Ragged Heroes: An Epic Fantasy Collection Read online

  Arjun relaxed, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath tainted with the festering corruption of the hole. He could smell it even here, heavy on the air, the miasma created by the putrefaction of his family, his brothers, his community, his life…

  * * *

  He lived in the hermit’s cave until he was healed. Every day he awoke to the reek of the dead. Every night he drifted off to sleep with the smell of rot in his nostrils. Some nights he couldn’t sleep because of the odor. And because of the ache of knowing how he’d failed.

  Each morning they woke before the sun and chanted together the ritual prayers and daily recitations. As Arjun became stronger, he joined the Sajhi in meditation. He soon found that the life of an ascetic appealed to him. He enjoyed the privations, the time spent focusing on light and breath and nothingness. It distanced him from the pain of the memories.

  The old man didn’t eat much. The Sajhi sought salkana ― the religious death of a hermit, limiting his food consumption little by little each passing day. Arjun understood and did not intervene. In a way, he followed suit. He had his own religious death to seek: the death of the martyr. Each day Arjun consumed all the food the hermit did not, invigorating his body and investing in his strength.

  In time, his body healed enough for him to stand, which made him mildly hopeful. The Sajhi was right ― his sword arm would never move the same way it had before his fall. He would have to become accustomed to wielding a talwar left-handed.

  In the jungle’s sweltering gloam, he returned to the slow, meditative dance of the warrior. He trained against the large bole of a tree, using whittled fronds as weapons. He placed his knee against the smooth bark and practiced the long, drawing cuts that formed the ritualistic core of the dance. In time, the edged frond came to feel right and comfortable in his left hand.

  Then, one day when he and the Sajhi sat together in meditation, Arjun looked within and saw his own inner flame.

  He blinked, shaken from his trance, and stood up. Leaving the Sajhi behind in the cave, he wandered out into the dense heat of the afternoon. The air was humid and fragrant, the jungle full of shadow and noise. He glanced around, now fully alert.

  “The truth is many-sided. To see the truth, you must consider all sides.”

  He turned to find the Sajhi standing behind him. The old man was clothed in a tattered robe too big for his starved frame. His unkempt beard squirmed down his chest, his hair defying the knot atop his head.

  Arjun cast a troubled look at the man who had saved his life. There was only one side of the truth he wanted to consider.

  “It is time,” he said at last.

  The Sajhi pressed his lips together and nodded. He extended a bundled object toward Arjun, proffering it in both hands.

  Arjun accepted the parcel, unwrapping it from ragged layers of cloth. It was a dagger, the sacred weapon of the Hira, tucked inside a leather harness. He hung the dagger from his shoulder by its strap.

  I am a Seeker of the Flame…

  The Sajhi then took him by the elbow and guided Arjun out into the open jungle. The shadows of the canopy folded over them. The humming of insects was insistent, reminding Arjun of the buzzing of flies in the pit. A feeling of dread slithered over him.

  They walked for miles together through the damp and claustrophobic wilds. Arjun moved with a slight limp; he still favored one leg. Even here, in the sweltering midst of the rainforest, he could smell the festering decay. He focused his mind on his inner flame as he walked, seeking the sheltering peace of nothingness.

  The Flame dwells within each of us…

  He had searched within and found the flame inside himself.

  Overhead, a macaque screeched down from the canopy. There was a frantic scurrying in the tree limbs overhead. A shower of leaves fell around them, twirling. Then the forest was quiet again, save for the consistent drone of insects.

  The jungle thinned out, and they emerged on to a wide dirt road. It was empty for the most part, just a few travelers in colorful dress. They fell in ahead of two men holding sticks, escorting a pair of white bullocks with painted horns. He recognized none of the people on the road; they were all Kavera.

  It was then that he noticed the looks they were getting from their fellow wayfarers.

  “What is going on?” Arjun whispered to the Sajhi. “Where is everyone?”

  “All gone,” the old man informed him.

  “Gone?”

