The Paladin Chronicles Volume I

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Prologue
503-13-20 Autumn
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The plan was simple and, although he was seen, it still worked out the way his mistress had wanted it to. It had been her idea to keep the plan simple. She knew her servant had a flair for making things more complicated than necessary. Teleport in, grab the girl, drop the parchment, teleport out. That’s all. She never told him not to be seen, and she never told him what to do if someone tried to stop him.

He had never been very good at thinking on his feet, even when he had still been alive. His mistress was undoubtedly very skilled in her arts, but maybe she had made a slight error during the re-animation process. Maybe there was still some dirt in his brain that fouled his thinking. Either way, he had been forced to improvise when he came across the guard at the princess’s door.

The corridors had all been empty and he had begun to grow a bit overconfident by the time he reached the girl’s room. He had been just as surprised to see the guard as the guard was to see him, although his face had not turned that particular shade of green, and he certainly had not screamed like a young girl. The guard’s screaming didn’t last very long. With one swipe of his sharp claws, he severed the guard’s vocal chords. The next swipe tore the head from his shoulders. He couldn’t allow the noise of the body convulsing to alert any more guards. With the careful precision of one who truly enjoys his work, he decimated the corpse.

He wiped his blood-soaked hands on the tattered remains of his cloak and entered the room. The guard’s short scream had not been enough to awaken the sleeping princess. He stood in the doorway for awhile, taking pleasure in watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. When was the last time his rotting lungs had drawn breath? He couldn’t remember.

A sliver of moonlight entered the room through the slightly parted drapes and spilled across the young girl’s face. The pale glow accentuated her colorless skin and long, white hair, giving her a ghostly appearance. For a brief moment, he thought she was as dead as he was. No, he reminded himself, she’s alive and a danger to my mistress as long as she is.

The plan was simple, but that didn’t mean he understood it. According to the prophecy, this girl was the only person that could pose any threat to the two hundred-year-old sorceress. So his mistress should want her dead, right? No, she wanted the girl alive. His mistress had to kill this pale girl herself at a certain time and in a certain way. The only way to counteract the prophecy was through perfect timing and ceremony. Prophecy was like that, he mused.

Sorting all this out in his mind took one more moment than he had to spare. The girl’s eyes fluttered open before he could make it to her bed to enchant her into a deeper sleep. Her scream was much louder than the guard’s had been, and he had to be much more careful how he silenced her. The girl’s pink eyes opened wide in terror as he quickly crossed the room and struck her once in the temple with his fist. With tenderness that belied his appearance, he gathered the unconscious child in his arms. He paused only long enough the toss the parchment his mistress had given him onto the bed before fleeing the chamber.

He heard a man yell just as he rounded the first corner. Someone wasn’t happy about the mess he had left behind. The words to the spell he was struggling to pronounce faded from his mind as instinct took control. He slung the girl in his arms over one shoulder and raced up the stairs.

Despite his age, the man pursued him up two more flights of stairs and through what felt like miles of corridors, screaming the girl’s name every step of the way. The old man had nearly caught up to him when he finally crashed his way through the door that opened onto the battlements. The dew had frozen during the cool autumn night and the stone parapet looked as if it had been generously sprinkled with diamond dust. His clawed feet had no trouble gripping the slick surface, but he heard the curses of his pursuer as the man slipped on the stone.

Almost inaudibly, he began the interrupted spell anew and hoped he would be able to complete it in time. The sound of his long claws striking stone echoed eerily as he ran along the parapet. The girl began to struggle against his hold and he knew she had regained consciousness. It didn’t matter. The spell was nearly complete.

He heard both the girl in his arms and the man behind him scream in unison as he leapt over the battlements and vanished into the autumn night.