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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  She yelled a curse down to the woman.

  Maja had no choice. So she climbed back to top of the cliff, pulled herself along the ground away from the edge, and lay on her back waiting for the spinning of the vertigo to pass.

  But before she could recover, Sri leaned in close to her, his breath hot and musty against her cheek. “There’s someone in the jungle,” he said. “Someone watching us.”

  14

  MAJA ROLLED FROM her back to her belly and then rose to all fours. Behind her, the ocean crashed at the bottom of the cliffs beyond where the villagers hid. Without taking her eyes off the point in the jungle where Sri said he had seen someone, she pushed herself to her knees. With a single movement, she stood and drew both swords.

  Her arms tingled with the sudden surge of energy and her mouth salivated. Her blades would taste blood again. She hoped it was Khirtan. She was ready to close the book with him. After all the years, justice would be served.

  She squinted into the foliage. Dark shapes, shadows, the impossible pattern of vines and tree trunks.

  “Where?” she hissed.

  Sri pointed a grubby finger into the woods.

  “You stay here,” she said. “If things start to look bad, you go down that ladder. She won’t stab you. Not you. Not a boy.”

  Sri tittered. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  “Stay here.” Maja crossed the distance quickly and was about to plunge into the jungle when a voice from her right called out her name. She spun, one blade shielding her chest and the other her head.

  “Maja, you’re losing a step.” Hanu leaned against a tree, a smile on his lips.

  “What the hell?” She lowered her swords. “Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

  “I only saw the boy at first. Didn’t know what was going on until you charged at the trees. What were you doing?”

  She told him about the cave, the old women and children, and the thicket of spears.

  “No way to convince them?” asked Hanu. He wiped at his nose, at the remnant dream spore crusted there. He smiled too easily.

  “We need to find a place to hide.”

  “I might have something better,” he said laughing. “I found a way to get us off the island.”

  “The Sea Eagle is sunk. And the soldiers hold their own boat. They swarm the beach. We can’t even get one of the villager’s canoes. They are too well guarded by Khirtan’s men.”

  “We don’t need to go there,” said Hanu. “At the southern side of the island, I saw an old man fishing. His boat can get us off the island.”

  Maja smiled. Finally something was going her way. If they could convince the old man to give them the boat, she would finally be able to free Sri from the clutches of Khirtan. She would get the boy to another island and tuck him away with other villagers or a temple. But then what? She was not sure. She had nowhere to return to and what Khirtan did to the Captain could not be left unanswered. Could she exact revenge alone? He had too many men, too many soldiers with spears and swords, too many already hungry for her blood. But she would worry about that later. First, she needed to get the boat so they could get off the island.

  The boat was smaller than Maja thought. She had been expecting an ocean worthy vessel like the Sea Eagle or the boat that Khirtan had sailed. But instead what she saw pulled up on the white sand was a small outrigger canoe with a rough-cut mast and a single sail of patched together sarongs.

  From the shadows of the jungle, Maja, Hanu, and Sri stared out at the boat and the old man stringing silver fish from a line between two coconut trees. He had not seen them yet and worked quickly with his brown fingers, pausing once in a while to lift his hat from his head and wipe the sweat from his brow. It was midday now and Maja could feel the withering heat of the day even in the shade of the trees.

  “That’s the boat?” asked Maja.

  “We can all fit,” said Hanu. His face was slick with sweat and he swatted at a handful of mosquitos buzzing around his face. “The boy’s not big.”

  “I’m not so worried about fitting in the boat, but once we’re past the shoals, we need to survive the sea. If we get trapped in another storm like the one on the way over here, that boat’s going to get eaten by the waves.”

  Hanu crushed a mosquito inside his balled hand. “You got a better idea?”

  She shook her head. “Let’s get our boat and get off the island.”

  The old man heard them coming and whipped about suddenly, a short rust-pocked machete in his hand. “What the hell do you want?”

  “We need your boat,” said Hanu.

