Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress (18 page)

Ash charged forward, but was blocked by one of the scorpion-men. He dived sideways just as the sting slammed into the ground where he’d been standing.

“The boat! Get to the boat!” shouted Rishi.

There was no way Ash could abandon Lucky, but as he looked around the battle, he knew they only had seconds. Parvati was unconscious and Rishi’s blows lacked the power and the electric speed they’d had earlier. His strength was fading fast. The rakshasas sensed victory.

A hero would fight on. Deep down, Ash knew he should be prepared to fight and die if necessary to save his sister and friends, but maybe he’d be more use to Lucky if he stayed alive. That way he’d be able to come back and rescue her later.

He wrapped his arms around Parvati and lifted her up, then ran down the corridor as Rishi swung his stick wildly, forcing the demons back.

Ash burst through the water gate and suddenly he was splashing knee-deep in the river. A single shallow-bellied boat bobbed nearby, tied to a post, and Ash hauled Parvati into it. It had to be Rishi’s; he could see the old man’s shoulder
bag lying under the seat. Ash’s hand slipped the knot and his feet dug into the sandy floor of the river as, heart pounding, he pushed the boat out.

Parvati moaned. Semi-delirious, she lay in the boat, cradling her wounded arm. Ash gave another heave and the current took hold. He dragged himself up and grabbed an oar. Then he started half paddling half pushing the boat further out.

Rishi bounded towards him, hopping like a spritely monkey through the water. “Don’t wait for me, boy!”

Figures paused at the water gate, now a good fifty or sixty metres behind them. A few waded into the water up to their knees, but then stopped, the distance between them and the boat too great.

They’re not chasing us. They’re letting us go.

The boat scraped on a submerged sandbank in the middle of the river. Chest heaving and limbs aching, Ash dropped the oar and checked Parvati. Her breath was shallow but steady.

Lights lined the upper battlements of the Savage Fortress. One by one the rows of torches came to life. The lights shone on the water’s surface too, spots of gold trembling the waves. Still no one gave chase.

Ash watched Rishi swim towards him, not so easy with
his stick in one hand. The wake formed a wide triangle behind the old holy man, the small waves bouncing to form a complex pattern on the otherwise still surface as a second V-shaped ripple overlapped it.

A second?

Ash glanced up at the fortress. Why was no one chasing them?

The waves rocked up and down roughly now, increasingly disturbed.

Ash put his hands on the oar. “Hurry up, Rishi!” he shouted.

The old man shook the water from his ears. He waved at Ash.

Ash leapt into the water, gripping the oar in both hands like a baseball bat.

“Rishi!”

Too late. The water trembled and Rishi went under.

ishi!”

Ash searched for some movement, but there was nothing. He waded towards where he’d seen Rishi go under. Maybe if he—

Then an immense demonic crocodile, almost five metres long, leaped high out of the water. Rishi, his arm trapped in the monster’s jaws, screamed. For a second they hung suspended, poised in the air, almost as though the crocodile was balancing on the tip of his tail. Then it languidly pivoted, twisting its head, and slammed down flat into the water.

The river foamed and churned, but Ash couldn’t see anything.

“Rishi!”

After what seemed like an eternity Rishi burst out, gasping. He blinked as he saw Ash. An inarticulate cry rose from his throat, which gave way to spasmodic coughing.

Ash tossed the oar aside and pulled the old man towards the sandbank. It was only when he was back at the boat that he was able to take a good look at the sadhu.

Mayar had torn off Rishi’s arm. Blood poured from the holy man’s ruined shoulder and teeth marks punctured his chest, each wide and deep. His torso was awash with scarlet.

Ash cradled the spindly old man against him. Each time Rishi breathed, red bubbles frothed across his chest.

“I’ll save you,” said Ash. He’d get Rishi in the boat. Somehow he’d save him. Somehow.

“Turning into a hero, are we?” muttered Rishi. “You always do. Sooner or later.”

