A-Viking (Betrayed by Faith Book 3)

by Paul C. Middleton

  Thinking, Nin turned to Rinzen. “I need to meditate here. Please wait for me nearby,” she asked diffidently. Rinzen gave her a slight smile and nodded. Nin sat in the lotus position and focused on the gate. What she was doing wasn’t meditation. Not exactly. She was trying to trace the signature of whoever had opened the gate. It felt familiar.

  Meanwhile, Rinzen looked for the most likely campsite near that spring. She could tell that there was something off about that spring. Although she hadn’t told Nin, she was one of the Godsborn. She should tell her but hadn’t found the courage to. Nin was a living legend. It made it a little hard, considering her ancestor. She’d had to flee once before when an Ajeyptos had found out.

  Putting her hand to the back of her neck, she felt her birthmark, two curled horns. She was descended from Cernunnos, the hunter, and god of the wilds. He was considered as being among the Keltoi but was an outsider to them as well. He’d eventually left for the open wilderness.

  She couldn’t draw on the planes enough to be worth the effort but had inherited her ancestor’s ability to track and had lived about eighty years. She also had sharper sight, smell, and hearing than almost anyone she’d met.

  When she spotted the campsite, she knew she would end up having to tell Nin. She plaited her hair. Rinzen hated loose hair in her face while she worked. She went over the campsite. It was around two days old. Two people had been here, one had gotten soaked in the flash flood by the smells. She’d also been aroused? And the male had not. That was a little confusing.

  She investigated further but found little. She sat down and took off her pack, taking a long drink from the water bottle. Hmm. She sure hoped this wasn’t the ‘lifemate’ that Nin was looking for. She didn’t want to think how that ancient girl would react. Although, considering history, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? After all, she had offered herself to Rinzen, sort of.

  Rinzen had no interest in women herself. Although she was actually a little flattered. She wasn’t a beauty by a long shot. A little exotic, here in Australia, maybe. Overall she was rather plain, if very fit. A sigh broke her lips. She needed to find a guy once she’d helped Nin find hers. She was sick of being alone, but so many guys out there were downright pains in the arse. Nin being so confident of her partner, it caused a twinge of jealousy. She snapped out of her introspection when she heard Nin approaching her. She was walking up the hill with a smile on her face, so she must have found something out.

  “So, what did you find out?” Rinzen asked while Nin was still halfway to the campsite.

  Nin broke into a run, jumping on Rinzen, knocking her over with an irrepressible hug. “He was here! I can now tell his signature from all the others around. Once he uses his power again, I’ll be able to find him!”

  She then looked around. That it was a campsite was evident, even if its recent use was not. “And? Could you tell anything here?”

  Rinzen drew a deep breath in and said. “Yes, but first I need to show you something.” She turned and showed Nin the birthmark. There was a sharp indrawn breath.

  “But we’re friends, aren’t we? I mean you’ve seen mine.” Nin blushed lightly. Hers was a lot harder to hide, an Ouroboros on her belly. “Why did you feel the need to hide that you’re descended from… wait.” Her eyes went back and forth, running through the hundreds of birthmarks she knew. Nothing came forward. “Who are you descended from?” She blushed darker this time. “I have to say I can’t remember ever seeing that birthmark before.”

  “Cernunnos. God of hunting and the wilds. The horned one.” Nin’s eyes widened.

  “The wanderer. He’d disassociated from the Conclaves almost before they formed.” She nodded slowly. “I think I understand. Some in the Conclaves would attack you on sight. The Graki, the Ajeptos, certainly. Maybe the Norskrijar. The Keltos wouldn’t though. They still consider him and his descendants to be members.”

  Rinzen shrugged. “I preferred what I found in working for those who guard you. But I know there were a man and woman here two or so nights ago. She is attracted to him. Please remember… this is not like your times. Women have freedom…”

  Nin burst out laughing. For several minutes she couldn’t control the guffaws. Then she was catching her breath. “Don’t worry. Unless she wants him all for herself or something stupid like that, it’s not an issue. Do you have any idea how many lovers the Travellers, those you call Gods, used to take? The women and the men? It’s a quirk of the females of my Fathers race that they seek only one partner with this focus.”