  Arjun stopped in the middle of the road. One of the Kavera cattle drivers swatted him with his stick as he guided a great bull past him. Arjun ignored the insult, and the pain. He stood peering into the face of the Sajhi, intent.

  “What is it you haven’t told me, old man?”

  The Sajhi guided him off the road and into a freshly-turned field. Arjun followed, not understanding where his guide was taking him or why, his question left unanswered. They crossed the field, the stench of death following. They made for a line of trees that marked the edge of the riverway.

  There, at last, the Sajhi paused, in the soft loam of the river’s bank. People should have been there: bathing, fishing, swimming. But the river was empty. It lapped gently at the shoreline. The light of the sun broke in scattered reflections off the water.

  Arjun turned back to the guru. “Tell me, Sajhi. Where have they gone?”

  “They went into the hole.”

  The Flame is both conflict and peace…

  “All of them, Sajhi? All of them went into the hole?”

  “Not all. Some of the girls they took away to the city. But all of the rest went into the pit.”

  “The smell…”

  … had become so much worse lately, he realized. It clogged his lungs, tore at his heart.

  Arjun felt suddenly nauseous, staggering away to spill his guts into the river. When he was done, he wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand and spat bile from his mouth. He righted himself then limped back to the old man.

  “What do you want from me? If there is no one left to save…”

  “There is one.”

  The Sajhi pointed.

  Arjun turned to find a tall gibbet that had been raised by the side of the river. From the cross arm hung a man-cage fashioned of wood and reed. Arjun couldn’t tell if there was someone inside. The cage dangled from a hemp rope, swinging in a slow gyre, pushed by the breeze.

  “Is someone in there?”

  The Sajhi nodded, lowering his arm back down to his side. “You must save her, Brother.”

  The old man was right. If there really was a woman in that cage, then he couldn’t leave her to such a fate. How many days had she already hung there? Was she even still alive?

  Arjun glanced about. The riverway seemed all but empty.

  The cage creaked. The insects hummed. A slight breeze ruffled his hair.

  “Wait here,” Arjun decided.

  He walked over to the gibbet, inspecting it closely. The post had been fashioned from a palm tree’s trunk. The top had been slashed off, replaced by a long crossbeam that held the wicker cage above the river. The gibbet would be impossible to push over. Arjun looked up at the swaying man-cage and sighed. He’d climbed many coconut palms in his youth. He still remembered the technique.

  Using his dagger, he cut a vine from the dense growth under the gibbet and tied it in a loop around both ankles. Then he wrapped his hands around the gibbet’s post and jumped on, catching the vine between his feet on the fibrous wood. Gripping the palm, he made a short hop, catching the vine further up the trunk. He used the foot loop to climb all the way up the post to the crossbeam.

  With a groan, Arjun muscled his way on to the top of the beam, where he sat and looked around. He felt for sure someone must have spotted him. But apparently no one had; only the Sajhi stared up at the gibbet, shielding his eyes with a bony hand. Reassured, Arjun cast away the spent vine. He pushed himself to his feet on the narrow beam, arms spread wide for balance.

  He crept forward in a crouch, keeping his cente
r of gravity low. One foot in front of the other, out over the river. His palms began to sweat. He felt dizzy, the world lurching. At last he dropped back down on to the beam, hugging it tight as he squeezed his eyes against the panic that flooded his body.

  He waited until the world stabilized and his breathing returned to normal. Then he drew the dagger from its sheath and set the blade to the thick rope wound about the crossbeam. It was risky, but there was no other way to go about it. The cage would have to fall. At least it would fall in the river; the woman inside would have a chance.

  Arjun sawed at the rope, gritting his teeth, hoping she wouldn’t scream when she fell and wondering how he would save her from the river. The blade bit through the rough hemp fibers with a gnawing sound. There was a dull snap, and then the cage fell.

  Arjun dove after it into the river. He broke through the water’s surface before striking the soft sediments of the bottom. He clawed his way to the surface, where he clung to the top of the cage and gasped for breath.

  A woman’s face gaped up into his own, pressed against the wicker. Her mouth groped for air as the cage sank beneath the water.

