The First Paladin (The New Earth Chronicles Book 1)

by J. J. Thompson

  “Gods, what have you been eating?” she spluttered as Grom breathed on her. “Snakes and spiders? Ugh!”

  She pulled the wolf close and hugged him as she never let herself hug another human being. With his size and strength, her embrace did no harm to Grom and he patiently allowed her to hold him for several seconds before pulling away.

  “It is good to see you, my friend,” Liliana told him. “All is well?”

  She wasn't sure just how intelligent the wolf actually was, but most Changed creatures were much smarter now and Grom was no exception.

  He whined in response to her question and whuffed under his breath, a sound of reassurance.

  “Excellent. I knew that I could count on you to protect our home.”

  Liliana had found the wolf as a pup on one of her patrols three years earlier. A pitiful whining had guided her through a downpour to a small den dug into the earth. Fortunately the only occupant was the puppy, apparently deserted by his pack for being too small and weak to survive.

  He was lying in a rising pool of water at the bottom of the den, only his head poking up out of the deluge. A few more minutes and he would have drowned.

  Liliana had debated about what to do with him. She had had a run-in with dire wolves once before and had barely escaped with her life. They were fearsome creatures that hunted in packs. Luckily for her, this time none had remained with the pup. But to take one with her into her home? Foolishness.

  As that thought struck her, a flash lit up the den and an ear-splitting crack of thunder shook the ground. Instead of being cowed, the little wolf had raised his head and howled thinly in response, an absurd challenge to the frightening noise.

  That had decided the paladin. The puppy's bravery and will to live should be rewarded, no matter what the risk. She had scooped him up and, after a few initial growls, he had licked her face weakly and snuggled into her arms.

  “I shall call you Grom,” she had told him. “Thunder, in my old language. Let us hope that we become the best of friends.”

  And so they had. The wolf had thrived under her care and, while he was independently minded and certainly no pet, they had indeed become friends.

  More like pack mates, Liliana thought as she ruffled the wolf's fur one more time. He watches my back and I watch his. A fair arrangement.

  She picked up her gauntlets and pack and walked to the front door of the cottage. Lifting the latch, Liliana stepped inside and looked around.

  Chapter 3

  The door opened on to a large main room that ran the width of the house. To the left was a living area with a battered old leather couch and several chairs, all facing a roughly-made stone fireplace. To the right was a small kitchen with a wood stove, a long counter with cupboards above it and a porcelain sink that had yellowed with age, but still held water without leaking. A square kitchen table with four wooden chairs sat in the middle of the floor.

  Ahead was a short hallway that led to a bedroom and a useless bathroom. Liliana had dug a deep hole outside to the right of the cottage and built an outhouse over it. It wasn't comfortable but it did the job.

  “Home sweet home, eh Grom?” she asked as the wolf slipped by her and trotted over to the couch. He hopped up and stretched out, covering the entire length of it and claiming it for his own.

  Liliana shook her head at him and sighed.

  “Nothing ever changes,” she told him with a grin.

  Grom looked back at her without blinking and then closed his eyes. He looked very content.

  “Don't get up,” the paladin joked. “I'm going to get unpacked and check out the property thoroughly. I'm sure that the garden will need tending and I have to check that the well water is still drinkable.

  Grom had apparently fallen asleep and she laughed to herself as she picked up her things and headed for the bedroom.

  Yes, it was good to be home.

  Because nothing but the most simple of machines still functioned in the new age, all chores that were once automated had to be performed by hand. Electricity was nonexistent now, so cooking was done over open fires or on cast-iron stoves. Water was hauled by hand from wells and rivers, and gardens and fields were tilled by people, not tractors. When the magic had still been plentiful, some tasks could be done by mages, but now even that had been taken away from them. It seemed to some like the gods themselves had deserted them.

  Liliana did not subscribe to this belief. She was sure that, in the battle for both the Earth and the rest of the universe, the gods of Light were losing. That meant that they had to use all of their strength and power to repel the attacks of their twisted, dark cousins. But unless the Light actually fell to the Darkness, something that she refused to believe was possible, magic would one day be restored to the world. And until that time, all of them, whether magic-users or divine servants such as clerics and paladins, would have to do things the hard way.

  And so, the next morning found Liliana on her hands and knees in her garden, digging up weeds and clearing out stones. And occasionally cursing rather loudly. It made her feel better.

  Grom had sat nearby for a while but had finally gotten bored, or hungry, and had trotted off.

  Maybe he was offended by my foul mouth, the paladin thought as she snagged a fingernail on a rock and turned the air blue with choice Russian curse words. But more than likely he's gone off to hunt. I hope that he's having more fun than I am.

  She had a stock of seeds and seedlings obtained from Nottinghill, plus some seed potatoes. The nights were still a little cool to start the planting though, so she concentrated on making the garden plot as pristine as she could. It wasn't pleasant but in a way it was satisfying.

