Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Paladin’s Redemption

  Copyright © 2014 by Kade Derricks. All rights reserved.

  First Edition: February 2015

  Visit Kade’s website to keep up on the latest news:

  www.KadeDerricks.com

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Shod hooves thundered over the worn cobblestone streets behind the boy. He couldn’t see the horse, or its rider—the night was too black and full of smoke, but he felt his pursuer’s dark presence.

  All around him the city burned. Sooty ash thickened the air and glowing embers drifted down in lazy spirals like hungry, orange snow, igniting whatever they touched. The homes of the wealthiest nobles and those of the poorest beggars, the flames devoured them all.

  The boy’s wide green eyes took everything in. He felt the wind’s hot breath and the screams of men, women, and children, trapped and burning, echoed through his ears.

  “Admiring your handiwork?”

  The rider’s voice was hollow, unfeeling, without even the faintest trace of humanity. It came from an alleyway not twenty feet away.

  “Come on now, run for me. Give me a bit of sport before this ends.”

  The boy raced through the streets, outrunning both blaze and rider, past Merchants’ Row and through the estates of the lesser nobility. The fire remained at bay here, just a reddish glow on the horizon. That wouldn’t last, the boy knew. The destruction, like the rider, was close on his heels. Coughing from the smoke in his lungs, he ran on.

  Young and strong, he shouldn’t have been tired, but the smoke and heat had sapped his strength along with his resolve. He needed somewhere to hide, a place the rider might pass by. His stride slowed, then stopped. Still breathing hard, he tried a nearby door. The knob turned slightly, clicking open but when he pushed inward, he felt the latched deadbolt.

  Locked, like the last, and the one before. They were all locked tonight. There would be no refuge, no sanctuary from the rider.

  His pursuer laughed behind him, as if sensing his despair.

  “The night is ended soon, dawn draws near. It is almost time.”

  The hoofbeats came closer. In spite of himself, the boy turned and looked. A short distance away, below the layer of smoke, bright sparks flew with the horse’s every step.

  Again he ran. Across the bridge spanning the river, then through the city’s heart, past the towering stone fortress where the great lord ruled, and finally through the outer gate toward the cemetery, the boy ran until his legs and lungs burned with effort.

  Exhausted, he collapsed behind an ancient crypt. His stomach cramped. If he had eaten more than stale bread these last few days he certainly would have vomited. He forced his breath steady and strained to catch any sounds of pursuit. Had he escaped?

  “How appropriate…you’ve come exactly where I planned on bringing you,” that inhuman voice came again. It was both terrifyingly close and yet still far away. “Even a traitor deserves a decent burial, after all.”

  Tears fell from the boy’s eyes, rolling over his flushed cheeks and down onto his sweat-stained shirt and hands. There could be no more running, his legs could bear him no further. He needed a place to hide.

  The door of a nearby crypt lay cracked open. Quiet as a shadow, he snuck inside, less afraid of the tomb’s occupants than of his pursuer.

  Once inside, an inky darkness shrouded him. Only a thin wedge of light shone in through the partially-opened door. He thought to close it, but it could creak and alert the rider. He knew it would.

  The boy felt for a weapon. He was no easy prey, he would not go without a fight. His hands touched on smooth, dried bone, and he stifled a scream. He did not want to disturb the restful dead. His parents had taught him to revere those who had moved into the Light’s embrace, but desperation goaded him on and he reached out blindly again, sweat and tears stinging his eyes. A femur or another heavy bone, he could use for a makeshift club. His fingers came to rest on the corpse’s hollow, round skull and then, lower down, he felt its skeletal hands clasped together over something hard and metallic.

  “Come now, come on out and finish this. I will find you, we both know that. No matter how many times we play this game, I always find you in the end,” the voice taunted.

  The boy pried the lifeless fingers apart, revealing cold metal underneath. He took it in both hands. The hilt of a sword. Easing the weapon free, he held it out before him.

  Though he couldn’t see it, the blade’s weight told him it was a longsword. He had practiced with one sparingly. His teacher had thought it too clumsy and slow for a boy of his size, but tonight it was all he had. Perhaps he could catch the rider unprepared with a lucky blow. He couldn’t wield the blade in the crypt though. He needed to be outside.

  With all the stealth he could muster, he slipped back out into the open.

  The spreading fire now lit the night clearly. Determined flames even fought their way up the stone fortress, like some fierce barbarian horde.

  “So, you would face me with a sword,” the rider chuckled. “Excellent. Something new. Let us see if you are worthy of a blade.”

  The rider stood before him, his own dark sword drawn and ready. The boy raised his weapon high overhead, ready to strike. Anger and determination flooded through his veins, overpowering his fear. He swung. And so did the rider. The blades clashed and then he spun, slashing with a wide, flat stroke. He felt the satisfying crunch of the rider’s armor and knew he had landed a hit.

