A-Viking (Betrayed by Faith Book 3)

by Paul C. Middleton

  Brianna gathered a small group of about ten and cleared the internal buildings of the fortress. Nin just stood there looking at Griffin, unsure of what to do. He apparently saw what he'd done as a monstrous, and in a way it was. But what those men had allowed to continue to happen in this fortress was far more monstrous. Griffin slowly collapsed to his knees, tears flowing down his face, but unable to give voice to his distress.

  Meanwhile, the combat against the 'trainees' outside was brutally short. Caught in a crossfire, the vast majority of them went down quickly. A few might have escaped into the jungle, but it was days travel on foot to the nearest authorities, so none of the assault group was worried.

  Joy came up with the group on the outside, and Brianna intercepted her, taking her immediately to Griffin. Brianna had no real idea of what to do in the circumstances and hoped an older and wiser head might. Joy sighed and rolled her eyes when she saw Griffin. Once or twice when they had worked together, he'd fallen into a similar state of despair. She saw the mass of bodies, that some had been frozen and others have been half buried in the earth, and turned to Brianna. "What happened here? Who did all this?" Brianna raised an eloquent eyebrow and nodded towards Griffin. Joy's eyes widened in shock. She'd thought no one could do this much destruction drawing on the planes. "Well, why did he do it?"

  Brianna sighed shuddered and looked directly into Joy's eyes. "When we broke into the bottom level of the prison, a woman and her child were being tortured. It drove Griffin into a rage the likes of which I've never seen in any person before. He really hates people picking on the weak, doesn't he?" Joy nodded at Brianna, a plan forming in her head.

  When she approached Griffin, he was repeating softly, "Monstrous, I'm monstrous."

  Joy raised his face to meet her eyes and gave him a sharp slap across it. "You aren't monstrous, what you encountered was monstrous. Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to solve terrible is to meet it with destruction."

  "Look at what I did," he said with self-loathing and is his voice. "Tell me they deserved to die such deaths without a chance to respond. Tell me that what I did wasn't monstrous! Of course, it was, they didn't even have a chance to fight."

  Joy slapped again, and when he didn't respond, punched him in the solar plexus to get him into focus. Sometimes someone in a fugue state needed the pain to get them to focus. She answered him in a stern voice, "And what they were doing wasn't more monstrous? What they allowed to happen under their noses didn't deserve an instant death? For the gods’ sake Griffin, Brianna tells me they were torturing a child. Nothing you could have done would have been beyond what I believe they deserved. There is no reason to abuse children."

  "Even that Paladin you felt such rage at - Xandrie - restricted her torture to adult men. What she did was bad. What they were doing here was beyond monstrous. If they'd been a regular military force, I would have found a way to have them and all the officers above them charged at The Hague. They weren't, and we couldn't. What you did was at least a measure of justice."

  Brianna and Nin were now standing beside Joy, nodding in agreement with her. The shadow from Griffin's eyes lifted slightly, and he slowly gathered himself to his feet. Drawing in a deep, experimental breath, he slowly let it go. "But what if that rage takes hold of me again, for a lesser reason? What happens to the people I face then?"

  Nin raised a gentle hand to his face and stroked it slowly down his cheek. "You have to open your heart, Griffin. Brianna and I are here for you if you'll just let us." Griffin shook his head at that and opened his mouth as if to say something.

  Joy responded by slapping his face.

  "We are all here to help you through it, Griffin, but we need you. All of you, not this shell you become when you let necessary actions drive you to step away from everyone. Let them help you, Griffin. Stop keeping everyone at arm’s length. Or I'll lock you in the same room with them for a week."

  Griffin looked at her, with a defeated look in his eyes. She rolled her eyes at him and gave that sigh that parents give petulant children who are acting out just for the sake of acting out. He blushed, and nodded at her, telling her silently that the message was received and he'd try to do better.

  Brianna interjected herself into the conversation. "We found a dozen people in the infirmary. I think you need to look at them. You know more about the current members of the Order than anyone else here does."

  Griffin sighed. They were all right. He needed to accept help. He needed to stop being so harsh on himself. And, right now, there was a job that needed to be finished.

  Temporary Sisterhood Camp, Carajás Mountains, Paras, Brazil. March 28, 2014.

  On top of the more than seventy prisoners that had been rescued, there were thirteen Order members found in the infirmary. Griffin even recognized one of them - the junior Paladin, Francisco, a sometime lover of Alona. Because of the number of injured and children amongst those rescued, it was decided they would delay traveling to the site in the U.S. for a day or two.

  Joy and Nin were fairly happy with the progress Griffin seemed to be making. They saw, outwardly at least, strides being made in getting out of his funk. Once he had been given a location and clear directions, he'd driven people, not with cruelty, but by example. Even with the extra effort, he'd extracted from the group they were traveling with, it had taken a full eighteen hours to reach the rendezvous with the non-combatants. Many of the assault team had not slept for more than a day by this point,

  Before they did anything further, the small command group needed a good meal and eight hours sleep. They could have kept forcing the issue, but even if they struck in the northern U.S. within four days, it would seem impossible to the Order. Better they make an attempt well rested, with fewer mistakes, then try to push for a spectacular result and fail.

