Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress (14 page)

he wind roared in Ash’s ears as he sailed through the night. For a moment, he saw the city lights shining brightly on the surface of the black river. The chants of the priests echoed like lullabies and the sharp coldness of the river breeze caressed his body. His skin was electric with adrenalin, his fingers and toes tingling as he peered down. A man stared up from the street below, aghast—

Ash landed with a thud, skidding a metre or so before stopping.

“Oh, wow,” he said.

I TOTALLY made it
!

He had to tell himself that because otherwise he wasn’t sure he’d believe it. He should be a street pizza.

He looked back and realised the gap was a lot bigger than he’d first thought. It was a total miracle he’d done it. He saw Mayar slam his fist at the far wall in frustration, knocking off a pile of bricks. No way was he making that jump; he was just too big and cumbersome.

“Hey, Mayar,” shouted Ash. “Maybe next time!”

Ash glanced over the edge. No sign of Lucks, or Jackie. His sister was small and fast, she was probably back at the Lalgur already. Ash spotted the stairs in the corner of the roof. He’d head back and—

Across the alleyway Mayar laughed. It rumbled up from his belly and he clapped his hands. And when Mayar laughed, it was time to be afraid.

A shadow passed across the moon, and a black shape high in the sky gave a blood-chilling scream.

Ash gazed up. “My God.”

The shape took form as it hung silhouetted against the moon. Its long wings curved over it like a sickle and its bony body was pallid and thin. Instead of feet, a pair of curved talons swung below its frame, each claw as bright as steel. Its bald head was distorted by a long beak and a thick necklace of feathers.

Jat rose higher and slowed his ascent to pause, for a moment, among the stars. Then he folded in his wings and dived with an ear-piercing shriek.

Ash dropped down to the roof of the adjacent building. The old city was packed tight. The houses had been rebuilt and modified so many times over the centuries that many of the roofs merged together. The inhabitants slept up on them during the summer and Ash saw people pointing at the monster as it swooped down. He hopped on to a cluster of beds, using the springy web of rope mattresses to shoot himself across the next gap, wider than the first.

As he landed on the roof opposite, talons grazed his shoulder and Ash fell badly. He stumbled back up to his feet, knocking over a small table laden with a china tea set. The entire thing shattered and an old woman yelled. “What do you think you’re doing, you hoodlum? Police! Police!”

Ash grabbed her and dived to the floor as Jat’s talons sliced the air right behind him.

“Stay down,” Ash hissed. Then he sprang up and grabbed the tea tray, flinging it like a Frisbee.

It shot across the short gap in a flash of silver. Jat yelled as the tray sliced his forehead. But it didn’t stop him from
flying forward and slamming his fists into Ash’s chest, hurling the boy off his feet.

Ash’s chest was on fire. He lay dazed as the rakshasa glided on to the floor.

Get up.

Ash’s arms were lead-heavy. Jat’s long talons clicked on the concrete roof as he approached. His huge wings swung back and forth, blowing dust over Ash. Ash gasped, a sharp pain stabbing through his lungs as he tried to breathe. Had he broken a rib?

Get up or die.

The roof was crisscrossed with washing. Sheets flapped in the breeze, saris, shirts, shrouds. Jat cut a white bedsheet in two with a quick slash of his curved fingernail. He had to duck to pass under the web of washing lines. The billowing walls of cloth created a series of corridors across the roof.

Ash got up. This was it – no more running. He couldn’t escape across the roof: Jat was too fast. He couldn’t flee through the street, not with Mayar and Jackie lurking in the alleys.

Jat pushed another long flowing sheet aside with a hiss. His eyes fell on the arrowhead round Ash’s neck and he leaned over, flexing his long fingers eagerly.

“The aastra, give it to me. Now!” A multicoloured sari flapped in Jat’s face. He ripped it off with a jerk, tearing it to ribbons. “The aastra!”

He jabbed forward, but Ash ducked under one of the large bedsheets. He weaved in and out of the washing as Jat turned and swiped at him. The rakshasa’s wings, each over four metres wide, tangled in the washing lines and wrapped up in the drying sari. He tried to barge through the web of cables, but it only made things worse. He looked like a mummy risen from his sarcophagus, with long, torn strips of fabric trailing off his body and limbs.

