Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress (22 page)

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’ll 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.