Ash squeezed the old man tightly. If he hung on, then so would Rishi. “I’ll save you,” he said again. The words were useless, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Don’t be afraid, Ashoka.” Blood ran from Rishi’s lips. “It’s only death.”

Then his chest sank and did not rise again. Rishi’s eyes
closed and his body relaxed as his spirit fled to the lands of the dead.

“You’ll be back. You’ll be back,” whispered Ash.

Mayar’s head broke the lapping ripples. Ash watched as the long snout sank back into his face. The neck shrank and the demon rose out of the water, walking as a human on to the sandbank.

That was why they hadn’t been chased. Mayar had been waiting in the river all along.

Cold hard rage gripped Ash’s chest as tight as nails digging into his heart. His blood pounded like a massive drum, filling his head with pain. He hugged Rishi against him, trying to contain the agony shooting through his body. He gritted his teeth but couldn’t hold in the scream.

What was happening to him? He’d felt like this when Jat had died, only this was a thousand times stronger.

He bit down so hard he thought his teeth would shatter at any second. Then a final shock wave exploded along his spine, burning every nerve. Ash’s eyes snapped open just as Mayar joined him on the sandbank.

“Jat was my best friend,” growled Mayar. “This won’t be quick.”

Ash let Rishi slip to the ground as he stood up. The world
seemed filled with floating lights, like a million fireflies. He swayed on unsteady feet, waiting for the sprinkling lights to disappear, but they didn’t. Instead they settled like glowing dust over Mayar.

What was he seeing? The lights coalesced at different points. Some of them were faint and barely visible, others shining brightly. They seemed to change location second by second as Mayar moved. It was like a sparkling map covered the rakshasa. Could anyone else see this, or only Ash?

Ash stumbled back until he hit the boat and had nowhere left to run.

Mayar grabbed him by the throat.

“This is going to hurt. Scream as much as you want,” said the demon. “I like it when they scream.”

Ash made his left hand into a fist. He couldn’t take his eyes off the spot glowing halfway along Mayar’s jaw. The brightness was almost blinding.

“What are you looking at, boy?” snarled Mayar.

Ash swung his fist into that glowing point on the jaw. Mayar screamed as bone, teeth and blood erupted from his mouth, and Ash fell to the ground as red spittle sprayed his face.

Ash stared at his clenched fist. Mayar’s jawbone had
shattered like a dry, rotten twig. He gazed at Mayar, at the confusion in the demon’s eyes. Mayar held his broken jaw with one hand. Then he gave a gargling cry of rage and swiped his free arm at Ash’s neck. Each finger ended with a long curved claw, each one easily capable of tearing open Ash’s windpipe.

But Ash jabbed his fingers into another glowing spot, this time by Mayar’s elbow. Mayar cried out again as his arm went limp. It dropped to his side, fingers twitching and useless. He backed away, terrified.

Ash advanced, watching the ever-evolving pattern of lights glide over Mayar’s body. Energy roared along Ash’s veins, boiling the blood within and filling him with fire. His heartbeat echoed through him, each beat sending a brand-new surge of strength to his limbs and muscles.

The fire consumed him and he knew that he wanted to let it all out. He wanted to rip Mayar to pieces. He wanted to wash himself in the rakshasa’s blood.

Ash threw back his head and roared, pouring out all his rage and anger at the world. The clouds shook with fear.

Mayar hurled himself into the water and dived under. Ash glared at the river, scanning the surface for movement.

He would not be denied. He wanted to kill.

A moan from behind made him look around.

A rakshasa lay in the boat.

Her body sparkled with light. So many ways to break her. So many ways to kill her. Kill the rakshasa, Parvati.

Ash faltered. Her name was Parvati.

Parvati was his friend. She’d saved him. He didn’t want to kill her.

Ash slumped into the water, and the cold wetness against his face brought him to his senses.

Ash ached, suddenly weak. He watched the ripple of water head towards the Savage Fortress and saw Mayar stumble out, dragged by the other rakshasas.

