Archeologist Warlord: Book 3

by E. M. Hardy

  Did they find some way to repel the rogues, deal enough damage to force them back into the Wastes? Or were they faltering, delaying the inevitable as an endless onslaught of constructs ground them down to dust?

  Maybe it wasn’t even an army marching south toward the Wastes… just a horde of refugees escaping north, fleeing into Imperial territory.

  Martin redoubled his efforts as the possibility settled into his mind, using his expanded ability to draw in chi to collect even more shards. The ambient levels may be lower now without the army providing their ambient lifeforce, but he nonetheless possessed a greater ability to pull in chi from a far wider area than he could as a tiny shard on the ground.

  The mandala patterns he etched on the crystals and carved in the mud lattice helped out immensely in that regard.

  Only creatures of flesh and blood could cycle prana within themselves, collect it into a core that replenishes itself over time. Martin was not such a living creature and did not have flesh and blood that would create prana on its own.

  The mandala patterns, however, allowed him to store ambient chi in the same way a cultivator collects the vital energies of prana. He would then expend the collected chi with far more efficiency than he would if he simply relied on the ambient chi floating around in the air. It was a concept that he already applied extensively to his walkers—one that he could work into his core now that he was rebuilding it from scratch.

  Time passed slowly as Martin worked on the crystalline lattices of his vessel, his ethereal core expanding with each new crystal shaped into the physical vessel. A tiny little footstool of mud eventually grew into a small mound, then a man-high column as wide as a man’s hip.

  Time lost all meaning as he toiled, pulling all the chi he could and then waiting for more to float into the barren tunnels of his dead pyramid. He eventually gathered all the loose rubble within the room, all the broken shards from his pyramid. He molded everything together, recreating his core to the best of his abilities.

  He remade the broken vessel of his core after an undetermined amount of time, encased protectively within a pillar of hardened mud.

  This was, ironically, the second time that Martin rebuilt himself. The first was when he first discovered what he was actually doing with all the souls he siphoned, the hell he inflicted to torture the power out from them.

  He reshaped his ethereal core then, breaking the pnevmatic bindings and fashioning them to function without needing to trap and torture souls.

  This time, he reshaped the physical vessel of his core. He loosened the clay that served as both shell and mold for his new core, keeping the fluid crystal in place while he reworked the crystalline lattice. Thick chunks of brown clay peeled off of the new pillar, the crystal structure shimmering with chi passively absorbed from living things.

  Swirling patterns that worked their way in then out then back in again covered the pillar, serving to more easily gather chi and store it up to useful levels. This energy, the life energy of living creatures, sustained Martin even while he was cut off from the pnevmatic generators that went offline with his death.

  If there was one good thing to come from the Rats destroying his core, it was the way he rebuilt it to run off of chi. Now that he knew it was possible, it would only be a matter of time before he discovered other means of powering his core.

  Or at the very least augmenting the pnevma that he relied upon. Chi and prana were enough to sustain one partition of consciousness, but he doubted they would be enough for the legions of thought he needed for all his constructs.

  It was at that moment when Martin finally remembered the one teeny, tiny detail he overlooked: how exactly did he come back from the dead?

  Coming back from the dead is always a useful trick to keep on hand, especially when your enemies can go invisible and sneak up on you. He noted the matter as something to look into, pushing it aside for later investigation since he still had work to do.

  He reached out to the workings within the Qleb Pyramid. He pushed his consciousness through the inert connections of the buried pyramid, traversing through the physical connections to the various structures within.

  He traveled through them one by one until he came across the facility he needed the most: his pnevmatic generators.

  His awareness expanded, and he immediately began rerouting his consciousness toward the other generators. The squat, cylindrical structures hummed to life, tapping energy from the realms where immortal souls reside and rejoin the cycle.

  His consciousness fragmented into dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of partitions as he reached out beyond the Qleb Sierra to every corner of his network.

