The Rise of the Fallen (The Rotting Empire Book 1)
Page 17
Maja squatted across the fire from the crone. “Who came last night, grandmother?”
The old woman drew a spoonful of steaming rice from the pot and brought it to her lips. She smacked her lips. “The others,” she said. “Men from the capital they said. They’ve come for the boy.”
A burst of laughter bubbled from Hanu’s lips. “Won’t be needing to make that journey then.”
“They came last night,” said the woman. “A horde of them dressed in their yellow armor. They’re out there right now. Scouring the jungle. Looking for you.”
Hanu cursed. “Shit. It’s the Duke’s men. They found us.”
Maja response was interrupted by the groaning of the gate. The thin guard leaned away from the door, his legs working like pistons.
And through the widening gap, Maja saw the verdant green riot of jungle and the bright yellow armor of the Duke’s men.
“Run!” she said to Hanu. “Get the boy and run!”
27
MAJA SPRINTED TOWARDS the gate. Her breath roared. Her thighs burned. But she charged forward. The gate screeched as the treacherous guard dragged it further open. The Duke’s men pressed their leering faces in the gap between the gate and the fence, the soldiers ready to pour through. In a moment it would be wide enough and they would be through and into the courtyard.
A quick glance over Maja’s shoulder showed Sri and the others just climbing down from the longhouse. The first guard lay lifeless at the foot of the ladder, his neck and chest glistening bright red.
She needed to buy more time. She reached the gate and, without breaking stride, leapt from her feet and drove her shoulder into the gate. It shuddered beneath the impact and the men on the other side shouted in anger. Maja, air knocked out of her, fell to her knees. Sharp pain radiated from her shoulder up into her neck as if someone had poured burning oil on her skin. The lone guard inside the compound cursed. He wheeled about, drawing his swords.
She drove the gate shut half a foot, but it did not matter. The soldiers on the other side pressed their bodies against it and it moved open twice as quickly as before.
The guard struck. Maja caught the slash with crossed swords. Her arms buckled. The wicked edge of the blade came within a finger’s length of her skull. She had trapped his sword between her two crossed blades, but this gave him the opportunity to slash at her with his other sword. She hollowed her belly and would have avoided the blow, but he aimed for her leg. The blade cut her leg deep. Hot blood sheeted down her leg. She screamed in pain.
He slashed again at her legs. This time she dodged backwards. But still he pressed the other sword into her crossed swords. If she pulled her swords back, she feared he would cleave her skull.
The gate groaned. In seconds, the others would swarm her.
She stumbled backwards. Then two figures blurred behind the guard. Arimanu crashed into the gate, and at the same moment Gima jabbed her sword through the opening, bringing screams and a spurt of blood.
“Come on, Maja!” screamed Gima.
Maja’s arms felt even weaker. Her shoulders burned from the effort of framing the sword away from her skull, and despite her effort her arms began to tremble.
Suddenly the soldier kicked Maja’s stomach. She tumbled backwards pulling her swords over her back like a shell hoping to deflect the anticipated blows. But no sword crashed down.
The soldier wheeled at Arimanu and Gima. Arimanu lunged with his spear. He drove the tip into the guard’s neck. The man stood for a moment, his hands at his side and then he fell, bright red blood gurgling out of his lips.
Gima seized Maja’s armor and yanked her to her feet. “Go! Now!”
Maja shook her head to try to clear her thoughts. She had no strength. Her arms burned and her legs felt as if they would collapse beneath her. Then she saw her companion. “Arimanu!” cried Maja.
The former Demon Guard pressed his back against the gate, a grimace stretched across his face, his legs quivering against the pressure of the men behind him.
“We can’t leave him.”
“Run!” shouted Gima. She shoved Maja towards the back of the compound and then charged to Arimanu’s side but rather than holding the gate back, she grabbed the fallen guard’s sword and thrust it into the ground at the foot of the gate, creating a wedge.
“Won’t hold long.” She smacked Arimanu’s shoulder and they sprinted away from the gate.
