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

by Peter Fugazzotto

  Then she could head east, honor the dream of Hanu, stay faithful to the Fallen. Maybe she and Wayan could pick of the scattered pieces of their life together. Maybe another child if that was possible.

  Maja kissed Hanu’s forehead. She pushed herself off her knees and rummaged around the room until she found two large silk sarongs. With these she gently wrapped Hanu. To keep the flies from him. So she would not have to stare at his mutilated body. Beside him on the stone floor, she saw a single bloody palm print. As he was dying, he must have tried to touch Garu, hoping to mark a killer with his palm.

  Maja shuddered at the sudden outpouring of tears. By the gods, she had failed her friend. She never should have been pulled into this madness.

  The sharp bellow of a horn broke her thoughts. She looked at the window where Sri perched. Then another horn, and another. A cascade of sound. Her breath caught in her throat. She recognized those horns. Leaving Hanu, she joined Sri at the window.

  From upriver they came. A dozen boats flying the white banners of the God-Emperor. And these were no pleasure yachts. Warships hurled down the river, and on their decks hundreds of men stood, armored in white glittering fungus.

  Below, the mass of the Duke’s yellow-armored men turned from the Eye of the East, and as a single entity, they fled for the Duke’s four ships. The God-Emperor must have known of the Duke’s treachery and had come.

  “He comes!” cried Maja. “Your father is coming. With an army. And the Duke flees.”

  “And all the killing will stop? Just like that.”

  “Sri, we are saved.”

  43

  MAJA FOUND THE Fallen at the castle gate watching as the first of the God-Emperor’s ships had caught the last of the Duke’s vessels. White-armored men had thrown grappling hooks and as the hulls of the ships cracked together, the God-Emperor’s warriors swarmed over the rails and onto the decks. Red quickly washed over the yellow-painted hulls.

  The boat the Duke had been on, the largest of the war ships, had escaped beyond the river mouth and its sails filled with the wind. They had reached the open sea. He would escape. For now.

  At the sound of Maja walking through the corpses in the courtyard, Wayan wheeled about. One of his eyes was swollen shut. His face, chest, and arms were covered in streaks of blood and bits of flesh and bone. His lower lip trembled. He glared at Maja and Sri, but after a moment lowered his sword.

  “Where’s Hanu? We need to get out of here before the boats land.”

  She stared at her companions. They did not look like they had won the fight. Bui and Giant Trilli were drenched in gore. Arimanu held Ji in his arms. Her head hung awkwardly, her eyes open and staring emptily, her tongue lolling. Maja winced.

  “We lost Hanu,” said Maja. Even before the words left her mouth, bile rose in her throat and she choked back the urge to suddenly vomit. She reached out to steady herself but she found nothing and instead stumbled a few steps.

  “Should’ve stuck with us,” said Bui. “Dumb monkey.”

  “Are you so heartless? One of ours fallen.”

  “You should be happy. You got your little prize.” Bui lifted the bottom of the cloth wrapped around his face exposing his disfigured lips and spit a glob of mucus and blood at Sri, just missing him, and splattering the dust at his feet.

  “You’ll pay for that, ugly man,” hissed Sri. He reached into his robes.

  “Stop it,” said Maja laying a hand on Sri’s shoulder. He relaxed beneath her touch. She put herself between Bui and the boy. “It’s over now.”

  “Nothing over yet,” snapped Bui. “Fucking Emperor’s soldiers coming to kill us.”

  “We saved the heir.”

  “We left Land’s End. The God-Emperor swore we would be killed if we left. We left.”

  “He’ll forgive us. Issue a new proclamation. We saved his son. That’s worth more than you know to him. His legacy can continue.”

  “Do what you want, Maja. But I’m leaving.” Bui turned from the gate and, with Giant Trilli at his heels, jogged towards the Hellhole and the sewers beneath the Eye of the East. Bui stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Wayan, I won’t wait for you. Say your goodbyes but let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”

  Bui and Trilli disappeared into the dark tunnel. Maja hesitated and then turned to Wayan. Tears sat in the corner of his eyes.

  “We’re done here,” he said.