Ash dived and ducked, playing a deadly game of Blind Man’s Bluff. Jat ripped the material off his face and leaped forward, ignoring the cables that now bound his shoulders and neck.

Ash’s feet touched the edge of the roof. Glancing back, he saw the opposite building was higher than this one. There was nowhere left to jump.

And Jat knew it. “Going to eat your eyes, boy,” he said, smacking his lips. “Mayar and Jackie can fight over the rest but your eyes are mine.”

Ash raised his fists, tightening his fingers until the knuckles
hurt. Jat wriggled closer, freeing his arms. The cables slipped higher up his shoulder, round his neck.

He launched forward and Ash gasped as Jat rammed into him. They tumbled backwards, Ash grabbing the rakshasa’s arms as they dropped down the side of the building. His eyes locked on Jat’s, who grinned at him with murderous glee.

Then the fall ended with a jerk and a snap as the cable round the rakshasa’s throat tightened into a noose. Jat bounced up and down like a puppet, Ash still desperately hanging on, a few metres above the stony ground.

Ash stretched, then let go. He landed with a thud. Leaning against the wall, he sucked in breath, each gasp sending hot needles through his battered lungs. But he was alive. He was alive and the demon was dead.

Jat’s lifeless body swayed on the end of the cable. His neck hung crooked and his bloodshot, dead eyes bulged; two big round tomatoes ready to pop. The creature’s face was red and swollen and its long tongue flapped. This was what death looked like. Ugly.

The air turned foggy, and Ash’s sweat turned to ice. Ash sank to the ground, his body wracked with pain. The aastra burned against his skin and he tore it off. He held it in his
hand as the gold glowed and hissed against his palm. The pain raced up through his arm like a million biting ants under his skin.

What was happening to him?

Ash stared at the swinging corpse, the rakshasa he’d just killed. Shadows coalesced, crossing the wall, creeping towards Jat’s body. The shadow, now a single, moving form, had many arms. Long, bony fingers reached across the crumbling bricks towards Jat. The head turned, and a long, eager tongue licked the rakshasa’s face, savouring the taste of freshly dead, warm, flesh. There was a rattle of bones.

Ash curled up as another wave of agony ripped through him. Howls echoed around him. The other rakshasas were coming. They wanted the aastra, and the moment they had it, his life was over. He couldn’t let that happen; he had to hide it.

Ash crawled to a small street shrine – a statue at the corner of the building. It was a crude lump of stone, so painted over that all the original features had been lost. Ash shoved the aastra behind it, hiding it from view.

He stumbled away a few paces, but the pain was too great. He felt as if each of his bones was covered in molten lead. Ash’s head swam with delirium and he collapsed.

Seconds or minutes or hours later, nails dug into his shoulders and he was raised off the ground. Dangling in the air, Ash met Mayar’s blazing, reptilian gaze.

“The aastra, boy. Give it to me.” The demon’s breath was suffocating, filled with the stink of rotting meat. He shook Ash. “Where is it?” Mayar began to press his hands together, crushing Ash between them.

“Don’t kill him,” said Jackie. Ash watched her approach, more or less human now, but still with a grinning mouth too full of canine teeth. “At least not yet.”

Mayar tossed Ash against the wall. The impact punched all air from his lungs and should have broken every bone in his body, but he just slumped to the ground, all his strength exhausted.

Jackie stood over him, pushing his face up towards her with a bare foot. The long toenails scratched his cheek.

“Bring him,” she said. “Lord Savage is waiting.”

ord Rama is waiting,” says Lakshmana.

Rama sways, blinking away the dizziness that suddenly comes upon him. He glances around, aware that rakshasas are present, and meets the gaze of Mayar, one of Ravana’s most loyal warriors.

Lakshmana steps between them and points downwards. “On your knees, demon.”

Mayar, his hate undisguised, slowly lowers himself to the ground. Hands, still scarlet with the blood of Rama’s kin, plant themselves down as the rakshasa bows before him.

Behind Mayar kneel the other rakshasa generals, the other princes, kings and maharajahs of the demon nations, all humbled, all preparing to surrender to Rama.

Their hatred, impotent though it is, is undiminished. And they should hate him. With blood and bronze swords, with the aid of the gods, the rakshasa armies have been destroyed. Yesterday these rakshasas ruled the world, while humanity was merely a race of slaves. Now these mighty princes and grand monsters are vagabonds, their lands and palaces destroyed, their great king dead. Without Ravana, the demons are powerless.

