A Rage in the Heavens (The Paladin Trilogy Book 1)

by James A. Hillebrecht

  I never swore I wasn’t going, Father, she assured herself. I simply agreed I wouldn’t go with you.

  The defiance, the arguing, the half-truths all were new to her, and they carried a heavy weight of guilt and fear and doubt. It was as if the appearance of the great sword had transformed her into a different person, a person with some unknown agenda, a person she wasn’t quite sure she liked. But something else had stirred within her these last few hours, something that had lain dormant throughout her young life and which could not be repressed or denied once it had flamed into full life. A rising, overwhelming sense of destiny.

  She was determined to follow. Not just to accompany him or help him, but because the same voice that called him to serve, called also to her. Except she wasn’t exactly sure where these wars were.

  Alston’s Fey, Jalan’s Drift, Monarch, Azare, odd names that were yet somehow familiar, like half-forgotten memories. She had stolen a glance at the map her father had laid out on the dinner table to plan his route, and she had burned the picture into her mind. But the map hadn’t shown where Delberaine lay in relation to those towns. Shannon had the vague notion that the Southlands lay somewhere to the east, but how far off, she had no idea at all.

  I’ll find it, she assured herself. No matter how far, no matter how fast Andros, no matter the dangers, I’ll come to it at last. But she knew her task would be greatly eased if she could just make it to the great intersection at Decision Rock before Darius. Decision Rock, where the Forest Road forked, one lane running to the northeast, the other to the southeast, and…

  “Going for a morning stroll?” asked a voice from the side of the road, and Shannon jumped with surprise. She spun around to find Jhan sitting on a small rock watching her, the young man neatly shaved and dressed in a light cloak to keep out the morning mist.

  She almost groaned out loud.

  “Jhan, get out of here!” she said, keeping her voice soft. “Go home!”

  “I knew it,” the youth continued, his voice at normal pitch. “Most people would have thought you were just breathing fire last night when you talked about following your father. But I knew better. I knew you were just crazy enough to do it.”

  “That’s right. I’m crazed. A total loon. So you’d better take your feet out of here before I go forest-wild on you.”

  “My feet are ready,” he answered with that same infuriating grin. “I’m coming with you.”

  “The devil you are!”

  “Such language from Lord Darius’ daughter,” he said mildly, having heard considerably worse from her in his time. “You’re clearly in need of a mentor. I’m telling you you’ve found him.”

  “And I’m telling you to mind your own wares,” Shannon snapped, turning back to the road. “This is no business of yours.”

  “Of course it is,” he said. “We’ve grown up together. We’re a team. If I were running off into the woods on some wild adventure, wouldn’t you insist on coming along?”

  That made her pause. She glanced back down the road where Andros’ would come rushing out of the morning mist any minute now, indecision a luxury she simply couldn’t afford.

  “Besides,” Jhan continued, “I can help get us some distance from the village.”

  Shannon frowned. “How?”

  “I’m supposed to go up to the timber camp today with my brothers,” he explained. “They’ll be cutting wood for the next three days, but they’ve promised to say nothing. I left a letter at home telling Father you were coming with us, just to get away for awhile. He’ll think that’s a fine idea.”

  Shannon’s frown lessened slightly as she realized Jhan had bought them a considerable start on any search parties. She had run to the cottage of Jhan’s family after Darius had refused her permission to accompany him, and she had poured her heart out to Jhan who was her closest friend. Jhan had tried to calm her, to dissuade her, to help her see reason, and now, failing that, he had done what he could to help her get away. Looking at him, she had to admit that Jhan’s broad shoulders and good humor would make the miles ahead of her much easier to bear.

  She suddenly realized that Jhan must have set out immediately after she had left him in order to get here ahead of her.

  But just as she was about to reluctantly agree, the youth said, “Come on, Shannon. You can’t make this journey on your own. You need someone to look out for you.”

  She instantly bristled. “And who’s going to look out for you?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” the boy answered. “We can look out for each other. A journey is much safer for two that for one.”

