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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  She reached for the sword.

  But it was too late.

  Khirtan grasped her by the hair, lifted her to her knees, and dragged her towards the table. His other hand smeared cloying fungus over her lips and mouth, and almost immediately the lights of the room grew even dimmer and the edges lifted and tilted threatening to fold the dark corners of the chamber. She clawed at ground trying to reach the sword but Khirtan was too strong and she was bent backwards. She felt as if her stomach were tearing open. She wrenched away only to smash her head against the table and re-opening the cut. Hot blood washed down her face.

  Khirtan heaved her on the table, sliding her in place next to her murdered child. The babe was a cold wet lump of flesh next to her and she concurrently felt a fluttering in her heart, the chill of repulsion. She sat up quickly only to be met with a shuddering fist that knocked her flat on her back. The cold dead baby was dropped on her chest and Maja froze in fear. The baby grew heavier by the moment as if it sought to slip back inside her.

  In the distance she heard the trickle of refuse water, each drop a drum beat as it slipped through the grate and into the tunnel beneath, steady as a heart. Beneath that beat, Wayan screamed her name.

  Khirtan’s icy fingers, cold as bone, danced across her skin, her throat, her breasts, down her belly, and they traced the scars, the old wounds never quite healed in Maja’s mind.

  His voice hissed like rustling paper. “The babe has not grown. We can make the same cuts and put the little thing back inside of you. Should fit just perfect. It’s what you really wanted all along, wasn’t it? For that night long ago to be forgotten, for the deeds to be undone. We’ll just reverse it. Put your little child back inside of you, sew it all back up. Mother and child reunited once again. We can wipe the nightmares away.”

  She heard the clang of metal. Steel flashed above her, the light sharp in her eyes. Then the first incision, pain chasing the slow drag of the blade across her skin. The baby, still lying on her chest, felt like a stone, so heavy that she could not breath. Blood streamed over her face, the cut on her forehead gushing, washing over the fungus on her lips and mouth.

  And the blood and the pain, the horrid weight of the dead preserved being on her belly, woke her from her stupor, and she seized Khirtan’s hand with both of hers, wrenched it away from her body, and drove his jagged blade back into his belly.

  Khirtan screamed and leapt backwards. Maja rolled off the table onto her feet. She spotted her sword on the floor but Khirtan already moved between her and the weapon. He held one hand over the seeping wound on his belly trying to stem the pulsing blood. The dark liquid coursed between his fingers. With his other hand, he fumbled for the belt purse at his hip. She did not know whether he sought a fungus to cast in her face to blind her or whether he sought a patch to press over the deep puncture wound in his belly. Blood pooled between his feet.

  Maja shook her head trying to clear the lingering haze that enveloped her. She wiped away the last remnants of the fungus smeared across her lips. Her legs were weak. She prayed that she could recover her strength quickly enough to deal with him. She wondered why he did not turn for the entrance or call for help. That’s what he should have done but his eyes were glazed and his breath heavy, his outstretched fingers trembling.

  “Maja, we have unfinished business,” he said. “A dream. Slipped away.” He clicked his teeth. “Come, my love. Let’s finish what we started. A thing of beauty.”

  He lurched at her, one hand extended. Maja bolted away only to run her hip hard into the table. Her fingers slid across the surface and touched the cold dead flesh of the child. She pulled her hand away, wet and sticky from the fermenting fluid. She screamed.

  Khirtan bolted forward.

  Maja slid her hand away from her dead baby, over the gristle and caked blood of Gima, and then touched the giant cleaver laying at the foot of the table. Her heart raced. She closed her fingers around the handle and stepping backwards, she dragged the heavy blade from the table of death. The tip of the weapon dropped to the cold stone hitting it so hard that the metal sparked and screamed.

  She closed her other hand around the handle and hoisted the cleaver to her shoulder. Her legs trembled beneath the weight.

  Khirtan stopped but then sprung forward.

  Maja stumbled backwards, tottering beneath the weight, and met Khirtan’s lunge by swinging the blade off her shoulder. The dark metal shrieked through bone, the weight of the weapon almost carrying the strike by itself, as if after all these years it hungered for Khirtan’s blood.

