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

  The first nests were empty, and soon the thoughts of being a fantastic beast were pushed aside by Maja’s numb lips and the icy pain needling through her wet fingers. She doubled her pace to the far side of the yard. The eggs were here, in the straw nests, but they were shattered. The fine speckled shells cracked open and the yolks slurped out.

  Foxes, she thought and she wondered if her father and Karl would set new traps in the forest. She wanted to go with them this time. She did not want to stay in the house and roll out the bread and tend to the stew all day. Younger than Karl, she was nearly as tall as he was, and even now he refused to wrestle in the yard with her for fear of her throwing him again like she had done at the festival at the end of the last summer.

  She had just turned back towards the house when she saw them: a half-dozen men with soot-painted faces, axes and spears held firm. She did not even have the time to cry out a warning before the raiders had slipped through the door that she has just walked out of.

  She charged forward one step before she was grabbed from behind and jerked off her feet, a cold hand clamping over her lips. The stench of hay and shit and pigs filled her nostrils. She kicked futilely as she was dragged back into the tree line.

  “We wait here, girl,” her uncle, Orin Oathbreaker, whispered, his breath hot in her ear. She could not break free, and his grip only tightened as the screams erupted from the house. “Too many for us.”

  Orin held her as the flames leapt up the building and the raiders circled the house, angrily shouting. Maja wondered what they were doing and then she saw the footsteps breaking through the snow and the trail of blood leading towards the forest and knew that one of her family had escaped. At that same moment, the raiders saw the tracks and unleashed a yowl.

  Maja fought against her uncle’s embrace but he was unnaturally strong. “We hold. We bide our time. Then blood for blood.”

  The raiders were halfway between the house and the tree line when the jarl and his men arrived, thundering in on horses, breaths unfurling like smoke. Soon the whole of the yard was red, and Orin released his grip on Maja.

  She stormed across the snow, falling, picking herself back up, her lungs burning.

  The jarl draped her father across the back of his horse. He still breathed.

  Maja squeezed his blood-soaked fingers, so warm.

  He smiled at her and then stared at the burning shell of his home.

  Tears filled her father’s eyes. They flickered. Then they closed.

  “The house!” Maja said to Orin. Her knees suddenly buckled and she fell, hands breaking through the icy snow. “Mother! Karl!”

  “There’s nothing left there but death. Let it burn. Let them ride the smoke. Nothing left but death.”

  Maja was nearly at the footbridge when she heard the crying.

  She stopped and drew her Moon Sword from the scabbard on her back. The black metal reflected no light. “What is that?” she asked.

  Hanu shrugged. “Another goat being tortured? Another of our wonderful companions?”

  The small voice cried out again. Maja turned towards a small bamboo hut behind one of the burning longhouses. She peered into the darkness of the open doorway. It smelled of ginger and limes. “Who’s there?”

  A tiny voice mewled.

  “Why waste our time?” muttered Hanu. “We should keep going.”

  Maja ignored him, inched forward, and eased the door open with her sword. Light flooded the hut. Clay pots lined the floor, bundled herbs hung from the ceiling, and baskets were packed with bright red peppers. Something still in the shadows moved along the far wall. Maja leapt back, sword pointed. Shimmering green eyes. It mewled.

  Maja squinted. Her eyes adjusted. A cat. No, a kitten. Huddled in the ceiling beam.

  “Just a cat,” said Maja turning.

  “Let’s go.” Hanu stared back to the center of the village.

  The cat meowed again.

  “It’s stuck,” said Maja stepping into the hut.

  She reached for the cat. Its fur was softer than she imagined, and she could feel its tiny heart pounding against its ribs. It was scared. Trembling. Its bones were so fragile in her hands. “It’s okay, girl. I got you.”

  But the cat did not trust her, and clung with sharp claws to the wood beam. Maja gently coaxed its grip free and pulled the small animal against her chest. The cat stared at her with unblinking green eyes. She stroked between its ears and the kitten purred pressing its forehead against her fingers. Maja smiled.

