He was almost disappointed. Griffin had expected far more violence to be necessary, but it was now obvious to him that no attack on one of its administrative sites had ever been anticipated by the Order. There was a mixture of relief and anger churning through him at how quickly and easily the assault had occurred. The contingency plans for how these sites were supposed to react if attacked had been personally designed by him. To say those plans were being poorly followed would be asking if a bear shits in the woods.
As he approached the back rooms, he saw someone glance around the corner, then quickly pull back to the other side of the wall. Gritting his teeth, Griffin raised a solid shield of Etheric energy in front of him. When he was within ten paces of the doorway, he heard two quick booms from a shotgun. He didn't feel single buckshot hit him. As he rushed through the door, he kept his eyes on the side from which the shotgun had poked out. As soon as he saw the person holding a gun around the edge of the door, he struck the face with the pommel of his sword.
Griffin hadn’t recognized that his attacker was a woman. He felt a brief trickle of regret at hurting the woman, but she had been trying to kill him. Any man would have been treated exactly the same.
Griffin saw one worker rush for a button on the back wall. He couldn't risk the man reaching that button, in case the Order had set up some way of frying the entire system. They needed that data. Without conscious thought, his axe flew from his hand and into the man's back.
There were still seven or eight other people in the room. Quickly drawing a knife and flipping it, so that he was holding it by the blade, he shouted, "Nobody move. Although I'd rather not have to kill any more people, you do have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Stay completely still until someone takes you into custody and directs you where to go, and all will be well. You will get out of this alive. Move an inch towards anything, and I'll skewer you where you stand." At this point, Nin had entered the room. Seeing a small woman armed with blood-dripping spear enter the room acted as an exclamation point to his statement. Within minutes, people from both of their teams were entering the rooms with zip ties to restrain the prisoners they'd taken.
"How many were taken alive?" Griffin asked one of his followers as they walked a prisoner out of the room.
"About forty," the man answered.
Griffin swore internally, although he kept a calm expression on his face. He hadn't expected over thirty people to be here and expected at least five dead from that number. It sounded like there were more dead, but more prisoners as well.
The success of this attack would cause complications of its own. It would constrain the records they could take. Sighing to himself, he,had to make a decision. What was more important, the written evidence or the data they could sift through that would be in far larger volume on the computers.
The documents would be stronger evidence, and therefore better blackmail material. The data on the computers would be far more helpful to them in fighting the Order.
It came down to whether he was more willing to eliminate the Order completely or neutralize it by threatening the Council. He really didn't want to kill any more people than he absolutely had to, but in final analysis neutralizing the Council might only delay the inevitable. So he ordered the people on the teams who had the technical knowledge to remove hard drives and any form of electronic storage they could find on-site.
He could only hope he had made the right decision.
Epilogue
The embarrassment of riches they had obtained from their raid on the Villa had caused no end of problems, at least until Joy suggested he contact his other allies. To say Einar had been shocked at where he was, angry at his actions, and generally cranky that Griffin hadn't contacted him before now, was an understatement. After a half-hour of recriminations and explanation, Griffin had finally talked to Hakim. Hakim had put him in touch with his group, who happened to have a local base with 'secure holding facilities.' It was even in Montana, which reduced the risks of transporting unwilling prisoners long distances.
Griffin had chosen not to tell his brother about Nin in any great detail. When Einar had asked how he ended up in the U.S., Griffin had said that the explanation needed to be face-to-face. Einar had grunted and said any face-to-face would be at least a month off. He and Agatha were too involved in negotiations with several minor Conclaves to run off somewhere for a face-to-face. Adding new people to the negotiations would complicate matters and make a final resolution that much harder.
It had taken two weeks to free the remaining Sisterhood leaders that were being held by Norskrinjar who had formerly been under Agnar's command. Agnar was willing to help, but the leaders of two of the four remaining sites were staunch loyalists to the King. Simply because Agnar had been defeated, they felt no obligation to place themselves under the command of the man who had defeated him.
Freeing those prisoners had been more tedious than anything, as one of those leaders had moved his prisoners to new locations every day, forcing them to track that group from site to site. Griffin had released them all before the Sisterhood leaders from Europe had arrived.
The few tech experts amongst the Sisterhood had copied the information from the captured hard drives. As part of the exchange for holding the prisoners, Griffin had given Hakim’s friends full copies of everything that had been captured. They were still breaking the encryption on many of the files, both within the Sisterhood and amongst Hakim’s group. After every success, the details on how the encryption had been broken was shared from one group to the other.
After seeing and hearing the evidence that was given by Grey, Joy, and those who had helped him take the Villa, the Sisterhood had agreed to make their resources available to Griffin as needed. This was a great relief to himself and Nin, as it gave him a secure power base, with no countervailing loyalties. The Sisterhood leadership had willingly placed themselves under his command, giving him effective standing within their own organization, even if they gave him no title.