“Faster!” Gima screamed at Maja.
Her breath ran ragged. She could not take full strides. The pain from the gash on her leg flared with each step.
They had just reached the far end of the compound and were scrambling up a ladder over the rear wall when she heard the sound of wood splintering and the roar of the soldiers. The gate lifted and tore from its hinges, cracking as it thudded onto the ground. The ground shuddered beneath Maja’s feet. Men and women in yellow fungal armor and leather vests poured into the outpost.
Maja reached the top of the ladder, jumped over the wall to the ground, and even before she finished rolling to break her fall, she was running into the dark tangle of the jungle, the roar of her pursuers growing in her ears.
Minutes later, Maja rested, palms on knees. She panted, desperately trying to slow her breath and fight the wave of dizziness that threatened to send her spinning to the ground. Drops of sweat streamed from her brow to the mud between her feet.
Gima breathed heavily beside her. She licked her lips. “We can’t rest long. We need to keep going.”
The shouts of the Duke’s men while at first distant had become louder. “Where’s Sri? Where’s Hanu? Where did they go?”
“We don’t have time to look for their trail. We need to put distance between us and those yellow shirts.”
“Just run? That’s it. Give all this up?” Maja straightened. She sucked in deep breaths. Her hand was covered in blood. The gash in her thigh still bled, not as much as before.
Gima pulled a patch of fungus from her shoulder bag and flattened it in her hands. Then she knelt, pressing the fungus over the injury.
The fungus was cold and Maja’s skin goose pimpled. Almost immediately she could feel the itching as the tendrils snaked into her skin.
Arimanu suddenly rapped against a tree trunk with the hilt of his sword. He nodded down the hill they had just climbed. Through the dense foliage, Maja saw fragments of yellow armor.
“Let’s go,” said Gima.
“Where? We don’t know where Sri is.”
“We need to keep moving. Away from the Duke’s men. Away from Khirtan. We’ll find the boy later. But first we go.”
“We should turn back,” said Maja. They had been running, walking, resting for at least half an hour. Her legs quivered with each step and a sharp pain was forming in her lower back. The fungal patch has stopped the bleeding on her thigh but it has done nothing for the searing pain.
She stopped on the thin footpath in the jungle and rummaged through her shoulder bag for her water skin. Gima stopped beside her, while Arimanu hung back, turned to listen for signs of pursuit.
Maja paused. No sounds of the soldiers.
Gima ran a forearm over her slick brow. “I’ve been turning us in a wide circle. Listen.”
Maja strained to hear. Her own heavy breath. The whisper of the wind through the treetops. The incessant grinding of insects. Finally the hiss of the sea. “Land’s End?”
“Where else?”
“They can help us. Beat the soldiers back so we can find Sri and Hanu.”
“Not sure they’ll want to.”
“Wayan,” said Maja. She lifted a water skin to her lips. She drank greedily but she could not wash away the sticky coating in her mouth.
“He’s changed, Maja,” said Gima. “We all have. After what we went through. He’s not the man he once was. The fire that once defined him. Gone. Khirtan cut that out of him. All he wants to do is to stare out over the sea. Play his flute.”
“Then why are we going back?”
 
; “So we can hide. Not get killed. Maja, those soldiers are going to murder us. They want that boy. We’re outnumbered. Makes no sense at all.”
“I thought you were with me.”
“I am. I’m just not with getting killed. This is our best chance. We buy some time. Then we pick up the trail and find Sri. We return the heir to the God-Emperor and finally get welcomed as heroes.”
“If we don’t save Sri, all of this will mean nothing.”
Maja was interrupted by a furious tapping. She whipped around. Arimanu banged the butt of his sword against a tree trunk and with the other hand pointed down the footpath.
Maja made a scattering motion with her hands and stepped off the trail into a thick curtain of vines. She strained to listen above the sound of her own ragged breath. Her heart raced. She slowed her breath and forced herself to count to ten with each inhalation, desperate to trick herself into a relaxed state. But all she could think about was the sudden swarm of yellow-armored soldiers, the clanging of blades, the coppery tang of blood, and the tightening of her belly when she would see Khirtan again.
