The Rise of the Fallen (The Rotting Empire Book 1)

by Peter Fugazzotto

  Khirtan touched his palm to his chest and bowed slightly. “Hanu, what a surprise? You too my friend? My two favorites.” He sucked on his lips, wetting them before speaking again. “So nice to see you. Both. Again. I never thought to lay eyes on either of you. Ever. I had heard that you fled beyond the Outer Isles. Didn’t want to join the others.” He fidgeted with one of the bones sticking out his ear.

  “Damned monster,” muttered Hanu.

  Khirtan’s smile dropped. “No. I carried out my duty. You failed in yours.” He took a measured breath. “But, my playthings, the past is beyond our grasp.” He inched forward. Maja heard the clattering of metal beneath his robes, the clanging of the tools of his trade.

  “What do you want with the boy?” she asked.

  Khirtan bobbed his head. An easy smile descended on his lips. Maja tried to avoid his gaze but his eyes, dark and bloodshot, held her. She could not turn away. “The child concerns you? A child?” His gaze dropped suddenly to Maja’s scarred belly.

  Her breath raced in her chest. She clenched her hands tightly. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands and she could feel the sudden wet pulsing of blood. She scanned the soldiers. She could draw her blades and be on Khirtan before the others moved. Let him know what it was like to face her when she was armed. But the odds were not favorable and if she failed, the boy would be lost. And worse, if she did not kill them, she would be at the mercy of Khirtan.

  She slowed her breath and relaxed her hands.

  “What does the Duke want with him?” she asked.

  Khirtan spread his arms, made as if to come forward but stepped back behind the spears and shields of his men, his gaze never leaving Maja. “What the Duke wants is no business of yours,” he said. “Is the boy here?”

  “I have not seen him.”

  “Yet you know of him.” Khirtan craned his head trying to peer past Garu and into the temple. “Do you hide him in there?”

  Maja laughed. “If I did, do you think I would tell you?”

  Khirtan glowered at her. He squatted trying to look under the legs of Garu and then straightened, the motion causing the familiar jangle of his hidden instruments. “You can’t keep secrets from me, my flower. You know that.” The metal clattered beneath his robes. “I have heard your sweet, sorrowful song before. Surely the memories so fond still remain with you.”

  “You should have killed me when you had the chance. When my swords did not hang from my back.” She poked Hanu with a bent knuckle.

  “What?” His hook hand trembled visibly.

  “Spare a cigar?”

  He rolled his eyes. “No time for this. We should get back down to the Captain. Safety in numbers.”

  “No, it’s cigar time.”

  He reached into his armor and pulled out a thin leafy cigar. Maja took it in both hands and held it under her nose. She inhaled deeply. It smelled like a peat forest and honey. Then she slid it between her teeth and gums until it sat firmly in the side of her mouth. Her mouth salivated.

  Hanu grunted.

  “What?”

  He pointed with his chin in the direction of the forest trail behind Khirtan. “It’s time to go.” A line of another dozen soldiers slithered out of the woods.

  Maja glanced at Garu and then Hanu. They retreated a step back towards the temple, their hands tightening around their weapons.

  Khirtan signaled his men forward.

  Maja swallowed hard.

  “You can pass,” she said.

  “Realized you weren’t going to make it out alive?” asked Khirtan.

  “I died a long time ago, and you know that, but I figured I would be dragging a few others down to the hells with me. Or at least one other.”

  Khirtan harrumphed and threw his shoulder forward as he led his men past Maja, Garu, and Hanu. But as he passed her, she saw the slightest trembling in Khirtan’s lip.

  “Let’s go,” she said as she hurried towards the forest path back towards the village. Garu lumbered along just ahead of her, his breath heavy with the effort.

  Hanu trotted behind her for a bit before finally catching her elbow with his hand. He turned her around. His eyes were slits and saliva bubbled at the corners of his mouth. They were well out of ear shot now, back at the small bridge that crossed the ravine. “You should have killed him. Cursed Khirtan.”

