A-Viking (Betrayed by Faith Book 3)

by Paul C. Middleton

  There was a murmur at that. Most present had not considered the possibility of him going rogue, even though it had been discussed.

  “I suggest a vote,” Stalin said in his smooth British accent.

  Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, March 10th.

  “South,” Nin said to Rinzen “He’s still south.” But a frown covered her face.

  “And what’s that frown for?” Rinzen asked.

  “I can still locate his general area. But he is… obscured. I can’t get a pinpoint on his location anymore. I had expected it to become clearer as we got closer. He’s not in the same place either. He’s been moving.” Her frown intensified

  “So? When you get closer, it should clear up, right?”

  “How am I supposed to know? This is the first time I’ve experienced this,” Nin said with a hint of depression in her voice. “It feels like something is blurring the... the signal for lack of a better term.”

  “Well, let’s leave that problem for later. It’s not like you haven’t caused enough chaos in the last week,” Rinzen said sourly. Nin blushed. She hadn’t meant to break her opponent’s arm at that temple. As far as she was concerned, he’d deserved it anyway with all his talk about a woman being unable to equal, let alone best, him.

  Her mild state of panic on her first airplane trip hadn’t been unreasonable to her either. Although she understood why Rinzen had been upset to find Nin had snuggled into her that night after they had rented a twin room. Nin had not realized that Rinzen slept without clothes in warm climes. But there had been the sheets between them. And she wasn’t inexperienced with women if Rinzen had wanted comfort from their travels.

  Nin was completely inexperienced with men, as far as she was concerned. Her only encounters had been ‘arranged’ by her brother. Legal for the time and place, but it had taken her over a century to recover emotionally from them. Now they would be considered rape in most places. Another reason she was glad he was dead. Part of her recovery had involved finding some willing female companions. She felt she’d still be able to find comfort from women.

  It was also one of the reasons that the Keltoi had advocated for putting him away or killing him. The humans who found out that he had perpetuated a lie on them beat them to it.

  Her brother had justified the outrage against her by saying that Jove’s line needed descendants, and he had tried, for centuries, with no success. That justification was not accepted by anyone. It was another of his petty cruelties and games.

  That introspection led her to want to find her lifemate even more urgently. Curiosity at what a loving relationship with a man would be like was part of it. Most of it was the need to fill the feeling of missing a part of herself now that there was a link.

  “What’s wrong, Nin? I didn’t mean to upset you.” Rinzen said, concern clear on her face.

  “Sorry. Got lost in a memory.” A wan smile appeared on her face. “I have a lot of them to get lost in. Sometimes it happens.” She got up and headed for the door. “We should move on. The sooner we get closer, the sooner we know if there really is a problem with my lifemate compass.” She gave a self-deprecating grin as she opened the door for Rinzen.

  It would be a long day of driving.

  Mudgee, New South Wales, March 10, 2014.

  Their preparations had been limited by the state of Joy’s armory, and they were lucky she had as much as she did, considering Australia’s laws. The biggest surprise had been a half dozen sets of ballistic armor. There was one that was a close enough fit that Brianna could wear it. The shotguns, a dozen side by side, double-barreled jobs weren’t a surprise. The hunting rifles, two bolt action Browning 30-06’s were a bigger surprise. Brianna looked at Joy who noticed the look and said, “Pig hunting,” as if it explained everything.

  When they got to Flynn’s B&B, they found it empty. There was no sign of struggle, so Joy wrote him a note while Griffin and Brianna collected their gear. Griffin left their room key and what they would have paid for the three nights they had planned on staying on the counter. They locked the door as they left, Joy muttering that something was wrong here. Flynn was always home by now.

  When they arrived back at her house, Griffin handed Brianna the Gladius. He looked at Joy and asked, “Have you got any hand weapons? It’s likely to come down to that in the end, you know if you are right about an Order group in the area.”

  Joy grunted and dragged out an Italian Quinques short sword and a hatchet. “I know your ‘pinion of guns Griffin. I’ve also seen enough of their operations to know that if we can take out some ‘fore they reach the house it will be for the best. Now, waddaya want for dinner?”