  Her lips and eyes compressed in a characteristic squint of intensity, and she said fiercely, “I don’t need you!”

  Jhan, far from being intimidated, mimicked her expression and replied, “I’m coming anyway! So just tie that to your belt.”

  Shannon bristled at this mocking and turned resolutely away, vowing to ignore the boy, to just freeze him out. But she broke her vow a moment later.

  “You’re going to carry all that?” she asked incredulously, staring at the half-dozen bundles Jhan was picking up.

  “Sure,” he answered, slinging the parcels over his shoulder. “We have to eat, don’t we?”

  “This is all food?”

  “Most of it,” he admitted, glancing at his burden. “Dried meats and fruits, some salted pig, and unleavened bread for later in the journey. And I brought a few treats to get us started, tidbits I gathered from the feast yesterday.”

  “We have to move quickly!” she snapped angrily. “This isn’t a spring picnic! We can’t be slowed down carrying your dinners with us!”

  “We have to eat,” he repeated. “Or do you want to waste time hunting for food? Believe me, the packs will get lighter all too soon.”

  She frowned, annoyed both by the burden and the reply.

  “What kind of tidbits did you bring?” she asked, trying to find some way to lessen the load.

  “Some fresh breads and jams,” he grinned, holding up one of the packs. “A bread pudding, soft cheese, couple of beef tarts, and a berry pie my mother made yesterday.”

  Despite her anxiety and haste, Shannon couldn’t stop herself from thinking how good a dinner of cheese and beef tarts, followed by berry pie, would taste after a long day of walking. She took one of the packs out of his hands, slung it over her shoulder with her own backpack.

  “Then let’s get moving,” she said. “We’ve got to reach Decision Rock before my Father gets there, or we won’t have a clue as to which road to take.”

  Jhan grinned. “You’ve been so busy looking over your shoulder, you haven’t been watching the road. Decision Rock is right ahead of us.”

  Surprised, Shannon looked up to see a huge boulder looming out of the mist barely a hundred yards away that seemed to split the road in two, and she realized she could see much clearer than only a few minutes before. The dawn had crept up upon them, as it always did in the greenwood. The next moment, her ears perked up at the sound she had dreaded growing swiftly louder behind them.

  “It’s Andros!” she exclaimed. “Quick! Out of sight!”

  She needn’t have worried. Andros came bolting down the mist-shrouded lane as if already charging the ranks of the Silver Horde, making light of both Darius and the heavy plate armor he wore, and Shannon’s heart thundered at the sight. A faint light seemed to shine around both the white stallion and the silver-clad warrior he bore, and her eyes were drawn immediately to the great sword in its scabbard on Darius’ back. She felt for a moment as if the sword itself were looking at her, almost beckoning her to follow, but neither horse nor rider had any attention to spare for spies by the side of the road. They passed them in a blink of an eye, rushing towards the intersection, and Shannon peered forward eagerly to see which fork they would take.

  They took neither.

  Incredibly, the great horse drove directly forward right into the great bulk of Decision Rock. But rather than the sound of collision and
the cries of Darius or Andros, there was nothing but absolute silence, the hoof beats vanished in an instance.

  “What in the name of Mirna…?” gasped Jhan.

  Shannon gaped for only a moment longer before yelling “Come on!” and rushing for the stone. The great boulder loomed above her, the height of three tall men, and she suddenly noticed that no moss or plant grew on it, despite the abundant life on every side. She stared up at the impenetrable surface of the rock, her heart pounding.

  “But…but it’s impossible,” stammered Jhan as he came up behind her. “It’s solid rock.”

  He put his hand out to prove the point, his fingers striking solid stone. Shannon hesitated, then put out her own hand.

  Her fingers passed directly through the gray surface.

  They stared at each other, shocked, not sure what to do, and then Shannon took Jhan’s hand and said again, “Come on.”

  Together they walked right into Decision Rock.

