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

by James A. Hillebrecht

  “You dare talk to me of sacrilege when you sit in that glorified hovel you call a church and preach…”

  “Father,” a young feminine voice interrupted, “the meal is waiting for you.”

  Darius’ head jerked in the direction of the voice, and the sudden fury that had threatened to consume him began to clear. There was the watchful, attentive face of his teen-aged daughter, Shannon, her expression alert, her eyes a warning. Ever since his wife had died, she had taken her place as the guardian of his temper, and he knew from that special look of hers that he was in danger of losing it now. Without a word, he turned abruptly and stalked off into the woods, taking his rage with him.

  “Your father is a brutal sort of man,” the cleric said, watching the man’s disappearing back and trying to keep the trembling out of his voice. He turned to the girl and was shocked by the icy intensity on the young woman’s face.

  “Priest, for seven years now, my father has fought back a burning desire to banish you from this village and rid us of your blasphemous dribble once and for all,” she said, her voice daggers. “But I swear to you now that if I ever hear you speak to him in that manner again, I’ll kick you out onto the Eastern Road myself and spare him any further struggle.”

  * * * * *

  The woodlands of Delberaine were a peaceful place in the early spring. Life was just beginning to stir again from the cold embers of winter, and it had not yet reached the frenzied pitch to which the heat of summer would drive it. New plants were peering timidly out of the soil as if fearful that winter might yet return, and the animals were slowly reacquainting themselves with a world that no longer lay crushed beneath layers of snow. Even the wandering birds had returned to rebuild old nests and brighten the forest with their songs and calls.

  But Darius could find no peace beneath the reborn trees.

  It was the voice. Even here in the woodlands he could hear it calling to him, beckoning him, hounding him, driving him forward in a useless search for some imagined sanctuary where it could not reach. The branches of bushes slapped at him as he passed and thorns clawed at his flesh, but his mind felt nothing as it strove desperately to shut off all his senses and thus silence the distant call that invaded his every thought.

  I won’t answer, he promised himself. That devil can shout himself hoarse for all I care, but it will gain him nothing if I make no response. How many days has it been since it began? How many weeks? I can’t remember. Perhaps it was no more than a few hours ago. I only know that the agony began, and I have sworn to dig out my ears before I heed him again.

  His determination forced him to lengthen his stride, to step out harder and faster, and soon he was charging through the woods, his body automatically responding to the emotions that surged through his mind. He ran fast and with a surprising agility for a big man, leaping obstacles and ducking overhangs without breaking speed, rushing madly through the trees, seeking to outdistance a voice that spoke only in his own mind.

  “Darius.”

  The new voice brought him to an abrupt halt, stopping him as effectively as if his name had been a wall of stone. He knew the speaker without turning to look, and his body shuddered under the combined impact of the old thrill of anticipation and a new wave of nausea. He turned almost in spite of himself and beheld the glowing presence of a man robed all in white who seemed to brighten the twilight of the forest with a personal radiance. The man held a white staff composed of two wooden dragons intertwined, and beneath the robe emerged feet shod with iron which showed he was armored under the cloak. His hair was white also, but his face was ageless, and it bore such an expression of sympathy and understanding that Darius felt naked before him.

  “Bilan-Ra,” he breathed in acknowledgment, the old reverence still audible in his voice.

  “I have been sent to seek for you, old friend,” the newcomer said gently. “Have you grown deaf that you can no longer hear the cry of Sarinian?”

  The words were in the True Tongue, the beautiful speech of Mirna the Glorious that could abide no falsehood, a language most of humanity could no longer speak.

  “I have heard,” Darius said.

  “Then why do you make no answer? Murder walks once more in the land, and the Avenger demands that justice be done. Why do you not heed the call and wield him once more as you did of old?”

  “Leave it, Master,” Darius said, shaking his head. “My answers would not be to your liking.”

  “I have asked you a question, Darius. Speak! Why do you flee from Sarinian?”

  “Because his wants are not my wants,” Darius answered, the words torn out of him. “You say that he wants justice and vengeance; but I know him better. What he lusts for is the roar of battle and the blood of dying men. He was forged to kill, to slay the enemies of Peace, and he finds no rest when the fighting is done and the warmongers are banished. Listen to him! Even now he calls to me, and there is a tinge of joy in his soulless voice, a smug satisfaction that his hunger for blood will soon be sated. You wish to hear that voice in full song? Then take him and wield him yourself! I have had my fill of him long ago.”

  He turned sharply on his heel as if to go and just as abruptly turned half back again, angry and uncertain, his body decrying the turmoil and doubt that boiled within.

  “Darius, I know you well,” Bilan-Ra replied quietly, “and I can feel the anguish that is tearing at you now. You have tasted the joys of the peace you have won, and the memory of war seems more horrible because of it. You have served me long and well, better than any of my other sons, and if ever a man deserved to spend his days quietly in the greenwood of Delberaine, it is you. But the skies blacken, and the times grow dark once more, and in such straits one must sometimes ask for more than is offered by even the most generous. Will you not take up Sarinian and strike back the darkness as you did once before?”

