Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress

by Sarwat Chadda

  “Me for her. You let her go.”

  Savage’s eyes narrowed. “You’re in no position to negotiate. You are powerless.”

  “I don’t know,” said Ash. “I did kill Jat, and I gave Mayar one hell of a toothache.”

  Mayar growled and thumped his foot forward, arms flexing. Drool dribbled off his bandaged jaw and his upper teeth overhung the lower like a ledge. “You little runt, I’ll rip your—”

  “Easy, Mayar,” said Savage. He peered at Ash, then nodded. “I will let the girl go. Once the ritual is complete.”

  “Your word on that?” Ash asked. “As an English gentleman?”

  “My word, as an English gentleman.”

  Ash knew Savage was lying, but it didn’t matter. All he needed was to delay things long enough for Parvati to turn up.

  Savage snapped his fingers. “Hold him, Mayar.”

  Mayar hesitated. “I…”

  What was wrong? Then Ash realised. Mayar was scared. Of him.

  “What are you afraid of?” said Savage. “He’s just an ordinary boy.”

  An ordinary boy who had beaten up a rakshasa. Ash’s heart quickened as he met the demon’s reptilian gaze.

  “You act like he has the aastra. He doesn’t,” Savage said impatiently. “Hold him.”

  Mayar shook himself. Snarling, he reached forward and grabbed Ash, twisting his arms sharply behind his back.

  Ash bit down, but couldn’t help cry out. Still, his eyes blazed defiantly.

  “You’ve changed, boy,” said Savage. “Once you were plump, spoilt and weak in body and soul. Now? Now there’s something inside you. Seeing you here, I’m convinced you are an eternal warrior. Your death will awaken the aastra. You should feel honoured.”

  “Let him go!” Lucky pummelled the crocodile’s legs, but she might as well have been trying to batter an oak tree. Jackie laughed and pulled her back.

  Ash tried to ignore the agonising creaking of his joints as he was lifted up to balance on his toes. But, strangely, the pain was sharpest in his hand – his left hand. He clenched it, and the pain doubled as he touched his thumb. Where he’d cut himself with the aastra. Where the splinter had entered.

  There’s something inside you. That was what Savage had just said. He meant Ash had changed, become tougher, more determined, but that wasn’t all of it.

  Ash’s gaze fell on the aastra Savage held a few centimetres from his chest. The golden arrowhead shone brightly, with the two edges that formed the needle-sharp point smooth but for the slightest imperfection – a sliver missing.

  The sliver that had gone into his thumb. The tip of the arrowhead.

  There was something inside him.

  Because Ash had held the arrowhead at the time of Jat’s death, he’d thought the power inside him was coming from that. But when Rishi had died, the aastra had been nowhere near him. Instead, Rishi’s death energies had passed into the splinter of metal in Ash. A part of the aastra was within him. That was why he’d defeated Mayar.

  The Kali-aastra. It all made sense now.

  Sweat poured off him. Black waves of oblivion threatened as Mayar twisted his arm to almost breaking point, but Ash fought back. He needed to keep focused! He could do nothing but defy Savage. Every second’s delay was another second given to Parvati.

  He stared at the golden arrowhead, the Kali-aastra. He stared so hard its golden light filled his vision. Savage ran his wrinkled thumb along the edge.

  “Shame there’s a bit missing,” he whispered. “Only the smallest piece, and you have to look really closely to notice it. It’s still sharp enough to do the job, but I’ll have to really twist it in. Really work it into your heart. Won’t be easy. Won’t be quick.”

  Ash pressed his forefinger against his thumb. The tip was still in there, somewhere.

  Savage drew the flat of the cold arrowhead down Ash’s chest. Ash gasped as he felt the sharp prod of metal over his heart.

  Charged with the power of a god. That was what Rishi had told him that morning on the boat.

  Savage scratched Ash’s skin. A sharp, hot pain, and then a thin line of blood ran down his chest.

  What would you give to wield the power of a god?

  “No! Please don’t hurt him!” That was his sister’s voice, but she sounded far away. She was far away from where he was going.

  What would you give?

