Initializing

by E. M. Hardy

  Martin had carefully hidden his 400 cow-boxes away from the prying eyes of Shen Feng’s pickets. Those cow-boxes would not be able to do much, not when the majority of the general’s troops were out on the field. They would crash into the general’s army, maybe hurt them a little, but then that’s all that they would have accomplished. However, now that the majority of the general’s forces were engaged inside the pyramid, the cow-boxes had far fewer threats to deal with them. That, and they had the element of surprise since Martin’s eyeballs had pinpointed the location of all of the pickets watching them.

  Or at least Martin thought he had all the pickets located.

  A bright firework flare flew up a hundred yards from the pyramid, immediately catching the attention of Shen Feng’s spotters in his camp. Martin swore once more as he realized the pickets he had spotted were meant to be spotted. They were out in the open, on top of prominent perches where they had a wide range of vision. Shen Feng, however, had set up a second layer of pickets that were camouflaged under a thick layer of brush. Martin had not seen these pickets, and their smoking flares told Martin that he had lost the element of surprise.

  Damn the man and his competence.

  Still, Martin had 400 cow-boxes bearing down on Shen Feng’s troops outside the pyramid, which numbered about 500-odd reservists. All the martial artists were stuck inside the pyramid, bashing away at walkers that were trying vainly to check their progress. Those men and women posed a greater threat than the common soldiers, what with their insane combat abilities. Without them in the picture, Martin figured his cow-boxes would be able to do far more damage to the regular troops.

  And so the cow-boxes thundered on, eager to finally butt heads with something. They had been communicating their displeasure at being forced to stay in one position for such a long time, and were now joyously galloping through the muck and mire toward ‘glorious head-butting.’ Those weren’t their exact words, but they were the right fit for the sentiments Martin received through his connection with them.

  Except Martin didn’t have them go straight at the pyramid. Through his eyeballs, he noticed that Shen Feng was arranging his reserve troops to face a threat coming from the direction of the flare. The general had reacted quickly, and his lieutenants were actually pulling forces out of the pyramid. Martin figured that Shen Feng did not want his troops getting caught on two fronts, and that he would rather face this new, unknown threat with a solid force than a depleted one.

  The man playing just as conservatively as Martin, who recalled his own reckless decision back in the underground ruins. The whole thing aggravated him whenever he remembered it, but he shook himself free from the distracting memory to focus on the task at hand.

  It was then that Martin noticed that the martial artists were staying behind in the pyramid. It would appear that the good general was not completely abandoning the assault on the structure. He figured these elite troops of his were doing the most damage with their superior skills while the regular troops were being held in check by the spears and shields of the walkers. The pressure on the front entrance alleviated as the general pulled out more of the regulars, but the martial artists remained a threat that Martin had to deal with. He needed to pressure Shen Feng enough that he would recall them back outside and far, far away from the precious generators and production vats within the pyramid.

  That is why he kept the cow-boxes in check, much to their chagrin.

  They wanted to just go in there, bust some heads and run people down. Martin, on the other hand, needed them to keep Shen Feng’s forces tied up outside the pyramid. He had the cow-boxes run circuits around the pyramid, intentionally exposing them to the camouflaged pickets. They fired off flare after flare, alerting Shen Feng to the forces attacking his pyramid, and Martin hoped that the general assumed he was going to face a large number of reinforcements.

  After all, Martin only needed to buy more time for the Empress to arrive—not inflict more casualties upon the men and women who were fighting under false orders.

  Shen Feng’s signalers soon started waving their flags, relaying the general’s orders as they did so. Martin wanted to celebrate in joy, hoping against hope that Shen Feng would pull out his martial artists to assist the troops outside—giving him the time he so desperately needed.

  Except that it was not what the general’s forces did. Instead, they all began surging inside the pyramid. Even Shen Feng himself donned his helmet, shouting as he lifted up a massive glaive and urged his troops forward.

