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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  “I’m not putting my hands in the fates of the gods. Even if they see us now, I know they laugh.”

  “Your northern gods are cruel.”

  “Not cruel. They just don’t care.”

  The boat surged in the waves and soon Maja was forced to use both hands to control the rudder. It kept wanting to twist out of her hands and with each sudden buffeting of the waves, she felt as if her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. Quickly the palms of her hands heated up. Soon the skin would tear and blister, but she kept the boat pointed towards the black mass ahead, and with each passing moment in the wake of the fury of the wind, the boat hurled closer and the silhouette of mountains and the great mother volcano rose.

  But even as they raced closer to the shore, the storm seemed to release a pent up fury. Lightning cracked the sky and thunder shook Maja’s bones. Sri screamed but his voice was lost beneath the slap and slosh of the waves. The boat floated on the water but at the same time it sunk and bumped. Once or twice the boat rose up and came down so hard that Maja was lifted off her feet and would have flown into the angry sea if not for her death grip on the rudder.

  Within a quarter of an hour, they were close. The green of the jungle separated from the mountains and she could make out the white foaming froth where the sea crashed into the rocky shore. Even so, it was hard to see. A veil of rain consumed the island, the trees, the rocks.

  She scanned the shore. The sea exploded against the breakers.

  “Better to stay at sea!” Hanu shouted above the howling wind. He lost his grip on his sailcloth blanket and it lifted across the waves like a ghost before sinking as if grabbed by an invisible hand from the depths. “Too dangerous.”

  Maja screamed back. “The wind drives us and the current! What can I do about it?”

  “We’re going to get smashed to bits by the rocks. This side of the island is too dangerous!”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Sri suddenly stood and began tearing at the rope tied around his waist. “I need to get off the boat! I need to get to land.”

  “Sit down, you little fool!” Hanu grabbed at him but the boy was out of reach. “You’re going to get tossed into the sea.”

  “Get me to the shore! Now!”

  Maja wanted to seize the boy and pin him down, hold him in her arms while they rode out the storm. But they were too close to the shore now. Over the prow, dark black rocks glistened, suddenly emerging as the sea dipped. She could not leave the rudder. She needed to steer them through this maze of stones to safely reach the shore.

  “This is madness!” screamed Hanu. He clenched his teeth against the bucking of the small ship in the waves.

  The sea seemed to grow. The waves towered around them and when they sunk in a trough it was as though the sea would swallow them whole.

  A rock scraped against the hull. Maja’s skin prickled. She wished Hanu would grab the rudder so she could huddle with the boy, close her eyes, and pray that they would make the shore but she knew she had to do this. She had to find a way to get them free from the maw of the sea.

  A great swell lifted the boat and she saw the shore only a hundred yards or so off, and from this sudden height, she saw a pathway through the jagged rocks. She stared at it hard trying to memorize the path that she would need to steer through the hazards ahead.

  She smiled. They had a chance now. Just a few more minutes and they would survive this hellish journey. “Ha ha, you sonofabitch!” she screamed to the gods.

  Then the sea reversed itself and the boat plummeted. She squeezed the rudder, waiting for the inevitably slamming against the surface of the sea, the loud slap as they came down hard. Instead, the boat hit one of the jagged shore rocks and exploded in an ear-shattering crack. The black stone burst through the boat. The hull splintered.

  Despite the death grip Maja had on the rudder, the force of the crash tore the rudder from her hands and she catapulted from the boat. She flew through the air. She saw the white beach and the death trap of rocks clearly, then she plunged into the sea.

  She smashed against a rock, so hard that the air burst from her lungs. She fought the instinct to draw in a deep breath. If she did, she would swallow water and drown. She kicked and tore at the water but then she realized she had no idea which way was up. The water turned white with bubbles. Her lungs ached. She needed air. The waves tossed her beneath the surface. Her stomach convulsed and she bit down hard.

