A-Viking (Betrayed by Faith Book 3)

by Paul C. Middleton

  Helka pointed Elrick out as he entered. He was taller than Griffin, although he had a slighter build. His brown hair had a red tint to it, and he carried himself with confidence and grace of movement only achieved by someone who trained in hand-to-hand combat for years. He was surprisingly dark skinned for someone of Norskrinjar heritage. Elrick automatically scanned the diner for threats as he was looking for Helka. Nodding slightly when he spotted her, he continued scanning the diner.

  Once he had convinced himself that it was safe enough, he moved towards the booth that Griffin and Helka shared. He gingerly sat down at the booth, keeping one leg out from under the table to make it easier for him to stand quickly. He looked Griffin up and down with an appraising glance.

  Elrick grunted and spoke in a surprisingly soft voice from such a large man. "You're not exactly what I expected, Griffin." With another glance, he continued, "I was either expecting someone smaller, or someone larger. Your height and build are almost dead on to the descriptions I’ve heard of you. " His smile broadened. "For someone with such a legendary reputation, I was expecting either understatement or exaggeration. That's how it usually seems to go. But I guess since you so closely match the description, I can take Helka at her word that you are who she says you are. She told me you have a proposition for me. She also said you defeated that idiot Agnar and his cronies. Good for you. Never liked that son of a bitch anyway. He never thought enough about the orders he was giving or being given. Down to business. What do you propose?"

  Griffin was slightly taken aback by the matter-of-fact, all business manner of this man. He'd been expecting more dancing around the point. He glanced at Helka, who looked at him and grinned. "First, I want to know how seriously you will consider aiding us. There's no point in me telling you what I want if you have absolutely no intent on joining us. That would be a waste of both of our time. But I will give you the bottom line. The Order has gone from taking out Godsborn who might be a threat to ordinary humans, to actively hunting and killing any Godsborn they find, even pregnant women. This is an escalation above and beyond what they used to do. As I left before the change in policy happened, I don't have a real idea of why. The one Paladin I've talked to who left the Order since the change in policy doesn't really know why either."

  "We don't really need to know the why. We are aware it's happening. That means we need to do what we can to disrupt the Order. Without going into specifics, so far, people under my command have attacked three Order-related sites in the last week. We were supposed to be attacking another one today, but Sara and Agnar have put a kibosh on that. Of my original group of four that was traveling with me, I am now down to three. I can't trust Sara or the four Sisterhood members who were with her, supporting her actions. I'm not sure how far I can trust the Norskrinjar who have agreed to transfer their allegiance after their defeat." He glanced at Helka. "Except Helka here. After all, many of them are still unconscious, including Agnar."

  Elrick raised an eyebrow at that. Agnar was both a skilled fighter and skilled with the peculiar magic that the Godsborn could use. He had not expected Griffin, who had almost certainly never been trained in the use of magic, to defeat Agnar and the group that Agnar had taken with him. Even with the unknown allies that Griffin was reported to have with him. With that group being outnumbered by more than 4 to 1, and all the fighters against them being skilled, it hadn't seemed particularly likely that they would have had a chance.

  He raised a questioning eyebrow in query, staring at Helka. She shrugged and nodded in confirmation that what Griffin was saying had happened. Evidently, Griffin wasn't willing to give out details until he had a confirmed ally. But there could be only so many things he wanted. That he had brought up the Sisterhood indicated one probable reason. He wanted to talk to, and plan with the Sisterhood leaders kept incommunicado by Elrick.

  Elrick sighed and thought to himself, ‘Well isn't this a fucking mess. Our genius King led us into another screaming disaster. When the other major Conclaves find out we were acting against a group that was finally doing something against the Order, things aren't going to go so well. I'll be Goddamned lucky if the Conclaves don't go after the Order, and once they’re gone, unite and try and wipe us out. And there's nothing I can think of to prevent it. Hell, if he still our King, we’ll have shown we must be such Goddamn stupid, spineless, cocksucking imbeciles we'll deserve it. Considering everything, the only way he saw to help the Conclave as a whole, and himself personally, was to offer Griffin any aid he could. Even above and beyond bringing the Sisterhood leaders to wherever Griffin asked.’

  He looked at Helka who gave him an enigmatic smile. Nonetheless, he turned to Griffin and asked, "What are your plans with the Norskrinjar then? After all, you've been attacked by them, which shows that at least a section of them are your enemies. What do you plan to do about that?"

  Griffin stared disconcertingly into Elrick's eyes as if judging his honesty and honor. Finally, he decided. Sliding a penknife across the table, he quietly said, "Your blood oath that this stays with just you." Elrick blinked. He hadn't expected the former champion of the Order to know that much about the ways of the Conclaves.

  ‘In for a penny in for a dime,' he thought to himself. Cutting his hand across the palm with the penknife, he said, "I so swear I shall be silent on any plans you have on confronting the Norskrinjar or any faction within them. On my own blood, I so swear." He held Griffin's gaze throughout the oath, and when he had finished it, he closed the now blood covered penknife and slid it back across the table to Griffin.