The rule of the rakshasas has come to an end; now is the age of Mankind.

“Is that all of them?” asks Rama. He looks out across the defeated demon lords. There are so many and though defeated, the fire of rebellion still burns in their eyes.

Lakshmana frowns. “No, my lord. One fights on.”

“Take me to him.”

“Her, Rama,” says Lakshmana. “It is Ravana’s daughter.”

The chariot rattles over the battlefield. Lakshmana handles it with his natural lightness and the horses respond to the merest hints from his reins. Rama stands beside him, surveying his new kingdom.

Funeral smoke blackens the sky, hiding the sun, or perhaps it is ashamed to shine upon such slaughter. The only light comes from the huge pyres. They cover the black earth. The dead, bodies mangled and bloodless, lie like fields of corpse flesh. Kings are burnt alongside peasants, demons beside
mortals. There are no causes, no flags and warring nations among them; they all belong to one country now. Yama, the land of the dead.

Ravana was master of the ten sorceries, the greatest of all demon-kind. Some of the demons have refused to believe their king could be killed, least of all by a mere mortal.

Is it any surprise some have not surrendered?

But he knows Ravana is dead, destroyed by the Vishnu-aastra. Rama looks down at his hand, at the thumb that drew the bowstring that launched the divine weapon. Why does it still ache?

“There,” says Lakshmana, pulling the reins. The chariot rolls to a halt.

There is a hill. It is surrounded by a wall and beyond that wall waits Rama’s army. Men, weary to exhaustion, sit on the bloodied battlefield, clutching their weapons and tending to their wounded. Neela, Rama’s best friend and most loyal general, slaps his hand on Rama’s shoulder.

“You look tired, Your Highness.” He grins.

“Where is she?”

“Look beyond the wall.”

The soldiers part silently as Rama approaches. They say nothing. It is too early for stories, epic poems and grand feasts. Not before their friends, their brothers, their fathers and sons have been cremated and sent into the afterlife.

Do they blame him? Rama wonders. They fought and died for him and how can he ever repay them? There is not enough gold in the world.

The wall is not of stone or timber, but of flesh. Neela scratches the back of his neck.

“She built this wall herself. Each man, slaughtered by her.” He grips Rama’s arm and there is quiet fury in his eyes. “Kill her, Your Highness. She is Ravana’s daughter. A hundred thousand dead men cry for her blood.”

“Trust me, my friend.”

Rama climbs. His hands slip on cold skin, on torn bodies and mortar made of flesh and blood. By the time he reaches the top, he looks as though he’s swum through a river of blood.

And so I have.

She stands there, waiting for him. Her armour is black and grimy with dried blood. Her helmet has been discarded so Rama can see her face. She is young and her hair long and black, loose and fluttering in the breeze. Her pallid skin is lightened by the green fire in her eyes. Her fangs are partially extended. She smiles and unravels her weapon, made of four long razor-sharp strips of metal – curling blades that work as whips and swords. Not for nothing is it called the urumi, the serpent sword. A true master can dismember a man with a single flick, and from the limbless corpses in the wall, she is clearly a master. It is true what they say about her: she was born to end men’s lives.

She bows her head. “Lord Rama.”

Rama, too, bows. Then he stands straight and meets the girl’s gaze. “Your Royal Highness.”

“You are unarmed,” she says.

“The war is over.”

The urumi quivers. Rama knows he’s easily within striking distance.

“The others have surrendered,” he says. “Your brothers are dead. As is your great father.”

She flinches. “Ravana is dead. So it is true.”

“The war has cost us all, Parvati. Why continue? You would be honoured in our court.”

Her shoulders are slumped. “I was born for one purpose, Rama. You know that.”

“You are not just your father’s daughter.” Rama looks at the slaughter around him. The countless men this young woman has killed. “You had two parents. Your mother was a kind, beautiful woman. I mourn her passing.”

“My father brought me up to believe humans were weak, beneath contempt.”

“It is a terrible thing to hate one’s mother, when all she did was love you.” Rama steps forward. “Come with me, Parvati.”

The serpent sword, the urumi, clatters to the ground.