  What pleases Kali most is death.

  Savage handed his tiger cane to Jackie and took the aastra in both hands. “Goodbye, Ashoka Mistry.” He pressed the point against Ash’s bleeding chest, dragging it lower until it was in the centre of his stomach.

  Then Ash screamed as Savage drove the golden arrowhead into his belly and a shockwave, hotter than lava, burst through him. Savage twisted the shaft, then ripped the arrow back out. Ash sagged in Mayar’s grip. Savage held the arrow before him, the arrowhead thickly covered in blood. His blood.

  What pleases her most is death. A great death.

  His.

  “Kali…” whispered Ash with the last of his strength. “I’m yours.”

  Mayar released him. Ash fell a hundred miles, a hundred years, it seemed, before he hit the ground. He tried to raise himself but nothing worked. He lay there, his cheek against the stone.

  “Thank you, Ash,” said Savage. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” He smeared Ash’s blood over his cheeks. “Stomach wounds are fatal, but not instantly. I really do want you to see this, so don’t die quite yet.”

  Ash’s eyesight was already fading into blurry greys and blacks. He’d thought, hoped, that his own death would awaken the aastra in him, enough to give him some strength, some way to strike back the way he did against Mayar. But as his blood began to spread across the flagstone and his energy faded, Ash knew he’d been wrong. He’d lost, and Savage had won.

  Savage joined his two rakshasas. “We have a god to wake.”

  He faced the gates and raised his arms, the bloody aastra in his hand. The skies shook and the earth rumbled and groaned, and the buildings around the central prison cracked and swayed.

  “My lord,” whispered Savage.

  He struck the golden arrowhead against the black iron.

  The gates began to melt like wax against a blazing fire. Even from where Ash lay, just hanging on to life, he could see the iron twist and deform. Faces, beautiful and evil, leered. Divinely carved women rose to the surface of the metal, and transformed into screeching harpies, full of fangs and wicked claws.

  Savage leaned against the prison, pushing the arrowhead deeper within.

  A lightning bolt exploded out of the gates. Sparks flew in all directions, and demons screamed as they were struck and instantly vaporised. Another bolt burst out, then another. The cube began to roar and blaze with white-hot energy. Wild arcs of electricity shot across the moat, demolishing buildings, burning the living.

  “My master,” said Savage.

  “My slave.”

  The voice was metal, grinding, ear-piercing, and it filled the city. Howls and screams from the rakshasas drowned out the thunder. Their god was coming.

  “Come to me and receive your gift, most loyal of my creatures.”

  “Master?”

  The gates melted for good, revealing a tunnel in the solid cube of iron. Long spikes of cooled iron had dripped down forming a labyrinth of stalactites. Some looked like limbs – human, beast, others a combination of both. The hole ate the light so that beyond a few steps was utter darkness.

  Savage took a step into the passage and the floor bubbled and hissed. Flames licked his boots, but he continued further in.

  The tunnel sealed up behind him.

  All was silence. The only sound Ash heard was his own panting breath. But each gasp was shorter, weaker than the one before. Mayar loomed over him and nudged him with his scaly toe.

  “He’s finished,” the crocodile demon said.

  “Get rid of him then,” replied Jackie. She took Lucky’s hand. “Come with me, sweetie. We’l
l have a bite, shall we?”

  Mayar grinned, and pushed Ash to the edge of the platform. Ash tried to hang on, to bury his nails in the thin cracks, but his strength was gone. He dangled over the edge of the moat.

  Mayar waved at him. “See you in hell, boy.” He gave Ash a final shove.

  Ash fell.

  sh tumbled down, bouncing against the walls. Eventually he crashed to a halt on the dusty stone at the bottom of the moat.

  It wasn’t happening to him. Just his body. He was slipping away from his mortal flesh. Darkness crept around him, drawing his spirit down. Oblivion summoned him like a dark, deep ocean, silent and all-surrounding. He was sinking deeper, and it wasn’t so bad.

  This was death.

  Eyes dull, he stared up at the sky, a black heaving mass of clouds split by lightning. But the thunder he heard now was nothing more than the last few beats of his heart.

