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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  She rose, the sickle heavy in her hand. Her legs buckled. She wanted to fall to her knees. She could barely lift her arms. The Hellhole had taken too great a toll on her and the berserker fungus slipped from her limbs. She wanted to close her eyes, sleep deeply, wake to a new world.

  But it did not work that way.

  All around her men and women screamed behind blades, blood sprayed, and the ground trembled.

  But she needed to rescue Sri. Then she imagined the dark stairs of the tower, leading to the room at the top, and instead of seeing the boy strapped to the chair, she saw Hanu, her faithful companion, bound with ropes as Garu stalked from behind, a wicked blade in hand, ready to strike him down like he had done to the Captain.

  She fell to her knees.

  She rummaged in the belt pouch of the slain soldier, found more berserker fungus, and smeared it over her lips.

  Needles dug into her head, behind her eyes. She felt as if a demon gripped the base of her neck with sharpened claws. Way too much fungus. She yowled as an uncontrollable tremor rattled her spine. She squinted, and opened her eyes to burning pain. But the pain was tolerable.

  She tried to push herself to standing but could not lift herself.

  Suddenly a hand grasped her elbow and dragged her to standing.

  Wayan!

  She wanted to turn into him and lose herself in his embrace. He was splattered in blood. The winding scars around his body had turned an angry red and seeped a foul smelling green fluid.

  Fragments of bone and clumps of hair clung to his jagged blade. He pointed towards the gate. “Now,” he said. “After the Duke!”

  She stared through the open gate of the castle and to the bright blue sea beyond it. Its surface sparkled like jewels. The edge of the sea merged with the horizon, the ends of the world limitless.

  “I can’t,” she muttered, her words bubbling out over her blood-soaked lips. “Can’t do that.”

  “This is our chance.”

  She looked to the tower. “We can’t leave him.”

  “Don’t be thinking about going after the child. We can get the Duke. Settle our debt.”

  “No.”

  “So you choose the Empire over us?”

  She clutched Wayan’s hands in hers. “We have to get Hanu.”

  “Even after what he has done?”

  “I can’t leave him behind. Not Hanu. Not one of ours. I choose the Fallen.”

  41

  MAJA STOPPED INSIDE the doorway of the tower and glanced over her shoulder. In the courtyard, the Fallen were gathering spears and shields from the soldiers they had chopped down. Bui smeared berserker fungus beneath the folds of cloth that covered his face. Wayan weighed a heavy sword in his hand, oblivious to his weeping scars. Arimanu walked among the surviving soldiers, his new-found stiletto finishing them off.

  Maja wanted to call out. She wanted them to join her in rescuing Hanu. But she saw their wide-eyed blood frenzy. Duke Buranchiti was within reach after all these years. If they hurried, they might catch him and drag him back into the Hellhole.

  Rough justice would be served.

  But the words caught in her throat. Not because her voice failed her. But because she had already pleaded and they had looked at her with eyes like cold stones.

  Bui saw her inside the doorway and trotted over to her. “Wayan sent me over here to get you. You coming with us? We could use your swords.”

  “Does Hanu mean nothing to you?” she asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “Who?” The cloth shook with quiet laughter.

  “What about the future of the Empire?”

  “Fuck the Empire! Fuck the boy! We’ll get screwed in the end. Let me taste the blood of the Duke. Let me smash his face in.”

  “Revenge will paint the world black.”

  “A world of darkness? Has it not been that way since we fell? Could it get any darker? Why not make it darker? Won’t make anything worse? What more could be done? Mutilate us? Chop off our limbs? Burn us alive? They’ve run out of options and now it’s time for payback. So get off your high horse, forget Hanu, and help us skin the Duke alive. Afterwards, we can come get Hanu if he’s still alive.”

  “You’re heartless. You care nothing for Hanu? He is one of us.”

  He shrugged. “Your pet? Not all of us are secretly in love with you and willing to follow you to the ends of the fucking world. Stupid Hanu. I’m only doing this, talking to you, for Wayan. I’ve done my duty. Don’t give a shit if you come with us.”

