Realm of the Dead, page 1
part #1 of Empire Paladin Series
EMPIRE PALADIN
—Realm of the Dead—
Book One of the Empire Paladin Series.
by
M.S. Valdez
Title Page
Copyright
EMPIRE PALADIN: Realm of the Dead is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any such resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by M.S. Valdez.
Cover art copyright © 2015 by M.S. Valdez.
Cover design copyright © 2015 by M.S. Valdez.
Map by M.S. Valdez.
All rights reserved.
Excerpt describing “Satan’s fall” quoted from the poem Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Psalms 91 quoted from the King James Bible.
ISBN-13: 978-0-692-40295-5
Published in the United States of America.
www.empirepaladin.net
Twitter: @Empire_Paladin
Dedication
For Mom and Dad who instilled in me the love of literature.
Author’s Note
St. Anthony of Egypt (c. 251 – 356 AD), also known as Anthony the Hermit due to his many years spent alone in the Egyptian desert, was a man plagued and tormented by demons, evil spirits, and Satan himself. One account details Saint Anthony as being attacked by a multitude of demons while he sought refuge in a cave. A sudden radiant blast of light sent the demons fleeing. Whether the blast of light came from God or from Saint Anthony himself is unclear. Saint Anthony asked God if He was with him in the cave. “I am here, Anthony,” God is said to have replied. Saint Anthony is then said to have asked, “Where hast thou been so long? Why wert thou not here with me at the beginning to help me and to heal my wounds?” God is said to have answered, “I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast manly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world.” (The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. Trans. William Caxton.).
This following book is the story of paladins, rare holy knights, who are blessed with the power of the Holy Light; to ward off and destroy demons, evil spirits, and to bring about the healing power of the divinity.
Excerpt from Paradise Lost by John Milton describing the “fall of Satan”.
Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off
From thir Creator, and transgress his Will
For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?
Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankinde, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.
MAP
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Excerpt from Paradise Lost
MAP
PRELUDE TO THE DEATH OF A PALADIN
Chapter 1: FLAMES OF JUDGMENT
Chapter 2: RESURRECTION
Chapter 3: KNOW THY PURPOSE
Chapter 4: UNTIL DEATH DO US PART
Chapter 5: THE RISEN DEAD
Chapter 6: THE GATHERING STORM
Chapter 7: HOME SWEET TAVERN
Chapter 8: THE SOLITUDE OF DREAMS
Chapter 9: A WOMAN’S BLOOD
Chapter 10: THE PRIESTESS AND THE SORCERESS
Chapter 11: DECREE OF THE DUKE
Chapter 12: MARCH OF THE DEAD
Chapter 13: BLOOD SUN
Chapter 14: INSUFFERABLE SORCERESS
Chapter 15: ON THE ROAD TO ITALIA
Chapter 16: DEATH GAINS AN ALLY
Chapter 17: DEAD OF NIGHT
Chapter 18: MORE QUESTIONS, FEWER ANSWERS
Chapter 19: HELLBRINGER
Chapter 20: ROME
Chapter 21: A MEETING WITH THE HIGH PRIESTESS
Chapter 22: A PALADIN’S PRAYER
Chapter 23: GIRDING FOR BATTLE
Chapter 24: OUT OF THE FOLD
Chapter 25: RESTLESS NIGHT
Chapter 26: DEPARTURE
Chapter 27: SKIRMISHES WITH DEATH
Chapter 28: A MOMENT’S RESPITE
Chapter 29: FALTERING WILL
Chapter 30: REVELATION
Chapter 31: THE GATHERING DEAD
Chapter 32: PRYING EYES
Chapter 33: A DUEL OF PALADINS
Chapter 34: CAVORTING
Chapter 35: PLEASURE AND DESPAIR
Chapter 36: HELLSPAWN
Chapter 37: THE REFLECTIONS OF DEMONS
Chapter 38: A FRIEND LOST
Chapter 39: LOST IN A DEMON
Chapter 40: FRIENDS FOUND
Chapter 41: REST OF THE DEAD
Chapter 42: CAMILA’S PLAN
Chapter 43: CHARGE OF THE PALADINS
Chapter 44: FIGHTS TO THE DEATHS
Chapter 45: AT DEATH’S DOOR
Chapter 46: LAST RITES OF THE FALLEN
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRELUDE TO THE DEATH OF A PALADIN
-Holy Roman Empire: Month of October, Year of Our Lord 1241.
The demon stirred within her, yearning to gain control. She could feel it.
How much longer can I suppress it?
