The First Paladin (The New Earth Chronicles Book 1)

by J. J. Thompson

  She inched forward slowly for what felt like an hour before the low ceiling above her head disappeared. She cautiously pushed herself to her knees and reached up, but she felt nothing but empty air. It was a tremendous relief and she stood up carefully and stretched, wincing at the stabbing pains from the sore muscles in her back and her scraped knees. New body or not, she wasn't immune to injury or muscle aches, it seemed.

  She had thankfully found several boxes of wooden matches while scavenging and now took off her pack and rummaged around inside of it until she found one of them.

  Liliana held her breath for a moment before lighting a match and listened anxiously. The sounds of the hunters had faded away some time ago and now all she could hear was the beating of her own heart in her ears. It was uncanny and she didn't like it, but whatever waited for her in the darkness would be easier to face if she could see it.

  She pulled out a match and struck it against the side of the box. The yellow light flared, momentarily blinding her and filling her nostrils with the acrid smell of sulfur. She fought back the urge to sneeze and held up the match, looking at her surroundings.

  She was standing in the center of a square room, not much bigger than the mausoleum had been. All around her there were burial urns lining the walls. Dozens of them. The floor with thick with dust and the air was still. There were no decorations.

  “What is this place?” she murmured.

  On the right and left walls someone had bolted iron sconces and each one held a dusty torch. As her match burned low, she stepped over to the closest one and lit it.

  It ignited as if soaked in gasoline and the room was suddenly lit up as bright as day.

  Liliana breathed a sigh of relief, put away her matches and took the torch from the bracket.

  “Maybe whatever family owned the mausoleum built this crypt to safeguard their ancestors,” she said softly. “Clever. But safeguard them from what? And why?”

  She examined some of the urns and found them to be simple clay jars stamped with names and dates that meant nothing to her. Certainly grave robbers wouldn't have stolen them. Who would want to buy something like that from a thief?

  At the back of the room an iron ring was inlaid into the wall, barely noticeable under a layer of dust and cobwebs. Liliana looked at it curiously. It looked out of place on the bare wall and she wondered what it was for.

  She wiped the ring off with her sleeve, grasped it firmly and pulled it with her free hand. It reluctantly came loose and she backed away from the wall. A thick chain was attached to the iron ring and she pulled it through the wall one link at a time.

  What is happening, she wondered as she walked backwards. What is this connected to?

  Several feet of chain links had appeared and then suddenly Liliana could pull no more of the chain out of the wall. She looked around, puzzled. Had anything changed?

  She stared in amazement. The small doorway where she had entered the room was now sealed. She could barely make out the outline of the stone block that had dropped down to close off the entrance.

  At the same time, in the center of the room a square opening gaped darkly in the dusty floor. She dropped the chain and walked over to peer into it. Raising her torch, she knelt down and tried to see into the hole.

  A series of iron rods were sticking out of the side of the vertical chute that dropped down beyond the light of her torch. Where it led was impossible to say. Liliana picked up a small stone and dropped it into the hole. Then she held her breath and listened intently.

  “One, two, three...” she murmured.

  She reached a count of eight before a distant 'plunk' echoed up from below.

  She stood up and stared suspiciously at the hole.

  “Why are you here? What is this place?”

  Liliana didn't trust any of this. The hidden room should not be here; it made no sense. And now a secret entrance into the depths? Why?

  No, she did not trust it. The hunters must have given up the search and moved on by now. They were only animals, after all, and animals will lose interest eventually if they lose track of their prey. She should go back.

  It was at that moment she realized that going back was no longer an option. Pulling on the chain that was hanging out of the wall did nothing and there were no other buttons or switches that opened the door to the tunnel. Shoving on the thick stone of the door did nothing. She even tried to move the sconces on the walls. They didn't move.

  “I'm trapped,” Liliana said flatly, her words hanging in the still air. “I have no choice but to climb down. Damn it.”

  She took the unlit torches from the other three brackets and stored them in her backpack. Then she slung that over her shoulders, cautiously lowered herself into the hole and slowly climbed down. She needed to use both hands on the rough ladder and left the lit torch behind. It was almost dead anyway.

  The air was close and fetid in the narrow tube and the iron bars that she stepped on were rusted and threatened to break off every time she put her weight on one of them.

  Liliana was soon sweating profusely and had to stop every few rungs to wipe her palms off on her jacket. It didn't help that she couldn't see how far away the bottom of the chute was. All she could do was continue the decent until she reached the end.

  How deep is this damned hole, she thought weakly after several minutes. Her arms were beginning to shake with fatigue and her body was drenched in sweat. At that moment her foot came down on solid ground and she almost collapsed as she automatically tried to step down through the floor.

  Liliana stood still for a moment to catch her breath and she listened closely to the darkness around her. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the drip, drip, drip of water. Maybe that was why the air was so humid.

  She felt around and realized that the iron rods were embedded in a wall that stretched out to her left and right.

  She slipped off her pack and took out a torch and her matches. She lit one, ignited the torch and held it up to look around.