  In horror, Martin realized that the general had decided he would storm the pyramid. Martin racked his brain for an answer on why the general would commit such a bone-headed error. The only reason that he could think of was that the general may have planned to hold off Martin’s reinforcements from the safety of its walls. Then Martin had created a ruse that he was sending in a large attacking force. Maybe the ruse had worked too well, and the general thought he would not be able to hold the field against the numbers he would be facing on the open field. The man would rather send his forces within the walls of the pyramid, risk getting his people crushed from two sides, instead of getting caught out in the open.

  Martin cursed the man’s decision, especially since his choice had committed his forces into an all-out offensive on the pyramid itself. Martin did not have a larger force beyond the trees of the swamp, and this desperate attack was the last thing he wanted the general to do.

  Realizing that there was no turning back from this, Martin decided to send in his cow-boxes to at least try and cut off any retreating forces they could catch. They were simply too far though, as Martin had them run a wide circuit to sound off as many pickets as he could. By the time his cow-boxes broke through the tree cover, they could only glimpse the siege engineers break off from their weapons and run for the entrance of the pyramid, their fellow soldiers covering their retreat.

  A few of the cow-boxes began ramming the abandoned siege engines while the rest made a beeline for the men, but it was too late: they were already inside the pyramid and had set the butts of their pikes down on the ground.

  Some of the cow-boxes broke formation and joyfully smashed into the wall of pikes, causing the formation to stumble. Many of the spikes on the tip of the pikes simply slid off the ceramic bodies of the cow-boxes, though many more arrested the advances of the charging cow-boxes. The sheer number of pikes being held up by the troops at the entrance was the only reason that the cow-boxes were not able to completely burst through the troops.

  Martin had a hard time reigning in the cow-boxes, but he eventually got them to stop their suicidal charge into the pikes. While doing so, he felt disturbed by just how much the cow-boxes relished the opportunity to bash into something—even if it meant ‘losing’ their lives. To be fair though, they didn’t have any lives to lose. Perhaps their programming—or their consciousness—was shared, like Martin. If that were case, then their losses were nothing more than learning experiences for the main consciousness to absorb.

  But that wasn’t the case for Shen Feng and his soldiers. Martin could see through the eyes of his walkers that the men and women were anxious about being trapped between the faceless walkers on one side and the headless cavalry on the other. The sudden turn of this siege started to take a toll on their minds and bodies, which Martin hoped would make them falter and slow down.

  Thing is, the exact opposite happened: they renewed their advance and pushed even harder against the barricades out of sheer desperation. Shen Feng’s signalers must have sent out an order to take the pyramid at all costs.

  Martin had been ready for such a charge though, and his walkers unleashed a hail of javelins just as the first charge began. Screams sounded all across the line as javelins poured into their midst.

  Because of Shen Feng’s decision to press the attack, his troops were taking far more casualties this time. They were so focused on gaining ground that they failed to get the fallen bodies out in time. This was why
the shayateen began manifesting even before the dead could be carried out from their formations in time.

  It started as one undead—a woman who had taken a javelin to the neck. The other soldiers around her were too busy pulling out two other corpses that had fallen to javelins. She abruptly sat up from her fallen position as her empty, unblinking eyes looked upon the carnage around her. In one feral screech, she began raging away at the soldiers around her as she used her hands and fingers like dead weights attached to two flailing appendages. The soldiers dropped their pikes to draw their swords and begin slashing away at the woman’s frenzied attacks, dropping whatever tasks they were doing—including the two corpses they were supposed to be hauling out. Martin had already absorbed their souls, and he could already hear the maddened voices shout in glee as they possessed the unwatched bodies. Panic quickly set its poisonous claws into the soldiers that were packed tightly under their shields, squeezed together by the narrow halls of the pyramid. Martin continuously absorbed the souls of the fallen, strengthening his walkers while creating more vessels for the shayateen to unleash their anger upon the living.

