The First Paladin (The New Earth Chronicles Book 1)

by J. J. Thompson

  But of course there was no way to tell. Her walking pace was steady but not fast and she didn't know how much ground she covered each day.

  But did it even matter? She didn't have any idea of where she was going anyway. Away from Moscow, that was all that she knew. South, away from her home.

  Liliana pulled open the tab on a can and ate the ravioli with a spoon. It was tasty but not very filling. She was always hungry now and, with her larger body, seemed to need more calories. The problem, of course, was that she never knew when she would run out of food, so she ate sparingly and ignored her growling stomach. She had lived too long and been through too much to give in to her physical needs so easily.

  The river was peaceful and continued on its course with no regard to the changes in the world around it. Birds flew overhead and Liliana saw several flocks of ducks floating along together, their tail feathers sticking comically straight up in the air as they ducked below the surface to feed on water plants.

  She smiled at the sight, drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. The wind off of the river lifted her hair as it blew past and the damp smell was sweet in her nostrils. It was hard at that moment to comprehend how the world had turned against humanity when everything seemed so serene.

  “How did it come to this?” she asked softly. “And what can I do to fix it? Anything? What is my purpose?”

  The woman from her dream had said that she had been chosen to protect the innocent and battle evil. But how could she do that when all she was doing was wandering without direction further and further away from her home? It just didn't feel right.

  “But what else can I do?” she wondered aloud as she watched the ducks. “Moscow is gone. There is nothing there now but burned out buildings and lifeless neighborhoods. What would have been the point in staying?”

  But what if you are wrong?

  That thought startled her and she sat up and looked around. It almost felt like someone had whispered that question in her ear.

  Wrong? Could I be wrong? Could there be survivors in Moscow still?

  Liliana frowned and considered that possibility. If some people had actually survived the initial dragon attacks and the torrent of drakes that had followed it, wouldn't they return to their homes, to search for food and other supplies? The pull of home was very strong for some people, even after such catastrophic events.

  “Home,” she whispered.

  She felt a sudden desire to see her old house one last time. It was where she had spent most of her adulthood. It was where she had raised her three daughters, spent time with her friends and neighbors, lived her life.

  The sun drifted lower as she contemplated her future actions. As darkness began to fall, she decided to sleep on it. In the morning she would make her decision; whether to try to find a way to cross the river and continue her journey south or to turn around and journey back to Moscow. She knew that either choice would change her destiny.

  Chapter 11

  A growl in her ear snapped Liliana out of her revery and she blinked several times as she looked at Grom, who was staring at her from a foot away.

  “Hey there. What's wrong?” she asked as she rubbed her eyes. “Was I gone again? I'm not sure why, but my mind keeps going back to the days after the fall of humanity. It's like I'm fixated on flipping through my memories for some reason. I just don't know why.”

  She stood up, looked across the river blankly, and then turned back toward the cottage.

  “I'm going to lock the gate and let whatever is happening happen,” she told the wolf. “Keep an eye out for trouble, would you?”

  Grom wuffed gently and turned away. He trotted off into the trees and she smiled after him.

  “Thanks,” she said softly and headed back up the path.

  Once she was back inside of her palisade, she closed and barred the gate and walked around the cottage to the front door. The horse was still grazing calmly and paid no attention to her as she stopped to look at him.

  Even standing still, he is one of the most beautiful animals that I've ever seen, Liliana thought appreciatively.

  She went indoors, had a drink of water and then lay down on the couch. If she was going to be inundated with memories, she wanted to at least be comfortable while it happened.

  Okay then, she thought as she stared up at the ceiling. Let's see whatever there is to see.

  Immediately she was pulled back to the morning that she woke alongside the wide river, still trying to decide on her path forward. It had been the hardest decision that she had ever had to make.

  Maybe it was coincidence, or perhaps it was fate. On the other hand, sometimes bad things just happened. But when Liliana woke up and looked across the river, all that she could see was a wall of flames.

  The forest growing along the other side of the river was on fire. She gaped at it in disbelief. The wind was blowing toward the fire from behind her, so she hadn't smelled the thick black smoke that rose from the inferno and could barely hear its roar.

  How did that happen, she wondered in confusion. The ground isn't dry, and all of the trees and plants are green. Can fire even burn in these conditions? Apparently so.

  Liliana looked up and down the river. As far as she could see, the flames were raging ferociously.

  “Well, it looks like my decision has been made for me,” she said to herself. “Unless I want to follow the river to the east or west for miles, I'll have to turn back toward Moscow.”

  She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had been torn about what to do going forward, but now her way was clear. She was going home.

  Liliana took a chance and bathed in the river before she set off. She had picked up several bars of soap from the homes that she had scavenged and she washed herself thoroughly, soaping up her hair and rinsing it twice. It felt wonderful.

  It was a bizarre experience in a way; bathing while an enormous wildfire burned out of control less than a mile away. If the wind turned, embers might be carried across the river. She could only hope that didn't happen.