Ash’s gaze rose towards the battlements. Savage stood up on the wall; there was no mistaking him. A small child was beside him. Lucky.

Savage raised his right hand.

Even from this distance it shone, a bright golden light shimmering off its polished metal surface.

Savage had the aastra.

he waters lapped against the boat, rocking it gently like a baby’s cradle. Ash, exhausted, slumped down beside the unconscious Parvati. Her skin was cold.

He watched the Ganges take the old man. Rishi’s hair spread out over the water’s surface as he floated for a moment before his body turned sideways and disappeared.

They drifted off the sandbank, carried by the slow current, carried away from Varanasi.

Ash gazed across the river at the Savage Fortress. Leaden weariness dragged at his heart.

“Lucky…”

He’d failed.

The clouds loomed over them, dark grey and heavy.
Is this what a coffin feels like?
he wondered.

Ash closed his eyes.

Sunlight – warm, bright and new – woke Ash. The boat was still. He got up and saw they’d drifted into the bank alongside some small dried-out fields. A cluster of huts stood in a circle about a mile away. Smoke rose from a campfire to fade into the blue sky.

Parvati murmured. She was in her complete human form, no scales at all. The wound on her arm had faded to a small dark blemish, and while she looked pale, she didn’t have that sallow, sick tinge to her skin any more.

Her eyes snapped open. The irises, wide and almost covering her pupils, pulsed, then narrowed and settled into a pair of pencil-thin slits.

“Rishi?”

Ash shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Parvati sat up and inspected her arm. “What happened?”

“Mayar got him. And Savage got the aastra.”

She gazed at the water rippling against the boat. “Rishi’s been dead before,” she said quietly. She looked up abruptly. “Do you have any good news?”

“I know the aastra is Kali’s.”

“A Kali-aastra? That doesn’t fall into the ‘good news’ category.”

Ash began to explain what had happened. He told her about breakfast with Savage and the Englishman’s belief that Ravana was ready to be freed from his prison.

“But how?” asked Parvati. “Ravana was destroyed. I was there.”

“Rama used a Vishnu-aastra to kill Ravana. But he knew Ravana would be reborn, so he imprisoned his body within the Iron Gates,” said Ash. “Savage intends to use the Kali-aastra to smash the gates open and let Ravana’s spirit reunite with his body.”

Parvati went pale as he talked and, just for a moment, he saw her tremble. He had thought she wasn’t scared of anything.

He described getting her on the boat and she asked him a few things, but then he realised something truly important.

The cobra scales that had covered her like armour had disappeared.

Totally
disappeared.

He tried to keep his mind on the story and his gaze on her face, but, oh God, he couldn’t help it, millimetre by millimetre his gaze fell. Ash could just make out the faintest
outline of scales beneath her skin, down her neck, on her shoulders…

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” snapped Parvati.

“I am looking at you.” Ash bit his tongue, but a moment too late. “Er, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, sorry, what were you saying?”

“Give me your shirt before your eyes pop out.”

Ash handed it over and heard Parvati muttering about ‘hormonal teenage boys’ as she slipped it over her head. It fitted her like a short dress – OK for now. At least he could focus on what she was saying.

“How did we get away?” Parvati asked.

Ash looked at his hand – the hand that had shattered Mayar’s jaw.

“I don’t know,” he said. That was the honest truth. “I really don’t know.”

Had the Kali-aastra given him all that power? But Savage had the arrowhead now. Could it have somehow transferred power over that distance, from the fortress to Ash down in the river? He scratched his hand, confused. There was so much he didn’t understand.

“What’s that?” asked Parvati, pointing to something in the bottom of the boat.

Rishi’s bag. Ash had forgotten it was lying under the seat. He opened it.

A wooden begging bowl. A necklace made of sandalwood beads. A small purse and a map.

Parvati took the map and opened it up. It was a large-scale map of part of the Thar Desert, out in Rajasthan.