  “Oh my God, what is this place?” she whispered in shock.

  She was standing in a large, rectangular room with a ceiling that soared twenty feet over her head. The iron bars that she had climbed down stuck out of the wall and descended from a hole in the ceiling.

  Unlike the bare room so far above her, the area that she found herself in was anything but plain. The walls were covered with intricate and detailed paintings. Liliana walked around the room and examined each one in turn, holding the torch high.

  There were paintings of green fields with a burning sun overheard. There was a whole section with a meandering river and little boats with square sails raced before the wind. And on one entire wall was a depiction of a battle.

  On a field covered in mud, a dozen men and women in shining armor stood waiting with swords raised as a mass of creatures raced toward them.

  “What is this?” Liliana muttered.

  The creatures looked like something dredged out of the artist's darkest nightmares. Scales, fangs, claws; some of the monsters reminded her of the hunters that had chased her. Others ran on two legs and wore bits of clothing and armor and wielded crooked weapons. There were hundreds of them.

  “Who are they?” she wondered as she looked at the shining warriors.

  All of them watched the approaching creatures with expressions of either contempt or anger. None appeared to be frightened. The women looked as fierce as the men and Liliana's heart surged in her chest at the sight of the group's bravery.

  Had this ever happened or was it just a picture from some old fable? If so, it was one that she had never heard of before.

  How old the paintings were was impossible to say, but the paint was peeling off in little flakes and there were several splotchy water stains on the walls that had had discolored some of the scenes.

  She reached out and touched the image of a blond woman who was wearing a gleaming breastplate. On her armor was a symbol and Liliana examined it closely. It looked like a c
rescent moon, but she did not know what it represented.

  She reluctantly turned away and crossed the chamber, searching for an exit. A rounded doorway, like an arch, was sealed with heavy wooden timbers. After a quick examination, she realized that it wasn't a door; someone had actually blocked off the opening.

  “Now why do that?” she wondered, her voice reverberating around the room. “After all, I've found the secret room and made it this far. Why seal off the rest of it?”

  Whatever reasons the long forgotten builders had had, she needed to keep exploring; there was no other way out.

  Liliana leaned against the barrier and pushed, testing its strength. The wood didn't even creak. She used her shoulder to shove at it, but it remained immobile.

  “Now you're just making me angry,” she muttered at it.

  Taking a step back, she lifted her leg and smashed her booted heel against the wood. Once, twice... On the third kick, a thick slat in the middle of the barricade gave way, cracking in two.

  Encouraged, she continued her assault until three of the slats had broken and she was able to push them out of the way. It left a hole just large enough for her to squeeze through.

  She wiped the sweat from her forehead, lit another torch from the dying stump of the first one, and slipped through the opening.

  On the other side, a long hallway descended into darkness. Liliana raised the torch, took a deep breath and plunged ahead, too curious and too desperate to stop exploring now.

  The ground here was roughly carved out of the native stone and the walls were bare and damp. The air was moist and smelled of mold and, as she held up the dancing torch, she saw that the ceiling was cracked and broken. It wasn't a very reassuring sight.

  She stumbled over small pebbles and loose sand as the corridor became steeper. She had begun counting her steps as she penetrated the darkness and reached fifty before the hallway leveled off again.

  Liliana stopped abruptly and frowned at the darkness ahead. Something had caught her attention; some muffled sound. Was it a voice? A whisper?

  She tilted her head to the side and held her breath, listening. Nothing. Maybe she had just heard her own footsteps echoing oddly.

  Unconvinced, she began moving forward again, much more slowly this time. She could see that the hallway was coming to an end and that a room opened up ahead. There was nothing blocking it at this end.

  She stopped at the opening and thrust her torch into the shadowy room. How deep below the ground was she now? Fifty feet? A hundred? It was impossible to tell. She stepped forward and raised the torch.

  All around her, the walls and floor were made of dark rock, while the ceiling in the room was too lofty to see clearly. She felt like she had entered a church.

  Her torchlight didn't extend far enough to be able to see what was ahead of her. She took another step into the room and looked to her left and right.

  On both sides of the entrance, there were torches hanging in brackets like they had in the room above. She lit each of them and finally had enough light to examine her surroundings in detail.

  The room was circular and at least fifty feet across. The high ceiling was shaped like a dome, reinforcing the feeling that she was in a chapel of some kind. In the center of the room there was a tomb or sepulcher built out of white stone. She stared at it for a moment and then began walking around the room, lighting the torches that were hanging from the walls at regular intervals. It was only when they were all lit that Liliana turned back toward the tomb and slowly walked toward it.

  She hadn't really noticed the floor until now and realized that it was covered in small square tiles of many colors. She knelt down and brushed off some of the dust to get a better look at them. By their texture, she guessed that they were made of some sort of marble and ranged from pure white to a speckled black. The patterns laid out seemed designed to draw the eye toward the tomb.

  She stood up and stared at it. The rectangular sepulcher stood waist-high and was also made of marble. Dusty and covered in cobwebs, it was the color of cream, and small veins of silver running through it caught the torchlight and made it shimmer with an unearthly glow.