  Then her feet sunk into soft sand and she knew which way was up. She gathered her feet beneath her and sprung away from the sandy bottom, pulling through the water with cupped hands, kicking hard with her legs, kicking with everything she had. Her body convulsed, mad to take a breath. Pain seized her belly.

  She could not hold on any longer. She could not fight. She needed to breath. This was it.

  Then her head burst above the waves and she sucked in a huge lungful of air. She had only taken in a single breath when the sea picked her up and tossed her again beneath the waves. But this time she kept her sense of which direction was up and fought her way back to the surface more quickly, sucking in more air.

  She stared around the churning sea. The waves came at her relentlessly, tossing her like a small doll. She was helpless in them. But then she saw that they drove her towards the shore and with hard kicks and strong strokes, she avoided the teeth of rocks and suddenly she was careening on the top of a wave towards the shore. The wave curled and she was flung, landing hard on the beach, rolling several times. She dragged herself to her hands and knees, and then rose. She stumbled for a dozen steps beyond the waves, and then collapsed into the sand.

  She had survived.

  18

  MAJA WOKE TO warmth of the sun. She lay at the high end of the beach, far from the debris-littered tide line. The heat of the sun burned away the cold from the night of unsettled sleep, and warmed her muscles and joints.

  After a while, she sat up and stared at the sea. The water was placid. It stretched glass-like towards where the sun had risen above the horizon. The waves rolled and hissed over the sand, almost playfully. Not a single cloud marred the sky.

  If not for her bruised ribs and hips, her bloody lips, her raw fingertips, she would have thought the storm at sea had been a nightmare. She rubbed her eyes. She had not slept well after crawling out of the sea. She had wanted to get up and find Sri and Hanu but she collapsed to the sand every time she stood until sleep inevitably took over.

  But now she was rested and needed to find them.

  She removed her swords and armor and laid them on several large flat stones by the forest line, and then stripped off her pants and tunic, wringing them out and hanging them from the branches of a tree. The sun felt good on her bare skin.

  She scoured the nearby woods, slapping at the sudden swarm of mosquitos, until she had gathered an armful of mangos, bananas, and starfruit. She returned to the sun-warmed rocks and wolfed the fruit down. When she was finished, she went to the sea to wash the fruit juice from her lips and hands and then waded into the warm waters to clean out her wounds and the tangle of seaweed and grit in her hair. She jogged out of the water and lay down on one of the warm stones. After her skin dried and the heat from the sun began to burn her skin, she climbed back into her damp pants and tunic and slipped the armor over her head and strapped the swords to her back. She drew one sword and then the other, wiping moisture from them. It was not ideal. She would tend to them later when she had the time.

  But right now she needed to find Sri.

  She scanned the shore to the south. Splintered planks littered the sands. The rudder bobbed in the near waters, among stones. She shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun. The shore was empty as far as she could see.

  She turned and looked north. Same empty shore.

  North was towards the Eye of the East and the river that led to the capital. She wondered if that was the direction Sri would head. Khirtan would look that way first. But to follow the shore north would
mean traversing into the lands of the Duke. She had never been welcome there before and would not be again.

  She would head south. She would search for some sign of Sri or Hanu. A part of her hoped that she would not find them, mostly because she feared finding one of their corpses.

  If she went far enough south, she would return to Land’s End. She wondered how the other Fallen would greet her. Better to find Sri and Hanu and not find out.

  She started along the sandy shore.

  Ten minutes later, she found the mast. It lay halfway up the beach. The mast, once a thick ancient tree trunk, had been torn from its seating in the boat. One jagged end pointed towards the forest. She squatted down and lifted up the rope. The knots with which she had tied down Sri still remained but the rope had had been cut cleanly.

  Two sets of footprints, one small and one large, flurried around the mast, went into the woods, re-emerged a dozen yards later, and then wound south along the shore. She stared down the beach. She saw no movement aside from the roll of the waves and the gentle sway of the coconut trees.