  After her bath, she packed up her things, drank her fill at the river and turned her back on the fire and the water.

  “Moscow, here I come.”

  Instead of keeping to the fields and forests on her trip back, Liliana found a paved highway that ran generally in the right direction and followed it. Despite a large number of abandoned cars left to rust haphazardly along the road, it was an easy walk. She found it a relief to travel on a straight, clear path without constantly trying to avoid tripping on roots or getting her feet tangled in long grass. She assumed that since the wave of drakes had passed through the area weeks before, it would be a fairly safe route to follow. She hadn't counted on the emotional toll it would take on her though.

  Her first inkling that walking along the highway had been a bad idea was when she came across the remains of a group of refugees. Bones, scraps of clothing and scattered belongings marked the site of the slaughter. Whoever they had been, the people had obviously been attacked by drakes. It had rained several times since the assault and the blood from the carnage had been washed away. But the gnawed bones told the sad story.

  On the side of the road, a few feet away from most of the remains, was a little doll. The toy poignantly reminded Liliana of her own daughters and tears rose in her eyes as she stared at it.

  It had probably been precious to some little girl for her to have carried it all the way from Moscow, she thought.

  Ignoring the tears rolling down her cheeks, Liliana walked over to the doll and picked it up. Its body was made of cloth stuffed with cotton and its little pink dress was stained and torn. But the head was porcelain and had pretty features and large blue eyes. They seemed to stare into the paladin's soul and she could almost feel the nameless child's last moments of terror and panic.

  No one, especially a child, should have to die like that, she thought fiercely. No one.

  Wiping her eyes clumsily, Liliana set the
doll down gently where she had found it. Moving it somehow felt like she was desecrating a grave. She backed away slowly and, when she started walking again, she gave that entire section of the road a wide berth.

  The memory of that sad little doll haunted her for many hours as she trudged northward, and her dark mood became even gloomier as she began to see more and more evidence of drake attacks.

  At one point she stopped and stared at a section of the highway so choked with bones, torn clothing and the belongings of the dead that she would have to get off of the road completely to avoid stepping on any of them.

  My God, she wondered in despair. How many people were slaughtered trying to get away from Moscow? Thousands? Tens of thousands? These are only the ones who came down this one highway.

  She clapped a hand to her sword hilt and squeezed until her fingers ached.

  My people. These were all my people. Hunted down and killed like animals. This cannot go unpunished.

  Liliana moved off of the highway and walked into a field. She was too distraught to continue her journey that day and made camp under the shelter of some trees out of sight of the road.

  She had no appetite and simply sat with her back against a tree trunk, staring off into the distance as darkness fell.

  The paladin almost laughed at the idea of dealing out retribution for what had been done to Moscow and its people.

  Retribution against whom, she wondered. Against evil gods? Against dragons? That was laughable. There was nothing she could do. What was done was done.

  But I can try to protect those who have survived, can't I? Surely there are others returning to the city like I am. And wherever people are, sooner or later the drakes will appear, I am sure of it.

  That is where I have to be. And that is where I will be, she vowed. I don't know how much I can help but, damn it, I will do what I can.

  With new resolve she closed her eyes and drifted off into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

  Liliana tried to continue her journey north by walking parallel with the highway. After an hour or so of slogging through the thick grass and tripping over hidden rocks and roots, she became frustrated with her progress and reluctantly returned to the paved surface.

  Fortunately, there were fewer and fewer sites of drake attacks as she traveled, but those that she saw only hardened her resolve and she trudged by them grimly.

  I will not forget you, she told the unknown victims silently. I will never forget you, I promise.

  When the sun climbed to noon, Liliana stopped on a bridge that extended over a small river. She opened her last can of ravioli and ate it sitting with her back against the steel railing that ran along the side of the span. There was a refreshing breeze blowing up from the water and she breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of damp earth and water plants.

  Her gloomy mood lifted a bit and, when she was done eating, Liliana stood up and leaned against the railing, looking down at the rushing waters below. She spotted colorful dragonflies flitting over the river and several fish racing beneath its surface, leaving streaks of silver in their wake.

  The peaceful sight eased her troubled mind even more and she allowed her tension to slip away somewhat.

  “You can't brood about things constantly,” she told herself. “If you fall into that trap, you'll go mad. Put it away, just as you have done with the other bad things that happened in your life. Focus on your goal if you want to get through this.”

  As she tried to organize her thoughts, the air around her began to darken and she looked up at the sky with a frown.

  Is it going to rain, she wondered. A moment before there hadn't been a cloud in the sky.

  The sun was still beaming down on her, but its light was muted, thin, and Liliana couldn't see any clouds as she scanned the heavens.

  What is going on?

  The steel beneath her feet started to tremble and the metal began to squeal and creak along its length.

  “Earthquake?” she wondered out loud. “Now?”

  She hadn't experienced one of those for years, not since her youth in Moscow.

  But then, as suddenly as it began, the shaking subsided and she was left confused.

  Was that it?