  Who was entombed here, she wondered. And why? And why lay them to rest in a place so deep and so hidden?

  Liliana walked the last few steps to the tomb and looked at it closely. There was no memorial, no writing carved into the marble of any kind. Whoever this was, they had been left nameless and unknown. Again, why?

  Perhaps it was a cenotaph and there was no one here, she thought suddenly. But that makes no sense. There would at least be a name or something written on it if that was the case.

  She hesitated and then laid her hand on top of the cool marble.

  “Who comes?”

  Liliana spun around with a gasp. Was someone else here?

  “Who comes to disturb my slumber?” the voice spoke again. “Speak!”

  It was the deep voice of a man, but thin and airy, as if the person was a long way off.

  “Hello?” Liliana said hesitantly. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” the unseen speaker replied harshly.

  “My...my name is Liliana. Liliana Travnikov. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I was trapped in here and I'm just looking for a way out.”

  Silence. The sound of her voice faded and Liliana stared around, wide-eyed. Could she actually be speaking to a ghost? Surely not. Ghosts did not exist.

  That is what you believed about dragons until a few weeks ago, she replied to herself. And those hunters.

  “You made your way to this place alone?” the speaker asked, his hollow voice now sounding more curious than menacing.

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Then perhaps you were meant to come here. Perhaps my long vigil is at an end.”

  Chapter 9

  A glow in the air at the foot of the tomb made Liliana step back hurriedly and she watched in awe as the figure of a man appeared.

  His body was luminous and translucent and she could actually see right through him. He was wearing heavy, old-fashioned armor and was holding a battered sword in one hand and a dented shield in the other. He was completely bald but sported an amazingly thick mustache. He turned to look at her, his face blank and expressionless.

  “Liliana Travnikov,” he said, his voice still hollow and distant. “A good name. I am, or I was, Sir Rafael Cheryazova, a bogatyr. Do you know what that is, child?”

  Liliana frowned. The word was familiar somehow, but she hadn't heard it in years.

  “It's...wait, I know this. Yes, a bogatyr was a noble who was also a warrior. Is that right?”

  “Very good. Yes, like English knights, we were of noble birth and took up arms in the service of our rulers. But some few of us aspired to even more.”

  He looked up at the high ceiling and seemed to be staring at something a long way off.

  “I answered a call to fight, not in the name of church or state, but of God himself.”

  He shook his head and laughed bitterly.

  “Or so I thought. But I was deceived, child. I took up arms and thought that I was blessed, but I was cursed.”

  Liliana stared at him in confusion.

  “I do not understand,” she said. “Cursed by what?”

  “Cursed by dark forces whom I never believed existed. Evil gods who were seeking a way to penetrate the veil that surrounds our world and pour in from the Void. They sought to rule over all of Creation and I was but one of their tools.”

  He looked over at her and his expression darkened.

  “The dragons are another.”

  Liliana gaped at him.

  “You know about the dragons?”

  “The dead know much, young one. We have much knowledge but little power. I have been cursed to remain in this tomb for a thousand years. I have watched and waited for the day when the dark gods would attempt to invade this world again. And now that day has come...and so have you. It is, perhaps, fate.”

  Liliana frow
ned.

  “Fate? But, I only came down here to find a way out of the mausoleum. I was trying to escape from hunters, horrible creatures that look like small dragons.”

  “I know of them,” the ghost told her. “They are called drakes, if that matters to you.”

  “Drakes.”

  Liliana repeated the word and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. Drakes. Yes, I will remember that name.

  “They are rampaging across the world like locusts,” Sir Rafael continued. “You will not know this, but humanity itself is on the precipice, facing extinction. It is only a matter of time before the last survivors are hunted down and killed like dogs.”

  “Then the dragon attacks on Moscow weren't the only ones?”

  “Oh no. Every major city has fallen. And any population center too small for the dragons' personal attention was overrun by the drakes. It is truly the apocalypse.”

  “The end of the world,” she whispered in horror. “It has finally come.”

  “Yes. But unlike the predictions of the world burning in nuclear fire, it is ablaze in dragon flame,” the ghost said bitterly.

  “Then all hope is lost,” Liliana said, tears rising in her eyes. “My children, my grandchildren, our people. All of them are doomed.”

  Sir Rafael frowned at her.

  “Nonsense,” he said sternly.

  Liliana blinked away her tears and looked back at him in confusion.

  “I'm sorry?”

  “I said nonsense. Where there is life, there is hope. Surely you know this? I can sense something of your past, child. You are older than you appear, but thanks to the intervention of the lords of Light, you have been remade; a newly forged weapon in their arsenal, if you choose to be so.”

  “Is that what happened to me? I was blessed?”

  She looked down at herself, at the strong young woman that she had become.

  “Yes, you and a small handful of survivors have been altered to exist in the new world that is being born even as we speak. It is a gift, if you have the will and the wit to see it as one.”

  “But, you said the blessing comes from the lords of Light?” Liliana replied. “Surely only God can bestow such a miracle on his children?”