She tore a splinter of burning wood from the longhouse and lit her cigar. She inhaled deeply. The tip pulsed orange and the outer leaves crackled. The smoke rolled into her lungs and she held it in, ignoring the itching in her chest, and when she finally exhaled, the smoke wide and thick blotted out everything before her.
The stench.
The throbbing pain in her skull.
Memories of the betrayal by the Queen and the torture pits.
All blotted out.
Maybe Hanu was right. Maybe there was a way back. Maybe she just needed to prove her loyalty to them. Maybe she could return to everything she had lost.
Before she could gather her next breath, the veil of smoke dissipated, and the smell, the pain, and the memories returned.
She scrunched her nose. She looked towards the jungle rising primeval behind the village. “Let’s go find the Captain, help gather mushrooms, and get the hell out of here.”
As Maja and Hanu picked their way through the remains of the village, she allowed her mind to wander to the memory of a day when they had walked together side by side before, a day when they were the heroes he imagined, a time before the fall.
That day more than ten years ago the Queen had wanted to visit the Royal Baths, to soak her muscles and let the sulfur-tinged water penetrate the joints that ached her every morning when she rose from her sleep.
Maja was newly appointed to the Demon Guard after a rigorous training period and several months as a member of the palace guard, and this was the first time that she was to escort the Queen’s caravan away from the palace. To get to the Royal Baths, they would need to travel beyond the city walls and along the River Road. Four of them had been assigned by Adi to escort the Queen and her litter bearers: Maja, Hanu, the two newer guards, and Bui, and Gima, whose ferocious masks and reputations cleared a space through the crowded streets of the capital. It felt unreal to Maja that she was now one of the Demon Guard, a member of the feared personal bodyguard of the royal family.
Maja held the rear left position of the palanquin where she stole glances at the Queen reclining on pillows, her jeweled fingers slipping between the canopy silks to gather coolness from the breezes. Maja remembered the random details, bits of information she normally would have forgotten with any experience, as they walked through the city: her quickened breath amplified behind the stifling mask, the itchiness of the newly applied fungal armor that covered her torso, the heightened sounds as they moved through the streets. She could not stop turning her head, looking for dark hooded men to leap out from the market stalls, bare blades clenched in their fists.
Instead, women wrapped in sarongs dropped to their knees, palms pressed before their chests, bowing their heads. A trio of men carrying baskets of silvery fish backed from the streets, eyes averted. The market smelled of grilled chicken, over ripe mango, and burnt clove. In the distance a baby wailed, steady, uncomforted.
Eventually the litter and the escort passed through the city streets, marching beneath the portal, past the last of the city guards, and onto the wide stone-paved River Road, where vibrant green rice fields spilled to either side before giving way to the distant tangled valley walls.
Maja tasted the heavy moist air on her tongue. Dark clouds edged between sky and jungle. The white banners along the road lit with the sun, bright against the darkness.
Hanu, at the opposite rear position, lifted a chin at Maja and winked. Despite his size, he walked with the swagger of a giant. “Just a stroll through the park,” he whispered, repeating the words that First Spear Adi had told them as he was describing their guard detail.
Maja wanted to say something witty back but the words caught in her throat and she only nodded. She should not have been this nervous. She was far better with a sword than Hanu. She too had endured the same grueling training he had. She had spent endless hours drilling guard formations, responding to all variations of threats, and sparring with wooden swords with her fellow Demon Guard. She had been well prepared.
She inhaled deeply allowing the air to swell her belly and ribs. She released the air slowly and felt her heart beat steady. She quickly wiped her palms on her hips. Despite all her efforts, she could not suppress the wiry energy that wrapped around her spine, made her want to sprint into the fields, hurl the stifling mask into the sea of grasses, and be free of what held her.
Hanu clicked his tongue at her and then danced a little jig. She saw that he too was filled with the excitement of their first mission outside of the city walls. She could not hide her own sudden smile.
That’s when the assassins attacked.
