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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  Instead she ran with Sri squirming in her arms.

  At the edge of the forest, she turned to look back at the longhouse. Captain Pak held the knife perched above his head. Blood dripped off the tip. One, two, three. The thick black blood of the fiend. One more piercing to end it all.

  But the final blow never dropped.

  Garu had cleared a path among the stunned soldiers and, with one mighty swing of his club, cracked Captain Pak’s head open, hitting him so hard that the surrounding men were painted red.

  It was too late for the Captain. Maya’s breath stuttered in her throat. Her legs felt rubbery, almost gave out, but she caught herself, and then with two more quick strides crashed into the thick foliage.

  Khirtan screamed into the night. “The boy! She stole the boy!”

  12

  MAJA, OUT OF breath, stopped behind a curtain of vines, and put the boy down. He curled up into a ball immediately. The pain along the side of Maja’s leg, from knee to ankle, was constant, a hot band of fire. She arched her spine and pressed her fists into her lower back, grinding her knuckles against the spasming muscles. The spear wound at her side itched but she resisted the temptation to scratch it. She tilted her head and opened her mouth to let drops of water from the leaves touch her lips and tongue. Cold water. The storm had passed hours ago and now the sky lightened with the coming of dawn.

  She held her breath and listened.

  The forest crackled and dripped and squelched. Birds greeted the rising sun with trills and whistles.

  She looked back at the way she and Sri had just come. A thick mist wound through the trees. The vegetation already swallowed any sign of their passage.

  Her face was scratched and bloodied. Several times she had stumbled over exposed roots and either fell face-first into a carpet of mud and lava stones or smashed her elbows and arms on tree trunks.

  She had not expected to be running all night. When she had first left the village with the boy, she had thought that she was running towards the beach and the Sea Eagle, but she had found herself in a gully and following it only led her deeper into the jungle.

  She had quickly gotten lost and now hours later still did not know where she was in relation to the village or the beach.

  Sri clutched his bloody hand to his chest. His flesh glistened raw where Khirtan had pulled out his fingernails. She wondered what the torturer had needed to extract from the boy and also why it took such a brutal act to get it out of the boy.

  “Come here,” said Maja, tearing off a chunk of the fungus patch from her side.

  Sri shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re still bleeding.” She seized his wrist and pulled him close. He struggled until the moment she clamped the fungus over his fingers and then he was silent and still.

  “Which way is the beach?” she asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “We’re on an island. The beach is on all sides.”

  “The beach with the boats. The boat I came on. Which way is that?”

  He pointed in the direction they had just come.

  She cursed. “Do we have to go back through the village again?”

  He shook his head. “It’s just another ten minutes that way.”

  Maja was glad that they would not need to pass through the village again. It would be hard enough passing the stretch of beach where the other pirates had been murdered while they slept, but she would not be able to bear the sight of the Captain. Even as she thought about him, the memory of Garu swinging his club returned. She closed her eyes but the memory would not vanish.

  She had made a mistake. She should not have left Captain Pak behind. She could have been in amongst the soldiers with her blades. It would have been enough to scatter them, and Garu she could have handled. Her swords would have sent the traitorous bastard to hell. Then she and the Captain and the boy would have survived. They would have escaped.

  But then she thought about how quickly Garu had moved. Would she have been able to dash into the longhouse, clear all the soldiers, and escape back into forest, not only with the boy but also with the injured captain? She doubted that she would have succeeded. They probably would not have even reached the edge of the jungle before their pursuers caught them.

  Captain Pak had sacrificed himself so that she could save the boy. And he too had muttered those same words that Adi had. What was it about this boy that was so special?

  “Who are you?” she asked him.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Sri. I told you that already.”

  “Are you really a monk?”

  He shrugged and pointed to his bald head. “What else would I be?”

  “But why? Why was Adi protecting you? He would not protect you unless you were important. Who is your father?”

  “I have no father.”

  “Everyone has a father.”

  “Not everyone’s father decided to keep them.” Sri lifted the fungus from his fingers. It was sopping with blood.

  “Put it back on there. You need to keep it there longer. Let the fungus weave into your flesh. Otherwise the bleeding won’t stop.”

  “Blood doesn’t bother me.”

  “Well, it won’t heal properly out here in the jungle if you leave it exposed. Put the fungus back.”

  He rolled his eyes but did as he was told.

  The sun was breaking through the mist, and hot beams of light found Maja’s pale skin. The day would be hot and stifling again. She needed to get them off the island.

  “I know what it’s like to not have a father,” said Maja.

  “I thought you said everyone has a father.”

  “I meant that my father left me as well. He left me here far from my home. I know what it’s like as well to have been abandoned.”

  Sri lifted the fungus and glanced again at his fingers. “Doesn’t bother me. I don’t care.”

  “I said the same thing once. But an emptiness never gets filled.”

  Sri scowled. “No, not that. My fingers. I don’t care if they bleed. It means I am still alive. The pain speaks to me.” He tossed the fungus into the bushes. “I’ll be fine. And I’m okay with emptiness. Everything else is a lie.”