She smiled. “Now this is what I call good news.”

Rishi had marked a crude series of lines and blocks on what appeared to be an empty patch of desert. Ash recognised the layout. His uncle had dozens of these maps scattered around the bungalow. It was the outline of a Harappan city, but on a scale far beyond anything Vik had ever worked on. This must have been the civilisation’s capital.

Where they’d buried Ravana.

Ash opened the purse and shook its contents on to his palm.

“Cool,” he said.

Dozens of gems sparkled in the morning light in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours: diamonds, rubies, sapphires. He’d thought Rishi had given Ujba a big rock, but there was a ruby in here the size of an egg.

“We need to move,” said Parvati.

“We need to get back to the fortress,” said Ash. “We’ve got to get my sister.”

Parvati shook her head. “Do you honestly think Savage is there now he has the aastra? No, he’ll be on his way to my father’s tomb by now.” She waved the map. “This is where we’ll find him.”

They walked in silence to the edge of the village. A goat, tethered to a stick, nibbled at a cast-off shoe. A woman dressed in a threadbare sari squatted over a small fire, cooking chapattis.

Ash’s stomach rumbled. When was the last time he’d eaten? He honestly couldn’t remember.

The woman smiled at them, motioning for them to join her. She scooped up a round ball of dough and expertly rolled it out on a flat, flour-dusted stone. Then she flicked the disc on to the pan where it hissed and cooked.

“While you’re getting breakfast,” said Parvati, “ask her if she’s got something proper to wear.”

“That was probably the most expensive breakfast in history,” said Ash. “I could’ve bought an island with that ruby.”

Parvati straightened her sunglasses. She was wearing a knee-length tunic, trousers and a headscarf, all faded black. The outfit suited her. “They’re only stones, Ash.”

They hitched a lift on a truck heading back to Varanasi. Hot wind blasted them as the truck did its rounds, bouncing in and out of the pot-holes as it collected farmers and their produce for the city’s Saturday market. Ash sat on top of a cage of live chickens that had been packed so tightly that all they could do was squawk and blink. Parvati sat at the back, keeping away from the other half-a-dozen passengers.

As the truck drew closer to the city, Ash’s heart filled with dread. He closed his eyes, drifting back to that dream, that vision he’d had when he first found the arrowhead, where he’d fought the giant golden warrior. Ravana had carved his way through armies, laughing. No mortal weapon could harm him.

And what would he bring? Pure horror. The things Ash had seen in his visions would become real. The Carnival of Flesh, a rambling monstrosity of whole populations melted into a gigantic mass of screaming mouths and tormented souls. Humans driven beyond madness by the mere presence of the demon king.

But then he thought of his second vision and what Parvati was capable of. She’d built a wall out of the best warriors in Rama’s army. If he was going to get Lucky back, he could ask for no better back-up.

Back-up? Who was he kidding? This was Parvati’s show. Ash looked at her. Could her venom kill the demon king? She was the only chance they had.

I’m so useless
, he thought.

He’d escaped, though, hadn’t he? He’d punched Mayar in the face. A thrill ran through him. Wow. He’d done that. He’d broken the demon’s jaw, and the big, bad crocodile had scarpered, tail between his legs.

How had he done it? It didn’t make sense.

“What I don’t get,” Ash said aloud, “is that I awakened the aastra when I killed Jat. I felt its power burning through me. But then nothing happened after that. When I woke up the next day, I felt completely normal. I thought the aastra gave you permanent superpowers or something.”

Parvati shuffled over and sat down on a sack beside him. “Remember the rat? I killed it and then you punched out Hakim. Now that should never have happened, should it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Ash. He’s way better than you and yet you kicked his butt.”

“Maybe I’m better than you think.”

“You’re better than you were, but, how can I put this delicately? That’s still not very good.”

“The aastra, right?”

“Right. The rat’s death powered the aastra, just a little. Enough for you to beat Hakim.”