  “Ain’t for rent. Bugger off.” The old man’s gaze drifted to Sri. “Why you with the little devil? Where’s his keeper? Adi won’t be happy you running off with his little charge.”

  Maja pulled a knuckle-sized lump of gold from her purse and held it on her palm. “A fair price for the boat.”

  The old man stared at the lump of gold, sucked at his lips, and then shook his head. “Got no need for that. Nothing to buy out here. Plenty of boats you can hire out from the villagers on the other side of the island.” He moved his fish along the line, spacing them out more evenly, not quite turning his back towards the three.

  “The price is fair,” said Maja. “You can buy yourself another boat, or get one from the village for free in a few days.”

  The old man stopped arranging the fish and tightened his grip on his machete. “This boat is my life. I ain’t giving it away. I ain’t renting it. I ain’t selling it. Now get out of here.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Maja. “You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  The old man swished his machete in the air in front of him. “You ain’t taking what’s mine.”

  Sri leaned in close to Maja. “Kill him. Kill him so we can take the boat.”

  “Don’t need to kill him,” whispered Hanu. “Just give him some more gold. The man can’t be that stubborn. He just wants more gold.”

  Sri grasped Hanu’s hook. “If you won’t use that, I will.”

  Hanu jerked his hook away.

  “You want more gold?” asked Maja. She dug around in her purse and pulled out a smaller nugget. She walked forward, hand extended with both pieces of gold in her palm. “More than a fair price for your boat.”

  “I ain’t giving up nothing.” He swung his machete with more menace this time and Maja felt the air from the strike touch her skin.

  “Listen,” hissed Sri. “The soldiers are in the forest above.”

  Maja tilted her head but could hear nothing but the incessant grinding of the insects and the looping song and cry of the birds.

  “Let me talk some sense into him,” said Hanu. He pushed past Maja with his arms open and was about to make his case when the old man sprung forward. He slashed down with his machete and Hanu brought his hook up just in time to block the blow. But the force of the strike drove him down to his knees. The old man kicked and sand sprayed into Hanu’s face, blinding him. The old man shuffled forward raising his machete.

  Maja reacted without thought. She dropped the gold and drew both swords. With a quick hop, she closed the distance and deflected the machete with her swords. The old man retreated towards the waves, looping his machete in a figure eight pattern to keep Maja at a distance.

  But the pattern was predictable and he only wielded one weapon. Maja waited, timing his swing, and then skipped forward, the Sun Sword clearing his machete to the side and the Moon Sword cocked at her shoulder. She saw the fight drain out of his eyes and knew that he would give them the boat.

  But then she heard Sri. “Khirtan is coming. Kill him quick. Or we are doomed.”

  She slashed with the Moon Sword and the dark blade sung through the air, a black blur like a raptor descending, and with a single blow she cleaved through the old man’s shoulder, the metal cracking through ribs before stopping mid-chest. Blood fountained out. Maja hopped back but the blood sprayed across her face and arms.

  The old m
an dropped his machete and reached for Maja with a trembling hand. Blood bubbled out of his gaping wound and pooled on the sand. Then the old men fell forward.

  Maja felt the heat of the sun suddenly on her brow. It burned against her skin and sweat dripped down her cheeks and gathered beneath her armor. The sharp needles pierced her temples, driving down to the base of her skull. She wanted to jump into the cool sea but knew they had no time.

  She reached out a blood-covered hand to Hanu and lifted him to his feet. The old man’s blood painted her arms red. She could feel it congealing and tightening like a second skin. She clenched her jaw to fight a wave of horror. Even the smell of the sea was not enough to mask the coppery tang of blood.

  Hanu stumbled next to her. “I just wanted to talk to him. He should have just talked. We shouldn’t have killed him.”

  The warm water licked her ankles, calves, and thighs. She tossed her swords onto the deck of the boat and then lifted Hanu up and over the side. He immediately began pulling the anchor up.