Both Gima and Arimanu had slipped into the dense underbrush on the opposite side of the trail but they were still visible: Gima’s fire-scarred face, the glint of metal from Arimanu’s drawn sword. She wanted to tell them to press further behind the thick leaves and dark trunks.
But, it was too late. She heard the soft thudding of foot steps, of running, the snapping of branches, and the uneven panting of breaths.
She squeezed the hilts of her swords in her hands, waiting for a mad thirst for blood to race like fire through her limbs. But she felt nothing, only the hard surface of the handles on her hands, only sharp pain in her palms.
“They come,” whispered Gima.
The underbrush further down the trail rustled and out of the shadows two figures hobbled along. But it was not soldiers in yellow fungal armor. It was not even men in leather armor. It was Hanu with Sri being pulled along by the wrist.
Hanu jolted to a stop, lifting his hook up in defense but then he saw who it was on the trail and he lowered his hook with a laugh. “Thanks the gods, we found you. You can take this little shit back.” He dragged Sri forward and pushed him towards Maja.
She wrapped her arms around Sri. His skin was slick with sweat, and he breathed heavily through parted lips.
“This one will never be a Demon Guard again. I promise that,” Sri said. “Such disrespect.”
“I’m fine with that,” said Hanu. “I’m happy getting you out of my hands.”
“Hand.”
“I’m going to wipe that smirk off your chubby little face.”
Gima laughed. “You know what? Underneath it all, I think these two like each other.”
“Like an old married couple,” said Maja.
Suddenly Arimanu was tapping wildly against the bark of the tree again and pointed back down the trail in the direction that Hanu and Sri had just come. The buzz of the insects paused for a moment and Maja heard the crashing of soldiers through the underbrush. In a break through the distant understory of the forest, yellow flashed. Sharp words. The Duke’s men had picked up their trail.
Maja and the others ran.
28
MAJA COULD FEEL Sri’s sweaty arm slipping through her hand as they ran. He could not keep up. He stumbled over exposed roots, cried out as branches whipped across his face, and begged Maja to let go of him.
She tightened her grip on his wrist and pulled him along. “You can’t stop now. We’ll get you to Land’s End and you’ll be safe.” Gima and Arimanu were so far ahead that she lost sight of them. Hanu was only visible because he would stop and wave his hand furiously at Maja to hurry up.
But the boy lagged, and her injured thigh ached. She thought of lifting him to her shoulder but they would not move any more quickly and if anything that would just tire her out further. She needed to maintain some strength if the soldiers caught up. She wondered whether she would be able to protect him this time.
“We won’t be safe.” Sri surged forward a few steps with Maja’s pulling but then almost immediately slowed to a jog. His lips were filmy white. “The Fallen won’t protect us.”
“They’ll fight for me,” said Maja. “They’ll rally. Underneath it all, they’re still loyal.”
“They can’t protect us,” he said. “They’re old. They’re broken. Maybe they’ll last a few minutes and then it will be over. He’ll toss their bodies into the sea.”
“You’ve never seen them fight. We were unstoppable.”
Sri laughed. “Yeah, right. The stuff of legend.”
“We were.”
“Legends die.”
She jerked him back into a run. “We’ll see about that. I’ll prove you wrong.”
Suddenly the jungle ahead thinned. Between the trunks of the trees, the blue sea sparkled. Maja inhaled the smell of seaweed and salt. A warm breeze touched her cheeks.
“A little bit more,” she urged. “We’ll get through and we’ll be safe.”
She glanced over her shoulder. She could not see their pursuers. But she heard them. She heard the cracking of branches and the pounding of their feet. She heard Khirtan’s voice, his tremulous threats barked to his own men, his promise of blood drawn and skin peeled if they did not get the boy. Beneath all the other sounds she swore she heard his metal tools rattling and clinking.
The hairs on the back of Maja’s neck lifted.
“Hurry!” she cried to Sri.