  Maja’s blow severed Khirtan’s head and even took off a part of his shoulder. She saw a look of surprise in his eyes, but the light in them quickly dulled and the head tumbled away. Blood spluttered out of his neck.

  Maja carried by the weight of the cleaver lost her footing and sprawled forward in the muck and blood on the ground. She released a gasp. She sucked greedily at the air.

  She wanted to curl into a ball, fall into a deep sleep, and wake up somewhere far away from the Hellhole.

  But the Fallen barked at her, telling her to get up, find the key, and free them. And so she lifted herself to her hands and knees and crawled to the corpse of Khirtan to see where he kept his keys. She did this to free her companions but also because the Duke rested comfortably in his tower, and Maja had unfinished business with him.

  38

  MAJA FUMBLED WITH the keys.

  “Keep your hands steady,” whispered Wayan. His jaw trembled as he spoke. She stood next to him, extended on her toes, arms stretched overhead straining to insert the key into the manacle. Despite her efforts to not touch him, her bare breasts and thighs brushed against him. Maja could feel the warmth emanating from his body, and she wanted to wrap her arms around his body. She wanted to melt into the familiar touch and somehow be transported away from the nightmare that their lives had become.

  She turned the key and released one of the manacles. His arm fell heavily, his hand swollen and discolored, his fingers so full of blood that he could not bend them.

  “Thank you, Maja. You’ve saved us. From that monster.” Wayan’s jaw tightened as he stared past her towards the dead torturer and the small corpse that still lay on the table.

  Maja moved around him avoiding his hand that clumsily reached for her. She stretched and clicked open the other manacle. Wayan could not keep himself up and collapsed to a ball on the ground.

  “We need water and food. Strength. Otherwise, we are not going to make it out of here.”

  As she worked at releasing the shackles that encircled and bloodied Wayan’s ankles, she glanced at the others still strung up on the wall. Bui called at her, telling her to free him next. He could wait. She would leave him there the longest. He was a bastard and deserved to suffer.

  Maja would free Ji next and let her unlock the chains for the others: Arimanu and Giant Trilli, both of whom stood silently against the walls.

  “Get me out of here,” hissed Bui.

  “Hurry,” added Wayan. “We need to escape before they know we’re free.”

  Maja paused. She pulled the key away from the final shackle that imprisoned Wayan. He made a sudden grab for the key.

  “Let me do it.”

  She stepped away from him, back until despite his crawling he reached the end of his chain tether.

  “What are you doing? Free me.”

  “We can’t just run,” she said.

  “We need to get out of here. We’ve had our fun.”

  “Hanu. The Duke.”

  “Maja, can’t you see we’re done for. We’re in no condition to fight. We should go while we can.”

  “We have to save Hanu. He has been blinded by the Duke. He accepted the Duke’s offer. We need to change his mind.”

  “What has he done?”

  “He agreed to bring Sri to the capital and kill the God-Emperor. The fool. We can’t leave him. We can’t abandon him.”

  “Everything’s changed. We need to save oursel
ves.”

  She laughed. “Save ourselves? There is no saving ourselves anymore. We lost that chance long ago. And honestly I think we’ve been living on borrowed time. We should have died down here years ago. Our last breaths should have been in the Hellhole. They killed us once. They did. And what do you tell me to do with the one chance we have at living again?”

  “Give me the key.” He stretched out a blood-streaked hand.

  “To take the coward’s path?” She held the key just out of his reach.

  “Not the fool’s path!” He slammed his fist against the stone floor. “Just give me the fucking key already!”

  “We need to rescue Hanu. We can’t leave him here.”

  “You can’t force us to rescue him. He made his choice. We can get away. How can you even think of asking any of us to promise that?”

  “Sticking together like you have always said. Putting us before empire. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.” He reached out for her. “But to free us from these chains and then to bind us with a promise is more imprisonment.”

  “So you won’t help?”