  Maja turned to the shore. Sri knelt on the sand over the dead body. The boy poked at the corpse with a short stick, prodding and prying at the wound. A few feet away several gulls landing, wide winged, screaming and hopping.

  “Let’s go, Sri. Before the soldiers come.”

  She stared past him at the dense foliage trying to pick out the yellow fungal armor from the branches and leaves but she saw nothing. Nothing but shadow and tangle.

  “Hurry!”

  Sri shoved the stick deep into the wound, brushed the sand from his knees, and then, after yawning and stretching his hands over his head, ambled to the edge of the water, just out of reach of the stretch of the waves.

  “We can’t just wait around,” said Maja. She began stomping back through the tide to the shore. Then she stopped, turned, and grabbed her swords from the boat before heading back to the shore. “They could be out of the forest at any moment.”

  “It was a bird.”

  Maja threw her hands up, halfway to him.

  “I saw a bird. A yellow bird. That’s all. No soldiers.”

  “You told me they were coming,” said Maja stopping short of him. She stared past him at the old man, the blood soaked sand, the forest shivering behind the mask of heat rising from the sand.

  “Now I’m telling you they’re not.” She stared at the tips of Sri’s fingers painted with the old man’s blood as if he had slid his fingers into the wound. “Pick me up, will you? I don’t know how to swim. Please.”

  15

  WITH THE SAIL unfurled and pregnant with the wind, the fishing boat skimmed across the waves. Maja sat in the back on a small plank seat, one hand on the rudder handle steering the boat towards the west. Sri crouched on the front of the boat laughing at the explosions of sea spray as the boat cut across the waves. Hanu was adjusting the sail, fine tuning it so it could fully catch the wind.

  Maja glanced over her shoulder. They were slipping away from the island, and she had yet to see any sign of pursuit. She imagined that Khirtan and the soldiers were still scouring the jungle looking for her and the boy. She could imagine the unleashing of anger when the torturer realized that she had fled.

  She smiled.

  She turned back to the open sea in front of them. The warm wind kissed her face, and she allowed her eyes to close and her body to relax.

  She had done it. She had done what Adi had asked of her. She had fulfilled his death wish. She had saved the boy.

  But better than that she had also thwarted Khirtan and the Duke. She hoped the Duke would punish his torturer.

  Hanu finished with a final adjustment on the sails, crept back along the boat to the stern, and crouched along the gunwale, keeping himself low to avoid the splash and spray of the sea. He ran his fingers over the black metal of his hook. She remembered their time with the Fallen when they had forged the fragment of his Moon Sword into the hook.

  “Why are you smiling?” he asked. “We’re fucked.”

  “What are you talking about? We’re free. We saved the boy and we’re off the island.”

  “For now.” He rubbed at his forearm above where his hook was cinched. “They come all the way out to the middle of bum fuck nowhere to grab a useless little monk and you think they’re just going to let us sail off into the sunset.”

  “They won’t know where we went. They’ll search the island for days.”

  He snorted and then spit a ball of phlegm into the waves. “Eventually they’ll figure out we’re gone. Then they’ll come after us.”

  The wind buffeted across her face. She licked her cracked lips. “We could be anywhere in the Empire. They won’t know where we’ve gone.”

  Hanu shoved his index finger in his mouth, popped it out, and held the saliva covered finger overhead. “The wind blows one way right now, fool. They’re not going to be looking for us to the east. We’re being driven straight back to Yavasa. Right back to where we aren’t wanted. Right back to the Duke.”

  “We’ll set down, get the boy situated somewhere, and then be on our way.”

  Hanu lifted a water gourd from the floor and shook it. Water splashed inside. He took a deep drink and then handed it to Maja. She shook it. Not much inside. She too drank deeply. The water was cool and refreshing. She wet her lips. The sea would dry and crack them. She should find a sarong to cover her face and head.

  “We can’t stay there,” said Hanu. “They’ll track us down. A one-armed pirate and a giant white demon. Not like we can just melt into a crowd.”