  Griffin shrugged and turned to Brianna. While they were deciding, Joy booted up her computer and brought up four security camera feeds. They eventually settled on venison when Joy mentioned she had some cut into steaks in her fridge. Brianna quite liked it, and Griffin was a fan of game meats.

  “Now one of you help me in the kitchen. We can have dinner and take turns on watch.”

  Griffin nodded and said, “I’ll take the mid two watches. That way both of you can get a proper sleep.” Brianna looked confused. “Whoever has the watch keeps an eye on the camera screen.” He tapped a few keys checking something. “Yup, the program is set to detect movement. If you see an animal when the light at the bottom flashes red, then check the cameras. If it’s a large animal, ignore it, if you aren’t sure what it is, wake me up. Quietly. If it is definitely a human, wake us both up quietly. We want to take the first shot if we can. I’m assuming you have no real experience with a gun?”

  Brianna shook her head, and Griffin took up one shotgun. “This is gonna be yours tonight.” He grabbed a couple of boxes of double-ought shells. “It’s as simple as it gets for guns with the buck in it. Wait until they are within about twenty-five meters and pull the trigger twice, keeping the stock against your shoulder. Go back into cover and reload.” He paused and showed her how to reload the break action weapon.

  “Don’t give them a target for longer than you have to or they will go for a head shot. It’s how I trained many of ‘em, so I know you will have time to take pot shots. If they go for the body, well you have that ballistic vest. It should stop most of what they’ll have. The one problem with the ‘holy water’ rounds is that they lack penetration against that sort of thing. And don’t use the same window twice in case they have a sniper. Keep clear of the door in case they use a breaching charge instead of kicking it down.”

  Brianna nodded. She hated the thought she might have to kill someone tonight but was also somewhat excited about the whole situation. After all, this is what she had asked Griffin to train her for. Joy cut in. “If you find yourself feeling like throwing up, just do it, girl. We ain’t staying. If they don’t attack in the next day or so, then we’ll leave by an escape tunnel. I have friends near the other end. That should get us out without them knowin’ how or exactly when.” Griffin gave her a curious look, Brianna an incredulous one. “I’ll explain after we’ve gone. No poin’ to it afore then.”

  With that, she crooked her finger at Brianna, and Griffin took post on a chair near the computer, keeping one eye on it and letting his mind wander. He’d keep watch on surveillance missions often enough to know how much he could let his attention wander.

  Dinner was excellent. Whatever other problems they faced, at least they would meet them well fed.

  It was midnight when Griffin spotted humans moving about on one of the cameras. It had been a clear night, and there was more than enough ambient light from the stars for the cameras to be effective without being switched to low light mode. He swore as he counted the figures. Twelve. That was more than he had feared would be coming. That meant he could be facing up to three Paladins. At least two. He swore at the thought. It would not be a fun night.

  He woke the others and gave some serious thought to going out there alone, trying to explain what the Order had become. There were three problems with that. They probably h
ad a sniper out there. They may well ignore what he was saying. Finally, to have any possibility of success he’d have to challenge and defeat, but not kill, the Paladins out there, and the lay members may not let him.

  He remembered what Brianna had said. That a strong enough Etheric shield could stop bullets. He tried to pull one in and heard a sharp intake of breath from Brianna. Joy glanced through one of the internal doors and looked at him.

  “I dunno what ya think you’re doin’ Griffin,” Joy said in a quiet, stern hiss, “but if ya wanna go out there in an attempt to save ‘em don’t waste your time or breath. They mean to kill you and us. Otherwise, they wouldn’t want to come from four sides with at least twelve ‘gainst three. With a sniper or two, you’d be cut down as soon as you went out that there door. Get back to your post.” He took a firm hold on his temper and glared at her, still making a move to get up. She glared back at him. “There are few in the Order that still have your beliefs. Be a man and realize that. Dying tonight in a blaze o’ glory won’t wipe your slate clean. All it’ll do is show me you couldna face the real path you’ll need to walk to find any closure. And show you always were more of a boy than a man.”