  There was silence for a moment and then Rinzen chuckled herself. That was one worry down. Nin spoke up, cheer in her voice still. “Let’s go to the car. My guess is he’s headed down the mountain. I want to be close next time he uses his abilities. What he did here took great strength, but leaving a pinhole to the plane of water like he did shows he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.”

  “Did you close it?” Rinzen asked. Nin shook her head.

  “The little water it’s letting out will be balanced by the planes taking it back in. Maybe for a larger hole. But this doesn’t warrant it and closing it may muddy the signature when he acts again,” she said as they walked in companionable silence back to the car.

  Farmhouse “Friendly Waters,” Outside Mudgee, March 11, 2014.

  They emerged from the tunnel in the afternoon, rested and refreshed from a good sleep. Joy started them walking in the direction of the farmhouse she had mentioned. It was barely visible and took most of the afternoon to reach with Griffin’s weakened leg. When they were within half a kilometer, the smell of blood hit them. Joy rushed ahead. When Griffin and Brianna heard her keening, Griffin waved Brianna forward. He threw away the walking stick and moved as fast as he dared.

  When he came to the front of the house, he saw that Joy was holding the corpses of two young children. He lost all thought of damaging his leg and strode forward into the house. He found two people who had been efficiently cut down with strokes from a katana. Not the weapon of choice for most Paladins and only a few had a reputation for torture such as had been inflicted on these six poor souls. His mind didn’t need to race. It froze with an icy fury as he realized that Xandrie must have attacked here last night while they were being attacked at Joy’s. With little warning, there had been nothing that could have stopped the success of the assault.

  He gritted his teeth, and cast about the house, looking for keys to the four wheel drive nearby. There were only so many places that she would have gone to ground. The Order had a safe house outside of Lithgow. That was far closer than any of the monasteries they might use. Looking at the man strung up, he absently cut him down as he looked. Then he saw the crumpled body and cursed his lack of respect.

  He slowly went around and started laying the dead out flat, with their hands crossed over their chests. He didn’t know what to do after that, except search for the keys and get to that safehouse. He kept looking and, above the fridge, found them. He stormed out of the house and looked at Joy. “They will be avenged,” he said as he strode towards the four wheel drive. Joy reached out to grab him, but her fist clutched only air.

  “Brianna, stop ‘im!” Joy yelled in despair as he continued his march to the car. “He’s in no condition to fight anyone!”

  Brianna rushed forward and outpaced Griffin easily. It seemed that the steady march forward was as fast as he could go. “Griffin, this is not your fault. Until they attacked us, you could have no idea of who they might have sent. Rest the damned leg. We’ll figure out a plan.”

  He shook his head. “If I don’t get on this she’ll get away! We have, at most, twenty-four hours, for fuck’s sake!”

  “You need to rest. While you do that, I’ll dig some graves. We’ll go together.”

  “No graves. We’ll be better off if we burn the house, with the bodies in it. There is no lack of respect in cremation, and I don’t want anyone else to have to see what happened.” His face took a grim cast. “I didn’t want to see something
like that again. You and Joy shouldn’t have had to see that.” His leg started to give out under him as his momentum halted. As he stumbled, Brianna got under his arm, supporting him. She guided him to a rock he could use as a seat.

  “You can hardly stand on that leg. She’d butcher you.” Brianna said, reasonably.

  “I doubt it. She’s vicious and far too arrogant about her skill and choices in weaponry. Let me put it another way. Malcolm had a good weapon choice for fighting me. He was very skilled with that weapon and the extra weight of it should have put me at a disadvantage. Yes, he injured me. But a Katana is a lighter weapon with no greater reach than my axe. I’d need to take my Gladius back from you, but as long as I keep moving my leg is okay. It was only when I stopped I had a problem.” He answered

  “Why would you need the gladius?”