  “That what the monks have taught you?”

  “No, that’s what life has taught me.”

  The bird song rolled out of the trees. With morning the forest was coming to life.

  But then Maja heard something more than the sounds of the animals. She heard the voices of men and in the distance through the breaks in the foliage she spotted the bright yellow armor of the Duke’s men. She could make out a half dozen of them. They searching down the slope further inland, towards the center of the island, and away from the boat. She would not have to sneak through them to get to safety. Maja breathed a sigh of relief. Finally something was going in their favor.

  “We need to go now,” said Maja. She reached out Sri. “We need to get to the boat.”

  “The boat? I’m not going to the boat.” Sri contracted his arms and pulled his hands in close to his chest. “It’s safe in the jungle. They’ll find me on the seas. Then they will kill me.”

  “We can’t stay here, Sri. It’s a small island. They’ll find us. You saw what they did to Captain Pak. You saw what they did to the rest of the men. We have to go. They’ll kill us. Khirtan is the worst. What he did to you was only the beginning. He will not kill you outright. He will drag it out. He takes pleasure in it. We need to go.”

  “If we leave the jungle,” said Sri, “our troubles are only going to get worse.”

  “Nothing worse than getting caught by Khirtan.” She grabbed Sri by the elbow.

  Sri twisted his arm free. “You don’t just pick me up like some sack. That you dare.”

  Maja seized him again. “You come along or I’ll throw you over my shoulder. Choice is yours.”

  Sri glared at her, lips pressed into a thin dark line, his brow heavy. He tried one more time to tear away from her but her grip was too strong. “You’re making a
mistake.”

  “I’m saving our lives.”

  The rest of the way Sri did not say a word. He kept close to Maja; each time she looked over her shoulder, he shadowed her. He moved with a stealth through the forest that several times panicked Maja and made her steal a quick glance to make sure that he had not slipped off into the jungle mists. But he was always there, just behind her, glaring, brow heavy.

  Finally, they crested a small rise and Maja stared down a sudden slope to the bright band of the beach below.

  The Sea Eagle had been foundered. A gaping hole had been torn through its side and it tilted in the sand and coral, its prow craning towards the skies.

  The Duke’s ship bobbed in the waves and on its deck a half dozen armored men busied themselves with the rigging and lines.

  Maja’s stomach tightened and she cursed.

  “I told you the jungle was safer,” said Sri.

  She turned to find him hiding a laugh behind a fist.

  She shook her head and stared out across the glittering sea. She needed to figure out a way off the island.

  13

  MAJA TORE THROUGH the undergrowth, Sri close at her heels. She glanced over her shoulder. They had shaken the most recent group of soldiers searching for them.

  She rested her hand against the trunk of a tree but immediately pulled it away. A long line of ants streamed up the bark. They were large and shiny, their mandibles strong, and in their mouths they carried small fragments of fungus. Even the ants were obsessed in the trade of the fungus. The whole of the world was crazy for it.

  The sun soared high. She and Sri had been running and dodging the soldiers all morning long. Once they had been spotted and had to leap down a small cliff to escape. She and Sri had been able to stay clear of them since but she knew that it was only a matter of time before the soldiers would find them. They could not keep running forever. The island was too small and their pursuers too persistent.

  She wiped sweat from her face. Would it be better to turn back towards her pursuers? With her swords she would at least have a chance to match up with a handful of soldiers. But then she remembered the spear that had cut through her side. She was not the fighter she had once been. She was years out of her practice and the torture of Khirtan had taken something from her and she would never be the same again.

  Plus she worried about Sri. He was still a child and while she would do her best to defend him, in the chaos of battle, she would be moving fast and blades would be flying. She could not be there every moment to put herself between their attackers and him. The soldiers might just kill him right before her eyes.

  But it would be better for her not to find out. It would be better to avoid the soldiers at all costs.

  Sri stood under the shade of tree. He swatted at the mosquitoes that hovered around his ears and bare neck. Each time she and Sri stopped, the mosquitoes swarmed, mostly around him, ignoring her as if they knew that her blood would be bitter.

  “Is there no place to hide on the island?” Maja asked.

  He clapped his hands in front of his face. She winced at the loud noise and glanced over her shoulder. The trees remained empty except for the cries of the birds and the grinding whirr of the insects.

  “They will find us. They will kill us.” He opened his hands to blood-smeared palms.

  “Is there nowhere to hide? Where are the villagers? We’ve been running for hours and we have not come across them once.”

  “They are in the sea caves I imagine,” said Sri.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  Sri wiped the blood on his monk robes. “Khirtan said his body tingled when he first saw you here. He said his whole body felt like it was on fire and he almost couldn’t contain himself. He repeated your name over and over.”

  Maja grabbed a clump of Sri’s robe and shoved him back up against the tree. She held him there. The ants shifted course, some veering to the far side of the trunk and a few other trekking over the boy’s body. Sri held still for a moment and then suddenly shuddered and tried to tear away.

  “Where are the caves?” Maja asked.

  Maja would not have found the sea caves on her own.

