The First Paladin (The New Earth Chronicles Book 1)

by J. J. Thompson

  Near the bottom of the hill, she found the remains of the other women. All that was left were a few shredded pieces of clothing and a lot of blood. The ground was torn up and dirt and grass had been flung everywhere. The heavy, sweet stench of death still lingered in the air. Liliana stopped and stared at one footprint that stood out clearly in the churned-up earth. It was huge, three-toed and had sunk deeply in the soft dirt.

  She stepped into it and felt the tight grip of fear squeezing her heart. It was twice as large as her own foot. Next to it was a lone finger that had been torn off of someone's hand.

  Liliana felt her empty stomach churning at the sight, but steeled herself and passed it by. She was afraid that such things would become all too common in the days and weeks to come.

  And I was right too, she thought as she turned away from the river.

  She scratched Grom's ears as she passed by him and walked back toward the cottage.

  The horse was still grazing, but he lifted his head to watch her as she entered the compound.

  Liliana smiled at him, her mood lightening a bit at the sight. It would take some time for her to get used to having him around, and the thought of actually riding the stallion still gave her pause.

  I'm just as likely to break my neck when that happens, she thought as she walked into the cottage. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

  She wasn't in the mood to cook, so she sliced up some cold venison and ate it standing at the kitchen counter. She was still lost in her memories and allowed herself to travel back to the dire days in Russia after Irina had died.

  It had been late enough in the year that Liliana had been able to pick wild berries and onions to eat as she moved south from Moscow. She found a battered canteen in the ruins of a cabin by a river, so she was able to carry her water with her instead of waiting to drink from streams as she came across them. She had never hunted in her life and had no means of catching rabbits or squirrels.

  Not that I could have skinned and cleaned an animal back then anyway, she mused as she chewed her venison. Well, I got over that reluctance eventually.

  She had spotted several groups of hunters as she traveled, fortunately at a distance, and had finally gotten a good look at them. And they really were as terrible as her imagination had made them.

  Wingless dragons, that's what Liliana saw. Small compared to the great wyrms, but they were still nightmares. She didn't know that they were called drakes back then and she didn't care. All she knew was that they would kill her on sight, and that she hated them.

  It took a few days for the pain to begin, but one night she woke up huddled under the shelter of some low bushes. Her joints were aching and she sat up with a gasp of agony.

  What was happening? She hadn't felt anything like it since her teens, when her legs ached with growing pains.

  She had smiled as the whimsical thought. A woman in her fifties didn't experience that sort of discomfort. And yet, it wasn't the same kind of ache that her arthritic knees plagued her with. In fact, that pain had been replaced with this new misery.

  In the days that followed, the pain intensified. There were times when Liliana couldn't do anything except curl up in a ball of anguish as waves of torment wracked her body. A few times she almost wished that one of the hunters would stumble across her as she lay there and end her agony.

  Time meant nothing to her back then as she struggled to survive, and there was no way to know how long the pain lasted. She only knew that it had subsided over time and that, as it did, her old clothes no longer fit her.

  She had scavenged a few sweaters and some pants from deserted homes as she moved south, but that clothing began to hang off of her body in odd ways.

  Her thick middle shrunk and her legs grew longer. Muscles that she didn't even know she had began to appear in her thighs and arms and her breasts, always quite ample, flattened and became firm again. In short, she Changed as other survivors were Changing, but in a much more dramatic way.

  The wave of drakes that had passed her by had routed the population in the part of the country she was crossing through and she was able to find larger clothing to fit her new body when she searched a lonely little house that she came across. She had also found a large mirror inside of the house and had stared into it to find a stranger looking back at her.

  My God, Liliana had thought in shock. Who are you?

  Tall. My goodness, I'm so tall! And lean. Have I ever been this slim? No, never. Not even as a teenager.

  She stood naked in front of her reflection and examined herself.

  Every muscle was clearly defined. She could count her abdominal muscles, something that she'd never even known she had. Her arms and legs were thicker and she was almost a foot taller than she had once been.

  But it was her face that shocked her the most.

  She was young. She was young again! What sorcery was this? Not a line or wrinkle could be seen. Her sagging skin was firm and without blemish. But although it was youthful, there was definitely something wrong with her face as well. It was face of a stranger. Longer, more narrow than her old round self. It was a strong face, to be sure, but it did not look at all like the old Liliana.

  Not pretty though, she thought critically as she tilted her head slightly. Stern, handsome certainly, but not attractive in a classic sort of way.

  The only thing that reminded her of the Liliana of old was her eyes. Still large and curious, they were as blue as they had ever been.

  “Still in there, aren't you?” she asked her reflection.

  Her voice was different as well; deeper, more resonant.

  But it's still me. And also not me. How?

  How had dragons attacked Moscow, was her rhetorical answer to herself. Where did those hunting beasts come from? There had to be a singular answer, but she was just a simple person. She had never been to college, or held any sort of important job.