  Her mind returned to the thought of what would have happened if they would have fought and she would have lost, returned to the mercy and tools of Khirtan.

  Maja plucked the cigar from her mouth and fluttered it between her fingers. “We need to find the boy before Khirtan gets to him. Let’s search those yam houses.”

  6

  MAJA WATCHED HANU crawl out of one of the village yam houses and shake his head. “Again, nothing but yams. As might be expected.”

  “You said the boy was here,” Maja said to Garu. “You said you saw him here. In the village.”

  The big man shrugged.

  “We should get back to the Captain and the ship,” said Garu. “They’ll leave without us.”

  “It was this yam house?” Maja asked.

  “I don’t know where he went. I only knew where he was.” He stared back in the direction of the temple. “What’s the boy to us? Why not hand him over to the Duke? We play it right we can come away the richer.”

  “I’m not giving the Duke anything.”

  “The boy’s a commodity. Like anything else. He wants him that bad, we got a lot more room to bargain.”

  “That’s a mistake,” said Hanu. “Khirtan negotiates with sharp things. He’s coming back soon. He’s going to realize the boy’s not there, and then he’s going to search down here. Better to have a few more swords at our back.”

  Maja knew he was right, but she wanted to find the boy. Despite knowing better, she wanted to get to him before the Duke’s men did. She wanted to find out why they were so interested in the boy.

  Hanu cursed. “Stubborn as an ox.”

  The village was in ruins. Those who had not fled, which was many more than Maja would have anticipated, lay dead in the mud, on the steps of the longhouses, in each other’s arms. If any had hid in the forest, they would later return to burnt out longhouses, ransacked food supplies, and their precious store of mushrooms pilfered.

  “I’m going back to the boat,” said Garu. He was stuffing yams into a hemp sack.

  “Don’t just run off” said Maja. She sucked on the end of her unlit cigar. Her mouth filled with saliva forcing her to spit. “The three of us can scour the village before Khirtan returns. It’ll be faster together.”

  “I don’t want to be left here.”

  “They’re not going to leave us.”

  “I’m going back to the ship,” said Garu. He set off at a brisk walk down the slope towards the bright sand beach.

  “I should go with him,” Hanu said. A smear of spore coated his lips white. He blinked hard.

  “Your choice.” She wondered if she was being stubborn.

  “But I can’t leave you, can I?” He stared after Garu lumbering down the sand. “He should be the faithful one, big and dumb like in all the stories sticking with you, but I think he comes from a completely different story. The one the grannies tell around the fire at night to keep the kids in line. Push comes to shove, I’m pretty sure he’d send me over the edge of the ship when no one else was looking.”

  “And you?” asked Maja. “You wouldn’t?”

  “I wouldn’t push you.”

  The sound of men talking drew Maja’s attention away from Hanu and the yam house.

  “Come here.” She grabbed Hanu and dragged him behind the yam house. “Be quiet now.” She pressed close to the wooden structure and peered around the edge.

  A pair of the Duke’s soldiers were crossing the bridge from the temple trail. Maja watched as they went to one of the burning long houses and glanced inside. One of them swept underneath it with his sword.

  “We should go back down to the boat now,” hissed Han
u. “The other soldiers will be coming back soon. We should get out of here. By the cursed gods, I wish we’d never come here. Never seen Khirtan.”

  “Be quiet, fool.”

  The men finished searching beneath the long house. One of them muttered something about the charred bodies in the house and the other laughed. They turned to the small hut where Maja had found the cat. One of the soldiers stepped into the dark doorway and shouted. The other dropped his spear by his feet, drew his sword, and darted in.

  Maja chuckled. She wondered if the kitten had gone back inside. The glowing green eyes probably scared the piss out of them.

  The whole hut shook and for a moment she thought it would collapse but then one of the soldiers stomped out holding a small, saffron-robed boy at arm’s length. The boy squirmed in the man’s grip, kicking and screaming, desperately trying to free himself. His arms were drenched in blood from his finger tips up to his elbows. Tears poured down his face.