  A couple of days of labor was enough to prepare the garden and, on the third day, Liliana took a break to just relax and putter around her property. She wasn't one to simply sit and rest; she always had to be doing something. So she swept out her cottage, did some laundry down at the river, raked up her yard and then took a swim. For the paladin, it was almost like a vacation.

  Grom brought her a gift as well. He would disappear for days at a time, which didn't worry her too much. There were very few monsters living in the wilds that could stand up to a dire wolf. Where he went and what he did was a mystery, but whenever he returned, he usually brought her something.

  This time it was the entire hind leg of a deer. Grom struggled to pull the meat through the hole in the fence and Liliana, who was ripping out a few weeds from her front yard, watched with amusement. When the wolf had finally gotten the leg through the fence, he proudly carried it over to her and dropped it at her feet.

  Wolves didn't seem to wag their tails very much, but Grom's waved a few times as he gave the paladin her gift.

  “Thank you, my friend,” she exclaimed as she stroked his heavy head. “It will be a nice change from dried meat. You obviously had a good hunt.”

  Grom licked her hand once and then trotted off to lie in the shade of the cottage. He looked quite pleased with himself.

  Liliana picked up the heavy leg and carried it into the cottage to dress it, something that she never would have known how to do in her previous life. The process was messy but resulted in several juicy steaks, a roast and enough leftover meat to dry for trail rations. She ate well for several days.

  It had been a few months since she had not had to wear her armor for an extended period of time and it was pleasant to throw on a pair of leather pants, a tunic and boots as she went through her day. But even while she was at home, she always wore her sword. Just the short walk from her back gate to the river could be perilous; monsters were unpredictable and could strike from anywhere at any time. Not to mention the fact that there were some large creatures living in the rivers that occasionally seemed to crave human flesh, and some were capable of chasing their prey on to land.

  Life is certainly interesting now, Liliana thought randomly as she stood looking out over the river one morning, a week after she had returned home. It was just past dawn and t
he air was still cool, but the paladin was an early riser. Ever since her Change, she had been able to get by with less sleep than she once had.

  The river rippled in the early morning breeze and the sunlight danced across its surface. The paladin had had a restless night and had walked out to the water to clear the cobwebs from her brain.

  Here I am, she mused. Probably the only warrior in this new world blessed by the gods, and I am unable to use those powers that I was gifted with. There must be a way to get the magic back into the world again. If the goblins ever get over their fear of open water and make their way to England, the people at Nottinghill won't stand a chance without the mages and their powers. Those damnable creatures will swarm the walls of the castle like locusts and no mundane weapons will be able to stop them.

  Goblins had attacked the castle years ago, transported there by dark magics. But the necromancers who had wielded those magics were all dead now, thanks to Simon O'Toole, and the goblin race was barred from England by the channel.

  They only seem to have two weaknesses, Liliana thought as she sat down next to the water and idly ran her fingers through the cool liquid. Fear of water and an aversion to sunlight. Without those two limiting factors, they would have probably overrun most of the planet by now. The filthy creatures breed like cockroaches and are swift and strong. Formidable opponents indeed.

  She watched small insects dancing on the waves, almost hypnotized by the glittering sunlight. Even though her eyes were wide open, the world seemed to fade away at the edges and Liliana felt like she was in a waking dream.

  She suddenly heard a distant cry, a scream of rage that she couldn't identify, but she couldn't move and quickly realized that the sounds weren't real. The surface of the water blurred and became smoky and she watched with wide eyes as a scene opened up before her.

  She saw a sweeping vista appear, a large flat expanse of land where the winds whipped tall grasses like waves on a green ocean. Rising up from the prairie in the distance was a lone hill shaped like the tip of a dagger, a strange sight in the midst of the plains.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she saw a small group of horses racing across the flat land. They were being chased by a pack of creatures that looked like hyenas, if hyenas were the size of ponies and hairless.

  Her lips twisted in disgust at the sight of the monsters. They looked skeletal and their black lips were pulled back from their gleaming fangs in a permanent grin. Horrible.

  The horses, a half dozen animals led by a magnificent copper-coated stallion whose Change had left him with a row of wicked spikes where his mane should have been, were staying ahead of the hyena creatures, but only just. All of them were lathered in sweat and, even in her dream-like state, Liliana could hear the painful sound of their labored breathing.

  They are doomed, she thought helplessly. Those monsters will catch them and tear them apart. Damn it! If only I could help them somehow.

  The stallion was magnificent. As the paladin watched, she saw him slow down and allow his herd to pass him so that he brought up the rear. One hyena, faster than its fellows, raced ahead and leaped at the horse.

  He lashed out with his back hooves and smashed in the head of the hideous creature. It flew backwards and landed in a heap while the rest of its pack screamed and slavered in rage.

  “So brave,” Liliana muttered as the stallion sped up again to rejoin his herd. “Such a waste. Where is this? Surely it isn't England.”

  The vision faded away as quickly as it had come and the paladin found herself back on the riverbank, hunched over the water.

  She stood up slowly and stretched. Her back was stiff and she wondered how long she had been crouched down, staring into the river. She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned in thought.