  The thunder became faint; beat by beat it weakened. Then it stopped. Ash let out a final sigh, and the silence was complete.

  The ocean took him.

  he formless dark begins to take shape. Ash watches as it tears apart the veil between the lands of the living and the dead. A figure strides towards him. Black she is, and bejewelled with skulls. Her red eyes blaze down and her tongue, long and bloody, licks his face with hunger.

  The goddess of death herself has come for him.

  She stands over him, her ten arms outspread, serpents woven through her bloody tresses, and she stamps her foot. The earth shakes and Ash’s body jumps.

  Kali steps over him and stamps again.

  A second shock runs through Ash’s body.

  Kali dances, and with each footstep and pounding leap Ash is jolted again and again. The sky swirls with storms as she slashes with her bright swords and screams at the heavens.

  Pain rises through him. The dead should not feel pain.

  It starts in his thumb, then splits, sending tidal waves of pure energy through him. It splits again and again as the Kali-aastra divides over and over, multiplying until it has pierced his every atom.

  Then Kali leaps high, higher than before. The earth shatters as she crashes down and the final impact rips through Ash.

  The pounding continues even as the goddess fades.

  The pounding comes from his own heart, beating again, beating to the dance of Kali.

  ain splashed on his face, moistening his dry lips. Stinging wind whipped across his skin. Hot, living pain sparked within his muscles. He opened his eyes and stared unblinking as lightning flashed across the black clouds.

  Ash gasped as air rushed back into his lungs and he roared at his rebirth.

  uivering, Ash tried to get up, forcing his limbs into action. A groan escaped his lips as he stood. He pressed his hands against his stomach, feeling the wound seal up, and watched as the rain washed the blood away. Already the bottom of the moat was filling with puddles, growing bigger, deeper by the second.

  The monsoon had finally come. Fat, heavy drops of rain pummelled him and thunder roared among the swirling clouds.

  His heart battered against his ribs, threatening to burst out. Electric power shot through him, charging every sinew. Every sense tingled: his skin felt like it was being pricked by a million needles and he could smell the faintest odours. Water. Sweat. Blood. Fear and joy. Sounds echoed, his ears picking up the distant cries of the rakshasas, the scuttling insects beneath the city, even the silent dead.

  By giving the aastra the great death it needed, Ash had awakened both pieces: the arrowhead and the splinter. The immense energies in the aastra had been enough to restart his heart and repair the arrow-wound, bringing him back to life.

  But what have I become?

  A thing of Kali.

  Ash had been reborn, for a reason. Savage had opened the Iron Gates.

  He had to get back to the main square.

  He stumbled towards the long, thin legs of the bridge. The old stone of its supports was pitted and cracked. Heart pumping on overdrive, he climbed, centimetre by centimetre, not thinking about anything else as he moved upwards. The rain and winds threatened to rip him from the stone supports and more than once he stopped. Below him were the waters of the rapidly filling moat and above, thunder and lightning.

  Then a new sound rose above the thunder.

  Laughter. So full of fury and contempt it was like spit in his face.

  Ash shook the water from his eyes and glared up at the top of the bridge. He ached all over, and his skin was red and raw from being scraped along the rough brick as he’d climbed. But he had to get to the top.

  The laughter continued, deeper, more defiant. It seemed to dare the lightning bolts to strike.

  Cold, drenched, so exhausted he wanted to puke, Ash reached the top of the bridge support. The bridge was above him, but the support column was a metre narrower than the bridge road itself, so he was tucked underneath it. He reached out for the road, fingers creeping into the brickwork to find some purchase. Rain poured like a waterfall over the edge.

  Ash wedged his fingertips into a small groove and swung out into the open air, dangling thirty metres over the swirling waters beneath him. The blackness below spun in hypnotic, chaotic circles and spirals, pulling him down into oblivion. He wouldn’t feel a thing.