  She licked her cracked lips and continued south.

  An hour later, the footprints turned from the beach and into the trees. Maja found Sri and Hanu in the shade of a fig tree fast asleep.

  Hanu woke with a start, sitting up quickly and pointing his hook at Maja. Then he recognized her. “Thought you were dead. That storm.”

  “I got to the shore.”

  “The boy needed rest.” Hanu scratched his hair and yawned.

  “And that’s why you were so sound asleep?”

  “Any chance I get to nap, I take.”

  Maja slipped into the forest, harvested an armful of mangos, and dropped it at their feet. Then she cut open a few coconuts she found at the edge of the forest.

  Sri drank greedily. “He will find me. He won’t stop.”

  “The island is big,” said Maja. “He won’t know where you are.”

  “He’ll sniff me out. You need to protect me.”

  Maja returned to the forest and came back with fungus. The brown fungus she split with her hands and rationed out. She pressed clumps against her wounds. The fungus was cool against the heat of the cut on her forehead and almost immediately she felt the itch as the fungus took root in her flesh. Hanu tended to a vicious looking gash on his thigh. That one would take a long time to heal and would likely need stitches to bind up properly.

  Maja handed out small white mushrooms, speckled with green crystals. She slipped one into her mouth with her index finger and tucked it between tooth and gum. She salivated immediately and fought the urge to spit the bitter fruit out of her mouth. After a few moments, she felt the rush of energy.

  Sri held the mushroom in front of his face, sniffing, his nose pinched. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Villagers use it for working the rice fields,” said Maja. “A little bite and they can work from dawn to dusk, and then some.”

  “What do I need it for?”

  “Can’t lie around on this beach forever.”

  “Where are we going then?”

  “South.”

  By late afternoon, the shadows of the trees stretched over the sand. Despite the mushrooms, the boy lagged. Maja could see that he was not used to physical exertion. She let him rest several times, but never for long, and kept pressing to the south.

  “Do we have a plan?” asked Hanu. “Because as lovely as this beach is I don’t want to walk until my feet bleed.”

  “Hoping to find a village.”

  “Last one didn’t turn out great for us.”

  “We’ll find a village and leave the boy.”

  “Why would they take him from us?”

  “We’ll just leave him. Be done with this. I said I would protect him from Khirtan, and I have but that’s it. Can’t have him tagging along with us. The boy can barely keep up. And you’re not much better.”

  Hanu’s limp was pronounced. He kept one hand over the fungal patch as he walked. He reached into his bag, pulled out another mushroom, and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “You might want to slow down with those,” she said.

  He pursed his lips and then spit into the sand. “I know what I’m doing. Don’t need another mother. First one didn’t turn out so great and I can’t imagine that a second one would be much better.”

  “I need you to have your wits about you. You know your taste for spore.”

  “I’m fine.” His lips trembled.

  Maja choked back what she wanted to say to him. She needed him with her and not against her. But she knew that if she lectured him that she would only drive him further towards the numbness he sought. “We need to find a boat as soon as possible.”

  “That’s the plan?” Hanu kicked at the sand, spraying it before them. “I think that’s a bad plan.”

  “You think we’re welcome here?”

  “Out here in the boonies no one’s going to know who we are.” He nodded back to Sri. “I think we’re making a mistake. The boy is worth something. The Duke wants him. Dead most likely. That means he’s worth something either to the Duke or maybe even to the capital. That something is at least a heavy bag of gold. And maybe even more than that a chance to get back in the good graces of the God-Emperor. I mean if Duke Buranchiti wants him dead, then odds are the God-Emperor wants him alive.”

  Maja scoffed. “Back at this? I feel like one moment you’re done with the boy and the next you’re scheming to use him to get back into the graces of the God-Emperor. Your mind is all over the place. When’s the last time you heard of traitors being offered a pardon?”