  Shannon found herself instantly surrounded by a mass of dark grayness as if the air itself had abruptly become solid. She took a hesitant step forward, then another, then more, pushing steadily forward, but it felt as if the grayness were slowly retarding her progress, like bumping into line after line of wet bedsheets hung out to dry: the first, the second, even the third were no problem at all, but as the number slowly grew, the accumulation began to have its effect, making it increasingly more difficult to move. She was keeping her eyes staring directly ahead, trying to ignore the fact that she could no longer see her body, and she gripped Jhan’s hand ever tighter and not just for support. She knew instinctively that if she were to release her hold, Jhan would be forever trapped inside Decision Rock.

  She drove on, her legs straining against the increasing resistance, refusing to let herself think what would happen if she were to so much as pause, and she understood now why Darius had charged the rock at full speed. She pointed her shoulder forward, trying to cut down the resistance, but it didn’t seem to help at all. It was getting harder to breathe, but whether it was due to the exertion or thinner air or both, she wasn’t sure. She only knew that her lungs were aching as badly as her legs, and her mind was growing numb, the rock trying to kill her awareness. To make her a part of the stone.

  Then, abruptly, she found herself tumbling forward into light, into blessed air. Her lungs heaved, gulping greedily for all the oxygen they could reach, and the air brought life surging back into her body. She blinked, her eyes only slowly readjusting themselves, and the first thing she saw was Jhan sprawled on the ground beside her, also gasping in the air.

  They were lying in the middle of an unfamiliar forest road with no sign of the intersection, the Rock, or Darius anywhere to be seen. It was brighter here, full morning, as if the sun had stolen a march on them. Or if they had suddenly traveled a great distance eastward. That thought made Shannon’s breath quicken again.

  “Mirna’s blood,” Jhan managed to gasp beside her, his own chest heaving. “Never have I felt anything like that. It was as if the stone had gotten inside my skin.” A moment later, he blinked and asked, “Where in the world are we? And where’s Decision Rock?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “But this certainly doesn’t look like Delberaine.”

  To the untrained eye, the forest seemed much the same. The elm and the birch were still the dominant trees, but they were smaller and younger than the trees of home, and they were being crowded by groves of fir and spruce whose mantles of green needles seemed odd and inappropriate to the woods. More, the forest felt different. Perhaps it was fewer bird calls, perhaps the slightly thicker undergrowth that the umbrella of the trees had not been quite able to kill off, or perhaps it was the lack of fragrance, the air no longer tainted with the rich, lush smell of Delberaine’s ancient forest. Had the passage through Decision Rock saved them hours? Or days? Or perhaps…

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Jhan, frowning at both the road and the wood.

  Shannon got to her feet, brushed off her clothes.

  “That way,” she said firmly, pointing in the direction of the rising sun. “I feel certain the Southlands must still be to the east of us.”

  Jhan shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet as well. “Seems as good a guess as any.”

  They gathered their parcels, and together, they began to walk resolutely in the direction of the dawn.

  * * * * *

  With his one good eye, Captain Zarif looked back over the flowing green grass of the northern Plains of Alencia, filling his lungs with the fresh wind he loved for what he knew would be the last time.

  “We are the dead,” he said softly to the wind, to his bay charger, to himself.

  “What say you, Zarif?”

  Zarif restrained his unsteady horse and glanced to his side where his young lieutenant, Gaslon, fought with his own gray stallion. Zarif blinked, surprised that he had spoken aloud.

  “Nothing,” he said. He looked along the seemingly endless line of horses, all fighting their bits and their riders, awaiting with equal impatience the signal to charge or flee. The proud cavalry of Nargosia, quite probably the finest mass of horsemen in all the Plains, and that meant in all the world. And soon we’ll be nothing but a glorious memory, thought Zarif.

  He turned to Gaslon and said, “I want one out of every two trumpeters assigned to the rear squadrons.”

  The young man’s eyebrows rose. “What? Trumpeters in the rear during a charge? Are you expecting us to fail?”

  Zarif’s one good eye glared at him, an angry cyclops. “Trumpeters will help the second file to charge and the first to regroup.”