  A blast of fiery wind and an earth-shattering roar was her answer. From the north, an enormous shape appeared on the horizon. Flapping its gigantic wings in slow strokes, it blazed like molten copper in the midday sky.

  “Dragon!” she cried.

  A mixture of fury and awe swept over Liliana as the monster swept down from the north. She had only glimpsed the creatures from a distance at night when they had destroyed Moscow, but now she saw one of them in all of its glory.

  It is beautiful, she admitted to herself. And so much bigger than I thought it would be

  From its horned, yellow-eyed head to its spiked writhing tail, the dragon must have been a hundred feet long or more. Its wings slapping like sails against the wind were even wider than it was long and she was frozen in awe as it approached.

  A red dragon, she thought as she stared at the mighty wyrm. It gleams like it's made of burnished metal. Incredible.

  Although the dragon's wings were flapping slowly and lazily, it was approaching with tremendous speed and Liliana suddenly realized how exposed she was as she stood in the middle of the long bridge.

  Surely it won't even notice me, she thought desperately.

  She frantically tried to decide if she had enough time to get off of the steel span before the dragon got too close. She didn't.

  I'm just one small person. Why would a thing that large even care?

  The hot wind grew stronger as the dragon approached with alarming speed. Although the monster was flying several hundred feet above the ground, Liliana thought that it might be searching for something. Its armored head swung back and forth as if it was scanning the terrain below.

  Part of her mind was screaming at her to move, but Liliana was frozen in place, just watching the dragon flying straight toward her. It suddenly reared back, its wings flapping faster to stop its forward momentum. Its slitted, yellow eyes blazed as if the fires of hell itself burned behind them and it bellowed so loudly that the bridge underneath her actually shook at the sound.

  My God, she thought in horror. It's looking right at me!

  The dragon's head pulled back even further and, even from several hundred feet away, Liliana heard it suck in a massive breath.

  Move, damn it. Move, her inner voice shouted at her.

  And then the dragon thrust its head at her, it mouth gaping wide, and a blinding blast of red flames shot straight down towards her.

  Liliana did the only thing that she could do: she jumped.

  She had no idea how deep the narrow river was, but anything was preferable to being burned alive. She hit the water hard. The impact stunned her for a few seconds and she sank beneath the waves like a dead thing, the weight of her sword pulling her to the bottom.

  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As she reached the riverbed, her body slowly turned over and she could see the surface of the water. It was red with fire as the dragon bathed it in flame. Even underwater she could hear the sizzle as the river began to evaporate under the onslaught of intense heat.

  Liliana regained control of her limbs and, although she was desperate to breathe, swam downriver, hugging the bottom as best she could. Obviously the great beast wanted to make sure that she was dead.

  But why, she wondered even as she swam for her life. What possible reason could a monster like that have to attack a single person? It didn't make any sense.

  Finally, when it felt like her lungs were about to explode, the paladin swam upward and breached the surface, sucking in great lungfuls of air. She spun around as she did so, searching the sky overhead for any sign of the dragon.

  There was nothing there. The sun was shining, the birds had begun singing again and the only real evidence that there had been a dragon attack was the bridge in the distance. Liliana stared at it incredulously.<
br />
  The metal was sagging and tilting to one side. As she watched, it shuddered and then the support beams gave way and the whole thing crashed into the river.

  Liliana used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank before the waves caused by the bridge's collapse reached her position, and she dragged herself up on to dry land.

  With a weak shrug, she took off her soggy pack and rolled on to her back, staring up at the clear blue sky and just allowing herself to breathe.

  I can't believe it, she thought, still trying to accept what had just happened. I was attacked by a dragon!

  And survived, her inner voice whispered to her. How many people can say that?

  Liliana snorted weakly.

  I barely survived, thanks to sheer good luck. I doubt that I would be so fortunate a second time.

  The main thing that she wanted to know was why. Why was she attacked? Random chance? Surely she hadn't been targeted specifically, had she? Liliana Travnikov, middle-aged grandmother from the outskirts of Moscow? Ridiculous.

  She pushed herself up and sat there looking around, still not convinced that the dragon was truly gone. Her hand brushed against her sword and she drew it and laid it across her legs.

  Beads of moisture along its length reflected the sunlight and she stared at it as a thought occurred to her.

  Had it been sent by the dark gods? Have they somehow learned that the lords of Light had christened a paladin? Surely not.

  She dried the sword with a handful of grass and laid it down carefully. Then she stood up and turned the sheath upside down. A dribble of water poured out of it and Liliana grimaced.

  “It will have to dry out before I can use it again,” she said to herself. “Or else I run the risk of the sword rusting, if that is even possible.”

  She took off her clothes and emptied her pack and hung everything from low-hanging tree branches. Then she spent the next hour or so waiting for her things to dry. Luckily the sun was hot and everything dried quickly; she felt almost defenseless standing there naked with her sword in her hand.

  How would I ever explain this to someone who just happened to walk by, Liliana wondered with a touch of amusement. Oh, nothing to see here; just a naked, sword-wielding woman standing in the woods. Walk on.