  The other soldier stumbled out of the hut, his hands cupped at his belly, a blood-soaked ball of fabric in his palms.

  “Kill him!” said the second soldier. “Kill the little demon.

  “Khirtan said alive,” the other barked.

  “He’s not here.”

  Maja did not need to hear anymore. She sprung from behind the yam house. Even before she had covered half the distance, she brought her hands to her demon swords. Her palms surged the moment she touched the handles. The blades shrieked against the scabbards and then they were free, light and dark metal against the smoke-filled sky.

  The first soldier saw her coming. He tossed the boy to the ground, drew his sword and chambered his shield.

  From the corner of her eye, Maja saw that the second soldier had dropped the bloody rag from his hands and seized his spear.

  She listened for Hanu at her shoulder. She heard nothing but knew better than to break her attention from the armed killers in front of her. He had better not run. He had better not given into the spore. The odds were matched evenly.

  She lifted both swords and feinted a slash with her Moon Sword. The swordsman angled backwards lifting his shield. As he did so, she slashed with her other sword; he easily blocked it with his sword. She retreated two steps, sucking hard on the cigar. He was well trained. This was not going to be as easy.

  Meanwhile, the spearman crept forward hoping to flank her so she shuffled and put the swordsman between them. Better to face one weapon at a time. But still, she needed to even the odds because soon the pair of them would begin to break her movement. Where was Hanu? She wanted to steal a glance but she knew not to turn her gaze from her enemies. She had to trust that Hanu was about to launch himself into the skirmish.

  She feigned a blow. Again the swordsman lifted his shield. This time as he did so, Maja squatted and slashed beneath his shield. The swordsman was not fast enough. The dark steel sliced deeply above his knee. He stumbled, his sword clattering on the ground. He desperately pressed his palms over his leg but the blood, bright red, surged between his fingers. It gushed down his calf, painting his foot.

  Maja heard steps closing and out of the corner of her eye saw the other man lunging, the tip of his spear driving towards her body. Without thinking, she hollowed her body. For a moment, she thought she had avoided his blow. But the spearhead found its target and tore into her hip. She inhaled sharply. Searing pain flooded her hip.

  Where the fuck was Hanu?

  She wheeled towards the spearman. He hid, grimacing, behind the length of his weapon. His attention flicked between her two swords. He thrust again, trying to clip her hands, but she kept the blades in motion, her movements broken, staggering, unpredictable. She danced backwards, ignoring the man and instead focused on the menacing spearhead. Her blood glistened on the tip.

  Her breath tightened with the increasing burning that blanketed her side. She ground her teeth. No time to fixate on the pain. She needed to keep moving. She circled to the left. But the soldier tracked her movement, refusing to be flanked.

  “Help!” screamed the fallen swordsman behind her.

  Maja cursed. If his shouts drew the other soldiers from across the gully, all would be lost. She would be hopelessly outnumbered and forced to flee. She’d have to run to the ship and then never have a chance of getting the boy.

  She inched backwards, groping blindly with her feet. How close was she was to the swordsman? It was a balancing act. Too close and his sword would hamstring her. But to wait, staying at a safe distance, was to invite death.

  The man yelled again. But this time it was muffled.

  But Maja fought the desire to look. She focused on the spearman in front of her. She waited for the right moment. Then it happened: a second of change. The widening of his eyes, the opening of his mouth as he stared past her at whatever was happening to the swordsman.

  She chose that instant to spring forward, laying blow after blow with her swords, angling so that she cleared the head of the spear and stepped inside of his shaft, into a range where she could bring both swords at play. She merged the Moon Sword with the spear tip and guided it past her injured side. Then she lopped down with the Sun Sword, letting it glide along the length of the spear shaft until it found the flesh of arms and she drove the blade forward towards his body, peeling the skin open in a sudden filet. She slashed at his head. He ducked. Her backhand blow did not miss. Her blade cut smoothly across his neck. He brought his fingers up to touch the gape in his flesh. He collapsed, his blood spreading on the ground like a cape.