  “We have to bring Sri back to his father,” said Maja. “We can make everything right again.”

  Wayan pressed his fingertips against Maja’s belly, touching the scars. “We need to stop pretending we can fix things,” he said. “Accept the broken world, and simply get on with our lives.”

  She choked back tears. “We pledged to protect the royal family.”

  “Not who we are any more. Not who we’ve been for a lifetime.”

  “I am going to deliver Sri to the God-Emperor.”

  “Leave him in the courtyard. They’ll find him.” He glanced through the gate. She followed his gaze and saw that the ships were tying up on the docks. Soon the soldiers would flood the Eye of the East. Soon the God-Emperor would step down from his ship, his bare foot touching the earth.

  “I will bring him to his father. I am faithful.”

  “That’s the choice, isn’t it? After all this time, that’s the choice,” said Wayan. He wiped his bloody sword on the sarong of one of the corpses at his feet and then sheathed it.

  “What choice?”

  “The choice of who you are faithful to.”

  “I am doing what is right.”

  “You need to understand what you’re doing, Maja. You’re choosing between the God-Emperor and me. The past and the future. Simple.”

  “And what’s your future? Hiding out for the rest of our lives? Exiled from the capital? Our reputations forever blemished, even more so by our cowardice at the end?”

  Wayan opened his mouth to say something but he stopped. Then he shook his head.

  He walked quickly from her. She waited for him to stop in his tracks and turn and say one last thing. Maybe that one last thing that would convince her that he was right. If he was so confident in what he believed, he should be arguing harder for her to come with him. Instead, he kept walking and, without slowing or a backwards glance, he ducked into the tunnel and descended back into the Hellhole.

  The voices of men pouring off the boats filled the gate. A warm wind swirled and the dust in the courtyard lifted, a demon dancing around the blood-soaked bodies.

  Arimanu had not put Ji down. Tears had washed lines down his grimy face.

  Sri faced the docks, his chest lifted, hood thrown back to reveal his bald head.

  “Maja, bring me to my father. Your actions will be rewarded. You made the right choice.”

  44

  A WALL OF soldiers faced Maja as she walked forward, clutching Sri’s hand tightly in hers. Her other hand strayed to briefly touch the scars on her belly and a sob bubbled though her lips. She felt their eyes on her. She saw the spearheads leveled at her.

  She still did not know if she was doing the right thing. Ever since she had found the boy, she knew she needed to protect him. Children deserved to be protected. It was a simple as that.

  Sri squeezed her hand. “Don’t be weak now. In the days and months ahead, I’ll need you more than ever.” His face was streaked in blood and dirt, and she knew she looked no better. The untouchable white demon, near naked, painted in blood, wounds weeping, body scarred and scabbed.

  She stopped before the wall of spears. The soldiers fell away, revealing a clear passage down the stone path to the wooden dock and the glittering white vessel of the God-Emperor.

  A wall of Demon Guards towered at the ramp. They had drawn their swords and spears. The last line of defense for the God-Emperor. Each wore a steel mask, only their eyes and lips visible, masks of the twisted, snarling faces of demons. She had once been one of them. She knew what it was like to be united, unbreakable, faithful.


  Even if she returned to their fold. She would never be one of them.

  She belonged only one place.

  Sri looked up at her. “Promise me that you will serve me. Promise me, Maja, that you will never let another blade touch my holy skin. Promise to be my Demon Guard. Come back to my family.”

  “I can’t. I’m returning,” she said, releasing her grip on Sri’s hand. “To where I belong. With the Fallen.”

  “You’re a fool, Maja. A stupid fool,” said Sri throwing her hand from his. “I’m warning you. If you walk away, you’ll never be able to come back.”

  “I know. I’m okay with that.”

  She retreated from the wall of spears. She moved quickly expecting the soldiers to come after her but they did not break rank.

  Her chest suddenly released, air swelling in her lungs and pressing against her ribs, full as if her breath had been constricted for years.

  Laughter trickled through her lips. “I am returning home.”

  She turned and ran towards the dark doorway that led to the Hellhole and her companions. Wayan waited for her there.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “But now I do.”

  “Let’s go, my love.”

  She looked back towards the dock.