  A wife, for a time, and a mother. And now a grandmother. That was all she had been and all that she had really wanted to be. And now, this had happened. What did it all mean?

  She pulled on a pair of large jeans and a denim shirt. She found boots that fit fairly well and slipped them on as well. Finally she took a sturdy jacket to help protect against the cool nights and went back to the mirror one last time.

  She braided her long brown hair so that it hung down her back out of the way and looked at herself again.

  A warrior, that's what I look like, she thought as she stared at her reflection. I might even be able to give one of those hunters a decent battle if I had to. But I hope that I never find out if that's true.

  A final search of the house revealed a canvas backpack and Liliana was able to take several cans of beans and a box of raisins along with her.

  As she left, she looked back at the little house and thanked the absent owners for their unintended aid.

  I hope they made it, she thought sadly as she walked away. Unfortunately, I doubt that they did.

  Chapter 8

  As she traveled south from Moscow, Liliana avoided any villages or towns. She feared running into the scaled hunters, but also any groups of human scavengers. People were desperate and desperate people often reacted violently to others. It was quite possible that smaller settlements had been taken over by survivors who wouldn't welcome strangers. She had seen the worst from others in her life and it had left her suspicious.

  Better to stay by myself, she thought as she skirted yet another group of houses. Perhaps if I spot other women, I might approach them, but not strange men. No, not them.

  Part of her was self-aware enough to know that it was her long lost husband who had made her so cautious of other men. Even the memories of her beloved father couldn't change that. But Liliana also knew that a woman, alone, could be a tempting target for some males. Yes, she was bigger and probably stronger, but she'd never been a fighter and didn't know how to defend herself.

  Dismal thoughts haunted her as she continued to travel south. Thou
ghts of her children and grandchildren.

  Had they survived? Were they even now on the run as she was? Two of her daughters lived close to each other in downtown Moscow, while her third, the oldest who had two children of her own, lived in Samara.

  Liliana had only been there once, when her daughter, Anna, had gotten married. She had taken the train and spent two days there. It was the only time that she had ever left Moscow as an adult.

  Anna had given birth to twins two months before the electricity gave out and Liliana had never even gotten the chance to see her grandchildren. She knew that their names were Sasha and Stanislov and that they looked like their father. At least, that was what Anna had told her on the telephone a few days after their birth. But that was all. Cell phones began to fail shortly after that and government services, including mail delivery, ground to a halt. It was the last time that she had heard from her oldest daughter.

  Emma and Sofia, her other two daughters, had lost contact with her at about the same time. When the electricity failed, the city became dangerous as people scrambled to find food and water, and they couldn't travel to see their mother. She could only hope that they had survived. Certainly they were much stronger minded than Liliana had ever been and she was sure that the sisters would have stayed together after things went bad.

  Perhaps they got out, she thought as she walked down a country road, looking inside of any abandoned automobiles that she passed. All of them had been vandalized.

  If her daughters had escaped the city, they might had headed south and east toward Samara to find their sister. Liliana would have done the same, but her knowledge of geography was limited and she didn't have a map. Her plan, such as it was, was to try to find an isolated little cottage or cabin somewhere and wait for things to settle down before traveling back to Moscow or heading toward another city. Why she thought that things would ever return to normal was a question that she did not ask herself. Her faith in the government to set things right was typical of her generation and even when services had ceased and the population had been left to fend for themselves, she was sure that the leaders would eventually straighten things out. Of course, they hadn't.

  A week passed and the weather turned warm and summer-like. Liliana's luck had been good. She had found enough supplies in empty homes to avoid going hungry and she hadn't run into anything very dangerous. She had seen a few groups of people from a distance but had managed to avoid them. She wondered how long her luck would hold out.

  The answer was, it wouldn't.

  One night, Liliana had slept against a tree curled up in her heavy coat. The winding dirt road that she had been walking along had led past a spooky old cemetery and she had made sure to keep walking until it was out of sight before settling in for the night. Unfortunately she hadn't seen any buildings in the area as the sun went down and she'd had no choice but to sleep outside.

  She woke up in the gray light of early morning and sat up in confusion. Her back was a little stiff from leaning against the tree, but while the air was cool, the sky was clear and there was no rain. There were no sounds but the tentative songs of birds and she wondered what had drawn her from her deep sleep.

  The lane that she had followed was about ten yards away, hidden by some scrub brush and, as she sat up and began to rummage through her backpack for her canteen, an odd scuffle of sound caught her attention.

  She leaned forward, listening breathlessly. The sound had come from the direction of the road.

  Another scuffle was followed by a deep rumble. Something was growling; something large.

  A hunter, she thought, instantly terrified. Was it tracking her?

  The growl came again, followed instantly by a second one.

  Oh God, there's more than one of them!

  Rather than sit still and hope that the creatures passed her by, Liliana carefully slipped her arms through the straps of her pack, settled it on her back and began to crawl slowly in the opposite direction from the hunters. Maybe if she removed in one spot and didn't make any noise, they would move on. But maybe they wouldn't. She couldn't risk it. She had to try to get away.