He didn’t like it, but she was right. That was why he’d beaten Mayar. Rishi’s death had charged the aastra with power. But one thing still didn’t make sense: Savage had the aastra by then.

Parvati continued. “Little energy is released in killing something like a rat. Not enough to really awaken the aastra. Kali will not give you her power unless you kill someone important. The greater the death, the greater the power of the aastra.”

“So what constitutes a ‘great death’? Killing an elephant?”

“It’s not a question of size, but value. It would have to be someone who means a lot to you personally. Either someone you truly hated or truly loved. For the aastra to be made powerful enough to kill someone like Ravana it would have to be a very great, very important, death indeed. A huge sacrifice.”

So that was it. Ash’s dream made sense now. He’d wondered why Lakshmana had taken off his armour, telling Rama to strike. Rama could only kill Ravana if he charged the aastra by sacrificing his own brother. Nothing else would have been enough to destroy the demon king for ever.

But Rama couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he had used a less powerful aastra – enough to destroy the demon king, but not enough to prevent him being reincarnated and returning. That’s why Rama and the gods had trapped Ravana behind the Iron Gates. The demon king must have spent the last four and a half thousand years planning his revenge, waiting for the day someone would open the gates again. Because they had been sealed by the gods, only the power of a god would open them again.

And that’s where the aastra came into it.
Oh, no
.

Ash gazed out over the dry fields. “Savage is going to kill my sister. Use her death to power the Kali-aastra.”

“Maybe,” said Parvati, but she didn’t seem convinced. “The Kali-aastra exposes the weakness of all things and gives you the power to exploit those weaknesses. With it fully charged, it would show you how to stop a man’s heartbeat with a tap, or demolish a castle wall with a mere kick. It is the ultimate force of annihilation.”

Like the way he’d taken out Mayar. Those lights had shown him where to strike and do unbelievable amounts of damage.

“And Savage has got it. How do we stop him?”

“Let me worry about that. You’ve done enough already.”

Ash flinched under the insult, but didn’t say anything.

“We’re here.” She shuffled to the edge of the truck.

They’d hit the Grand Trunk Road, one of the main arteries into Varanasi. The clouds were darker and heavier than before; the rains were imminent. Soon all of north India would be awash with the annual torrential downpour. The streets would flood and the rain would fall so hard and heavy it would hurt. But right now it was being preceded by a cool, sea wind straight from the Indian Ocean.

They jumped off while the truck was still stuck in traffic, well outside of the old city. The hustle and bustle was still as bad, the noise brain-numbing as cars, horns, cattle and thousands of people went about their business, like any normal day. No one gave Ash or Parvati a second glance.

“This is where we go our separate ways,” said Parvati as she brushed off the worst of the dust.

“What?”

Parvati stopped. She looked at Ash and sighed. “You’ve got a good heart, Ash, but I’m going after Savage. It’ll be better if you stay here.”

“Where it’s safe, you mean?”

“Where I don’t have to keep looking out for you.”

Her words cut him all the more so because they were true.

“I can help.”

“How?”

Hot shame flushed his cheeks. Ash stared at her, furious, but Parvati didn’t budge. She stood there, arms crossed, her cool gaze unflinching. She wasn’t scared of him.

Nobody was.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” said Ash, “Savage has my sister.”

“And you want to rescue her. I understand, but the question remains: how?”

“How are you going to kill Savage?”

She pointed at Rishi’s sack. “The map. I know where Savage is. He can’t have more than a few hours’ head start. I’m going to find him and bury my fangs in his neck. Something I should have done a hundred years ago.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“Killing
is
simple. For me.”

Ash’s eyes narrowed. “And your plans, they’ve always gone perfectly? No hiccups? No unforeseen circumstances?”

“There are always unforeseen circumstances.”

“So you don’t know if you might need me?”

Parvati scowled. “Fine. Come along. But I’m not waiting for you.”

“And if we’re too late? And Ravana’s free? What then?” Ash asked, even though his throat tightened round the question.