  She stepped out of the shadows of the hut and back into the light.

  But, the moment she did, the kitten sprang from her hands, racing up her arms, claws digging into flesh, and leapt to the muddied earth darting towards the forest without even a backwards glance.

  Maja swore. Long red lines marked her pale forearms and shoulders. Burning pain sheeted her skin. Droplets of blood emerged.

  “I don’t get you, Maja,” said Hanu. “You’ll rescue a cat but innocent people …”

  Suddenly another of the pirates, the lanky Malii with his hair braided in a long queue, burst out of the forest at the far end of the footbridge. “We got trouble! A Sword Demon. He’s cornered the Captain.”

  3

  MAJA CROUCHED BEHIND a low mud-plastered wall, clutching her swords. The temple, built of blocks of rusted volcanic stone, squatted beneath a towering fig tree. Vines covered the walls of the building giving it the appearance of being long abandoned, but a well-worn footpath led through a tangle of grasses and someone had recently left an offering of a bowl of rice near the entrance.

  “A Sword Demon? You think it’s someone we know?” asked Hanu staring at the temple. “One of the Fallen?”

  Hanu knelt alongside her. He wiped beads of sweat from his brow with his forearm. His face looked flush. She clenched her jaw. He would be digging into his pouch for more spore soon.

  “I hope it’s one of our replacements. Show him the fury of a true Sword Demon.” Maja turned to the lanky Malii. “Where’s the Captain?”

  “In the rear, there’s a chamber,” said the pirate. “We had found the store of mushrooms. We were filling our sacks when the Sword Demon fell on us. We fought hard. I thought we had killed him, we cut him bad, six against one, but then the battle turned. Blood everywhere. He cut us down like grass. The Captain retreated to the chamber in the back. I ran for help. He told me to get you.”

  “Two of us might not be a match for him,” said Hanu. “What if we know him? What if it’s someone who silently stood for us? Maybe a chance to find our way back into the favor of the palace. Maja, we’ve spent so much time away.”

  “Pipe dreams, Hanu. We’ll never be allowed back.”

  “What if it’s another of the Fallen?”

  “Enough talk,” said Maja. She exhaled sharply, counted to five, and then angled at a crouching run through the courtyard, until she reached the wall next to the temple door. Hanu, despite his protests, followed to the other side of the door. Loyal to Maja.

  She pressed against the rough stone not quite ready to enter the building regardless of what she had said.

  Her breath streamed more ragged than it should have for such a short dash. She knew what it was. Nervousness rose. She felt the pounding of her heart in her chest and a tightness constricting her throat. Her mouth was dry and sticky. She closed her lips and ran her tongue around her teeth, trying to draw out saliva. She should not have been this nervous. After all she was once a Sword Demon.

  But she knew why she trembled. She was about to face one of her former sworn brothers. They had been bound with an oath deeper than blood. Since she and Hanu had left Land’s End, they had not seen a single Sword Demon.

  But why would they have? Why would a Sword Demon be so far from the capital, away from his duty to guard the life of the God-Emperor and his family? Was it one of the Fallen? Could Hanu be right? But who would have had the courage to leave Land’s End? They who survived were broken, in body and spirit.

  Ma
ja made eye contact with Hanu and pointed at her chest indicating that she would go in first and that Hanu should wait. He made no signs of protest. In fact, he seemed to shrink from the doorway. His face looked suddenly drawn, and the beads of sweat on his brow had turned into a glossy sheen.

  Her breath caught. She hoped he would come when she called. She did not want to have to walk into this alone. She sighed hard. After all this was done and they were safely back on the Sea Eagle, she’d need to deal with his addiction. She had been putting it off too long.

  Still crouching, Maja darted into the temple. Cold air touched her skin. The interior was not as dark as she had initially feared. The roots of the banyan tree had torn the stone walls apart and shafts of bright light filled the room. She scanned the few areas still heavy in shadow but she saw no one.