  “Unlock me and let me die freely. Don’t hold my freedom over me. I expected better of you, Maja. I expected you to put me, to put the rest of your brothers and sisters, above all else, and especially above one who has turned. Who are you loyal to in the end?”

  She tossed the key into his cupped hands. Fighting the trembling in his limbs, Wayan worked the key into the shackle and freed his leg. Then he went to the others, one by one, Bui, Arimanu, Giant Trilli, and Ji, and unlocked the shackles that held them, and each of them held him in a quick embrace, nodding, smiling, and each of them casting a dark glance at Maja.

  She turned from the others and walked among Khirtan’s tools. She stared at the implements hanging on the wall. A sickle-shaped blade. A two-handed axe. A hammer. More jagged blades, giant needles.

  She grabbed the sickle-shaped blade and the pilfered sword.

  The others, the Fallen, clumped together, rubbing wrists and ankles, stretching their necks and backs. They muttered. She knew they talked about her.

  Maja walked to the doorway. She turned to them. “So what’s it going to be? Will you help me save Hanu?”

  Bui stepped away from the others. He hung his head so it remained masked by the shadows. “Hanu? No. Fuck the traitor. But I’ll help you with the Duke. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him. I’ll cut his eyes out and shove them down his throat so he chokes on them. That I’ll do.”

  He grabbed a large jagged knife from the wall, weighed it in his hand, and then crossed to where Maja stood. Then he turned to the others. “Well, let’s go. We’ve got date with a fiend. Grab your little tool of fun.”

  39

  MAJA RACED UP the steps out of the Hellhole. The others clamored at her heels, their breaths ragged, the stolen tools of the torturer scraping and clanging against the steps and the walls. Ahead, she saw light from the courtyard. Behind, the smell of the saltwater mixed with shit and piss faded, and with it, the chance to simply slip into the sewer and crawl through the muck to an easy freedom.

  She had the chance to turn around. She had the chance to lead them away from the waiting blades and to return to their shattered lives.

  But she was committed. With the Fallen. Maybe not united in her desire to rescue Sri and restore him to his rightful place as the heir to the throne of the empire. But they were united in their desire to strike at the Duke, to avenge themselves on the man who had held them in his dungeon and ordered them slowly torn apart.

  She charged up the steps, leaping around the bodies of the men she murdered. A cloud of flies lifted from their corpses.

  Maja stopped shy of where the sun columned into stairwell, pausing in the shadows. She turned. Wayan gathered behind her, his face streaked white with berserker fungus he had taken from the corpse of Khirtan. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. Over and over he licked his lips.

  “You saw the bastard?” he asked.

  “In the tower.”

  “Alone?”

  “Hanu is up there, too. We need to pry him loose of the hold of the Duke. And Sri was with him.”

  “Guards? Were there guards?”

  “We’ll have to fight to get to him. And to get out. Won’t be easy. You know that.”

  “When has it ever been easy? When were the last days from the sweet life? Did it ever exist? Should have called us the Cursed, not the Fallen. Never stood high, did we?”

  “I need you to secure Sri,” said Maja. “You get him while I get Hanu.”

  “The little shit? Me?” Wayan shook his head. “I’ll put a blade in him. All the trouble he has caused us.”

  “He’s a boy.”

  “He’s not our boy.”

  Maja’s feet suddenly felt encased in stone and she struggled to push herself up the steps. Wayan’s words hit her harder than she imagined. “I need you to do this. He knows you. He’ll trust you. We need to get him away from the Duke and his men as soon as possible. The Duke, I think he might simply choose to kill the boy.”

  “I’m only in this for the Duke, not the boy. You’ll need to find another.”

  “Wayan, promise me.”

  “What are we waiting for?” hissed Bui. He had tied a torn piece of cloth from Khirtan’s clothing around his face, wrapping it so that only his eyes showed through a narrow gap.

  Maja nodded and led them out of the darkness of the Hellhole.

  The Fallen charged into a mass of soldiers.

  Maja had hoped that she and her companions would have a clear path to the tower. But the courtyard was milling with yellow-armored soldiers.