  He scowled back at her but stayed put. Brianna was a little shocked, but then she turned to the computer. They were getting close to the house. She hissed, “Guys, you wanted to take them at range, I’d do it now.”

  Joy and Griffin glanced at each other and grabbed up their rifles Taking windows at either side of the brick house. Joy hit a light switch that turned on the external floodlights. This illuminated the attackers, and a couple stumbled in sudden blindness as the bright light took out their night vision. Griffin placed four shots into the six men in his field of fire as quickly as he could with the bolt-action rifle, hitting three, two of whom went down. He ducked to the side of the window to reload. Joy took more time, her shots firing out like a metronome compared to the more ragged firing of Griffin.

  Once he re-loaded, he ignored his advice to Brianna and took four more quick shots. Only one more of the attackers went down. He swore at himself. His marksmanship wasn’t great, but at two hundred meters he should not be having this much trouble. He heard three more shots from the other side, then heard Joy moving towards the front of the house and setting up behind a sofa, out of Brianna’s line of fire for the front door.

  There were cursing and confusion at the front of the house. Griffin grimaced at that. He had trained the lay brothers he met in the Order to react to surprise better than this, but it wasn’t like he had met all of them. Those whom he had had time to train to his standards might even have been excluded from Australia because of their relationship to him. With him missing, it was possible.

  The confusion allowed him to take down one more with the rifle before he placed it on the floor and took up the three shotguns he had, two in one hand. Moving across the window, Griffin let out both barrels to keep their heads down and went to the other side. That was when he heard the breaching charge go off on the front door.

  He hoped that Brianna and Joy were both behind some sort of cover. That charge would have sent a holocaust of splinters through the room they were in. A window shattered, and he dropped one of the remaining shotguns to draw his axe. There was a slight tang of blood in the air now. Griffin hoped it was from one of those coming in through the window. Moving towards the back room, he kicked the door to it down. As the door splintered there was the roar from at least three shotguns firing near simultaneously. There was a push on his back as something hit the ballistic armor he was wearing, but kept moving. It had felt like it might have been one or two rounds of buckshot.

  There was the thump of someone hitting the ground from behind him. Griffin ignored it as his foot hit a door, splintering it and connecting with a man behind the door. Using his axe as a gun-rest, he fired one shot point blank into the face of the man. Tracking upwards, he shot at the head of one of the men coming in through the window. His shotgun empty, he charged the window as the next man tried to untangle himself from the corpse falling backward out the window.

  Three or four rounds struck his ballistic vest, at near point-blank range, as he closed and buried his axe in the skull of the rifleman. He heard more shotgun blasts from the front of the house. With all the gunfire, he couldn’t tell if they were re-loading while he cleared the back room. He hoped they were. Guns were the greatest equalizer in combat. All it took to fire them was the strength of a trigger finger, and the training to be effective at close range was minimal.

  So far he hadn’t seen a single Paladin. All of them were lay brothers. He doubted that the Paladins were too far. The cowards had sent the lay brothers in first. That was not how they were supposed to operate. The Paladins were there to fight, the lay brothers to support. He supposed one of them could have been shot down at the front door. There should have been one at the back window. Twisting the axehead with his free hand, it released the tight grip the bone had taken to it.

  Turning, it was clear that both Brianna and Joy were relatively uninjured. As he was looking, he saw a window shatter and a shotgun blast take Brianna in the chest. She fell backward, caught off balance from the explosion. Seeing another attacker come through the door, with Joy down behind a couch reloading, Griffin had a moment to decide his course of action. He charged, yelling defiance at them. With streaks of blood running down his axe handle and hand, he would have looked crazed.

  That was when the man made his first mistake. Rather than killing Brianna, whom he was drawing a bead on, he shifted to face a new threat. That moment of indecision cost him his life as Griffin’s axe went through his chest. He counted thirteen or fourteen down, and at least one, probably two or three including Paladins, still up. Now was the time to take a risk on the snipers.