Then her feet sunk into golden sand.
Gima, Arimanu, and Hanu stretched out along the beach. They ran towards the cliffs upon which the temple compound sat.
When Maja reached the foot of the cliff, she looked behind her. Khirtan and his soldiers were just emerging from the jungle. They would close the distance in half a minute.
She turned to her companions. They stood at the foot of the cliffs, waiting for her. Faithful.
“Where are the ladders and ropes?” she said.
“Help get the boy up. Just climb!” shouted Gima. “The rock will hold, and once you get a little higher the climbing will get easier. You go first. We’ll hold them and come right after.”
Maja’s breath quickened and the ground seemed to tilt beneath her feet, and she felt as if she would fall. She stuck her hands out to steady herself.
“What are you doing?” asked Sri.
“We’ll go around.”
“We can go up the cliffs.”
“I can’t. I can’t do it. Follow me. We’ll go back into the jungle and find another way up.”
Sri laughed. “Such a warrior and afraid of heights.”
“Not heights. Falling. I’m afraid of falling.”
Before Sri could mouth off further, Maja yanked him along the foot of the cliff and towards the steep jungle covered slope.
“They’ll catch us in here.”
“Not if you shut up and run!”
“The cliffs would be faster.”
“Stop it!” Maja raced up the hillside, dragging Sri behind her. Down the beach, she heard the sudden roar of Khirtan’s men. She hoped that her companions had already safely scaled the cliffs. Maja winced, the gash in her thigh aflame in pain with each step up the hillside. The understory was thick, and thorns ripped at her flesh, and she stumbled several times as the muddy slope gave way beneath her. But she pressed on. She knew that as hard as it was for her to battle through the thick jungle, it would be just as hard for Khirtan and his men. And the thick forest offered covered. Spears would not be able fly true. If she was lucky, she and Sri would disappear into the shadows and her pursuers would lose track.
Her breath raced and she pushed onwards. The sun, filtering through the trees above, burned against her skin. Her fingers tingled as if they were falling asleep. Sri lagged but she would not let him go and she half pulled, half dragged him up the hill. He wavered between cursing and weeping, a foul tongue for one still so young.
She ran up the slope, tearing away br
anches, urging Sri on, and then she was forced to stop. Sheer walls rose around them. A black cliff towered towards the sky and Land’s End above. She had run into an alcove of sorts and she was surrounded by the cliffs on three sides. She needed to retreat and then circle around to the side to get back to the forested slope to reach the top.
But as she turned back to find her way out of the alcove, a wall of yellow armored soldiers approached through the jungle.
She stared up the cliff face. She felt as if she were about to pitch backwards. She staggered and gathered her feet beneath herself. She let out several deep breaths.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She squatted down and gathered Sri to her. “No choice now. Up the cliff. Don’t look back. Just keep climbing.”
He laughed. “You’re more scared than I am.”
One of the soldiers shouted. Maja and Sri had been spotted.
“Climb!” she screamed.
Maja pushed Sri to the rock face, gave him a quick nod, and then grabbed a hold over her head. She could hear the soldiers crashing through the bushes behind her. Her body surged with adrenaline. She knew she could do this, just as long as she did not look down.
She found a foothold and heaved herself upwards. Then another handhold, another foothold, over and over again. She pushed herself faster. She scraped her knees against the porous stone. She fought against the sharp pain in her fingers. But above else, she refused to give up. She had to climb. She had to reach the top. She had to get out of the clutches of Khirtan. She could never let herself be caught by him again. Better to die than to return to the madness of that fiend.
With each breath, Maja came closer to the ledge above. The blue sky grew. The voices below swelled and then died. She refused to look down, not wanting to see how close they were, or how far the ground was from her feet. The faster she climbed, the sooner she would be out of the range of their spears.
The ledge was close now, only a few arm-lengths away. Then her left foot slipped and her weight dropped but she caught herself, clinging to the hard stone. She prayed that the stone was strong enough to support her weight. She whispered curses and blindly felt around with her toes until she found a firm footing.