It had been the day after his meeting with Sisterhood leaders that a strange, dull gray metal tube about a centimeter in diameter and two inches long had arrived in the mailbox, with his name inscribed on it. He was very cautious about this tube, as only a handful of people knew where he was staying. Most of them would have either called him or contacted him with a personal messenger. That he did not recognize the metal it was made of was also a concern. The Gods only knew what it was. Quite literally in this case as Nin had masqueraded as a Goddess in the past and knew exactly what it was.
It was a message tube from the Travelers. After some indecision, Griffin had decided to have just Nin and Brianna present when he 'opened' it. Following Nin's instructions, he pressed the button on one end of the tube.
A melodic female voice issued from the tube. "Griffin, my Child, I request you meet me as soon as possible at the place on the continent of Australia known as Nowhere. I will explain what I can about what has occurred so far in your life, and what happenings are imminent. I will be waiting for you, Dear Child."
Nin had been reticent about who the voice may be. Eventually, Brianna and Griffin dragged out of her that the voice sounded like that of Athena, her teacher. She had added the caveat that Travelers often called any of their descendants their ‘children.’ Griffin accepted that at face value, but Brianna had her suspicions. 'Dear Child' sounded too personal and affectionate to her. It seemed like whoever had sent this message was actually Griffin's mother, not just his ancestor.
The message left Brianna deep into thought, as she was not supposed to tell Griffin about Nowhere Town. It sounded like whoever had sent the message knew that someone amongst Griffin's companions knew the location of Nowhere Town. She was that someone. After some struggling with her own conscience, while listening to Nin and Griffin talk about how they could find this Nowhere, she had eventually broken down and told them both that it was where she was from. That she could lead them to it. She consoled herself with the fact she wasn't quite bre
aking the promise she had made to 'Nia. She would take Griffin to Nowhere Town as quickly as possible after his discovery of its existence. Brianna was made nervous about the whole situation for another reason, however. Not only had she scorned her father's favorite suitor, David, and broken his rule against her learning to fight. Finally, she would be bringing possibly the most feared and reviled Godsborn into Nowhere Town. She was worried about her father's reaction to this, especially since they were now lovers. Not only that she felt pressured to hide this all from Nin and Griffin. She wasn't sure that she had fooled Nin, but she was sure she had convinced Griffin that she wasn't worried about going home.
Brianna hoped that her fears were groundless. Griffin was focused on the problems of the Travelers and the change in the Order. Nin watched and waited, taking events as they came.
All three of them were concerned about what might have brought one of the original Travellers out of hiding. The last known example of this happening had been when Griffin's father had been conceived.
For the Godsborn, this was The Event of the last half millennium.
Author’s Notes
Hello again, readers.
I thought I’d cover how hard this book was for me in many ways. First, it is nearly twice the length of any other work I have written so far. In many ways, that is the smallest part of how hard it was to write. I had to go into some of the darkest periods of my life to bring Griffin and his problems to life. That is part of why it took so long. Dwelling in those memories is not… something to revel in. I hope that it helps people see that no mater how strong they are, no matter how firm their beliefs something can come along to shatter it all.
I, like one in four of my fellow Australians, have suffered depression. It is something I still often struggle with. I'm sure many of you have suffered depression. It is also one of the dark ugly secrets of society. It's not something people talk about in the pub. It's something people try and hide, as if it was a weakness that they would be condemned for.
Often they are. And it's society's fault. It is rarely portrayed in movies, on TV, or in books. Although books have the best track record for it. Still it is something we need to have a dialogue about as a society. Without that, people are doomed to suffer stigma from what is probably the most common mental health problem in the modern world.
I'm here to tell you that it comes in many flavours. One person's experience of it will not necessarily give an understanding of another person's experience. But it will give empathy for another person's experience.
I'm also here to tell you that there are many available supports for people suffering it. For more information go to one of these sites.
Australia
Beyond Blue
The Black Dog Institute
USA
Anxiety and Depression Association of America
Crisis Text Line
Depression and Bipolar Alliance
UK
Depression UK
Now for more info.
I have 4 projects running at the time I write this. A Short Story set 5000 years or so before the ‘present day’ Betrayed by Faith series. A sequel to The Mongrel’s Curse. Boris Chronicles #3: Retaliation. And of course, Myrmidon. Book 3 of Betrayed by Faith.
Myrmidon is not a direct sequel to A-viking. Instead it follows Agatha and the rest over the same time period as ‘A-viking’. And the problems that face her.
I hope you enjoy the series. And I thank you all for every review I get. Every review helps me. Thank you.
Paul C Middleton.
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