  But he hadn’t come back from the dead just to get splattered. Ash gritted his teeth and with his other hand grabbed on to the wet, slippery stone of the road. He hauled himself upwards, his fury feeding him with power until he’d finally wormed his way up on to the bridge. He looked towards the end of the bridge. There waited the vast hordes of rakshasas, none daring to step on to it. Blinding columns of white fire shot into the sky. Over the grumbling winds he heard wild, demonic cries of celebration.

  But one voice, heavy as lead, rumbled beneath the shrill screams of the rakshasas. It was the sound of huge slabs of stone grinding over each other beneath deep oceans. It was the noise of a being, ancient and afraid of nothing: not man, nor demons, nor gods. He had shaken the heavens once before and almost eaten the world. Now Ravana was free again, and all that stood between him and the destruction of all reality was Ash.

  The living Kali-aastra.

  He was hers now. He’d chosen his path now and there was no going back. His heart beat to the dance of Kali, the dance of death and destruction, now and for ever.

  This was his destiny, his karma. The world would burn with a billion funeral pyres if he failed. Ash stepped forward, closer to the prison of the demon king.

  eep cracks covered the black cube, and supernova-bright beams of light shot out from the tears in its walls. The Iron Gates were nothing more than black lumps of molten metal.

  Ash covered his eyes as he approached. Against the white inferno he could make out hazy silhouettes. Mayar stood, arms outstretched in greeting. Jackie, down on her knees, howled, Lucky trapped in her arms. His sister was alive, mute with terror.

  But where was Savage?

  The ground trembled and the light from within the cube dulled. The sound of screaming iron died, leaving just a rolling echo, and the burning air was hard to breathe.

  The prison gave a final cry before it melted away completely. Red-hot streams of metal trickled across the flagstones, spouting patches of flame.

  But where the prison had been, there was now a figure.

  He was eight metres tall and forged of solid gold. Huge slabs of muscle slid under his glowing, flame-wreathed skin. He looked like he could crush mountains. A golden mane of hair fell loose on his shoulders. Upon his forehead, radiating with intense white light, was a brand made of a circle of ten skulls. He blinked and his eyes were as dark and as fathomless as the night.

  All was silent now, even the wind. The demon king stood and gazed upon his followers, summoned here to serve him once more after four and a half millennia.

  They were his army and he their general. They were his subjects and he their king.

  Ravana spread out his mighty arms and the demon nations roared w
ith joy.

  ackie and Mayar were on their knees. A hush fell over the city again as all the rakshasas gazed in awe at their returned king.

  The rain pelted down, hissing like a thousand serpents as it struck Ravana’s blazing skin. “Come forward,” said Ravana. His voice was the thunder of war drums, echoing across the battlefields.

  Someone lay on the ground, among the bubbling metal. He slowly stood up, then strode out of the flames, unharmed. The only mark on his ivory-white skin was a large brand on his chest, five skulls arranged in a circle. Each skull glowed as though it had been painted on with phosphorous. He drew his blonde hair away from his face with his slim, delicate fingers. He looked about twenty, even less.

  Savage, but not Savage. If Ash hadn’t seen the portrait, he’d never have imagined this man and the one who’d destroyed his life were the same.

  Then Savage opened his eyes. The cold blue had gone, and in its place were two orbs of complete, mesmerising blackness.

  Savage stepped into the smoke rising from a flaming puddle of iron. The soles of his feet caught fire. Flames licked his lower legs and the ribbons of fire wrapped themselves around him, cooling and transforming into cloth so within seconds he was robed in a suit of burning brightness.

  He knelt before the golden demon king.

  “My lord and master.”

  “My loyal slave,” said Ravana. “Is your reward to your satisfaction?”

  Exhausted, terrified beyond measure, Lucky was still on her hands and knees, held down by Jackie. But then she turned and her eyes met Ash’s. Suddenly her face lit up with joy. She blinked at him, her eyes filled with tears, clearly unable to believe what she was seeing.

  “Ash!” she shouted.

  Then they all looked towards him – Savage, Mayar and Jackie. Each stared, dumbstruck to see him standing, breathing, alive. Savage’s handsome face twisted with rage.

  Ash stretched out his hand. “I just want my sister.” He closed his eyes and swayed, momentarily dizzy from the bright lights.