  “You hit me. You actually hit me,” the rider said. “How dare you, traitor.”

  Before the boy could recover, the rider swung again and knocked the longsword clear of his hands. His eyes tried following its flight, but the shadows swallowed it whole. The rider punched him then, forcing the breath from his lungs and knocking him face first onto the thick cemetery grass.

  “Look upon me before you die traitor. Know who has brought you to justice.” The rider removed his steel helm and tossed it at the boy’s heaving chest.

  The boy looked up. He tried to speak, but could only mouth the words.

  The rider’s blade rose, caught the fire’s orange light for a moment, and
then swept down.

  “Father!”

  Dain jerked awake.

  He sat up in his blankets, shivering and covered in sweat. His clenched fists shook and his racing heart pounded in his ears. He stretched out his fingers and stared at his trembling hands—the calloused hands of a man, not a frightened boy. He willed them to steady.

  The dream again. Will it ever fade?

  Dain lay back down and after long moments, calmed himself enough to rise. He dressed himself, and then step out into the cold.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Biting cold seeped up through the soles of Dain’s leather boots. Standing in a foot of snow, he studied the surrounding winter landscape.

  During the night an elk had left its tracks beside the frozen mountain stream. Behind the stream, a grove of pine trees stood, boughs weighed down after last night’s snowfall and struggling to remain upright. The forest lay silent, drained of all sound. Even the wind, which had howled so furiously in last night’s storm, held its breath. Only the occasional crisp snapping of an overloaded branch broke the quiet.

  Standing an inch over six feet tall, Dain was above average height for a human. He was green eyed, like his mother’s family, and despite his twenty-five years, his face was dark and weathered from the many days and nights spent outdoors. He had inherited the dark hair and thick muscles from his father. He wore a shaggy yak-hide jacket over his other simple garments for warmth. It was cold here, colder than he was used to, the frosty air constantly nipped at any exposed skin, but he’d come to this far northern place, a continent away from his homeland, to seek his fortune.

  After studying the area, Dain turned away and walked up the narrow path toward last night’s shelter. Shelter—it seemed an overstatement of the shallow cave he’d bedded down in. Once there, he gathered his bedroll, packed his saddlebags, and carried them outside.

  Boon seemed eager to see him. The buckskin warhorse had been with him for almost nine years now, and Dain remembered well the day one of his father’s servants led the spirited animal into their stables. He had been a gift on the eve of his first day of service with Lord Chalmer and his paladin brigades. No other gift could ever compare to Boon.

  Boon was now the only remaining link to Dain’s past. He had served well during his time scouting for the paladins. And after leaving the order, he had been Dain’s cavalry mount during his mercenary days fighting in the Tyber River war.

  Together they had crossed the length of the continent and now, near the wintery end of the world, they traveled again as Dain hoped to find work at the new gold strike in Galena.

  After stowing his gear, Dain saddled up and turned Boon east.

  Judging from his crude deerskin map, they still had several hard days’ travel to reach Galena and he dreaded the prospect of spending more nights outdoors in the bitter cold. He sighed and shifted in his saddle.

  As Boon trod on through the snow, he recalled the white-haired old man who had sold him the map.

  “Finding gold up in Galena is easy. Or at least it was,” the old man had said. “Nuggets, big as your thumbnail, were laying right in the streambed. The whole creek glistened with them. The first prospectors got rich after panning for just a few days. But most of that is played out now, unless you try out in the wilds. And the big mining outfits have come in and moved underground.”

  “There’s still wealth to be had then?” Dain had asked.

  “There’s still fortunes to be made, working for them.”

  “Word of the strike has been out for a while now. Why haven’t more people come?”

  “Orcs. The problem is the damned orcs,” the old man said with a scowl. “The whole valley is overrun with the green-skinned bastards. In town you’re safe, and panning in the stream nearby you’re safe, but try getting that gold out of Galena to someplace you can actually enjoy it. You’ll find your head in some orc’s stewpot.” The old man paused to spit into the dirt then continued.

  “They’re damn smart, those orcs. Instead of mining it for themselves they just let some hapless fool pick up the gold, and then they wait until a load goes out. When the shipment tries to leave the valley, they steal it, collecting their gold all at once.”

  “What about guards?” Dain asked. “To protect the gold? Surely these big outfits can afford to protect their shipments.”

  The old man had laughed, a coarse sound, without any genuine humor. “Guards? You can’t get enough. The last shipment had a hundred armored men riding with it. A hundred. They made it ten miles before the green bastards wiped them out. There’s just too many of them up in those mountains.”

  “There has to be some way to get the gold out.”