  The colonel in charge of the attack on the main entrance continued urging them to push forward, shouting to her lieutenants to get their people back in order, but she quickly changed her mind when she saw the carnage unfolding after the first few shayateen had raised the dead. The panic they caused was ruining the tight formations of the Renese soldiers, as they could not battle their undead comrades while simultaneously keeping their shields up to defend themselves.

  By the time the twenty-first undead had risen, the soldiers at the entrance had broken ranks and they began vacating the pyramid as javelins rained down on them. Martin wanted them out, so he pulled back his remaining cow-boxes and allowed the Renese troops to fall back outside, battling the undead as they did so. This gave him more time to bring up dolls that started repairing the barricades, sealing up the breaches with ceramic paste and recovering the crumbled ruins of walkers for later recycling.

  Martin couldn’t rest easy, though. While the main entrance was safe for the moment, the martial artists and the troops following them were doing much more damage than Martin wanted. They had already broken through the first barricade, shattering the walkers that were guarding it with powerful, Chi-enhanced strikes. They had now set their sights on the second barricade Martin had built behind the first one, and they were flush with confidence thanks to their easy win over the first one.

  He had been counting on that overconfidence.

  Some of the more experienced martial artists had sensed the trap right as Martin triggered it. They yelled out and pulled back the companions they could, save for one brash martial artist who thought she was invincible. It was the same woman who had been flitting atop the spears, landing daintily on their shafts before lashing out with a sword to dismember and decapitate the walkers holding the spears. She had flown ahead of her fellow martial artists, mocking them for their slowness and telling them to catch up.

  The sneer on her face as she looked back on her comrades turned into a gasp of shock. She had turned around right when the walkers had launched a barrage of javelins. The taunt she directed at her comrades took a second of her focus, and the turn back toward the barricades cost her another half-second. Her battle-honed reflexes were fast enough to react, and she managed to dodge the javelins thrown by the walkers defending the barricades. She also parried some she could not avoid with her sword, knocking most of them away with a wave of Chi, while twisting her body as she stepped off a ‘platform’ of air—again, created by her Chi. She was not, however, able to completely avoid the spears of four walkers that had ambushed her from a darkened recess in the tunnel. Martin’s perfect control and coordination over his walkers allowed him to time this ambush down to the second. And it paid off.

  A more heavily-armored martial artist would have been able to absorb the piercing strikes. However, this martial artist was obviously trained in speed and agility, and the spears ripped through her chi-enforced dress before finding their targets. She managed to deflect one spear with her free hand and parry another with her sword, but two spears found their mark—one in her gut, another in her lung.

  She collapsed to the ground, blood frothing from her mouth due to the punctured lung, before one of the walkers in the ambush team finished the job with a spear to the heart.

  Her soul burned like a beacon, brighter than anything Martin had ever encountered before. Where the souls of others had been gaseous entities, this one was luminescent and almost solid in its brilliance. It pulsed with great power, and Martin reached out with his own nebulous existence to grasp the beacon of light that mesmerized him so.

  And at that instant, when he took her essence within himself, when her soul unlocked the mysteries of Chi to his uncomprehending mind, Martin knew exactly why the invaders were so addicted to souls.

  Chapter 25

  “Yao Xiu… wake up, Yao Xiu.”

  The young historian-slash-diplomat started, sweat dripping down her neck and forehead as a woman tapped her shoulder. She was confused, her mind still screaming for mercy as the executioner’s poleaxe slammed down on her neck. Then she remembered that it was all a dream, that the Empress had exonerated her, that her head was still attached to her body, and that she was on an open-air carriage heading to the Leizhu Swamp Pyramid.

  Lead Historian Cui Dai frowned at her once-student, shaking her head in that stern manner of hers before handing Yao Xiu a towel. “We’re almost at the pyramid. Wipe yourself up, historian, and do try to make yourself more presentable when Her Majesty requests your services.” The woman’s frown would have been more intimidating if she had not been stuffing her face with one of the meat buns.