  “I wasn’t just going to leave the boy with them. Not with Khirtan.”

  “Well, we fucking paid a price, didn’t we? Everyone dead. Not worth it. We should have just let them have him.” He lifted another water bottle and shook it. No water.

  “I made a choice. The right thing to do.”

  “Defending the weak, huh? I can’t believe what you did to the fisherman.”

  “We needed the boat.”

  “Couldn’t just knock him out?” He shook another empty water bottle. “I saw what Garu did to the Captain.”

  “You wanted to be a hero, what we once were.” She paused. “Why didn’t you help me?”

  “I would have come if it were you hanging there, but Captain Pak was just getting us from here to there. I owed him nothing.” Hanu tossed one of the gourds into the waves. “And I don’t owe the boy anything either. Push comes to shove, the boy is overboard. He’s dead weight as far as I am concerned.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Maja. “We have to make choices in our lives. Difficult ones. Choices that are the right one. We have to sacrifice to make the world right again.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong,” said Hanu. “The world is broken, always has been, always will be. If there’s one thing that matters in this miserable wreck of a world, it’s sticking to your own, protecting your family, not abandoning them for some false dream. The boy don’t mean nothing. Say he does matter to the Duke somehow, then he’s just a pawn in a political game. Same game that cost me a hand. Same game that cost you a child.”

  Maja lunged forward and punched Hanu in the jaw. The blow sent him reeling to the floor of the boat. He landed hard against the planks, splashing the remnant water along the bottom. Maja looked up to see Sri watching them from the bow of the boat. She could swear she saw a quick smile on his lips but then it was gone.

  “Hanu, I’m sorry.” She reached her hands forward to help him back up but he waved her off.

  “Exactly what I’m talking about. Caught up in some bullshit instead of trying to protect your own.” He sat up and leaned against the gunwale, this time out of her reach.

  “The Duke deserves to die,” she said. “And if I can’t ever get close enough to slip a blade between his ribs, then I will do everything I can to protect this boy from him. Even if only to disrupt whatever foul plans he has in play now.”

  “Good luck with that. It’s not like our history of protecting boys is unblemished.”

&nbs
p; “I wasn’t even there.”

  “That was part of the problem, no?” He rubbed his jaw where she punched him. The corner of his lip had already begun to swell and blood trickled down his chin. He lifted another gourd and tilted it. “Looks like we’ve got a bigger problem. No water. And how many days before we reach land?”

  Maja shook her head. “There has to be more water on the boat. A fisherman would always have enough.”

  “Maybe he had just finished a journey when we came across him. And I’m not seeing any food either. Two days to touch land if we’re lucky. If the wind drops, we could be out here forever. No paddles in this boat.”

  Maja pulled up the rudder and crawled past Hanu. A dozen gourds bobbed in the water at the bottom of the boat. One by one she picked them up. They were all too light in her hand, all empty. Along the way, she overturned small barrels and boxes. No water. No food.

  Above her the sail flapped, losing it fullness for a moment. Already the wind was faltering. Hanu was right. They were in trouble. They had no food or water, and the wind was dying down. They could survive for days but it would be miserable. But she was more concerned about the wind dying down. Without the wind to ride upon, the currents would pull the boat south, away from Yavasa. Gods only knew how long they would drift before they would come to land. South of the archipelago and Empire lay the lands of the savages, the head hunters, the cannibals, but their lands were more than a week away with a strong wind and backs bent at oars. She doubted they would be alive by the time they reached the lands of the savages. Cannibals would only find bones to gnaw on.

  She cursed herself silently for not having taken the time to check the boat for food and water or even paddles.

  Over the next several hours, the wind ebbed and flowed. Sometimes the boat raced along the waves, dolphins leaping at their side, and other times, the wind completely died, the sail sagged, and they sat listless in the waves.

  The thrill of riding on the boat had worn off for Sri, and instead of perching on the prow, he curled on a bench in the front, his blood-stained robes pulled up around his head to shield himself from the unrelenting sun.