  Bui threaded his way through the corpses to the others. Wayan stared past Bui to Maja. She saw that he needed her to come with him. He needed her to show that the Fallen, that he, meant more to her than her loyalty to the Empire, more than the life of a boy unknown to them. Even more than Hanu who had crossed a line with the Fallen.

  Part of her wanted to join them and hunt down the Duke. For years, she had dreamed of what she would do if she were alone with him. She imagined chopping off his fingers, cutting off his manhood, slowly driving red-hot slivers of iron beneath his skin.

  But she had to make a choice for something different. For the boy. For a future of hope and light rather than darkness and despair.

  She entered the tower. The first floor was a living quarters for soldiers: a smoldering hearth, a low bamboo table and batik cushions, shelves filled with ceramic jugs of palm wine and pickled foods, makeshift beds.

  She began up the stairs. The stone steps were icy, making her feet feel like cramping, and she walked quietly, carefully, and the only sound she heard was that of the wind humming through the windows facing the sea.

  She was halfway up the tower when she found bodies.

  She held her breath until she saw that neither was Hanu.

  Two soldiers lay crumpled, one fallen into the arms of the other. Maja slipped around them. Deep cuts marked their throats. The stairs were sticky with blood, on the steps, on the walls, and she followed a single bloody smear tracking up the wall.

  She could imagine Hanu, injured, gasping for breath, climbing the stairs. She imagined him cursing with every painful step. Every step that he took for her.

  Was Bui right? Was Hanu in love with her? Is that why he had joined her when she had left Land’s End? He had been faithful all those years. Yes, complaining and acid-tongued at the choices she made but he had stuck with her. He had remained at her side as they wandered down the southern coast. He had been the one to get them on the ship before the city guard had stormed their warren. He had been the one who had plied Captain Pak with enough palm wine that he had finally agreed to fold them into his crew. Hanu had been the one who had warned Maja that Garu was not to be trusted.

  Maja hurried up the steps, one after the other. With each step, all her suppressed pain rose, the cuts on her thigh and stomach, the bruises on her face, her aching joints. She panted. So much blood on the steps. How badly had Hanu been injured?

  When Maja reached the top of the stairs, Garu waited. He sat in the chair in the center of the room. Maja glanced around the room. Hanu was not there. Nor the boy. Low moans escaped from the darkened chamber opposite the stairs.

  Garu’s breath whistled unevenly through his lips. His iron-studded club stood propped between his legs. He had been cut badly.

  “Traitorous son of a bitch,” said Garu. His chest heaved. One hand covered the side of his chest, blood glistening between his fingers. “Should have slit his throat when I had the chance.”

  Maja circled along the wall in the direction of the chamber. Garu, cursing, leaned forward and lurched out the chair. He snatched his club off the ground and lifted it to his shoulder. Garu had been compressing a fungal patch against his chest wound but it was blood-soaked and his injury needed more than a simple field patch.

  Maja stopped when she reached the Duke’s trophies and snatched her Sun and Moon Swords from the wall. She saw the Hanu’s hook had been taken from the wall. A small teeter rolled from her lips. She felt giddy, drunk almost, but with all her s
enses sharpened. Garu was a fool not to block her from seizing her swords again.

  “How could you have been so stupid?” asked Garu. “Walking right back into the Hellhole? You should’ve run to the ends of the world.”

  “Some of us believe in goodness.” She spun the swords in a figure eight pattern, the light dancing off the metal. Then she stopped, the tips of the blades pointed towards the big man’s eyes.

  Garu sputtered a laugh. “All your games. No greater good, Maja. Just lesser degrees of suffering. The Duke offered me that.”

  Maja returned laughter. “Then I’ll try not to let you suffer too much.”

  Garu angled forward. Maja set her swords in motion before her, drawing stuttering circles, and shuffling her steps. She feinted a slash then leapt to her left. Garu kept a bubble of distance between them. His eyes were wide, his breath even.