  What did I just see? Was it a vision sent by the gods? If so, why? Where was that chase happening? And had she seen something that had already happened or something that would happen in the future?

  “Too many questions,” she said softly and turned back toward the cottage. “And no matter what the answers are, there is nothing that I can do to help those magnificent animals anyway. Better to think that it was just a daydream, I suppose.”

  She began her first planting that morning, the nights having warmed up enough that frost was no longer a threat. All that day though she was distracted, thinking about her vision. With so few horses left in the world, even the loss of a handful was a tragedy. Was there nothing she could do?

  No, not unless she knew where the vision had taken place, and when. And she didn't.

  Restless, she finished her planting as quickly as she could and spent the afternoon walking around her property, doing some mundane chores while her mind was a million miles away.

  The unnamed gods that she served had always been so vague when communicating their wishes to her. The latest example was how she had found Harold and his group along the coast. She had meant to head more toward the west side of the English coastline on her last patrol, but she had spotted a group of drakes sunning themselves on a hillside and had decided to turn to the east instead, to avoid unnecessary trouble. Even for her, attacking three drakes would probably have proven fatal.

  And that one decision had sent her directly to the camp of the refugees. Coincidence? After many such occurrences, she no longer believed in such things.

  That was why Liliana knew that the lords of Light still existed, even if their powers were stretched so thinly that they were unable to aid humanity all that much. That, apparently, was her job.

  But the vision? She could count on one hand the number of times she had seen something similar. If it was sent by the gods, why here? Why now? To save a few horses? On the face of it, that sounded absurd. There had to be more to it.

  Liliana found herself back at the riverbank a short time later, staring across at the opposite shore. The river, which she had never bothered to identify on old maps, was about a half a mile across at this point and several distant mounds marked the location of other homes from back in the old days. All were merely shells now, slowly being reclaimed by mother nature, and today she found the sight of them rather depressing.

  Who had lived there, she wondered, not for the first time. Had they died in the original dragon attacks or much later? Had they been good people or scoundrels? No one would ever know or care now and that was the tragedy of the decline of the human race.

  How quickly was her people's history fading from the world? If the last survivors were to fall, in scattered enclaves like Nottinghill and a few others around the world, who would be left to care? The dwarves, with whom they had lost all contact? The gods?

  She laughed cynically.

  No one, that's who would remember. Nature itself would recycle their memories back into the dust, as it always did with failed species, and the New Earth would go on. The same was true of horses to a lesser extent. If the last of them died out, would future generations of mankind even remember them, assuming humans survived? Probably not.

  A gentle nudge against her arm made Liliana look quickly to her left. Grom stood there, his heavy head just slightly lower than her shoulder. He was watching her curiously.

  The paladin reached out and scratched under his chin, and the wolf closed his eyes contentedly.

  “What should I do, my friend?” she whispered. “Head off on a fool's errand in search of a handful of wild horses that have probably already become food for monsters, assuming that they are even real? Or stay here like the old housewife I once was and putter around in my garden, slowly going mad?”

  Grom opened his large, dark eyes and they met hers steadily. There was a moment of absolute clarity between them and Liliana nodded once.

  “Yes, of course. You are a fighter at heart, aren't you, Grom? Just like me. Even if it is fruitless to try, I have to go looking for them. Besides, if I don't start wearing my armor again soon, I'll become as weak and feeble as my old self would be by now.”

  She glanced up at the sky
.

  “Too late in the day to head out now though. I'll get a good night's sleep and set off at first light. Let's just hope that I don't join the horses in the bellies of those hyenas.”

  Having made her decision, Liliana felt her spirits soar. To finally have a quest, no matter how foolish, was invigorating. Now she just had to decide on which direction she was going to go.

  She walked back inside of her palisade and made sure to seal both gates firmly. Grom, who rarely stayed inside at night, had trotted off into the forest, probably looking for his dinner and Liliana went indoors to do the same.

  She cooked the last of her venison steaks and ate it along with some dried fruit and the remaining bread from Nottinghill. The end of the loaf was a little stale but still delicious.

  Then she built up a fire, lit a few beeswax candles and spread out a well-worn map of Britain on her kitchen table.

  There were dozens of changes, additions and notes that she had added to the map over the years. As she scouted the country, along with Malcolm, Aiden and, occasionally, a few others, she would make note of any alterations to the flora and fauna that they all found. And there were many.

  Winters were still hard in Britain, but new types of plants, animals and, of course, monsters, had appeared over time. And she remembered several stretches of open grassland that had sprouted up for no apparent reason. Perhaps the horses from her vision were living in one of those areas.

  The plains would be a natural environment for such animals, their speed giving them an advantage over predators.

  Except for those damnable hyena monsters, she thought grimly. Had the herd survived? Was this a fool's errand?

  Liliana pushed her doubts aside. She was going regardless, if only to ease her own mind. And if the worst had happened, well then, at least she would finally find out.

  But which stretch of grasslands was the most promising?