  Sri stood alone in the parted sea of soldiers. “On your belly, boy,” one of Demon Guard ordered.

  Instead Sri marched a few steps forward, and then whipped his cloak from his body letting it drop to his feet.

  “Move!” he screeched to the Demon Guard. “I am Srirampaharit, the Holy Son, the Shadow Child, the Scourge of the Traitors. Move or die!”

  The Demon Guard did not make a sound. They did not shuffle their feet in obeisance. They did not part to the heir’s words.

  “Sri!” Maja whispered.

  She dug her fingers Wayan’s arm. She could not let them cut him down. Not after all that she had been through. Not after the deaths of Hanu, Gima, Ji, and so many others.

  She made to step forward but Wayan held her back.

  “Part,” the God-Emperor bellowed. “Let me see this willful child.”

  Metal clanged and the boards trembled with the steps of the Demon Guard. Then everything vanished but the lapping of the waves against the piers and the salty breath of the sea. Maja’s body shook with the drumming of her heart.

  Then the God-Emperor’s laughter cut through the air. “My child returned!”

  And a roar burst from the soldiers flooding the shore.

  Maja could not contain herself anymore and laughter floated from her lips. She had done it. She had returned the Holy Son. She had been faithful.

  She glanced at the father reunited with his lost child.

  The God-Emperor sat smiling on his glittering litter, draped in a white fungus, so bright that tears filled Maja’s eyes.

  Before him, Sri stood, naked but for his loin cloth, the royal tattoos revealed, arms spread wide, his body bright beneath sky.

  Maja’s breath suddenly caught in her chest

  A bloody handprint marked the back of the boy’s leg. The handprint of Hanu, his mark on his killer.

  Maja fell to her knees.

  Her gaze tracked to the cloak Sri had torn from his body. In it, dark metal glittered, the hook of Hanu, the weapon that had been turned against him.

  Maja rose to her feet.

  She wanted to run down that wooden dock, and drive her sword through the back of the boy.

  Sri turned slowly, arms spread. “I am home.” His gaze settled on her in the shadows of the doorway.

  Maja took a step forward. She would meet his challenge.

  “We run now!” Wayan jerked her and she blindly ran alongside him down the stairs into the Hellhole.

  The steps beneath her quivered, as if the stone had decayed, and she felt that she was sinking, the hidden rot beneath the surface of the world swallowing her whole.

  But then Wayan squeezed her hand. He brought her back. She found her footing. She was grounded again.

  They reached the Hellhole and the rest of the Fallen waited for them. She had returned to her one true family.

  But the empire was still filled with rot.

  Maja knew what she needed to do.

  She would have her revenge. She would kill Sri. She would hunt down the Duke. She would cut out the sickness beneath the blinding sky that plagued the empire.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book is a lonely thing but luckily I’ve got a crew of people around me to help me turn my madness into something I can put into my readers’ hands.

  A big shout out to my beta readers including Lauren Sacks, Jeff Bryant, and Tom Smith. Fortunately my early drafts have not been horrid enough to force you to run away screaming from my continuing requests to read more stories.

  Thanks for my dad for his willingness to read through final manuscripts and catch an endless series of typos and errors.

  I also want to thank John Anthony Di Giovanni and Shawn King for their tremendous work on the cover with me.

  Thanks to Evangeline and Sophia for putting up with me hidden in the loft tapping away at the laptop every morning.

  Thank You!

  Thanks for reading The Rise of the Fallen.

  As a special gift to you, if you sign up for my email list, I will send you The Witch of the Sands, the first book in the Hounds of the North series.

  You can sign up here: http://peterfugazzotto.com/

  I appreciate your support.

  -Peter

  PS - I also have a small favor to ask. To help me gather more readers like you, please leave an honest review about The Rise of the Fallen on Amazon, GoodReads and other sites.

  About the Author

  Peter Fugazzotto is a writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. His short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Grim Dark Magazine, and Far Fetched Fables. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing.

  In addition to his writing, he is a lifelong student of the martial arts and has won a World Championship in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He lives in Northern California with his wife and daughter and an assortment of animals.

  www.peterfugazzotto.com