  Maja spun back towards the swordsman. The man lay in a crumpled heap.

  Hanu squatted over him wiping his hook hand on the man’s trousers. “Had your back. Always do.”

  Maja touched the wound in her side. Hot with pain but only a gash. A few inches more and he would have stuck her organs. Bright blood painted fingers. More than she expected. Worse than she thought. But she would survive.

  Hanu stared. “He hit you? A common soldier? You’re losing your touch.” He crouched by the dead man at his feet and sawed off a handful of the yellow fungal armor cutting it to just above where it had grown into the man’s flesh. He tossed it to Maja.

  She snatched it out of the air. It felt almost weightless in her hand. It smelled of sweet, rotting wood. She walked over to a rain urn and dipped the fungus in the water, thoroughly soaking it, and then spread it with both hands over the wound. She pressed it there until she felt a slight itching as the fungus joined with her skin. A memory returned of the royal white fungal armor that had once grown on her torso. The patch chilled her body. But already the pain was gone and she knew that in a few hours the wound would be sealed by a pale webbing of fungus. Once the wound was sealed, she would remove the patch. No need to let it cover her body again. Especially not the yellow fungus of the Duke.

  Hanu nodded towards the temple. “We need to get out of here. They’ll have found Adi and realized that the boy is not up there.”

  “Where is he? Where’d the boy go?” Maja scanned the village plaza.

  “He was here a minute ago. Honestly, during the middle of the fight, I thought he was going to leap on the back of the soldiers, sink his hands around his throat, but as soon as I crossed the yard, he backed up.”

  “Where’d you go?” Maja called in a loud voice. “We’re not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

  “They wanted him alive,” said Hanu.

  Maja peered into the yam house, under the burning longhouse, behind a stack of driftwood logs. She heard the voices of men. She glanced towards the bridge. She did not see anyone yet, but Hanu was right. They had just killed two of the soldiers. Khirtan would not be so restrained this time. She should get back to the boat and the safety of the crew. Captain Pak could get them out into the deeper currents and catch the wind before Khirtan could get his boat organized. But Maja would need to leave quickly to give them a chance.

  She had just started to turn towards the trail leading to the beach when she heard a noise from the
shed.

  Hanu caught her gaze. “I don’t know what you think’s going to happen.” He shook his head. “Be quick about it.”

  Maja stopped at the entrance to the hut. The room was deep in shadows but she could discern the shape of the boy standing against the far wall. He sounded like he was laughing. Maybe it was sobbing. How else would the child feel? His village burning, the people he knew murdered, soldiers with swords chasing after him.

  “I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I’m not like them.” More of that strange crying. He sounded like an animal.

  She squatted and extended her hand. “Come on.” He snuffled and wiped the back of his hand across his face.

  “Come.”

  He stepped out of the shadows. Blood soaked his arms, his chest, had become smeared across his face. He put the bloody cloth into Maja’s hand. It was heavier and wetter than it should have been. Then it moved in her hand. Maja leapt backwards nearly hurling the thing. But then she saw the green eyes, and heard the broken mewl.

  It was the kitten.

  She looked at the boy. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  Maja choked back her own tears. This was the cat she had saved. And now this. “They did this,” she said, her hand sweeping back to the fallen soldiers. “Never again. Those monsters will never do such a thing again.”

  Hanu hissed. “We gotta go.” He nodded towards the bridge. “They’re coming.”

  She stared up the mountain. The bright yellow of the armor was visible through the foliage. The soldiers would have a clear view of the village in just moments.

  Maja set the broken kitten back inside the shade of the hut. “I’m so sorry little one.” Then she grabbed the boy, threw him over her shoulder and sprinted down the narrow trail back towards the bright sand and the beckoning sea.

  7

  MAJA TORE DOWN the trail. Her breath raced in her ears. The weight of the boy over her shoulder was awkward. He was heavier than he looked and with each jarring step down the steep slope, her legs almost gave out.