  Darius closed his eyes and swallowed slowly, his shoulders sagging as if in resignation, but when he turned to answer, his lips were twisted by a bitterness that reached down to the very roots of his being.

  “It is now a score of years and five that I first came and knelt at your feet, a young boy with shining eyes who begged for the chance to serve the Lord of the Chosen: Bilan-Ra, the Messenger of Mirna the Glorious. I came to you dreaming of great deeds, heeding a call I could neither resist nor understand, seeking ways to heal a land that lay crushed and bleeding beneath the boot of war. And instead of answers, you put a sword in my hand and sent me forth to do battle, telling me that when evil is overthrown, the land would heal itself and peace would reign forever. And I went. There was a fire in my belly then, and the strength of youth was in my arms, and I strode forth to slay the enemies of Peace, eager to risk my life in the cause of justice.

  “But I have learned. To kill a tyrant does not bring peace, for always there is another who rises in his stead and seeks to devour all the world. War does not bring healing and life, only hacked corpses and charred villages. And worst of all, slaying the enemies of justice brings no honor or glory, only the stigma of a human butcher plying his filthy trade.”

  He whirled to fully face his master, his right hand slowly moving down the hideous wound that scarred his torso.

  “Do you see the proof? This is the memento from the third champion that the Ice King sent against me, a mighty warrior who played my exhaustion well and struck the killing blow at just the right moment. But your accursed blade would not allow me the dignity of an honorable death. It staunched my wound and fed into me an unnatural life that gave me the strength to strike again and lay my opponent low. To lose and yet to see the victor slain: this I call butchery, not combat!”

  He turned away. For long years those words had waited within him, gnawing at his strength and rectitude like a cancer, and now that they had finally been given voice, he felt drained and exhausted, resigned to whatever blow his arrogance had earned him.

  “What would you have, then?” the voice of his master asked softly. “Shall we sit quietly in the
woodlands and watch the slayers of men pile up their gory trophies unchallenged? You are right, Darius. Evil does not have a single neck that you might sever with one blow and be done with. It is a plague that breaks out ever anew, for like the plague, men bear it within themselves. Did you think that you and my other sons were only to hack and slay? No, you were to be the examples for Mankind, the proof that there was a better way than the paths of darkness, the heroes that might stir men’s’ souls to valor. And in this you have not failed.

  “For now when evil sweeps across the land, there are men who remember the glory of my sons and rise up to resist the shadow. They have seen the tyrants fall before and tasted the rich fruits of freedom and justice, and they have learned that these are things worth fighting for. Some die in that cause, and many more suffer hurt, but they would rather face the horror of war than the sight of their sons pulling a slaves’ yoke. Is it butchery, then, to slay the killers of such men and deliver their offspring from beneath the murder’s heel?”

  Darius’ gaze was fully upon him now, his eyes no longer averted by doubt and shame. He stood as a prisoner hearing the sentence passed upon him by a judge, but though his face was grim and determined, the bitterness had left his mouth, leaving only a hint of regret and perhaps of longing.

  Yet there was more in the face of Bilan-Ra, more left unspoken, and even the Messenger of Mirna could not hope to deceive with the sweet tones of the True Tongue still ringing in the glen.

  “What else?” Darius asked slowly. “You ask for all and want still more. What is left to give?”

  “Your life,” Bilan-Ra answered. “For from this road there is no return. If once you tread this path, know your end lies at its completion.”

  At that, a grim smile touched the lips of Darius. “The doom you speak is to me a welcome release. My daughter is of age, and my time is already passed. Death is but an awakening from the cruel dream of life.”

  Then, slowly, the air before him began to shimmer as if from the heat of a summer’s day, and gradually a light began to grow, a small sphere of brilliance that soon illuminated all the glen. The brightness was too fierce for normal man or beast, but Darius endured it unflinching, watching as the light slowly resolved itself into a glowing sword that seemed to hover upon the air.

  “Behold your tormentor, Inglorion! I ask you now: will you not take the Avenger and stand forth in my name against the enemies of men?”

  In answer, Darius reached out and seized the sword, raising it up as if offering it to the heavens above.

  “Inglorion en feale!” he cried, and the light from the sword enveloped them both, reforging the bond that was never fully sundered. He turned to the shining presence of the man in white.

  “My answer is now as it has ever been: while I yet breathe, you shall not lack for a champion. It is done. I will once more take up the burden of Sarinian the Avenger.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Preparations

  Adella crouched down in the semi-darkness outside a ruined farmhouse just in sight of the broken citadel of Carthix Castle, now garrisoned only by the dead, and leaned back against the cold stone. She was making no attempt to hide herself, for the Northings had killed all they could find on two legs or four and moved on, following in the wake of the black titan. Regnar had not bothered to leave even a single warrior behind to man the citadel, and that was the clearest proof his interests lay far beyond the northern plains.

  The putrid green canopy now filled all the sky, save for a narrow strip of blue far to the south that likely marked the progress of Regnar’s horde with its Castlebreaker, and her nose (hardened by the sewers of a dozen major cities) was becoming accustomed to the reek of sulfur. It was difficult to judge directions accurately without sun or stars, but by her reckoning, the invaders were on a course that would carry them eventually right to Jalan’s Drift.