  Sri led her to the eastern side of the island where the jungle ended in sudden rocky cliffs. Waves crashed against exposed stone. The sea sounded furious and even from the top of the cliffs. A mist of sea spray rose over the edge, and bathed Maja in its coolness.

  She held back from the edge, not wanting to stand too close. Even a short distance away, Maja’s head swam with an invasive dizziness, the tilting of the world that would come when she stared down from heights. She had done her best to conquer this irrational fear, forcing herself to climb trees and cliffs, but the exposure always wormed its way into the primal part of her being, forcing her heart to race and her limbs to tremble.

  At first she thought the boy had meant to fool her but then she saw a footpath that cut through the tangle of vines and grasses, a path that seemed to lead straight off the cliff.

  She inched towards the edge of the cliff and peered over, fists clenched, ready to leap back. A ladder of woven vine and thick branches hung down the cliff face. At intervals, she saw shadow-filled caves, painted white at the borders with guano.

  “Special bird eggs,” said Sri. “The villagers coat the eggs with fungus. It eats its way inside the shells and then consumes the unborn birds.” He grimaced. “The fungus when eaten can dissolve a man from inside out. Turns bones into liquid. The villagers only sell this to the God-Emperor.”

  They needed to find a place of safety. Maja stared at the water below. The waves crashed against sharp, jagged stone. She would not survive the fall. She turned to face the cliff and then lowered herself down the ladder. The rope and rungs were slippery. She placed one foot on an unseen rung. Sri looked at her, a smile lifting his lips. He must have been able to read her fear. He must have sensed her dread of heights. He stepped forward and for a moment, Maja thought he would kick her. She imagined her feet slipping from the slick wood, her clenched fingers prying off the rope, and her hands scrabbling in the air, desperate to find purchase but grasping only air.

  But Sri did not kick. He leaned in close, so close that she could smell his sour sweat. “Be careful, Maja. It’s a long way down.”

  “Don’t be such a shit,” Maja said. “And you come right after me. But not so close.”

  She wondered whether she should have sent him down the ladder ahead of her. She lowered one hand then another and then stretched a foot blindly for the next rung. She knew it was smarter to look down and find the rung but to look would mean staring past her feet, down the heights, and into the dizzying water below. Better to move along blindly.

  She was nearly to the first cave when a voice called from below.

  “Not a step further.”

  Maja stole a glance over her shoulder. A wizened woman, wrapped in a red-checkered sarong, stood at the opening of the cave, a spear clutched in her fists and pointed towards Maja.

  She paused on the ladder. She tried to focus on the woman rather than the steep cliff wall or the swirling waters below.

  “I bring the boy back to you,” said Maja. “The soldiers are swarming your village. We can protect him here.”

  “Turn back,” said the old woman. Her hair was a cloud of white, and her hands large knuckled and wrinkled. But even so she held the spear firmly and pointed it at Maja unwaveringly.

  “You don’t understand. They’re coming to kill him,” said Maja.

  “Then let the Sword Demon protect him,” replied the old woman. “We have already paid far too great a price to have that cursed spawn in our village.”

  “Adi is dead. He cannot protect the boy anymore.”

  “Then we are free.” She jabbed the spearhead below Maja’s feet. It rung against the stone. “Now the both of you go. Take the boy and go.”

  “He’s a child. We can’t leave him to armed men, and especially not the Duke’s men. Khirtan is a mur
derer. The boy is an innocent.”

  The old woman cackled. A few more people peered out from the mouth cave. Old women and children.

  “We are done with him,” said the old woman. “We did what we were asked. Never should have accepted payment. Now it does not matter. How many of us even survive? Our future destroyed. I warned them. But all they wanted were heavy hands. Thought to buy themselves into some station they could never reach. Only time you all come here is to steal and shed blood. The wise old men with memories as short as butterflies.”

  “At least let the boy hide with you. You don’t need to take me too. Just the boy.”

  “Not the boy. Not you. You climb back up now or I’ll stick you like a wild pig. Get out of here.”

  “Please. For the boy.”

  The old woman answered with a sudden thrusting of the spear and Maja lifted her leg out of the way barely avoiding the pitted metal head.

  “Back up,” Maja barked at Sri. When she turned, she saw that he had already climbed the ladder, and sat with his dirty bare feet dangling over the cliff wall.

  “Go,” screamed the woman.

  Maja hesitated. The caves were hidden, impossible to find unless one knew that they were tucked in the cliffs. They would be the perfect hiding spot. Khirtan and his men would never find Maja and Sri unless the soldiers sailed around the island and spotted the cave and the ladder. She could not imagine them doing that. But Maja could not descend the ladder. Even if she drew one of her swords and tried to swing it below her feet to parry the spear thrusts, she would be unable to climb down. Maybe someone less afraid of heights would be willing to take the risk of descending using one hand, but Maja could already imagine her free hand desperately grabbing for the next rung, her sweaty hand unable to find a hold, the rung slipping through her grip, the sudden loss of balance, and falling head over heels to the rocks and sea below.