Figures painted in mud and dressed in short coats of rice straw leapt out of the paddies on either side of the road. The fungal sorcerer emerging near the front of the palanquin struck first. He hurled two balls of mud and spore. Maja froze. She watched the fungal weapons arc through the air and explode in clouds of fine ochre powder against the chests of Gima and Bui. Maja felt as if time had slowed and she was a mere witness watching the events as if out of her body. Bui’s scream woke Maja from her stupor. She back stepped quickly, spitting against the sour smell that filled her mouth and threatened to constrict her lungs. She fumbled at the handles of her swords strapped across her back but they kept slipping away from her. She could not figure out what was wrong with her hands.
Gima and Bui did not even have the time to grab for their weapons. The fungal poison was too quick. Their bodies stiffened as straight as bamboo stalks, hands trembling, bodies straining as if they could somehow fight through the spore, and a moment later, their knees buckled and they fell to the ground convulsing, white foam bubbling from their lips.
The litter bearers could not avoid the spore cloud, and a moment later, they too fell, the palanquin tilting and the Queen releasing a sharp scream that ended as soon as the platform cracked against the stones.
Hanu ran forward, too quickly in Maja’s eyes, swords drawn, an ululating cry erupting from his lips.
Maja’s words could not form fast enough. Her warning could not pass through her lips. Hanu sprinted into the thinning cloud. He swiped through the fog, collapsed to a knee, turning his head towards Maja, eyes pleading behind the mask.
Half a dozen assassins dragged themselves onto the road and formed in a narrow arc around Maja. The fungal sorcerer screamed and the assassins attacked.
Maja should have remembered more of the slaughter that followed. But her memories were black. When she returned to the world, she stood wide-legged on the road, splattered in the blood of others, panting, choking back the surging bile in her throat.
Hanu recreated her victory that night while Maja and the rest of the Demon Guard sprawled on rattan mats in the safety of their training courtyard. Jars of black rice wine were passed around. Bowls of scented rice were lifted to their mouths. Adi, their First Spear, tapped out a song on his gamelan. Maja had sipped too much wine. She doubted she would be able to stumble back to the barracks. A night in the courtyard beneath a thin sarong. The stars wavered against the black night sky as if at any moment they might vanish forever.
“I thought I would return to the mud,” Hanu said, propped up on one elbow.
“You ever left?” joked one of the Demon Guard from the shadows.
“The spore bombs took our legs from under us. Bui and Gima had no chance. Paralyzed. Sneaky bastard. Even I succumbed. Only Maja stood. A miracle. We had hope. But then she drew her swords. And that hope vanished.”
Adi paused in his playing.
Hanu pushed himself to sit. He brought the jar of wine towards his mouth and then paused. His eyes were wild, jumpy, bloodshot. “All these years, all these hours of training, and she could barely draw her swords, and she held them in her fists like chicken legs. Dumb fisted, slow moving. They had her surrounded. Assassins. Their knives tasted her flesh. Was she even a true Demon Guard? Or a pet of the Queen?”
Maja’s breath caught in her throat. Why couldn’t she remember this? She recalled a paralyzing fear
, as if she had fallen off her father’s boat, far from Yavasa, and the numbing northern sea dragged her down, pulled her to the depths to join her father. She should have kicked and swam towards the surface. She remembered the ringing sound of the knives of the assassins against her swords. She remembered the burning bites on her arms and thighs. She remembered not being able to move, and that strange overwhelming fear of drowning as if during the time of the skirmish she lived in a forgotten moment of the past that painted itself over the moment.
She would have sunk into those depths never again to emerge but then she heard the cry of the Queen, the curses of Bui, the pleading of Hanu, and she woke from that stupor.
“I swear on my black shriveled heart that in that moment a single ray of the sun cut through the clouds,” said Hanu. “Lit her against the darkness. Her blades flashed to life. They sung, Adi, they sung. I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly, swords fly so true. Maybe it was the spore. Maybe I saw a vision. No, it was impossible. Six against one.”