  The grass beyond the shadow of the tree was high and thick and Liliana rose from her belly to her hands and knees once she had reached it. She was still creeping slowly, but now she could just see where she was going.

  A high-pitched yelp from behind her spurred her on and she began to scurry faster, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds. So far there was no sign of pursuit, but she knew how fast the hunters could move when chasing their prey and she didn't slow down.

  She was crossing a field that might have once been used to grow hay and that stroke of luck kept her concealed from hungry eyes. The hunters may well have been looking for her, but she was certain that she was invisible below the tops of the grass.

  Several minutes and a hundred yards or so later, Liliana stopped to catch her breath. She lifted her head just high enough to peek around, but there was nothing to be seen but waving grass and bright sunshine. And the weathered wooden fence that surrounded the old cemetery she had passed by the night before. Maybe she'd gotten lucky.

  Still cautious, she stood up but remained low in the grass and began moving again. She intended to keep the graveyard on her right and cut across the wide fields, hoping to run into another road on the other side.

  Liliana moved a few steps forward and then a howl made her turn her head to look behind her.

  Two of the hunters, their scales the color of dried blood in the sunlight, had leaped into the field and were bounding toward her.

  “Damn it!” she exclaimed.

  She turned toward the cemetery and ran. Maybe there was some place in there that she could hide.

  The rickety old fence that surrounded the graveyard was at least four feet high and, as Liliana raced toward it, her heart sank.

  I can't climb that fast enough, she thought in despair. Not before they catch me.

  She gritted her teeth and increased her speed. She knew that she couldn't jump over the fence, but she had no choice but to try.

  And then she learned just how strong her Changed body actually was.

  She leaped over the fence with two feet to spare and landed on the other side as lightly as a gazelle. In other circumstances, she would have stopped to marvel at such a result, but the monsters were still galloping toward her and she had to keep moving.

  Where can I go, Liliana thought frantically. Where can I hide?

  Battered, moss-covered gravestones were leaning drunkenly in all directions and she ran between them, searching for a hole or some sort of shelter. In the middle of the cemetery, an ancient mausoleum, chipped and yellowed like a rotten old tooth, rose above the graves around it. Three cracked and crumbling steps led down to an iron grating that revealed only darkness.

  Maybe in there, she thought as she staggered between the graves, trying desperately not to trip and fall in the thick weeds. The growling sounds behind her were getting louder and she knew that she was running out of time.

  Liliana jumped down the uneven steps and smashed into the heavy iron grate. It slammed back and she almost fell into the shadowy tomb. She slammed it shut behind her and gave it a tremendous shove. The old iron squealed in protest and the gate bent outwards, wedging into place.

  Better than a locked door, she thought in amazement. Am I really that strong or is the metal just old and weak?

  She backed away from the entrance, looking around the little room.

  There were a pair of concrete cenotaphs on either side of the tomb, covered in dust and old insect husks. The air was still and thick with the stench of rot and she wrinkled her nose as she walked past them, ducking to avoid hitting the low ceiling.

  At the back of the mausoleum a low doorway, no more than three feet high, was cut into the wall.

  Liliana stared at it, squinting into the shadows in confusion.

  A door? Why a door? Where does it lead?

  A coughing growl distracted h
er and she spun around and crouched behind one of the cenotaphs. Movement beyond the iron gate told her that the hunters had tracked her to the mausoleum. The small room echoed with the sound of snuffling and snarling as the two large creatures tried to peer inside.

  Liliana remained hidden behind the stone memorial but, as the monsters began shoving their heavy heads against the grate, her eyes kept returning to the small door behind her.

  She might just be able to squeeze her long body into the narrow opening, but she was certain that the hunters could not. The question was, how deep was the space beyond it?

  The iron gate began creaking as the creatures shoved at it.

  Damn you, just go away, she thought angrily. Haven't you killed enough of us?

  But of course they didn't go away. Instead, the door began to open slowly, catching on the ground every few inches as the drakes shoved at it, and she was faced with two choices: fight or try the low door.

  She tried the door.

  It was carved from a single, thick stone and Liliana had to push with all of her strength to get it to move. Obviously it hadn't been opened for years. But the sounds from behind her spurred her on and she frantically scrambled to shove her way through.

  The door suddenly gave way and she forced her way through the opening, pulling at her backpack as it became stuck on the rough stone.

  Once inside, she squirmed around to push the door closed again with her feet. As it closed and the dim light faded, Liliana found herself lying in absolute darkness, the air fetid and thick.

  What is this place? Why is it here?

  Liliana reached out blindly and realized that she was in a small passageway barely large enough to squirm through. Pushing with her feet to get her started, she began crawling away from the sounds of the hunters. The creatures sounded like they were tearing the mausoleum apart, searching for her, and she reasoned that no matter what lay ahead in the darkness, it couldn't be any worse than what waited behind her.