Read Online A Rage in the Heavens (The Paladin Trilogy Book 1) by James A. Hillebrecht - Free Book Online Page A

disturbed, puzzled; and strangely excited. Feeling the sword’s words was like discovering another sense she had never suspected, hearing them as a distance trumpet blowing just beyond the range of her ears, calling people to rally. Calling to her. A call strong enough to make her reject her Father’s orders and try to follow him to the wars. She winced a little at the memory of the exchange between them, the first argument she could ever remember having with her Father.
    “Papa, let me come with you,” she had burst out after the announcement of his departure. “Please. You pay no heed to yourself, and there will be no one to care for you. Your strength will surely be worn down if the war is long, and how many of the people you help will think to see that there is food, drink, and a dry bed ready at the end of the day? I’m used to hardships and can wield a sword at need, so I’ll be no burden to you. More, I can find food for us in the forest, and I have my mother’s skill at healing.” She had nearly wrung her hands. “Can’t I come, too?”
    “A battlefield is no place for a woman, Shannon…”
    “My mother fought beside you at Salome,” she had interrupted. “You didn’t object to her aiding you then.”
    “That was different,” he had replied sternly. “Salome was a siege. If the city had been taken, every one of us in it, man, woman, and child, would have been put to the sword. Your mother fought to survive and to see that a certain small infant named Shannon survived, not to win renown or glory for herself. If she were alive now, she would be staying here in Delberaine, too.”
    “I’ve passed my sixteenth winter,” she had said defiantly. “I am a woman now and can make my own choices.”
    “I am your father, and you will honor my wishes,” he had said, settling the matter. Or so he had thought.
    I never swore I wasn’t going, Father, she assured herself. I simply agreed I wouldn’t go with you.
    The defiance, the arguing, the half-truths all were new to her, and they carried a heavy weight of guilt and fear and doubt. It was as if the appearance of the great sword had transformed her into a different person, a person with some unknown agenda, a person she wasn’t quite sure she liked. But something else had stirred within her these last few hours, something that had lain dormant throughout her young life and which could not be repressed or denied once it had flamed into full life. A rising, overwhelming sense of destiny.
    She was determined to follow. Not just to accompany him or help him, but because the same voice that called him to serve, called also to her. Except she wasn’t exactly sure where these wars were.
    Alston’s Fey, Jalan’s Drift, Monarch, Azare, odd names that were yet somehow familiar, like half-forgotten memories. She had stolen a glance at the map her father had laid out on the dinner table to plan his route, and she had burned the picture into her mind. But the map hadn’t shown where Delberaine lay in relation to those towns. Shannon had the vague notion that the Southlands lay somewhere to the east, but how far off, she had no idea at all.
    I’ll find it, she assured herself. No matter how far, no matter how fast Andros, no matter the dangers, I’ll come to it at last. But she knew her task would be greatly eased if she could just make it to the great intersection at Decision Rock before Darius. Decision Rock, where the Forest Road forked, one lane running to the northeast, the other to the southeast, and…
    “Going for a morning stroll?” asked a voice from the side of the road, and Shannon jumped with surprise. She spun around to find Jhan sitting on a small rock watching her, the young man neatly shaved and dressed in a light cloak to keep out the morning mist.
    She almost groaned out loud.
    “Jhan, get out of here!” she said, keeping her voice soft. “Go home!”
    “I knew it,” the youth continued, his voice at normal pitch. “Most people would