He raised his bottle of rice wine and roared. The Demon Guard howled with him.
Maja bit her lower lip and pinched her eyes against the welling of tears.
“I would have preferred to fade in fungal sleep at that point. Oh, the dreams tasted good.” He winked at Maja. “But the screams kept me up.” He took another deep draw from his jar and wiped his glistening lips with his forearm. His eyes were glazed. “She chased that fungal sorcerer into the fields. I saw her swords dark and light. He screamed. Longer than he should have for a single killing stroke. Too many screams. Finally silence, bird song returning to the paddies, insects buzzing, a mosquito in my ear, Bui mumbling about something about a hero. Maja, a hero, the Demon Guard that saved the Queen, a hero of the empire.”
That was the story Hanu told, that was the way that others remembered Maja’s heroism. She supposed it all happened but the only thing she remembered was the distant memory of the cold embrace of the northern sea, and the lingering regret that she should have never swam for the surface, the aching to be with her father.
2
A DULL, PERSISTENT thumping vibrated through the island village. A pounding.
“Let’s keep going,” said Maja pausing on a trail that led out of the village. She wondered where the other pirates were. “Find the captain.”
She and Hanu paused on a bamboo footbridge that crossed a small chasm. Beyond which, the village ended and a thin path disappeared into the vine-choked jungle. Somewhere in the tangled forest, the other pirates were looking for the mushroom houses.
Bur that pounding noise persisted. And it came from back in the direction of the sea and their ship.
Hanu snorted. He wiped lips. He blinked. “What the hell is that noise?”
“What? You want to turn back and see what it is?”
“Okay.” The wiry man turned quickly and gamboled back into the village.
Maja cursed. Drug-addled idiot. She hadn’t been suggesting actually turning back. She thought of letting him wander off. But if it was something bad, she could not let Hanu at it alone. Not in his state. Not with his spore-numbed mind. His appetite for the dream world had gotten strong lately.
She dogged behind him, the little man moving more quickly than she anticipated and it was all she could do to keep up. His passage swirled dust with each step.
She closed her eyes and remembered the last time the pirates had come to a village like this: the children playing with a pet monkey, her nap in a hammock, the bottle of palm wine in her lap. She remembered the women pounding manioc root, the laughter of the chubby girl with the white string tied around her wrist, the rheumy eyes of the wizened old man who laid his papery hands on Maja’s pale flesh as if to test whether she were an apparition. She had almost felt like she could have belonged there giving up her life of wandering and finally calling a place home.
A whiff of charred flesh jarred Maja from her thoughts.
She sighed sharply. The buildings crackled. No matter where she looked another burnt and twisted body among the ruins.
Nothing mattered. No heroes lived in the empire of Yavasa. If she chose between the God-Emperor and Duke Buranchiti, would any of this stop? Or would she be the one setting the longhouses on fire?
Better to be apart from it all. Better to be free. Better to be loyal only to coin in her purse. Life was simpler that way.
“Forget this,” Maja said to Hanu. “Whatever’s happening is not our business. Let’s join up with Captain Pak. Hanu?”
Hanu stopped at the corner of one of yam houses where the hard-packed dirt eroded to sand and the thick green foliage yielded to weeping grasses. He tilted his head, staring at the other side of the small structure.
Maja slowed her pace and lifted her hands so she could draw her swords from where they were strapped across her back.
But as she turned the corner, her hands sunk to her side.
Another of the pirates was there. Garu.
He swung his iron-studded club from his shoulder at a baby goat, just missing it. He struck the earth, pounding a deep imprint. A long rope lead has been knotted around the goat’s neck with the other end tied to a stake in the ground. A mother goat similarly leashed splayed on the ground in a pool of blood. Garu swung again. The goat jumped and screamed. He pounded the ground again, the dull thumping. Bits of gore and fragments of bone flew off the end of his club and sprayed past Maja’s face, just missing her. She shuddered.
“Garu!” she screamed.