  Griffin still felt the weight of the expectations upon him. He'd never wanted to be a leader, he'd always been happy simply being the champion of the Order - a field leader, with responsibilities for discipline and training, but none of the admin and command responsibilities. With what the Order was doing, he had no choice. It was still a tune he was learning to hum.

  That 'night' Nin and Brianna insisted on sleeping next to Griffin. When he tried to beg off and looked to Joy for help, her raised eyebrow told him there would be no support found there. What he wanted was a week alone where he could try to work through everything that was happening. They might have a day. They definitely didn't have a week.

  Griffin was surprised to find he was quite well rested when he woke up. He woke before either Nin or Brianna and drew immense comfort from the sleepy affection they both displayed by hugging him. He was a little surprised to find himself feeling Nin's affectionate contentment mixing with his own emotions. The feeling faded when he thought of what they would have to do over the next couple of days.

  Their next target was spread out, villa-like complex in the Bitterroot Mountains, just outside the wilderness area. In some ways, it should be easier to attack, as it did not have the deliberate fortifications. But in its own way, it would be the most difficult target. Each room could be its own fortified position, and they would have to fight their way through to the back. Moving through the courtyards of the Roman-inspired design would be suicide. They would make perfect killing fields for even shotgun armed defenders.

  Fortunately, he doubted there would be more than a few real fighters there. It was an important compound because it was an essential administrative and coordination location. Its best defense was its unassuming appearance, not many defenders or the skill of its occupants. The intelligence they could gather there would be critical to future operations. In a pinch, Griffin and Nin - now he knew how skilled she was after defeating Alona so quickly - could take this location out.

  However, if they did so by themselves, they wouldn’t net nearly the potential benefits they could with a larger group. By themselves, they could only take a small portion of the valuable documents and computers. That information would be vita
l to the success of any future operations conducted against the Order. Griffin's attacks on fortress sites would work to their advantage. The Order would probably assume they were focusing on the purely military sites.

  There were other coordination or administration sites he could have just as easily have targeted, with lower initial risks, then the fortress sites. With the possible exception of the Amapa site. The thirteen they had rescued from the infirmary would become a valuable source of intelligence. It had been the prisoners that had insisted they be taken to the hidden camp. Apparently, they'd ended up in the infirmary after a brawl that occurred when Alona had started with the rigorous interrogation.

  Griffin was not surprised Francisco had resisted the command to torture the prisoners. He was a man of stiff ethics and flexible action. It was also true he could be ruthless in his determination to take out a witch or a Demonspawn as any other Paladin, but he always checked that they were doing harm before agreeing to a mission. He had even less faith in the infallibility of the Order's directives than Hakim had always seemed to, but he had kept Griffin's respect in the past because of his unquestionable faith.

  Francisco’s faith had cracked when Alona had ordered the torture of the prisoners. It had shattered completely when he found Griffin leading a group of people Francisco would have considered questionable to rescue the prisoners, and ultimately himself. When he saw the destruction Griffin had wrought, he had gone into a similar state as Griffin had, as the blinkers were removed from his eyes.

  Griffin had not expected Francisco to join them in the fight soon. He had already expressed this to Francisco. What Griffin had asked for, Francesco was more than happy to provide. This recent recruit from the Order to Griffin's cause was more than glad to organize himself and the like-minded lay brothers into a group to protect the Order’s abused prisoners. After all, it was what he had been punished so unjustly for doing in the first place.

  Neither of them realized what began at this moment. The needs of the present outweighed any planning for beyond the next few months. What they'd started would eventually become one of the most successful groups at guarding witnesses and victims of abuse. The group would always be small but specialized in what they called 'active bodyguarding'. They would seek out the threats to their protectees and either convince them it was a bad idea to continue on that path or remove the threat. At the start, they usually removed the threat. Once the reputation was established, people were more willing to leave those under their care alone. They still had to make examples sometimes, though.

  Once Griffin had Francisco's agreement to aid in the protection of the prisoners, and Magdalena's agreement to support him throughout this task, Griffin felt there was some breathing room. Joy assured Griffin that Magdalena could be trusted to organize the relocation of all her high-risk members. There were three or four native tribes willing to take in several distantly related members. She had also received agreement from the Hathori to find people who could help train those members of the Sisterhood who could draw on the planes, but not the knowledge to use it effectively.

  Now he had passed off responsibility for the defectors and rescued prisoners, he went to a quiet section of the camp with what he was coming to think of as his command group. Joy, Brianna, Nin and himself. They needed to plan what they would do after they left this camp. One concern Magdalena had expressed was that there was something a bit 'off' with the Sisterhood in the U.S. She had felt forced to cut all contact with her U.S. and Mexican counterparts after a half-dozen member she was responsible for had disappeared while traveling in that area. Therefore she had no idea what was going on there or farther north. Griffin had asked Joy about this, and she said she would see what she could find out.

  "Well, have you found anything out yet?" he asked after some time had passed.