  Constructs within and around the Qleb Sierra pyramid began to revive from their long slumber.

  The doll-like Shapers shivered and pushed themselves up, immediately getting to the task of repairing and restoring the damaged sections of the pyramid. They marched deep into mines below the pyramid, hauling raw mud up to dump into the production vats that would churn out usable clay.

  The four-legged Loaders groaned to life, shaking off their paralysis and teaming up with the dolls to begin transporting precious raw materials where they were needed the most.

  The spherical Drifters floated up into the air, resuming their patrols. They saw all, absorbed the goings-on around his territory while keeping a keen eye out for threats—like unnatural shadows, for example.

  A thousand voices all belonging to Martin groaned in relief. After all those weeks, maybe even months of being stuck in a singular vessel, Martin savored the feeling of being able to flex fingers, jump around, basically get moving again.

  All the myriad consciousnesses feeding information to him all at once, allowing him to perceive many visions of the world at once… he would have cried if he could. Being stuck in a single body, a single mind with a single set of sensations, constricted him far more than he cared to admit to anyone.

  Yes, he really didn’t miss being trapped in one bag of flesh with perceptions limited to just one point of view.

  He expanded his reach as he recovered, bringing more and more pnevmatic generators online. Quite a few of his relay obelisks were down, damaged either by the elements or by the hands of men. The spare nodes he built, however, ensured that the signal from his core pyramid reached far and wide.

  He made sure that no network would ever be cut off by a single broken node, with multiple obelisks overlapping to ensure that his control signal was always connected with the rest of his constructs.

  An old quote crossed his mind then: redundancy is good; redundancy is good; redundancy is very, very good. And it was very good indeed, especially now that he needed it the most.

  His constructs woke up in all sorts of conditions, strangely enough. Most got up from where they froze up, especially the ones out patrolling the clay highways he built. Many others were lumped together in massive piles or graves, missing limbs from their rough treatment.

  Martin dug his selves out of these graves, arms groping out of the dirt like in a bad zombie horror flick. He felt a hint of guilty pleasure enjoying how people ran around like headless chickens, screaming in fear. He would have to do a lot of explaining to the guards rushing toward the graves of the clay men.

  And then there were the weird ones—those tied up to posts, laid on top of hearths, left leaning at the entrances of households, and propped up on fields or on the roadsides. He took a moment to take in the markings and charms laid out for good luck.

  The people around these ones cheered when they saw the walkers, dolls, and cow-boxes come to life. Some even cried as they rushed the closest walkers, bombarding him with questions about what happened.

  Martin guessed he wasn’t as feared or as despised as he first thought.

  The strangest awakenings, however, came from the walkers waking up in the middle of the Wastes.

  He stilled his walkers so that they played dead. He did the same for the rest of his constr
ucts stuck behind enemy lines—the dolls, cow-boxes, and eyeballs. He carefully peered around their surroundings, taking in what landmarks he could see and making sense of the terrain.

  This mass of walkers lay exactly where they fell when he died. The rogues must have sensed the lack of life in them, the lack of threat they posed, and left them alone.

  The rogues were, however, no longer moving in a huge swarm. Thin lines of hieracos moved in columns of two, marching steadily toward somewhere in the distance. There were still hundreds of them, sure, but it was a far cry from their old numbers.

  The last time Martin fought here, the rogues literally blanketed the sands of the Wastes in their numbers. Millions swarming as far as the eye can see, all plodding steadily toward the front lines.

  Speaking of front lines, Martin needed to know how the allied army was faring against the rogues.

  He located an eyeball buried in the sands away from any nearby androsphinxes or hieracosphinxes. He gave it the all-clear, and it quietly floated up into the air to get a better view of things.

  It confirmed his suspicions, observing the thin lines of rogues heading west from the Wastes, toward the populated sections of the Bashri Basin. Other isolated eyeballs floated up to resume their overwatch, and they all noticed the same thing: thin lines of rogues all converging toward the front.