He turned wide-legged, squeezing a squeal from the club with his meaty hands. Bearded, he stood two heads above even Maja, and while she was sinewy, he was a mountain of solid flesh.
“What are you doing?”
“Didn’t want to wait with the boat any longer.” He rested the club on his shoulder.
“You … Why? … You should’ve stayed with the boat. You should’ve done what you were told.”
He shrugged. “I’m hungry.”
Hanu finally broke free enough from his fungal stupor to spit a few words out of his mouth. “That’s a baby goat, you idiot. You already killed its mother. You’re torturing it. You’re not human. Crazy as all hell. A black smudge against the sun.”
“Man gotta eat. Tired of fish.” Garu’s brow gathered. “You don’t judge me, little man. Just because you were once a Sword Demon …”
“You’re a monster.” Hanu turned to Maja, his voice a whisper. “Is this who we are now? We have him alone. You and me. We can end this abomination.”
“I hear you, sporehead,” said Garu. He tightened his grip on the club. His knuckles popped. “And to think …”
Pain pulsed behind Maja’s eyes, the headache gathering strength. It felt as if the sun sent bright needles into her eyes.
“Enough!” Maja cried.
Sweat clung beneath her leather vest. She tugged at it with her thumb. She could feel her skin puckering beneath the prickling armor. Bad enough the infernal heat and the unrelenting sun but now the stench of these massacred villagers and the barbarity of Garu.
She pulled a cigar from her belt and tucked it in her mouth. She blew a bit of leaf off her tongue. Then she strode forward and whipped one of her swords out and in a single motion severed the line that held the baby goat. The animal sprung off across the dirt. “Nothing left here.”
Garu spat into the dust and strode back after the goat into the village.
“This is who we are now? Goat killers?” said Hanu. He rolled his eyes. “Do you not remember what we were?”
An image flashed in her mind. The other Sword Demons stood motionless in the throne room. Their expressions were hidden behind iron masks molded into the shapes of the faces of the twelve demons. Their arms crossed over white fungal chest plates. The God-Emperor slouched in his jeweled throne, his limbs and silks dripping over the pillows, a spore pipe at his lips through his golden mask. On the steps of the dais, the delinquent merchant lifted his fingers from the widening pool of blood. Maja stood behind him, the dark
metal of her Moon Sword dripping. He pleaded. He promised to pay his taxes. Then the God-Emperor swished his hand and Maja lifted the blade one more time.
Maja remembered what they had been. There were no heroes.
They found Garu by a longhouse prodding one of the corpses with his toe. The charred skin sloughed off to reveal bloody flesh and organs. He laughed.
“Just leave them be,” said Maja.
He kept prodding. “Overcooked and underdone. At the same time.”
Maja narrowed her lips.
“I’m hungry,” he said. Blood stains darkened his beard. “I’m going back to the boat.” With those words, he trotted off in the direction of the beach. Maja was glad to be rid of him. Hanu was right. Their companions were monsters.
She gazed beyond the courtyard to where the rest of the village lay on the other side of the footbridge. Behind the blackened buildings, the forest rose verdant and primal. Birds called and replied; an empire of insects buzzed consuming the world around them. The Captain and the others were up there now, looking for the mushroom houses.
She wondered how easy it would be to get lost in that jungle, far from the sea, far from the stench of death.
Even as a child, death had been Maja’s companion, the one true family.
A year before Maja and her father had set to sea from the North, following the dream of the jarl, death was born into their family.
Maja remembered that morning that death came, the last of winter clinging to the threatening spring. She had been sent from the warmth of the hearth and the wrap of her blankets to the snow-covered yard to steal the eggs from the angry chickens. As she stepped out of the house, the cold air struck her cheeks wetly. So cold her breath streamed and she imagined that she was an ice dragon swooping out of the talus slopes, a breath of icy fire heralding her arrival. Her boots cracked through the frozen top layer of snow, each step as if she shattered windows.
The Rise of the Fallen (The Rotting Empire Book 1) Page 2