  He charged out through the front door and heard a crack in the distance, then the dull drop of a bullet hitting the ground next to him. Turning, he drove the axe haft into the chin of the man near the door. He keeled over backward, bumping his companion. Griffin stepped around his body and swung for the distracted man’s neck, cleaving through the jugular and windpipe. Another attacker down.

  As the lifeblood pumped from that man’s neck, there was a searing burn in his leg as he felt a sword slice it. He turned and found himself face to face with the second Paladin, Malcolm. That made him confident there was a third in the area. Malcolm always worked with Xandrie and was often sent on multiple Paladin missions. Most of the other Senior Paladins considered him a burnout case, but he was still skilled and able. Griffin had never liked him or Xandrie.

  If Xandrie had been a part of the frontal assault, she would have been the first through the door. Either way, she would be close by. Griffin’s dislike of them stemmed from different reasons. Malcolm liked to bend the rules until they were unrecognizable. He was always just the right side of an infraction. At six foot two and over three hundred fifty pounds of mostly muscle, he outweighed Griffin but was about the same height. He was also surprisingly light on his feet. His black hair was in spikes, and he was typically armed with an Italian hand and a half sword. He was also the person designated to hunt down the rare ‘fallen’ Paladin. Griffin guessed that was what they considered him now.

  Griffin was forced to roll to the left to avoid an overhead blow he sensed, rather than heard. He quickly turned again to get himself out of the doorway. There was another crack in the distance, this time, followed by a scream of agony and a small pillar of flame. There was a ping as a bullet hit near the doorway where he had just been. Griffin didn’t know exactly what had happened there and didn’t much care. He had an arrogant Scotsman to kill.

  “They should have struck you from the lists a decade ago, you fool. You should have either killed me from behind or agreed to an honorable duel. But since you chose the middle ground…” Griffin felt something pull at his mind. He reached down into the plane of water and pulled an ice slick out of it, forming it under Malcolm’s feet. “I’ll just have to even the odds.”
>
  “You betrayed your oath and turned to the dark powers, Griffin. You were the last one I thought would. I expected to kill Xandrie long before I had to hunt you.” Malcolm held the blade and the hilt. Suddenly he shifted his grip and swung the sword’s pommel at Griffin’s head - a murder-strike. Griffin batted the blow away with the haft of his axe and took a couple of steps back and around his opponent. Malcolm tried to follow him quickly but slid on the slippery ice he suddenly found underfoot.

  “Where is the little psycho?” Griffin spat. “I’d have thought she’d be perfect for killing someone who found out the Order’s dirty little secrets. Like how it was using me to kill off my relatives. That my powers are because I am descended from the Old Gods, just like those we hunt. She wouldn’t care, she’d just want to kill more. I expected you to try and capture me alive. Let them make an example of me if you thought you could.”

  “I don’t care about your excuses, Griffin. You have fallen from grace. That is all I need to know.” Malcolm intoned in a rumble. Always by the book. If a Paladin fell, then he must be killed. “The final proof was that I couldn’t strike your head from your shoulders when I swung at it. I would have given you a clean, quick death if I could have. Your service deserved that much.”

  “My ‘service’ will wear on me for eternity. How many innocents has the Order had us kill, Malcolm? They aren’t Demonspawn. We were lied to. Don’t you get it? Don’t you believe I saw proof?” Griffin feinted in with his axe, keeping Malcolm on the icy area.

  “No, Griffin. They knew you were of the spawn of Satan. They thought that by raising you right and keeping it from you, that they could redeem your soul. I was one of ten whom they told over the last twenty years. We have all watched you, hoping for the best.” Frustrated with his uncertain footing, he slammed a foot down trying to crack the ice. Griffin darted forward and sliced his left bicep with the axe, ducking Malcolm’s favorite riposte. As he moved back, he snagged the man-mountain’s ankle and pulled, forcing him to take his right hand off the sword to retain balance.