  Yes, this was a definite improvement. He and the allies must have thinned out the reserves of the rogues enough that they were trickling instead of flooding their constructs to the battle.

  Or maybe the current front lines were so far west that they already reached civilization, burning and destroying entire cities for whatever reason they were programmed to.

  Then he remembered the physical connection to one of the rogue pyramids, the one he managed to set up right before the Rats blew up his core. He traversed that connection, eager to get back into the fight.

  Chapter 14

  The Great Khan frowned while his riders glumly picked up their weapons, some muttering curses as they glared at him from the corner of their eyes. Sand and grit crackled underneath their boots as they stomped to their assigned positions, checking the heavy shafts and heavier blades of their halberds as they formed sloppy lines.

  He glared right back, daring anyone to maintain eye contact for more than a split second; none took him up on his silent challenge.

  Yet another day of damnable slogging for the Great Horde and the rest of the allied army. The novelty of bashing the mud lions and their bigger human-headed counterparts faded after the first week. All that remained was the endless grind—one that they were losing.

  “Ho, Hobo! I see you woke up with a scorpion climbing up your ass today!” Venkati, the Maharaja of the Sahaasi Dominion, strode beside Hobogetur who ignored him and continued surveying his troops.

  “I told you to stop calling me that. Can’t you get that one simple request through your skull, you thick-headed jungle ape?”

  “Oof,” breathed Ishida Shogun quietly while he stepped in beside the two men. Venkati, however, completely ignored the slur and just slapped Hobogetur on the shoulder as he laughed out loud.

  “Oh, come on, Hobo… getur,” the irksome man taunted, twirling his mustache while Hobogetur faced him with narrowed eyes. “Today is a beautiful day! There are a few clouds on the horizon, meaning we’ll be fighting in the comfort of shade. And besides, a caravan bearing water, rice, dried dates, and goat jerky arrived just yesterday! What more can you ask for?”

  “I don’t know, maybe that those stupid things would just keel over and die already. Like Martin’s Mud Men on that one day. Remember that day, numbskull?”

  “As clear as yesterday,” Venkati replied, his smile thinning. “Wish we still had his walkers supporting the army.” Hobogetur fought back the sudden impulse to apologize, then reconsidered out of pride before turning toward his men and women.

  Ishida coughed into his gauntleted hand, clutching his beetle-like helmet in the other. “Well then, gentlemen. Shall we get to it?”

  Hobogetur sighed, put on his own helmet, tucked the tuft of horsehair atop the plated gear behind his neck, and walked toward his mount. Maharaja Venkati and Ishida Shogun did the same, each climbing their respective steeds to hand out orders for the day. A few tired bleats of the horn later, and the day’s grueling work began once more.

  The vast majority of the Great Horde now fought on foot, abandoning their mounts and eschewing their bows and lances for the long-shafted halberds brought in from the various emirates around the area. The extra length kept the troops beyond the reach of the beaks and talons of the mud lions, while the weight of the head added extra power to each swing and thrust.

  These were why the halberds became the weapon of choice for the regular troops, providing a safe and reliable tool for demolishing the mud lions straining against their invisible border. Their mounts were used to extend the supply chains, allowing for more arms and supplies to be shipped in from the Bashri Basin and Imperial lands.

  This transformation from rider to footman, more than the actual fighting, was why many of the warriors in the Great Horde were so pissed off at Hobogetur.

  They took great pride in their horsemanship, of the mobility their steeds provided in the battlefield. By taking away their mounts and turning them into mere pack mules, they believed that Hobogetur was taking away their very souls.

  Unfortunately for the vaunted horsemen of the Grass Seas, mobility was not vital in this campaign—not when compared to logistics. Dealing with the sun and sand of the Bashri Basin was bad enough, but the Wastes were a much more punishing environment to fight in.