  Joy looked grim. "Only one of my usual contacts has responded in the U.S. She seems to have no idea about what happened to the others. I still think we should tread cautiously, though. Magdalena is right, something stinks about what's going on up there. There is no way that out of the dozen semi-regular contacts I had, only one should be responding."

  Brianna looked at Griffin, "You know the Order better than anyone else. Is it likely they'd leave one person left as bait, having rolled up the rest of the leadership?"

  Griffin snorted and shook his head, "No. They're fanatics. They'd believe they'd be able to roll up the entire organization through coerced information gained from the leadership. This… This is something different. We need to be cautious. I have absolutely no idea what we could walk into here, and I'm still not feeling a hundred percent." Both Nin and Brianna looked at him with concern. He waved them off, "I'm not talking about emotionally. I feel better than I have in a long time." He moved to hug Brianna then Nin. "What I did at the fortress left me feeling… Well, it's hard to describe. I feel tired, but it's not physical, or.... well I don't know. I think I need a little more rest before we travel on. If we're about to face a trap, we need to be well rested."

  Joy looked the group over and slowly nodded. "We have been runnin’ hard at our goals. There's no point in walking ‘ward a possible trap when not a’ our best. Besides, from what you told me about this site, Grif, the main benefit of attackin’ is the information we will be able to garner. It’ll have a similar impact no matter when we attack.”

  Griffin nodded, "The simple shock that we potentially have access to all the information they store in such a site, while they at most have a handful of targets in the U.S., will knock them on their heels. It will give us time to find the other minor Conclaves, the Magi and perhaps even start forming alliances with major Conclaves."

  Joy glanced at the two younger looking women and said, "Besides you need to spend some more time with these two. Figure out where everything is going." She looked a little wistful and added, "Ahh, young love. ‘Ave fun kiddies."

  With that, Joy smiled at the three of them and walked off, leaving them to their own devices.

  "So, Griffin," Brianna said with a slightly teasing tone, "It seems that Joy feels we need to discuss the relationship. Where is our relationship heading?" She glanced at Nin with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Griffin looked like he was a deer caught in the headlights. He stammered as he tried to answer the question. "I… I really don't know. I'd never thought I'd be in a position to have a long-term relationship with anyone. With what I was doing before, the only opportunity for such would have been with one of the female Paladins. Although some of the Paladins were comfortable with that, I never was. And it never seemed… well… right to have a long-term relationship with someone outside the Order, not being able to tell them where I was going or the risks I’d face."

  Nin and Brianna had carefully maneuvered him towards their tent while he talked. Both of them were happy that he was finally acknowledging them as women as well as comrades. Besides, they had to talk to him about his full heritage. He already knew he was descended from Odin, but from what Brianna saw, he needed to know he was also descended from Athena.

  Once they reached the tent they were sharing, Nin puttered around making it as comfortable as she could for them to talk. She left it to Brianna to broach the subject, not out of cowardice, but because Brianna was the one who had been closest when she'd witnessed the glowing birthmarks on his wrist. Brianna started hesitantly with, "Griffin, we need to talk to you about your heritage." Griffin rolled his eyes at this, and because of the heat and the fact they'd be staying in the tent for a while, he took off his top and merely pointed to the birthmark on his shoulder. His jaw tightened during this discussion. He didn't want to go over it all again. He'd been told of his heritage, or so he thought.

  "No, Griffin, there's more to your heritage than that. When you became enraged… another birthmark glowed at your wrist. An owl on one wrist, and crossed spears on the other. I didn't recognize it, but Nin did. On your mother's side, you must be descended from Athena."

  Griffin looked at her incredulously.
From everything he'd been told, his father was one of the most vocal opponents of relationships between the major Conclaves. He’d damned crossing family lines between the original four groupings.

  Surely he wouldn't have knowingly had a child with a descendant of Athena.

  He turned his gaze to Nin. She looked at him with a strange smile on her face. Glancing at Brianna, it was obviously difficult for her to hold back a giggle. Nin leaned closer to Griffin and gave him a strong, passionate, kiss. His first reaction was to pull back, but after a few moments, he reciprocated with enthusiasm. He may not be sure what was going on, but he found this unique woman undeniably attractive, not just physically but also spiritually. Both of them were to some extent, broken souls. It was fitting they had found each other.

  When they broke the kiss, he found Brianna snuggling into his side somewhat possessively. She wasn't jealous, not exactly. It was more like she felt he owed her equal attention. He was still struggling to understand what he'd done to deserve the attention of two such attractive, and caring, women. It was then he realized that Brianna had somehow slipped past his defenses, the ones that thought of her is hardly more than a child. He really did consider her a woman.

  However, he kept his focus on Nin. Something was going on here that he wasn't entirely sure of. His questioning expression drew a response out of her. "It's a beautiful symmetry in a lot of ways Griffin. Athena was the Graki Traveler to whom my father entrusted my education and upbringing. To have the mating bond form with one of her descendants…" She leaned into him, small shudders of pleasure going through her body. "It just feels so right." She concluded.