The New Paladin

1: Awakening

Alarms were blaring somewhere in the distance, pain wracked his side as his breaths became more and more laboured.

They had sent a fleet of drones after him, then sentries in a shuttle to find him and retrieve what he had stolen.

Clouded eyes rolled back in his head, consciousness slipping.

Snap.

His heart rate spiked, his body flinching as his head snapped in the direction of the sound. He needed help, but no one was coming for him. Not after what he did.

Gritting his teeth he pulled himself to his feet. One hand clutching his side the other holding tightly to the satchel that he had to guard with his life.

He tried to run but his legs refused to work as much as he liked. Then he slipped.

His bloodied hands scrambled for purchase but it was futile.

He crashed into the ground body curling around the satchel knowing if the contents broke then it would be game over.

He waited with baited breath for a second before again forcing himself to move. He hobbled along the smooth floor his mind vaguely wondering where he was.

An old castle? He remembered seeing it before he crashed, a white castle surrounded by overgrown plants. The rocks had merged with it and in all honesty it looked half dead.

His ship must not have crashed far from it if he was now inside it, an old observation deck was open allowing him to stumble along into dark corridors.

He could faintly hear the sea lapping at the base of the cliff and he knew that if he didn't fix the tear in his side and his stupid leg then he would never hear that beautiful sound again.

He could hear heavy clanking as sentries piled in, they branched off going two by two before dividing further.

They were hunting him.

If he wasn't bleeding out and already sweating up a storm then he might have had the mind process to be scared.

Squashing down any sounds of pain he pressed on glad that the sentries were going slow as they scanned for him.

Then he choked.

He messed up.

The wound was bad, he would admit. But the gurgling pain at the back of his throat had been nagging him for a while.

And when it became too powerful to stop he doubled over his hand clamping down on the wound as a cough tore through his throat.

He trembled with it sweat dripping from his forehead, his chin.

Then his eyes opened blearily as his tongue started to function.

On the floor covering partially his boots and the floor was blood, his blood.

He wobbled pressing his hand against the wall to stabilise himself only to see more blood tacked to the wall there.

He could hear the sentries again.

Something flickered in his vision, a door he hadn't seen before. In fact he had yet to see a door in this old castle.

He rushed to it, more like ambled.

When he got inside it lit up a gentle blue almost inviting.

If he was in possession of his full senses he would have been confused, a dead castle lighting up for him?

The sentries had found his blood, he could hear them communicating with clicks and beeps.

They would soon find him.