  She did not even have time to orient. She only had time to step into the mass of men, lift her weapons, and begin swinging. The first few men were easy. They had not expected the prisoners and were met with sudden slashes.

  Even with only those first few blows, Maja felt a wave of exhaustion but the berserker fungus gripped her nerves, made her feel as if she had been seized by burning hands. An electric itch ran from her shoulders into the base of her neck, where it dug so deep that she could not unclench her jaws. The fungus was cursed but it fueled her with the fury she would need to survive what lay before her.

  As the men fell at her feet, she had a moment to survey the scene before her. Through the front gate of the compound, a column of unaware yellow-armored soldiers descended a ramp towards a boat that bobbed in the river.

  Another ship had already set sail and she cursed. On that vessel, she saw the squat shape of the Duke as it headed up river, towards the capital. Oars driven by powerful arms propelled the boat. The Fallen were too late to stop the Duke.

  Maja’s breath quickened. Where was Hanu and Sri? Were they already in the boat? Was she too late? Then her gaze froze. Garu, her one-time companion, the traitor who had turned against her on the island, the murderer of Captain Pak, loomed in the doorway of the tower. He clutched a struggling Sri.

  The boy screamed at the sight of Maja.

  That shout drew a dozen of the departing soldiers away from the ships and back towards the Fallen. Soldiers fanned in front of the Fallen, blocking both their access to the gate and to the tower.

  Maja turned to Wayan. “Secure Sri.”

  He shook his head.

  “We cut through them,” said Wayan, pointing his sword towards the dock. “We seize their boat and chase down the Duke. Cut his fucking heart out.”

  Before Maja could convince him otherwise, Garu dragged Sri back into the tower and disappeared into the shadows.

  “The boy!”

  “The Duke!” shouted Wayan.

  But Maja held out her hands blocking the Fallen. “We need to save the boy. Garu will kill him.”

  “Fuck that,” said Wayan. “If the Duke escapes, we’ll never get him.”

  Maja wanted to say more but the time for words vanished. A dozen yellow-armored soldiers swarmed and it was time for the swords to ta
lk.

  40

  MAJA SURVEYED THE bloody courtyard.

  Bodies littered the ground.

  The Fallen were too good.

  Bui stood over two soldiers smashing them needlessly with the large shovel he had taken from the Hellhole.

  Despite Bui’s murderous blows, the Fallen were still outnumbered, facing nearly twice as many soldiers, their spears leveled, their eyes narrowed. From one of the other squat buildings within the castle compound, a handful more soldiers emerged.

  “There,” yelled Wayan. One of the soldiers broke from his companions and sprinted towards the column that had disappeared down the ramp.

  “He brings more men back and we’re doomed.”

  Wayan feinted at the oncoming soldiers with his jagged blade and the line of men as one leapt back. He laughed. “Fuck these games. Not waiting to die.” With those words, he charged, knocking aside spearheads and leaping in among the soldiers.

  The rest of the Fallen followed. Screams filled the courtyard. Metal sang and sparked. The air became thick with the acrid stench of piss.

  Maja glanced at the tower. Two soldiers stood between her and the entrance, spearheads pointed at her.

  As Maja stepped forward, they split to flank her. She bolted hard after one of them. He backpedalled, nearly stumbling. Maja heard the pounding of feet, the other man, the bearded one, closing ground.

  She spun and charged. She deflected the bearded man’s spear thrust with her sickle and then thrust her sword.

  He gave a surprised gasp, bringing both hands to the gushing wound on his chest. The last bit of light hung in his eyes, stubborn.

  Maja planted her foot on his chest and kicked, pulling the sword free.

  She turned to a blinding slash. Cold metal ripped across her cheek. She choked back a scream and knocked the spear aside. In the gap, she swung her sickle and cracked her assailant’s skull. Hot blood sprayed across her face and chest as the soldier crumpled to the ground.

  Her face pulsed in crescendoing pain. She sucked in a quivering breath. The gash was bad, and already her chest was soaked with warm blood. She quickly dislodged the sickle sword, and shaved off a handful of yellow fungus from the soldier and she pressed it against her cheek. It burned worse than it should have.