  “Well, the mining interests were talking about recruiting some mages from the golden elves to construct a portal. One for transporting the gold through. But getting enough mages to hold a stable portal isn’t a cheap undertaking. The Golden want a piece, a big piece, of every shipment as payment.”

  “Couldn’t the miners hire mages elsewhere? I thought some mines usually had mages of their own.” Dain recalled something from his lessons to that effect.

  “Well, yes, the bigger mining outfits do have specialized mages, they direct the digging to find the richest pockets of ore. But even pooling them together, they wouldn’t have enough strength to keep a portal stable,” the old man had said.

  “Can you describe Galena to me? I’ve never heard much about it.”

  The old man had pulled out the map that Dain now carried and gestured.

  “The town sits between two high mountain ranges. Neither has a proper name, but they branch off of the Listle Peaks, along the coast. There are two passes into the valley. Orcs control the treacherous northeastern pass. Not much beyond it anyway except tundra and ice. There’s two elf races, wood elves and the Golden, living about ten miles outside the western pass. The Golden control the road in, and you’ll have to cross through their lands. This river, the Wessen, flows down from the mountains, splits into an upper and lower fork, and then wraps around the lands claimed by the elves. You’ll bridge both forks on your way in.”

  “And what of the elves themselves?”

  “The Golden are smaller in number, but they have some first-class mages and an organized army. It’s believed the wood elves are more numerous, but no one knows for sure. They’re scattered out in the thick woods, south of the road. Few travelers have ever seen one, but everyone knows they’re there. The elves don’t get along and the orcs war with both of them, but with all the gold to steal, they haven’t bothered lately.”

  “There are human settlements in the area as well, outside the valley?” Dain asked. The old man had nodded assent, then continued.

  “Ghent and Arctanon, Both west of the elvenlands. Neither is large. They would each like to claim Galena and its riches, but neither can afford to take on the elves and the orcs. Also, they hate each other, and if one side stopped to fight the elves or the orcs, the other could overrun them. Fear of each other keeps them out of Galena,” the old man finished.

  Dain had thanked the man and bought the map for a couple silvers afterward. The old miner didn’t need it, after all—he’d given up trying to get his treasure past the orcs. Many had, he’d claimed.

  Dain and Boon continued heading east, and near midday they stopped on a high cliff overlooking the elvenlands. Broad and deep, the Wessen’s gray-blue waters formed a natural boundary at the cliff’s base. Across the river a forest clung to the water’s edge. Like many elvenlands, powerful enchantments had altered the landscape here. Red and gold foliage still clung to the trees beyond the river, as if they were protected by an invisible blanket from the icy winterland outside.

  Dain dismounted. He led Boon along a well-worn trail, winding down the steep cliff wall to the crossing below. With each step the air grew markedly warmer, and by the time they had reached the bottom he had removed his shaggy jacket, rolled it up, and tied it behind his saddle.

  At the riverbank, two enormous
tree trunks grew horizontally, forming the side supports of a bridge. Their branches wove together to make the walkway, and a second pair of trees reached toward their counterparts from the far bank, with the tops of all four meeting in the middle.

  Elven engineering, to be sure, he thought as he admired the handiwork.

  A set of giant, hollowed-out mushrooms stood on either bank. As Dain drew nearer, he saw a pair of elven guardsmen in the closest. He studied them.

  Tall and fair-skinned, they had their long hair pulled up into topknots, revealing pointed ears and brows. Each wore a set of glimmering chainmail armor and a shortsword, belted at their sides. On the wall behind them hung two bows, full quivers, and a set of spears.

  These must be Golden elves, he decided.

  “Two ounces in gold for you and the horse,” one of them said.

  “There’s a fee for horses?”

  “Well, you could leave the old beast with us, but you will still pay two gold to cross.”

  “Or you could try and run it. We haven’t had much entertainment since the last of you dirtmen tried,” the second guard said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “You probably noticed the red smear on the trail, halfway up the cliff.”

  Halfway up the cliff, he wondered. Dain looked at the bridge again. If those trees sprang upright while a man stood on them. His eyes turned to the cliff.

  “Two gold it is,” he said flatly. The guards were visibly disappointed. They might have been hoping for some fun, but he wasn’t about to provide it for them.

  “How much further to Galena?” he asked while handing over the toll.

  “You could make it in four or five days, if you ride late,” the first guard said.

  “Any good stopping places between here and there? I wouldn’t mind resting an extra day or two in the warmer weather.”

  “No,” said the guard, taken back by the request. “There is no resting between here and the bridge at the far side. Camp for two nights and two nights only, at the edge of the road. Leave the road, and you will find yourself in the stockades. You have three days to leave our lands before one of our patrols hunts you down. You filthy dirtmen may only pass through.”