  “And here I squat by an abandoned farm shack,” she muttered to herself. Not that she had much choice. Even on the swiftest horse, it would take her a week at least to cover the 300 leagues from here to the Drift, and longer yet if she were forced to make a wide circuit around the path of the invaders. She could not afford such time even under the best of circumstances, and certainly not now when the value of her warning would diminish with every step taken by that black horror. No. She had no option but to wait here at the designated place and hope that her compatriot would hold to their bargain. Hold even though the land was now laid waste, and the sky was poisoned.

  Her mind went back yet again to the Castlebreaker, unable to escape the terrible images it had burned into her eyes. Never had she heard even rumor of such an entity, and yet there it strode as real as a mountain, pounding flat walls that should have stood a siege of many months. What is it? she asked herself for the hundredth time. And where in the name of all the gods did Regnar find such a thing? The dark memory of the green scepter with the flashing red eyes rose again in her mind, offering a possible answer to some of the questions, though it was a grim and terrifying answer. There were legends indeed of such dread items, the personal possessions of the gods of the Nether Regions who sent them forth to serve a mortal for some span of time, giving them nearly god-like powers in the sure and certain knowledge that such might could only corrupt and destroy their greedy hosts. Regnar, it would seem, had been chosen for greatness.

  She thought back to the sheer size and power of the titan, the staggering ease with which it had burst through the walls of the castle and then smashed its way out through the southern wall. Comparisons to giants rose immediately in her mind, and she thought of the tales of the ancient wars when the giants had been one of the races vying for dominion of the earth. Could this horror stem from that time, some weapon prepared by the giants and lost when ruin had rained down upon them?

  There was the tiniest flash of white in the western sky, and Adella turned sharply, her vision making out white wings and an alabaster body gliding down towards her, salvation dropping through that canopy of death. A small smile came to her lips partly in relief that she had not been abandoned but mainly because a living being could pass through those green clouds and survive. It put a small limit on Regnar’s power, the first check she had so far seen.

  So I will be at the Drift in less than two days, perhaps as little as one, she thought as the gleaming presence neared. I shall make good use of that time.

  *

  Darius stood on the green hill above the village and looked down on the place that had been his home for many years, the place where his daughter had grown to be a young woman, the place he was now condemned to leave behind. People were beginning to get up from the long banquet table that had been built down the central street of the village for the feast, and even at this distance, Darius could see the carcasses of chickens nearly picked clean and the empty platters of pork that had been carried from the roasting pits where three pigs had been cooked to feed the appetites of the village. His own stomach rumbled unexpectedly at the sight, and he suddenly remembered he had not yet eaten this day.

  He spotted Shannon in a group of young women who were starting to clear the table, and he thought he saw the flash of white teeth as she smiled and chatted. That twisted his stomach far tighter than the pangs of hunger. Shannon was everything to him, his very heart that walked outside his body, the joy that made every day worth living. And he was about to leave his heart behind.

  This girl is the child of your loins, Inglorion? came a cold voice close at hand. Darius winced, dark memories rising, for it had been many years since he had heard that voice speak, the words audible to his mind, not to his ears.

  Shannon, she is named? the sword persisted from where he held it in his right hand, unaware or indifferent to the discomfort it was inflicting. The child of Briannon. There beats a noble heart.

  Darius gritted his teeth as he remembered his recent oath to make no answer, the words meaningless now, supplanted by a far older promise. Harshly, he said, “You will not speak the names of my daughter or my
wife. I will not have you treat them as dam and foal for their pedigree to be judged by the likes of you!”

  My judgment is of no consequence, the sword answered unabashed. My response is only to that which I see within your own heart.

  Darius turned abruptly and continued up the hill towards the summit where a faint mist seemed to have gathered despite the afternoon sun, and as he drew closer, the mist seemed to deepen, to thicken, a fog bank conjured on a clear day without a cloud in the sky. Darius paused briefly as he reached the crest and stood directly before the grey curtain, the vapors swirling slightly like stirring memories, almost as if the mist were studying him as well. Almost as if it, too, were remembering. This is the barrier between two lives, he thought, the first step on a very long journey. A journey that shall be marred by blood and haunted by death.

  Then, taking a deep breath, he entered.

  There was a moment of chill, a touch of damp, and then he found himself striding into a copse of ancient oaks, the thick-trunked trees evenly spaced from each other, their branches spreading as if in glorification of the sky above, only a hint of blue sky showing between their leaves. Darius felt a welcome coolness as a shade against the afternoon heat, but he knew his heart would have been glad for the shelter beneath those branches regardless of the weather of the world. He strode slowly forward, relishing the sense of peace, the rich, earthy fragrance of the grove, the simple serenity of the woodland.

  The Containment Realm! declared Sarinian. Long have I been from its Grace! How comes it here beside so humble a village?

  “The Realm comes to me, not I to it,” answered Darius, realizing the sword was cast by a different hand than the one that had created this blessed place. The surroundings seemed even more serene with that thought.