  “We were never traitors. Assassins got through.”

  “Under our watch. That’s as good as treason.”

  “The heir was protected. The Duke’s son was not that important.”

  Maja stuck out her arm and ran her fingers along the skein of scars. “Important enough to the Duke. I am sure your hand, wherever the hell it is, might be thinking that perhaps the snotty-faced shit was important.”

  “This is our chance, Maja. I feel it. The boy is important. We can win our place back.”

  “Our place back to what?” asked Maja. “We did not leave well. Not even in one piece. None of us. We are not welcome and bringing a boy back is no guarantee of anything. He could mean nothing and we walk into that circle of swords. This time we don’t leave just bloodied and scarred. The next time we lie at their feet.”

  “If the boy is important, we will be protected. We will be rewarded.” He tore another mushroom fragment and popped it in his mouth.

  “Hanu, you are crazy on this. Hell bent on returning where we’re not wanted. Do you not see the madness in what you’re proposing?”

  “How is it mad? You were raised in that palace. They will take you back.”

  “I was a slave. Maybe a favored slave with a sword but still a fucking slave.”

  “The Queen took you under her wing. She could have killed you as a child.”

  “I was a ruse, a decoy so the ship of Northerners could flee. A false tribute,” said Maja. “She had every right to slide a knife across my throat. Maybe she protected me. From the God-Emperor, from the tributes, from the Duke. She gave me a chance to serve the Empire, her own personal blade, the Queen’s killer. That’s all gone now. Just like your hand. And we ain’t getting either of them back anymore. You need to get that through your thick head, Hanu. You gotta be smart about this. You’re returning to your own death sentence. You can’t cheat death twice.”

  Sri let out a shout. Maja swung around to look behind her. The boy had stopped walking and pointed at the long stretch of beach they had just traversed. It was small inlet shaped like a crescent. On the far side, Maja saw what made the boy yell out. A dozen yellow-armored men, spears in fists, trotted down the sands, and at the front of them came Khirtan and Garu.

  19

  MAJA RAN ALONG the shore. Her mouth salivated from the extra mushroom she had wedged in her mouth. She had taken too much
and her limbs tingled. Her stomach tightened and she felt like vomiting but she needed the energy. Alongside, her Hanu and Sri looked no better. Worse really.

  To their left, the ocean hissed over the sands. To their right, a great tangle of forest rose. Thick swaths of bamboo, creepers consuming the trunks of trees, a verdant green curtain in which they could get lost. Entering the jungle would almost guarantee escape from their pursuers.

  But they would likely become lost, and in their struggle to orient themselves in the jungle, odds are their pursuers would find them.

  “Where are we going?” asked Hanu. He limped badly but kept a strong pace.

  “We need to find a village. People to protect us.”

  Han cursed. “That’s your plan?”

  “Would you rather turn into the jungle?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that.”

  “Then what’s your plan?” asked Maja. “You can figure something else out here too. Shouldn’t just be me.” She glanced over her shoulder. The Duke’s men were not gaining on them. If anything, they had slowed down and Maja, Hanu, and Sri were putting more distance between them. But she knew this was a false hope. Eventually the soldiers would catch up.

  Hanu’s face contorted in pain with every step. The fungal patch on his leg had soaked through. The bleeding had slowed but not stopped. He needed to rest to fully heal. He would be the weakest link in their escape and for a moment the thought of leaving him behind crossed Maja’s mind. It left quickly but she cursed herself for even thinking it. What had she become that she would abandon one of her companions to save her own skin? She thought of Captain Pak fighting alone, the wet thud of Garu’s club cracking his skull. Once she had pledged herself to die for her charges and her brothers-in-arms, and now she entertained the thought of abandoning an injured comrade.

  “So what’s your plan?” she repeated to Hanu.

  “Land’s End,” he said. “Half a day away I imagine. They’ll protect us. They’re our brothers and sisters. They’ll stand with us.”