Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post, in which I’m delighted to present an exclusive excerpt from Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty – out now in the UK, and due out in the US on the 9th January 2024, both from Head of Zeus. If you like the idea of dark (dare I say grimdark) fantasy inspired by the Mahabharata, then this is probably going to be the book for you, and to give you a sense of just what to expect Gourav has very kindly contributed some additional comments to go alongside this excerpt!
I should just say, however, that this is a genuinely dark scene featuring ritual torture, so it’s worth bearing that in mind before you read any further – it’s not for the faint hearted! That done though, over to Gourav.
Gourav Mohanty: *Uses narrator voice for set up* In Sons of Darkness, destinies tangle like a net – antiheroes, damsels-who-cause-distress, a pirate princess, an assassin’s apprentice and a swordswoman – all knitting a rather vile tapestry of turmoil. The Saptarishis, revered in Hindu Mythology as the Seven Saints, helm the realm with the aid of oracles. In this scene, an oracle-turned-matron is all agog for her maiden ritual where potential oracles are segregated from the rest of the tainted. May the scene treat you with courtesy and cruelty.
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A raven-haired boy hung upside down, bound to a wooden rack embellished with metal shackles, his limbs uncomfortably splayed to achieve maximum extension. His cherubic face with its rosy cheeks and its wide, startled eyes trembled in distress. Nearby stood four similar wooden racks, now vacant, the blood splatters on it being the only evidence that it had seen recent use. The ones who had failed. Ashes! I missed most of it!
Beside the boy stood the leader of the House of Oracles, clad in the black robes of a Sister. Dark circles cupped Sister Mercy’s eyes, lending her a look of profound sadness and pity. Women were not permitted to claim the honorific title of Acharya, reserved for the Masters of Knowledge who graduated from the Citadel of Meru. Thus, educated women resorted to having their lessers call them Sisters, even though there was nothing sisterly about these women.
‘I hope you understand, this brings me no joy,’ said Sister Mercy as she softly nestled four glass bottles in a bag. She coiled the bag at the top before slamming it viciously against the wall, once, twice, thrice. She then shook the bag, rattling the contents within – hundreds of broken glass shards.
With a practiced grace, Sister Mercy turned the wooden rack on its axle until the boy’s head faced her. She held the boy’s face and slowly, carefully, lowered and drew the bag over his head and cinched the drawstring tight around his neck. Obscured within the bag’s shroud, the boy resembled a bagged scarecrow, such as the peasants used in their fields.
Sister Mercy began to chant, the Matrons joining in unison for the final phrases: ‘But pain…pain is the great reliever, the path away from perdition, the salvation of our souls.’ As she uttered the words, Sister Mercy began to tenderly mould and shape the bag around the boy’s face, as though sculpting clay, with all the love of a mother.
‘The salvation of our souls,’ echoed the Matrons.
The screams of the boy were muffled in the bag but the agony in his spasms was loud enough. His body thrashed under the straps like a fish out of water. Sister Mercy’s pale fingers massaged his neck through the bag, moving up to the boy’s cheeks to his eyes, and finally to his temples. ‘Pain will coax out the cursed demon in you, the curse gifted by the Father of Viles, to do us harm, boy,’ she said. ‘But we will purge you of Evil, and bring you to the side of Light.’
The bag’s folds grew redder and wetter with each measured motion of her hand. Crimson stains emerged where the contours of the boy’s nose and ears were visible.
‘To the side of Light,’ the chorus echoed.
Mercifully, the screams stopped and the boy started to choke out strange sounds. The Sisters took nervous steps forward and the Matrons took out their parchments. Seeing this, Masha fumbled for her own stationery. Sister Mercy alone took a step back, her palms slick with blood. Silence spread its ghostly embrace around the hall as she carefully lifted the bag from the boy’s face.
Masha swallowed the bile that rose in her throat, eager not to miss out on her first initiation as a Matron by creating a scene. The boy’s face was a canvas of carnage, human features hidden behind a collage of gashes and cuts. His nose cleaved into halves, his eye invisible behind a shard of glass sticking out of it, and his left cheek, a garden of glass. Involuntarily, Masha touched the scars on her face, and smiled. She remembered how once the ritual was over, she hadn’t even remembered how she had made it through, how she had managed to survive. For weeks, she wasn’t even sure if the ritual had really ended. But one thing was certain: she had helped save the world from desolation. And that’s what the ritual was all about.
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Gourav Mohanty: India, in the collective consciousness, has always been associated with a Gandhian sense of righteousness, purity and self-sacrifice, and somehow this has seeped into our books with the printing mills spinning out endlessly tales of good versus evil. And that is where I suppose I wanted to shake things up a bit. Dark Epic Fantasy was the last virgin territory in Indian Literature, and I wanted Sons of Darkness to finally crack open the gates to this promised land.
I could’ve flaunted one of my dry humor-laced battle scenes – trust me, there are a few crackers – or spread those devilish machiavalleian dialogue exchanges between gloriously flawed characters – believe me, there are many – or even cast light on the Indian traditions and ceremonies entrenched in the book. But seeing how this tome is not only a time-travel travel ticket to Ancient India but a jaunt through the psychology of villains, I thought I’d give you a little taste of the anti-Tolkiensque world waiting for you within its pages. And who better to shepherd you than the oracle who stumbled upon the prophecy of the titular Son of Darkness.
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How about that? Dark, as I said, but intriguing! For a little more information, here’s the publisher’s synopsis:
Some ballads are inked in blood.
Bled dry by violent confrontations with the Magadhan Empire, the Mathuran Republic simmers on the brink of oblivion. Krishna and Satyabhama have put their plans in motion within and beyond the Republic’s blood-soaked borders to protect it from annihilation. But they will soon discover that neither gold nor alliances last forever.
They are however not alone in this game.
Mati, Pirate-Princess of Kalinga, has decided to mend her ways to be a good wife. But old habits die hard, especially when one habitually uses murder to settle old scores. Brooding but beautiful Karna hopes to bury his brutal past but finds that destiny is a miser when it comes to giving second chances. The crippled hero-turned-torturer Shakuni limps through the path of daggers that is politics only to find his foes multiply, leaving little time for vengeance.
Their lives are about to become very difficult for a cast of sinister queens, naive kings, pious assassins and ravenous priests are converging where the Son of Darkness is prophesied to rise, even as forgotten Gods prepare to play their hand.
***
I’d like to say a massive thank you to Gourav and to Head of Zeus for contributing this excerpt, and the additional commentary! I hope this has piqued your interest in Sons of Darkness!
For more information, visit Gourav’s website
Sons of Darkness is out now in the UK from Head of Zeus, and due out in the US in January – check out the links below to order* your copy:
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