  Arjun attacked the woven reeds with his dagger, sawing a hole through the top of the cage. Reaching in, he caught the woman’s arm and pulled her upward. She didn’t help at all, but at least she didn’t fight. It took every bit of strength he possessed to wrench her out through the hole. He clutched her to him and swam for the shore.

  The Sajhi helped get her on to the bank. There the woman lay still, either unconscious or dead; Arjun didn’t know which. He gazed down into her face as the old man pumped her chest. The image of a bloated corpse from the pit filled his mind, and a surge of bile stung his throat. Arjun swallowed it back down. He thought he recognized the woman. She was the wife of one of the Ravesh rulers who had oppressed his own family before the Kavera had overthrown them, replacing them with an even more brutal regime.

  A year ago, Arjun had wished for this same woman’s death. And the death of all like her. Now he stared down into her sun-blistered face, hoping the old man could wring some life out of her.

  The woman choked, spewing up a chestful of water. The Sajhi pulled her into a sitting position, patting her back as she coughed and gurgled and came alive in his arms. Arjun closed his eyes, feeling an immense surge of relief. He didn’t know why he cared.

  But he did. He could still smell the pit.

  “This is a good start,” the Sajhi said.

  Arjun winced, his eyes springing wide open. “A start? Who else is there to save?”

  The old man gazed up at him with eyes full of expectation. He rubbed the woman’s back, comforting her as she cried against his shoulder. He said to Arjun, “There are others in need.”

  “What others?”

  The old man lay the woman out in the dirt, patting her hand. “The Kavera spread like vermin. Already, they are digging another hole near Brodha Province to the east.”

  Arjun stared at him, eyes going wide as the weight of that information settled heavily on his heart. The Kavera wouldn’t stop there; there would always be another hole, another pit.

  “What do I do…?” he whispered.

  “Everything you can do, Brother. Bring them down. Bring them down one by one. Starting with that one.”

  The old man nodded in the direction of the village. Arjun’s eyes followed his gaze, at last spotting movement along the riverbank. Far upstream, a little girl squatted in the rushes along the watercourse. She was alone, her parents nowhere in sight. The girl knelt in the dark red clay beside the water’s edge, holding a mango in her hands. She wore a patterned skirt, her loose hair covered by a faded shawl. Even from a distance, Arjun could tell she was Kavera.

  His stomach lurched as he realized the guru’s intentions.

  “That is a child, Sajhi. I will not mete out vengeance on a little girl!”

  The old man maintained a flat expression. “That child will grow up to bring forth slavers and murderers from her womb. She is like Kaliri, the she-devil who birthed an army of demons! How many pits must be filled before you bring yourself to raise your hand against a child?”

  That was too much for Arjun.

  The soul is the Flame…

  He turned and strode away from the guru, wandering southward under the shade of the banyan trees. A cool breeze stirred the branches above. The insects stilled their blurring songs at the noise of his approach. He cast his body down in the mud beside the river, elbows propped on his knees. There, he unsheathed the long dagger that he carried.

  He turned the blade over in his hand, considering it.

  “Is that all I am, now? A murderer of children?”

  The question had been meant for no one; the Sajhi sat well upstream, far out of earshot. Beyond him, through the rushes, a little girl played out of sight.

  Arjun stared down at the knife, at last making his decision. It was not a decision he made lightly.

  He reached up and grabbed the long, unshorn braid that fell down the length of his back: the mark of an initiated warrior of the Flame. He brought the dagger up to his neck and cut at his hair, eventually slicing entirely through the braid. It fell at his feet like a lifeless snake, coiling there in the mud. He picked it up and flung it as far away as he could.

  Sliding the dagger back into its sheath, Arjun stood on legs that shook. He felt unstable and empty. As though the last of the light had bled out of him.

  How many holes will I fill?

  He walked back to the Sajhi, who stood protectively over the woman they had saved. Arjun bowed his head, removing the dagger from its harness. This he thrust into the hands of the old man.