  But Gaslon knew him too well to be intimidated. “I am asking if you expect us to fail.”

  Zarif studied the young man’s face, bright with the certainty of his own invulnerability, and he decided he owed him an honest answer. “I doubt if a single horse will see its stable tonight. Or a single trooper his bed.”

  Gaslon’s eyes opened in shock. “But we are 30 squadrons strong, over 3000 horse, nearly all the cavalry of Nargosia! These mountain folk will flee like hares at the thunder of our hooves!”

  “These mountain folk have already crushed the forces of Sandmar,” Zarif replied. “And they have withstood the combined charge of the cavalries of Argalon and Castar. We may cut a deeper wedge into their ranks, but I do not think the end result will be any different.”

  The young man looked out over the plains, blinking as if seeing them for the first time. Half a league away marched the ragged vanguard of the Northing army, perhaps four thousand strong, and they could make out in the distance similar forces to the east and west. But behind the vanguard was a darkness like a winter storm, sheltered from the sun by the huge bank of dark green clouds, and no one could guess the size of the force that walked beneath that dark, impenetrable cover.

  “General Salbrith has massed us here because even an entire squadron of horse can not bear to face that darkness, and only as a mass can we hold their heads towards the enemy,” Zarif continued. “Unless we sweep all before us in the first charge, that fear will surely work its will upon us.”

  “But…but what else can we do?” Gaslon sputtered. “The enemy is driving down upon Nargost Castle itself!”

  Zarif actually shrugged. “We might fare better striking when they actually come up against the castle. But even that I doubt. This is not a force to be stopped by either walls or cavalry.”

  He looked at his lieutenant’s face and saw that he had said too much. There was now a hint of fear to replace his over-confidence, and the one was as bad as the other.

  “Take heart,” Zarif said steadily. “We shall sweep down like the prairie wind, and there will be far fewer of the enemy to test the strength of Nargost’s walls when this day is done. But we’ll take a bond on chance, all the same. That is why I want trumpeters in the rear. Now ride and see to it before the general signals the charge!”

  Gaslon nodded, understanding well and grateful for a duty
to keep his mind from the rest of his Captain’s words. Zarif watched him go, and then he turned to young Clendon, his messenger.

  “Boy, have you your carrier pigeons?” he asked.

  “Aye, Captain,” the youngster answered. “Two for Nargost, two for the Drift, and one each for Strallia and Maccabor.”

  The Captain nodded. “Good. Then heed me well. Get you back to that small rise behind us and watch the battle. When you know the result, write the same message for five birds and launch them all. Hold back only the doubles.”

  “Go back?!” Clendon repeated angrily. “But I want…”

  “You will obey my orders!” Zarif said firmly, and the boy closed his mouth. “If our attack fails, you will keep ahead of the enemy and watch his movements. If they reach Nargost Castle, launch the remaining birds.”

  The boy’s face mirrored Gaslon’s shock, but Zarif was in no mood for more discussions.

  “Get you gone!” he said, slapping the boy’s mount on the rump to send him racing towards the rear. Clendon looked back once over his shoulder, his face showing his doubts and fears even at that moment.

  Perhaps we shall not all be the dead, Zarif thought.

  “Captain! The signal!” cried a sergeant, and Zarif looked down to where the battle flag of the General had risen to attention. Zarif pushed his own mount out before his men, taking all their attention.

  The flag came down to point at the enemy and the entire center of the line launched itself forward, a thousand horse rushing down upon the vanguard of the Northings.

  “Charge!” roared Zarif, putting the spurs to his great bay charger and flying like the wind down into the darkness, every trooper behind him following. Everyone, save Clendon alone.

  Twenty minutes later, with tears falling, the boy released the first group of pigeons.

  CHAPTER 4

  Argus

  Argus stood before the open chasm from which the heat and sulfuric stench of lava was rising, staring down into a golden basin suspended just over the brink of the fissure, the basin from which he hoped to draw a hint of his future and his fate.