  “The extra weapon will compensate for the injury,” Griffin responded shortly. “Besides, the leg is healing faster than it looks. It’s what? Six pm now?” Brianna looked at her watch and nodded. “If we leave here before midnight we can still corner her and her squad before dawn.”

  Joy was still grief-struck, but she slowly nodded and rose to her feet. With immense gentleness, she picked up the corpse of the little girl and took it inside the house. Griffin made to rise from his rock, but Brianna waved him back down and went over to the corpse of the young boy. Lifting him with great care, she also took him into the house.

  The farmhouse would have been beautiful except for the violence that had taken place here. The blood spattered over its well maintained painted plank exterior was almost a sacrilege all by itself. The bodies in what had obviously a happy family home made it worse. Griffin was coming to realize that this is what the Order’s actions were to their targets. It hit him, they weren’t ‘targets,' they were, and always had been, victims.

  Griffin sat there, thinking. He’d thought he had time, time to learn who he was, time to gather allies, time to take the fight to the Order. The actions of Xandrie here at this house showed him that he was out of time. That it was no longer a fight between him and those he could gather and hopefully train or learn from. It was already a War, and he had best choose his side and fight it to the knife. No - to the teeth and nails.

  It would quickly become apparent to the public that something was going on. He only hoped that the general population could be kept ignorant. He suspected that would be the Order’s hope too. A group like them could only thrive in the shadows. Shine the light on them, and they soon disappeared. He could only try his best to build new teams, that if the light was shone on them, the same did not happen.

  He thought with irony that the Order had, in some ways, crafted the perfect leader against them. Once he had been freed from the chains of lies and half-truths, he had a position that many in the Conclaves would be able to respect. Eventually. Once he proved he was willing to fight for them. To avenge them. To…

  His thoughts were interrupted when Joy walked up to him with a short sword. Mid-twelfth century English in design it looked like. “Best you use this. Two reasons. That slip of a girl has only trained with the Gladius, right?” Griffin nodded. “Best to leave her with what she knows then. Also, the warrior maid who died here deserves to have…” There was an indrawn breath and a quiet sob, “To have her weapon there to avenge her unborn child.”

  Rage flared in Griffin’s eyes. Brianna was bringing out a collapsible bow and arrows and a …crossbow? Those were illegal here. But it would be useful. With seven minutes training, she could be taught how to use the thing. “Alright. Can you train Brianna on that Crossbow? No guns. The safehouse is on the edge of a town, and the last thing we need is Police involvement.”

  Joy snorted. “’Can I train her how to use a crossbow?’ Sure. Piece o’ cake. But who’s gonna use the bow?

  “Do you have more than a century training with bows?” Griffin asked. Joy snorted again and shook her head. “Then I guess that’ll be me. It takes months to get decent with a bow, minutes with a crossbow.”

  He went to rise again, and Joy waved him down. “I’ll load the house with their firewood, then we’ll set it and go. No point staying here.” Tears welled in her eye, and she angrily batted them away. “You know what this means don’t you?” Griffin sighed and nodded.

  “Yes. Killing the entire family means they’ve decided to declare war on all that aren’t ‘human’ enough. We need to respond, at least to make them pause and regroup. After we take down Xandrie, we need to gather allies and take out the Monastery at the top of the mountains. Burn it to the ground. If we hit their support structures, it will cause them to delay… for a time. Or force them to at least act more openly. And if we leave the armaments stored there it will cramp their movements. Governments will take notice of ‘peaceful monks’ with guns, swords, and bulletproof vests.”

  Joy paused and said, “You’re mad if you think you can take on that monastery with just myself and Brianna. It may as well be a fortified position. A dug in military site. There are between twenty and fifty monks there at all times.”