She forced her attention back to the hideous display taking place before her. It was the dead of night, that darkest part of the night, and the floor of the valley below was filling with lights. It was being filled by a river of lights that stretched back as far as her eyes could see. Multitudes upon multitudes of cold, silver orbs of light emanating from eye sockets in the skulls of lifeless corpses. Lights of the undead.
It was as though God had cast down all of the stars in the night sky and proceeded to pour them into the valley below. And as the sky held an infinite number of stars, so too did it seem that these legions of undead and the light emanating from their skulls was just as infinite.
What is the measure of infinity?
The Lord of the Dead was riding out there somewhere in the midst of all these cold, silver lights. It was his anger and hate that had brought about this host of undead. And it may be what would bring about the end of humanity.
Had God Himself become so angry with this Lord of the Dead that, in His wrath, He had turned His back on all of humanity and all of creation? Had The Almighty allowed these cursed undead to arise from the earth to consume and destroy all of humanity, perhaps to cover the earth in an ocean of corpses as God once covered the entire earth in an ocean of water due to the wickedness of humanity? Was God allowing this destruction to occur for the actions of a single man? Over a thousand years ago, had not one man sacrificed himself on a cross to save all of humanity? Had that man not been the Son of God?
Was this humanity’s destiny, to again be tied to the fate of one man?
The paladin, seated upon her white warhorse, gazed out over the valley and river of lights that made its way towards her. The warhorse snorted and stamped its hooves sensing the impending doom. The paladin, who held a gleaming steel warhammer, lay her free hand against her charger’s head calming the beast. She had always associated light, such as the light that rose at the dawn—light that banished the darkness—with the giver of life. But there was nothing living—no souls by any means—projecting any sentient thoughts or emotions from behind those ghastly gleams issuing from within countless eye sockets of corpse skulls.
Soulless. Dead. They are dead lights.
The paladin on the white charger looked over the great host of relentlessly marching undead slouching its way towards her. Despite her strong faith, she began to doubt how she and her most trusted comrades, the two paladins at her side, could possibly stop this monstrous horde. One of the two paladins, a tall, lean, dark-skinned woman—her most trusted and dearest friend—sat ready on a black stallion to her right. This woman would die for her, and she would do likewise, not a moment’s hesitation. To the left of the paladin on the white charger, holding his nervous steed in check, sat a younger and less experienced warrior. He had been knighted as a paladin only a few years ago. He still had so much to learn of being a paladin.
So much to learn and he may never have the chance.
She felt a terrible ache in her heart for her two friends.
The Lord of the Dead was out there riding amongst his army of death. The three paladins had to find him and destroy him. That was their only chance. It may be humanity’s only chance.
Throughout her entire career as a paladin, she never imagined facing such an impossible task as the one now
The paladin on the white charger again sensed the demon—that most ancient of Hell’s infernal spawn—struggling within her. It was growing stronger, potentially strong enough to overtake her. The paladin knew she had to maintain her resolve and hold to her faith just a while longer.
Please, God, give me the strength to hold on a while longer.
Chapter 1: FLAMES OF JUDGMENT
-Two months earlier in the Duchy of Austria: Month of August, Year of Our Lord 1241.
The silver crucifix twinkled and glistened in the light of the noonday sun. The metal was worn and tarnished, the more intricate features of the man on the cross long since faded. The crucifix dangled from a string of black pearls, rosary prayer beads. The pearls had also lost much of their former sheen and luster. A pair of hands held the rosary. The hands were weathered and callused, dirt showing under cracked and chipped fingernails. The paladin knelt on one knee, her eyes closed in prayer, as she carefully recited the rosary.
She had chosen an isolated and forested region of rolling hills in which to conduct her prayers and do God’s work. The particular hilltop upon which she now knelt possessed a beautiful, serene, and seemingly ideal place for the paladin’s religious reflections. The side of the hill facing east ended sharply at a steep cliff, the land spreading outward from this precipice to provide an ideal vantage point to regard the land’s immense beauty. Lush meadows amid densely clustered trees, a burbling stream, and some small lakes that glimmered in the noonday light could be viewed for miles around.
A soft breeze blew through the surrounding oak and pine trees causing their leaves and branches to whisper against each other in tones of vibrant energy. The intense rays of the sun were made bearable by great, billowing clouds that swept over its glaring face.
The paladin had removed her helmet to give the proper respect and homage to God; the gleaming, steel helm carefully placed near her on the verdant grass of this hilltop’s small meadow. This paladin appeared to be in the latter part of her twenties.