  The temple held the faint scent of sandalwood and next to her several sticks of glowing incense poked out of an ash-filled urn. Beyond the walls, bird song tumbled through the forest, and a lone hornbill clacked in flight. She slid her feet forward, fine pebbles and grit grinding beneath her feet. She turned slowly, swords held before her, the dark metal of the Moon Sword nearly invisible in the gloom.

  A single stone table occupied the center of the room. On it lay one of her pirate companions. One arm covered his eyes and the other draped over the edge of the table, his body in a pose as if he were napping. Blood, thick already and speckled with flies, pooled on the floor. Several other pirates lay crumpled and twisted on the ground, the sword wounds evident: a punctured chest, a slit throat, a blood-soaked thigh.

  Maja’s heart raced as she glanced at the pirates, men with whom she had shared cups of palm wine and bowls of noodles. She stared at each of the men, afraid that she would see the Captain among them. But she did not. Even so, their bodies almost seemed to form a path towards a dark opening at the rear of the temple. She knew where she needed to go.

  The Sword Demon needed to pay for what he had done to her companions.

  She hoped Captain Pak had not succumbed. Of all the pirates, he was the one she hoped survived. Even now she could imagine the wrinkles masking his eyes, the crooked teeth of his smile. In the past few years, he had been like a father to her who dreamed of one last haul, retiring to a distant village, and living out the rest of their days fishing a placid lagoon.

  A pained voice broke from the dark folds of that opening. “Maja.”

  She stepped carefully among the bodies, methodically placing her feet and shifting her weight to make as little sound as possible.

  “Maja.”

  She winced. It sounded like the Captain. But the voice was wheezy and warped. It could have been anyone. But only someone who knew her name.

  She paused outside the chamber. She narrowed her eyes, willing them to adjust to the gloom, but the darkness persisted, and she could only make out vague shapes. The deepest corners. Then a shape on the floor.

  “Maja, you came.”

  Her breath unfurled, air rushing to fill her chest, and the tightness that bound her shoulders suddenly released. Captain Pak lay before her. He was alive. She raced to him, ignoring the feeling that someone watched her, and tossing her Sun Sword to the side, lifted his head into her lap.

  “Cap.”

  She could see the outline of his face, dark against her pale hands, the white of his eyes and teeth. “He would have killed me,” said the Captain. She inhaled his familiar musky scent. “He held his damned sword at my throat, but then I called out for you, and he stopped. Then he bent close. He said, ‘Send her after me. Tell Maja to find me.’ Then he vanished into the shadows.”

  “Where?” asked Maja picking up her sword and rising.

  “Don’t go after him. Leave well enough alone. Get me back to the ship. Time for us to finally get away. Fish that lagoon.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “We can’t always be lucky, Maja. Let’s escape this life while we can.”

  “Where?”

  The Captain pointed to the back wall. “Through that door.”

  She started towards the door but was interrupted by a sudden tapping of metal against stone. She pivoted, swords crossed before her.

  Hanu clung to the edge of the doorway. “A ship returns! The Duke’s men! We need to get out of here!”

  “Help the Captain!” Maja ordered Hanu. “Hide him out of sight.”

  “And you?” asked Hanu.

  Maja felt along the back wall until she found the recessed door and the simple latch. She turned to Hanu. “I’m going after the Sword Demon.”

  “Don’t leave me,” said the Captain. With the help of Hanu, he had struggled to his knees. “Don’t go chasing after ghosts. Stick with me. I need you now.”

  “No choice,” said Maja.

  “Always a choice.”

  She opened the door and slipped into the thick forest beyond.

  The trail of blood through the forest was easy to follow. The Captain and the others had wounded the Sword Demon, and red streaks congealed on the leaves and muddy earth.

  Maja peered through the thick foliage. A thin trail of crushed volcanic gravel twisted up the mountain slope. She pushed forward. Almost immediately the trail steepened and her thighs burned with the effort. She began panting. She knew she should slow down so that when she found her prey she would not be winded but she was driven, desperate to see who it was. She hoped it was one of those who stood stone-faced as she had been dragged from the palace, and not one of the Fallen.

