The Sword of Six Worlds, Book One in the Adventures of Validus Smith

Validus Smith has three goals. Stay alive. Save the world. Finish her homework. For centuries the paladins protected the Earth from a creeping darkness known as the Blight. That all changed when a new enemy destroyed the paladins, plunging the free worlds into danger. Validus Smith an ordinary girl in an ordinary town is next in line to become the paladin. Untrained, unsure of her destiny, and hunted by monstrous forces, she must recover the fabled Sword of Six Worlds, the only weapon capable of defeating the Blight. But in an unfamiliar world of monsters, talking animals and living rocks, can an ordinary girl like Validus survive?