding him to speak. He huffed in slight annoyance, the only admission of the hostility he felt, before speaking up.

  “Right. I spent a month in lands known as the Bashri Basin. Hot, dry place with more dirt and sand than plants and grass. The real kicker, however, is the presence of other Mud Creatures. If you thought the Mud Men were bad, you should see the Mud Lions. The small ones are what Martin called hieracosphinxes. Imagine plains leopards with the heads of oversized eagles. Vicious little things, all claws and beaks bundled up into little bundles of fury.

  “Then there were the big lions with human heads—androsphinxes, Martin called them. You’d think something as tall as a hill would move slow as a slug with all the weight it tossed around. Piss it off, however, and it’ll come running at you faster than a deer with a pack of wolves hot on its ass.”

  The Khan of the Shining Horde shook his head when he realized he was rambling and that his audience stared at him with a distinct lack of comprehension in their eyes.

  “Now… see all the mountains and hills off to the horizon?” Hobogetur raised a finger as he spoke, pointing it east toward the horizon and sweeping it all the way west.

  “Imagine swarms of Mud Lions filling up the grass from here, where we stand, to as far away as your eyes can see.”

  He glowered at the three captives, emphasizing how dead serious he was. “Now imagine that every single one of those accursed things wants to kill you, your spouse, your mother and father, your sons and daughters… basically, everyone you love and hate in this world.”

  Tokhtamysh blinked. Chapar pouted. Bayarma furrowed her brows in confusion, looking all around her for someone to provide the punchline to a bad joke.

  “You’re serious,” Bayarma uttered a few moments later.

  Hobogetur sighed. The look on her face mirrored his own when he first heard about the Mud Men protecting the Empire. He dismissed it as horseshit, as some ploy by a faltering throne to scare the Grass Peoples away from its territory.

  He guessed wrong.

  The second time he wore that expression of incredulity was when Martin warned him about a swarm of other mud creatures rampaging in the deserts of the south. He suspended his disbelief long enough to investigate things for himself. Lo and behold, the spirit of the Mud Men was actually telling the truth.

  “Yes, Bayarma, I am dead serious. There are bigger things happening around us right now, terrible things that I have seen with my own two eyes. And I am offering you your lives, the lives of your riders, and the lives of all your families in exchange for a little help…”

  ***

  “Do you realize how stupid you sound right now?”

  Nergui of the Azure Lance glared at Hobogetur as she sat cross-legged, her two sworn sisters frowning as deeply as she did. Hobogetur grunted, resisted the urge to follow it up with a curse, and just crossed his own arms in turn.

  Samja of the Crimson Lance huffed angrily, thrust her chest out, and crossed her arms in defiance. “Do you really think we’re going to believe these silly tales of yours? You were never smart, Hobogetur, but I never figured you for a liar. Why not just say that you’re going to sic those beaten dogs of yours on us if we won’t dance to the tune of your fiddle! “

  Hobogetur couldn’t help but groan and slap a meaty palm to his face. Three times—three times he had to deal with that exact same reaction from the heads of the Alliances, and nobody ever took him at his word.

  He possessed the backing of nine Hordes behind him—almost half of the major Hordes across the Grass Seas—and the remaining independent khans still treated him like he was insane!?

  Now he knew exactly how Martin felt all those long months ago when he was trying to convince him of the threat of the rogues. Unlike Martin, though, Hobogetur did not possess the patience to keep playing the even-keeled diplomat. If only he had time, he would leave everything up to Chuluun or Todogen who were far better at talking nice to others.

  And yet they were needed elsewhere, convincing the more cunning khans to ride along with their scheme to establish this republic of theirs. These three sworn sisters of the Three-Pronged Lance Alliance were stubborn, yes, but they weren’t crafty enough to run circles around him.

  “If that’s what it takes to get you and yours to believe me, then yes, I’m a big, fat, sodding liar! I figured that I could at least give you three the benefit of knowing why, exactly, I’m riding around the Grass Seas talking to the Khans instead of simply trampling everyone under the weight of my hordes! But no, everyone just obsesses over how crazy my reasons are!”

  He threw his hands up in the air, sick to his stomach of being patient and ready to go on an extended rant to vent the pent-up frustration inside him. Then he just deflated with a sigh, cutting off all the angry words in his mind, and lowered his hands with a sad shake of his head.

  “Fine. Screw it. You three, submit to the Great Horde and send five thousand of your best riders. Each. I mean five thousand riders from each of your Hordes, a total of fifteen thousand.

  “In exchan
ge, you get to keep control of your territory. No raids, no slaving, no other demands or tributes… we’ll even send riders to protect you if anyone else decides to raid your lands. We just need you to contribute your share of warriors for a campaign against foreign devils that plan to attack the Grass Seas.

  “There. Does that sound more believable?”

  The three sworn sisters stared at him like he had grown an extra head on his shoulders.

  “In that case, you can just shove your threats right up your—”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” blurted Enkhtuya of the Shadowed Lance, interrupting Samja before she could say any more. “You truly believe in the threat of these… Mud Creatures you speak of.”

  Hobogetur sighed. “Saw them with my own eyes. An endless tide of vicious things, stretching as far as the eye can see.”

  He turned toward Nergui, scorn in his eyes. “But what of it? The reality behind my reasons sounds stupid, yes?”

  He then turned toward Samja to inflict her with the same contempt he felt for her sworn sister. “I’m the stupid one among the three of my brothers anyway, so why bother?”

  “Sarcasm does not become you, and it never will,” lectured Enkhtuya, her tone sharper now. “The same goes for self-pity, you who would claim the title of Great Khan.”

  Her cutting reminder of his position sliced through his wounded ego, and he quickly recomposed himself all while silently cursing his moment of weakness.

  “You’re right,” he said, sitting straighter and taking a deep breath to calm himself down. “So… Khans of the Three-Pronged Lance, what say you about our proposal?”

  Enkhtuya narrowed her gaze as she tapped her chin, a paragon of calm when compared to the two sisters scowling and grimacing beside her.

  “Fifteen thousand riders… that represents a significant number of our fighting men and women, Hobogetur. Take away those riders, and our already-weakened alliance will be further depleted—all for a promise that we are not even sure will be fulfilled.”