  It was hard enough to feed and water the troops, never mind having to do the same for tens of thousands of mounts.

  The only good thing about the constant advance of the mud creatures was that they kept bringing the line closer and closer to civilization. Shorter supply lines meant more food, arms, and equipment for the fighting men and women of the allied army… at least until the lines were pushed back all the way to the farms and cities.

  As such, Hobogetur acted less like a warrior and more like a coordinator. He directed fresh troops to replace those worn out by the fighting, with the edge of their halberds dulled or their shafts snapped off by the hieracos. He pointed out where the mangonels, catapults, ballistae and other siege engines would deliver their payloads for maximum effect.

  He kept a close watch on where the mud creatures began bunching up, directing troops to move in and gouge chunks out of their formations. He kept in constant contact with the messengers, ready to pull back the lines should the chang gun riders report in, alerting the army about a close pyramid nearing completion.

  Prince Mufeed and his retinue of guards approached his command post six grueling hours later.

  “Time to rotate.”

  No pomp, no bravado, no macho displays of dick-measuring disguised as ceremony. No, everyone was just too tired of the grind to care about that anymore. Three simple words spoken gruffly, tersely, and with plenty of fatigue mixed in.

  “Got it,” Hobogetur grunted back, eyeing the royal before him. Thick, ropy muscles from months of fighting the mud lions. Deep, dark rings under his eyes. A thick, scraggly beard that was obviously too much of a pain to regularly shave off. A few light scars forcibly healed through the power of chi. Yes, this was a man who had been fighting the mud creatures far longer than he should have been.

  Just like everyone else.

  The forces of the Great Horde, Taiyo Sovereignty, and Sahaasi Dominion began pulling away from the front lines. In their place marched in the troops of the various emirates of the Bashri Basin, along with the Imperial forces under the command of Generals Shen Feng and Qiu Ja.

  Hobogetur now sat cross-legged atop a rocky hill, shoveling steamed rice into his mouth with his fingers before biting down on some boiled jerky. He groaned, savoring the sticky rice in his mouth, for it would be a long time until he would taste steame
d anything in the desiccating conditions of the Wastes.

  He continued eating his meal as the battle unfolded on the sands below him, the forces from Ma’an fighting alongside their jinn partners. He grunted, noting that practically every single soldier from the emirate wound up with a jinn at their side.

  Some fought with their ethereal weapons, slashing and stabbing and smashing at the mud creatures. Others fought with their strange magics, hurling rocks and blinding the mud creatures with light and shadow. He saw some jinni mingling in with the armies of the other emirates, though not as densely packed as the soldiers from Ma’an.

  The Imperials also put on a good show, with waves of chi knocking down the mud lions and making it easier for the infantry to finish them off with their halberds. Teams of martial artists moved along the lines, pulling out the injured and plugging the gaps long enough for reinforcements to arrive and resume the fighting. A couple dozen jinni helped out where they could, casting their spells and diving in with their weapons.

  He was still busy chewing on a slab of jerky, ruminating on possible formations to improve fighting efficiency, when he heard someone sneaking up behind him.

  “Don’t you two have anything better to do? Isn’t your wife jealous of you spending so much time around me? And you, don’t you have to go bleed on your sword or something?”

  “She’s not my wife… yet,” Venkati replied with a chuckle as he sat down beside Hobogetur, who scooted aside to give him extra space. Ishida Shogun said nothing as he took his own seat on the opposite side of Hobogetur, squishing him in the middle. The Maharaja pulled up his water vessel—made out from the hollowed-out, dried-up skin of some fruit called a gourd—and took a nice, long pull.

  “Good work out there,” muttered Ishida, taking out his own waterskin.

  Hobogetur nodded, chewing and swallowing another mouthful of rice before responding. “Not good enough, apparently.” He licked the excess rice from his fingers before using one to point at a pyramid off in the distance. “Didn’t the Imp sky-riders knock that pyramid out just yesterday?”