  Maja stepped in and then sprung backwards. He cut left and then right.

  Maja felt a sudden prickle of sweat on her neck. Garu was not taking the bait. She tested the distances but he would not swing. She needed him to swing first. Her swords were no match for the club. She would not be able to block the force of one of his swings. In the most likely scenario, his club would smash her swords aside. Maybe knock them from her hands. In a worse scenario, the strength of his blow would shatter her swords. She had seen his power before. She had no defense against him. She only had offense. If a blow of his were to land, her shoulder or ribs would be broken.

  Or her head pulped. Just like he had done to Captain Pak.

  She bared her teeth.

  She needed to bait him into swinging. Then she could slip in with her blades.

  She lowered her swords and danced in closer. She could flick her blades and touch him but his club sat on his shoulder, the dull metal studs edged with rust, or maybe dried blood. His muscles tensed and relaxed. His tattoo-covered skin quivered.

  His eyes widened. He wanted to smash her head. But he was not giving in.

  “Enough of the cat playing with the mouse,” she said. She ran hard to her right, positioning the chair between herself and Garu. She kicked the chair. It scraped across the floor stopping a few feet before him.

  “And what was that supposed to do?”

  She answered by racing forward, launching off the chair, and springing at Garu who raised his club to protect his head.

  Maja slashed with her swords and drove her right knee forward. The impact of her knee cracked his face. She felt the edges of her blades bite off his fingers. The club thudded to the ground. Garu stumbled backwards. He covered his broken nose with blood-spewing hands.

  Maja cut and jabbed with twin blades. Garu back stepped, shielding his face with his arms. Pointless. Futile. She tore at flesh, filleting skin, relentlessly. Streams of blood arced left and right.

  He turned and ran and she pursued with jabs and slashes, her blades sinking deep into his tattooed skin. He crammed himself into the window, and he turned towards her, his lips glistening, and he tried to say something, but Maja skipped forward and kicked. He vanished, his great mass replaced by a view of the sea. Bones cracked against rock.

  Blood smeared the sill.

  The sea hissed and rolled.

  Her arms hung heavy, the tips of her gore-covered swords touching ground. Too much killing, she thought. She wanted to curl up and sleep, and when she woke, she wished that she were far away, on the gentle rocking sea, on the deck of a boat, waking to the sun rising in the east, staring at the distant foreign lands, a new world, a new life filling the horizon.

  A low moan pulled her from her thoughts. She turned towards the dark chamber opposite the stairs.

  “Hanu? Sri?” she called.

  She lifted her swords.

  “Come out,” she said.

  She was answered by a strange broken cry, something between weeping and laughter.

  She shuffled forward, gathering her swords before her.

  “Hanu?”

  She paused at the doorway. A dark mass lay on the floor.

  Her vision adjusted to the gloom of the room. Sri hunched on the floor. Beneath him lay the motionless figure of Hanu.

  “Hanu?”

  Sri looked up suddenly, his body trembling, tears streaming. He lifted his hands, hands covered in the blood of Hanu.

  42

  MAJA KNELT BESIDE her fallen companion and wondered why she was not crying, why tears did not fall. She had torn open the shutters in the Duke’s tower chamber and light flooded the room. Hanu was a bloody mess. Maja almost wished that she had not opened the windows. It would have been better not to see her friend murdered so foully.

  Sri had retreated to main room of the tower, sitting alone on the floor, turned away from her, wrapping in a dark cloak reminiscent of what Khirtan wore. He hid something in his robes. Maja wanted to know what it was but she could not tear herself away from Hanu.

  He had been stabbed to death. Deep puncture marks showed where he had been stabbed in the back, dozens of blows. A cowardly act. She imagined Garu must have lain in wait and then attacked Hanu from behind. So many cuts. He had no chance to defend himself, not even a chance to turn to face his attacker.

  Maja fought the urge to wretch. She wiped her eyes and sniffled. Still no tears. She should have been ripping hair from her head.

  How could she have lost him after all this? Her faithful companion and friend.