  At least the lead historian was courteous enough to offer Yao Xiu a bun of her own. She nodded quietly, accepting the snack after toweling off the sweat on her face and head. The journey had been smoother than when she first came here, thanks largely to the dolls and cow-boxes that had been laying down a road to Five Gorges. At least, that was before General of the White Tiger Shen Feng received his false orders.

  That was why Yao Xiu worried for Martin. He seemed like a goodhearted but bumbling fool that was in over his head. He was attempting to cobble together an alliance in an attempt to fight against the invaders of legend, the monsters from Diyu that would break through into this world via great gates in the sky. Last she heard, Martin’s forces were on their way to claim some ruins at the Bashri Desert when he was caught completely off-guard by Shen Feng’s attack. She was worried that he would crumble under the general’s forces, considering the difference in might.

  And that was another strange thing. Martin’s eyeballs hovered all over the skies, one of them following the convoy heading to the pyramid. He was keeping an eye on the Empress and Prince Suhaib, but he was not engaging them like he used to. The eyeballs floated high, not bothering to interact and give updates. This fact worried Yao Xiu more than anything.

  “Lead Historian, what do you think—”

  “Don’t call me that. We are both full historians now, colleague Yao Xiu, and I’m not your lead anymore. That makes us equals… at least on paper.”

  Yao Xiu sheepishly bowed her head even as she wanted to knock the bitter frown on the woman’s face. Well, if she was going to be all stuffy about it, then Yao Xiu guessed she could oblige the woman.

  “Very well. Colleague Cui Dai, why do you think Martin is not contacting us anymore?” She nodded toward the eyeballs floating lazily up in the sky. “He was constantly badgering us with questions and updates back at the camp, but now he just seems so… so aloof.”

  The historian spent a few seconds chewing, savoring the flavor of the meat bun, before formulating her reply.

  “Well, what would you feel if a friend you trusted stuck a knife in your gut the moment you turned your back on him?”

  Yao Xiu gaped at the bluntness of the historian’s statement. Cui Dai
just smirked as she finished off her meat bun before fishing out another one from her pack.

  “I’m betting he’s mad at all of us in the Empire. And besides, I’m guessing he’s still fighting with Shen Feng’s troops since those eyeballs are still up there. According to what he said about his constructs, those should be dropping out of the sky the moment the general successfully breaks Martin’s control in this region.”

  That pulled a frown out of Yao Xiu. The man behind the constructs was simply trying to help people, and now he was the victim of some intrigue or misunderstanding that he had no part in. It was so… so unfair.

  “And what of the general? What do you think will happen to Shen Feng once we arrive at the pyramid and the Empress rescinds his false orders?”

  “It depends. Shen Feng broke the oath of vassalage the Empress swore with Martin. If he’s lucky, Her Majesty will understand his situation and will only ask for his head as recompense for breaking her oath. If he’s unlucky, she will not only demand his life but will also force his family to share his fate… maybe even up to the second degree, if she is that displeased with him.”

  “That’s… that’s too cruel,” Yao Xiu said, paling at the thought.

  The general was a cunning man, experienced in the art of war and possessing some of the best-trained forces that the Empire of Ren could offer. He was responsible for the defense of the western provinces, the very heartland of the Empire as the Red City was located firmly within his control. He was Her Majesty’s spear, ready to thrust out at its enemies within and without. It seemed unfair for him to end up with such a fate, for he was just being used by Her Majesty’s enemies like a puppet.

  Historian Cui Dai huffed as she tore another bite out from a meat bun. “Huh. If I remember correctly, he made a similar threat to you some time ago; something about being a traitor for giving away the secrets of Chi to Martin?”

  “Those weren’t secrets!” countered Yao Xiu, allowing a little heat into her voice. “I just bantered with him, exchanging what he knew with what I knew. Besides, he would have seen Chi at work anyway. One look at a farmer coaxing plants to life, or a laborer bolstering his muscles with Chi, and he would have gotten it soon enough.” Yao Xiu frowned and finally decided to bite into the meat bun that she had been holding on for a few minutes now. “And even then, I don’t recall General Shen Feng directly threatening my family.”