  “I know. I was hoping you could help fill in the deficiency of forces.” He gave her a vicious grin. “You told us many in your group were preparing for this. Show me. You wouldn’t know as much as you do if you were not one of the leaders. But Xandrie… Xandrie is personal. I want to take her out myself. I should have put her on the disability lists years ago.”

  She glanced at him. “We need to make a stop off on the way to this safehouse. Where are we going? I need to know before I can tell you where to head first.”

  “Lithgow. We won’t be burning that house either. I want the Order to find the aftermath. Xandrie will be an… impressive sight once I’m through with her.”

  En-route to Lithgow, March 11, 2014.

  They drove a half hour out of the direct route to meet with Joy’s contacts. Joy left the car and talked to them alone. It was a group of six men who looked fit and were probably trained to fight.

  “The Waters were killed last night. They also attacked me and my companions. I thought there was something in the air, so we were prepared.” Joy said. Then her voice broke as she continued, “I should have contacted them. They could have fought off their attackers. If the three of us took down fifteen, the six of them would have had a good chance against who attacked them.”

  “Oh? And how were you supposed to contact them? Their farmhouse is in a black spot, Mother. If you traveled to tell them, you’d have given them away. Even using the tunnel would have been risky if there were eyes on your house. And could two of you have fought off the attackers at your house? Or did it need three? Whoever you sent down that tunnel might not have made it back in time. Besides, you are the critical one.” One man said in conciliatory tones.

  “Fuck that. Protecting everyone in the area is my responsibility.”

  “No, it isn’t. Organizing us is. Providing us with the means to defend ourselves is.” He raised his outstretched hand. “They never put up any warning systems. Insisted that the warning systems would give them away. You tried, told ‘em what they needed to do. They ignored you. Not your fault. Who attacked them?”

  “The Order.”

  “You sure? I mean I know you used to work with them, but what are the odds of one of those you knew even still being in the Order.”

  “Worse than you’d think.” Joy waved at the car. “One of the ones I knew. He’s the one who knew who the Paladin in the attack on my house was. He also told us where the people who attacked the Waters are likely to be.”

  “No, Mother. Let him go alone. It’s gotta be a trap. I mean he’s what, in his thirties? How can he be one of those you served with.”

  “I trusted him with my life before, boys. I’ll do it again. I’m not asking your permission, kiddies. I’m asking for witnesses. He claims he’s learned a truth. He’s seen through the fog the Order created around him. Bloody hell, they raised him and there was enough that he turned against them. I ask you to witness his vengeance
upon the one who slew the Waters. Three witnesses, the others to gather as many as they can and meet us at Mount Victoria in three days. And no, I haven’t told him that.”

  “Why? Why move against them now? We haven’t provoked them before. Why now?” asked another of the men.

  “They’ve declared war on us. By the Ancestors! They killed a pregnant woman. They’ve never done that before. With this man’s help, we can have a chance at getting them off our backs for good!”

  “That’s a pipe dream. We can’t do that alone. What gives you so firm a belief that this one man might make the difference?”

  Joy drew in a deep breath. She let it out slowly and drew in another. She’d been half hopeful and half afraid of them asking this question. Griffin was known of by most of the communities. He was the biggest, baddest bogeyman, but also the example of a ‘clean’ Paladin. He avoided involving bystanders completely, tortured no one. In, kill and out. She’d have to take the chance. “He’s Griffin.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath from several of the men. Two of them moved towards the four-wheel drive, but the leader grabbed them both by the collar. “Hold it, boys. Yeah, he was or is one of the most relentless Paladins. I’ve never heard of him being in anything other than the straightforward ins and outs. Hell, he’s been so fast we never got a good photo of him. Yes… It’s a risk, but it’s a manageable one. Sure, we can’t take on the Order by ourselves. But with him, we’d have a leader that might be able to unite some of the factions. If we can get enough of them to work with us… we have a chance.”

  “Yeah, but how do we even contact these factions? I mean we only really know about the Hathori, and they’re more lovers than fighters.” Said another of the cell.