Her hair was disheveled and matted across her scalp, damp with sweat as though from the heat of the day or recent physical exertion. Dirt and grime from the padded, leather interior of her helm lay smeared across her nose and cheeks; and darkened, discolored, and made gritty her otherwise light, brown hair. Repeated exposure to the sun’s rays had freckled her sharp nose and high cheekbones as well as bronzing her natural pale complexion. Her facial features exuded an expression of stern harshness bordering on barely constrained fury; mouth drawn tight in a thin hard line, deep furrows of concentration etched between her brows. Her eyes, having been closed in prayer, now opened to reveal startling silver-blue irises. Bordering on unnatural, they were her most striking feature. People often were stunned into abrupt silence should those eyes light upon them. A significant number of those same people had to look away from those eyes as one looks away from the sun should its intense rays sear into them.
Lady Camila Chastaine, a paladin in service of the Holy Roman Empire, completed her prayerful devotions and admired the beauty of God’s creation that spread out before her. From her neck and shoulders down to her feet, she was girded in steel-plate and chain-mail armor; the usual gleaming sheen of the metals currently blemished by trail dust. A long dagger in its sheath hung from her belt against her left hip. A cloak of dark blue with silver lining lay draped over her shoulders. And upon her torso, she wore a white tabard with a crimson kite shield embroidered upon the chest, a golden cross in the center of the shield, and golden rays of light streaming from the edges as though to symbolize wings.
Camila made the sign of the cross over herself acknowledging God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as witnesses to what she would now do.
She carefully placed the rosary back into the pouch attached to the belt at her waist and then adjusted her cloak over her shoulders. She fitted the helm back onto her head, grasped the weapon at her side, and stood. Camila looked out over the cliff and took in the majesty of the lands below a final time. Turning, she strode with resolute certainty and a sense of unfaltering purpose over to the man who was lashed securely to a dead and rotting oak tree. The man was just now regaining his senses.
“Wha…what are you doing? Where am I?” he sputtered. The man’s gaze was still unfocused, his eyes bleary and glazed, and his speech muddled as blood trickled from the side of his mouth. A vicious gash on the side of his head was caked with blood; the hair matted in dark, congealed clumps. That would happen when you took a blow to the side of the head from a weapon such as Lady Chastaine’s.
Camila held that weapon now, a sturdy warhammer made of hardened gleaming steel. The handle was wrapped in brown, treated leather and over two feet in length. The steel head of the hammer was about nine inches in length and two inches by two inches wide. One end of the hammer’s head was blunt and flat, and the other end came to a deadly spike. It seemed to glimmer faintly with an internal radiant light.
Camila was pleased the blow she had dealt the man earlier had not killed him. That would have been too merciful.
The man looked about dazedly, gazed up into the sky, squinted against the glare of the sun, and then fastened his eyes upon the approaching paladin.
“You bitch!” he growled spewing blood and spittle with the words. “You goddamn paladin whore! What in the great almighty fuck are you doing to me?!”
Camila took a step closer to the man. He was bound securely to the tree with his hands tied behind him. His feet were also bound with rope around the bottom of the tree. There was no chance of the man freeing himself.
“I’m seeing that God’s will is done, and that a sinner is brought to justice,” Camila stated frankly.
“You fucking bitch,” he raged continuing to spit blood. “Let me go! You know who I am! You can’t do this to me!”
Camila let her gaze drift again to the beauty of the forest and meadow around her. God was a masterful creator. Camila was at a loss to understand how such vile refuse—as what was currently lashed to the tree before her—could come into existence through the hand of God. His grand design was beyond her comprehension, yet the task He now assigned to her brought everything into perfect clarity.
“It is neither my will nor your will that is of any concern. It is God’s will that this be done,” she stated serenely as one might comment on the aspects of a sunset.
The man spat again. “I am appointed to the Duke’s council. His word is the law of the land. Only he can pass judgment upon me.”
“I believe that you and I both know how the Duke’s…law…can be twisted to favor those close to him. Besides, there is no other law than God’s law. Be assured of that,” Camila replied with unwavering conviction.
The man now gazed down at his feet and the truth of his situation brought horror to his face. “You can’t burn me!” he shrieked. “I must be judged and sentenced by the Duke! Only he has the right! Only he has the authority!” He began to struggle in vain against his bonds.
Camila’s eyes fell upon what the man was looking at: piles of branches, tinder, and kindling about his feet. The dead oak tree would burn nicely once the kindling took to flame. And it was situated well away from the surrounding trees so as not to start a massive forest fire. That would not do at all. Camila didn’t need any unwanted attention. It was almost fortuitous that Camila had find this spot on this hilltop. As if it were God’s will. Which of course it was.