  Suddenly the trail leveled and she entered a clearing. A single squamous statue perched in the clearing, its face washed into a blur by the rain and the years. At the foot of the statue, a figure drenched in blood sprawled.

  She recognized him immediately. It was Adi, the First Spear of the Demon Guard.

  He had aged poorly in the five years since Maja had been cast out. Where once he had been broad, verging on barrel-shaped, he lay in the grasses withered, his face angular, cheeks hollowed. The flesh on his arms sagged, the bones visible. And his hair formerly black and lustrous was now white and sparse.

  Despite the severity of his injuries, he clung to his Sun and Moon Swords, his hands trembling.

  His eyes brightened out of a fog as he recognized her. “Maja, I never thought to see you again. An angel… descended.” Blood colored his lips a bright, sticky red.

  She approached warily, watching, listening for sounds beneath the settling of the forest and persistent grind of insects. “What are you doing on Trebang? No longer the favorite of the God-Emperor?”

  Adi swallowed back a visible wave of pain that made his muscles suddenly contract. When he spoke again it was through trembling lips. “Maja … Help me.”

  Adi lifted a hand from his blood-soaked white fungal armor. He had been cut deep and the glistening blood pulsed slow and steady. The cuts were too deep for the fungus to stem the flow. He was finished. He would die here. In moments.

  She slid her blades into their scabbards. She needed to get Captain Pak back to their ship. The Duke’s men would not look lightly on the pirates, and especially not her or Hanu. Former Demon Guards were prized captives. Maybe now was the time to hang up their swords and find that peaceful village that the captain always dreamed about.

  Adi’s eyes fluttered, rolling up into his head for a moment, before focusing with an unexpected clarity.

  “Maja. Save … save …”

  She scoffed. “You’re dead. Dead to me ever since you refused to stand for us. Nothing left to save. Don’t beg for your life. It’s unbecoming.”

  He sputtered blood as he tried to speak. “Not me. The boy … Save the boy.”

  Maja suddenly tensed, gaze darting left and right into the shadowy underbrush. She drew her swords again.

  “A boy … village … shaved head … monk’s robe … marked … holy words. Save the boy.” Blood burbled out of Adi’s lips and he fell hard, his head cracking against the foot of the unknown god, his words forever silenced.

  4<
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  MAJA KNELT BEFORE the body of Adi. She laid a hand over his face and swept his eyelids closed. She paused and stared at her own hand for a moment. The scars, the wrinkles, the misshapen joints. Time had passed for both of them.

  Why had Adi wanted her to save some boy in this village? The first thing he says to her after so much time? Why was he even here on this island far from the palace of the God-Emperor?

  Already flies, plump and furious, had descended on his corpse, and despite her swooshing, the flies simply lifted for a moment before alighting again on his open wounds and his parted lips. The jungle – riotous and ravenous – would consume him.

  For all of Adi’s years of service and sacrifices to the Empire, he deserved more than to be torn apart by armies of ants and to have maggots burrowing into his flesh. He had been one of the chosen: the Sword Demons. And they were to be honored.

  Maja closed her eyes and sighed heavily. Insects churred from deep in the forest.

  If they were back in the capital, Adi would have been laid on a funeral pyre, his body draped in silks from the lands of the west, his swords bound to his body so that he could bear them in the afterlife. She imagined the drums and cymbals, the dancing girls in their gilded ceremonial armor, Adi’s slaves spore-driven to plunge kris daggers into their breasts as they lumbered in a trance state. Even the God-Emperor would have been there, perched on his jeweled throne, his face hidden behind his golden mask, nodding ever so slightly in recognition of one of those who had pledged their lives to the dynasty.

  But instead Adi lay at the feet of an unknown god. Worm food.

  Five years ago, before the fall, she never would have hesitated at Adi’s commands. She would have leapt before the spearpoint of an assassin. She would have plunged into the heart of an angry mob to clear safe passage for the God-Emperor’s carriage. She never would have faltered in carrying out his dying wish.