  “I will not use the sacred blade of the Hira to shed the blood of an innocent.”

  His own trembling hands would suffice.

  The Flame is both conflict and peace…

  He turned his back on the old sage and limped along the riverbank, wobbling like a drunken man through the rushes. He slowed as he approached the girl, coming up quietly at her side. He looked around, wondering where the child’s mother might be. Then he saw the earthenware container sitting in the mud, forgotten. She had probably been sent to collect water from the river and had become distracted by the fruit.

  As Arjun crouched at her side, his stomach growled. She turned and looked up at him with wide, dark eyes, a look of surprise on her face.

  He nodded a greeting. Then he picked up a stick and poked around with it in the mud, drawing a line toward himself.

  “You remind me of my sister,” he said. It was true. They were about the same age.

  The girl stared at him, eyes full of curiosity and trust.

  “My name is Arjun. That’s a nice fruit you have.”

  The End

  About the Author

  M.L. Spencer was born in Southern California and grew up on the works of Steven R. Donaldson, Stephen King and Frank Herbert. She wrote her first novel-length manuscript at thirteen.

  By day she works as a biology teacher; by night she sweats over a beaten-up keyboard. Her novel Darkmage won the Indie-Reader Discovery Award for Fantasy.

  Read More from M. L. Spencer

  http://mlspencerfiction.com/index

  Blood and Stone

  Phil Tucker

  The old man knew it had been a violent night. He had woken at one point to lie in the dark, clutching his sheets as he listened to the cries and crash of masonry and collapsing buildings. A wave of guilty gratitude had suffused him. There’ll be work tomorrow, he thought. Thank the exarch. And slept, to rise just before dawn, as he always did when he had to clean his charges.

  In the gloom, he fluttered his hands over the chair back across which he had laid his clothing the night before. By habit he stood before the old silvered mirror as he dressed, though he was but a shadow in its mercurial depths. The old man dressed slowly, deliberately, and with great care, and when he was done he stepped out of his room and turned toward his small kitchen. There, he finally lit
a candle and set to making his modest breakfast.

  He ate in silence, standing before his sole window, gazing down over the Road of Gilders as the rooftops beyond slowly caught the sun’s first rays. Others were about, returning from their protests or heading out to stake the best street corners from which to hawk their goods. Or, perhaps, to protest some more.

  As always, he recalled his father standing before this very window, his servant bustling about him, helping him with his suit. For this to be an ordered world, he’d said, one must find one’s place in it. That done, the world shall spin around you, and you shall know yourself a righteous man.

  The old man sighed, wiped the last of the golden egg off his plate with a crust of stale bread, and then pursed his lips in thought. Enough to buy coffee for tomorrow’s breakfast? Perhaps, perhaps. If there was any coin left after. Two crowns to his sister, four crowns to the orphanage, and then Mrs. Spenem on the second floor and the Hurstwiths on the first…

  He descended the three flights quickly to the common entry hall below, ducking his head as he passed others by, and then paused when he finally emerged onto the stone stoop. Gratitude embarrassed him. Best to slip out and avoid the awkwardness. He placed his old hat on his head, held his battered leather valise before his thighs, and peered left and right as if ensuring no runaway carriage was coming to bowl him over.

  None was.

  Buoyed by purpose, a spring in his step, he made his way along the cobbled streets. A large crowd was already gathered before the Black Goose, their voices raised in angry murmurs like the sea before a storm. The old man circumvented the crowd with neat steps. Young men rushed here and there with palpable urgency, their faces pale, their eyes wide. Some sported white bandages wrapped around limbs or heads, crimson flowers soaking through the cloth to speak as to their activities last night. The old man made sure not to meet any eyes.

  He kept off the main roads. Avoided the public squares. And by circuitous paths he eventually found himself outside the palace walls. They reared up impossibly high, fifty yards of sheer stone, a testament to the new exarch’s power. The old man avoided the main gate with its phalanx of guards and its angry crowd. Instead, he followed the wall around to where it met the cliffs, and there to a small iron door to which he owned the key.