  A warm sea breeze touched her cheeks, a breeze from the east. East where she and Hanu should have been.

  Then the tears came and she could not stop them, and she could not contain the trembling that shook her body. She was wracked with sobs. She could barely see, the tears so thick, and her chest ached, a burrowing pain at the loss of her friend. Finally she subdued her weeping enough to slow her breath. Still her chest ached, worse than if she had been stabbed. This pain would not heal so easily.

  She ran her fingers along Hanu’s cheek, brushing the dark silky hair from his face. He looked as if he were sleeping, as if at any moment he would wake beneath her touch. But his skin felt cold, and grew colder by the minute. Her tears splashed on his chest, the drops washing tracks through the sticky blood.

  She should have listened to him. They should have turned away from the Empire. If she had listened to him none of this would have happened. Gima would not have been burned alive. Hanu never stabbed to death by a coward from behind.

  Her fingers touched a wound near the base of his skill. Something stuck out of it. She turned Hanu’s head. Dark black metal. The broken tip of his hook.

  She hovered her hands over the puncture marks. Not the work of a sword. She looked at his hand. His hook was not there.

  She choked back a sob.

  Garu had murdered Hanu with his own hook.

  Maja wiped at the sudden tears in her eyes. Stabbed in the back with his own weapon. The act of a coward.

  She glanced around the room for Hanu’s hook. Bedding and clothes were strewn across the floor. A chair had been smashed to splinters. A bowlful of rice smeared across the wall. And blood streaked and pooled. She wanted to find his hook, to lay his weapon across his chest when she set him on his funeral pyre.

  She clenched her fists. She wished Garu had not plunged from the window. She wished that he laid helpless before her and she could drive her blade into his flesh, peel his skin from his body, make him scream, make him suffer for what he had done to Hanu.

  How fragile the threads of life, she thought. They should have gone to the lands to the east. They should have vanished into another story, forever chasing the rising sun.

  She sniffled and ran the back of her hands across her nose. She could do that now. She could honor the dreams of Hanu and sail to the east. She could flee from all the horror of the land, all the memories of a life gone wrong. She could start over. A simple life.

  She closed her eyes and massaged her neck. Sharp splinters of pain burrowed behind her eyes. She heard a scraping noise. She looked up.

  Sri, wrap
ped in that cloak, had gone to the window and bent over the sill. He turned back. Blood congealed on his hands and tears glistened on his cheeks. But even so the sun lit his face. His eyes and teeth glistened.

  He could make a fine emperor some day. She shook her head. Sri had seen too much. He would never forget these horrible days. He would forever be touched by all this blood and death. She should take him with her to the east. He deserved a quiet life. He had seen too much for a boy so young. Didn’t he also deserve a chance to start over again?

  Maja’s thoughts returned to Hanu, the quiet corpse growing colder beneath her fingers. If she fled to the east with Sri, Hanu’s death would be in vain. And so would Gima’s. The Fallen who remained would be hunted down, traitors who cut their way out of their agreed upon prison.

  No one would know of the Duke’s murderous schemes. He would slip back into the capital, the closest blood to the God-Emperor, waiting for the old man to draw his last breath.

  The rightful heir would not be returned to his family. Chaos would descend on Yavasa. And an evil man would sit on that throne.

  But Maja imagined the Duke would not be content to wait. He had waited long enough. How hard would it be to send an assassin into the glittering palace? Furtive men with knives. Or faithful soldiers who grew tired of promises and pricked their ears at the sounds of coins being rubbed between fingers. Or a servant, with demure eyes, grinding a fungal poison into lemon water.

  Maja sucked air through her teeth. She fought the urge to scream. She had no options left any more. If she fled to the east, the death of the God-Emperor and the Queen, and the collapse of the kingdom, would rest on her shoulders.

  She had vowed to protect the Empire, to lay down her life, for the God-Emperor and his heirs. She needed to get Sri to the capital. She needed to walk him up the Pearl Steps and seat him on the throne. This would protect empire.