  Griffin looked Elrick deeply in the eyes to allow himself to feel sure of Elrick's sincerity. Elrick did not look away, calmly meeting Griffin’s assessing gaze. Nodding, Griffin said, "I plan on replacing my father. I will deal with any other problems as they arise, but he has shown himself to be unworthy of his position. And how he treats women…" Griffin shook his head in a mix of bewilderment and disgust, "It can't stand. They are equal to us and should be treated that way. At the very least, they should be cherished and protected."

  Elrick looked at Griffin and nodded. "About what I expected. But you know you'll not have peace in your other tasks until you challenge him, don't you? Even though you defeated Agnar, many of those who will were under his command will not feel beholden to join your cause. Some will use his defeat to justify joining your cause, though, myself included. I will bring the Sisterhood's prisoners here and will happily join you in the next stage of your plan. What your father has been doing is wrong, and dangerous for the Conclave. And I would say, if you defeated Agnar’s group with only three allies, you actually stand a chance against him. But I have a question. What you plan to do about your brother?”

  “Einar supports me in this,” Griffin responded. “He is the one who revealed the truth to me, and he did not take me back to my father like he was ordered to. My former apprentice is leading a group, including him, that is organizing contacts with other Conclaves.”

  Elrick scowled."You cannot trust him. He is a scion of Loki. What you've done is dangerous. If he gains his own power base, he may well challenge you for the right to rule."

  "If he wants the kingship he can have it,” Griffin answered with a slight smile. “The only reason I'm taking it is that someone needs to replace my father. I have no desire to be a ruler. I didn't want to run the Order. Nor do I want to run the Norskrinjar. What I want has nothing to with what I need to do."

  Elrick looked closely at Griffin. “You mean that,” he said. “I never thought I'd encounter someone amongst the Godsborn who had the integrity to know when change was needed, but not the desire to rule. Before I swear a liege oath to you, however, I need to see your birthmark to confirm that you have the blood right you'll need to carry through with your plan for the Norskrinjar."

  Griffin shoved and rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt, showing the birthmark that declared him descended from Odin. He carefully kept his wrists faced away from this Norskrinjar. The last thing he needed was to
upset the man’s sensibilities at this point by showing his mixed heritage.

  Elrick nodded and said, “I'll meet you here tomorrow morning. I'll bring the four Sisterhood prisoners with me. I might even bring one or two of my fellows, but I'll have to judge whether they can be trusted or not."

  Griffin nodded and then warned him, “Whatever you do, don't kill your fellows. Knock unconscious if you must, but there has been too much death already. Leave them alive."

  When he and Helka returned to the camp, Griffin got a tongue lashing from Joy. "You’re too trusting, Griffin. People don't change their loyalty just like that. She could have been taking you into a trap for all you knew!”

  Griffin turned and glanced at Nin. “Didn't seem that way to either of us,” he said, “And considering that if we don't manage this assault successfully, our plan may as well never have happened. It was a risk I was willing to take. With the number of deaths I’m already responsible for, would it really have mattered if I died, taking a chance, trying to right the wrongs I've done?"

  “Dammit, Griffin, yes!” Joy snapped.“If you fall, then all those deaths you keep bringing up were for nothin’. And they would pale compared to the deaths that will occur if the Order goes through with its plan. You do understan’ that, don’t you? You're not that ignorant, are you? The best estimates we have out there is somewhere near fifty million Godsborn and another twenty-five million Magi. The Sisterhood has put a lot of effort and resources into figuring out the potential numbers. We traced several family trees back generations, hell, thousands of years. We needed to know what was on the table before we acted in any way."

  Nin interrupted, “What do you mean acted in any way?”

  Joy blushed and looked down. “We've been trying to figure out a way to counter the Order for centuries. It hasn't been easy, but the best thing we could figure out was to get to potential Godsborn before the Order could take them for training or kill them."

  Griffin glared at her. "That would have been really handy to know Joy. We might have been able to track down people with the skills and the willingness to help us before now that were outside the Conclaves.”

  "It wouldn’t have done you any good, Griffin. Most of the people we haven’t invited into the Sisterhood are either religious in one persuasion or another, or to put it simply, have such normal lives they’re best left hiding in plain sight.” Joy’s answer made an unfortunate sense, and Griffin grunted at it.

  Nin glared at him. "I knew it wasn't a trap, but you were willing to walk into danger, happy enough to die? This has to stop Griffin. You have people who need you now."

  “It's not like I’d have been happy to die, it’s that I saw the potential gain as worth the risk. Besides, you're the one who improved on the plan. I assumed you might have some inkling of whether she was telling the truth or not. You've been awfully secretive about how your abilities work, but I figured if you can manipulate people's minds, so they don't register seeing us, you probably could tell if they were telling the truth or not."

  Brianna interjected, "It's not like you explained to us how you're able to affect people's minds. I can only sense certain emotions and affect their dreams. What you can do differs greatly from that.”

  Nin looked at them both and shook her head. “No, I will not try to explain that to you," she nodded her head towards Brianna. "I have a fair idea of how I can do what I do, but it’s not something I can explain. I'm the last of my race half-blood or full-blood. As far as I know, I'm the only one left anywhere. I'm definitely the only one on the planet. When my brothers and my father were alive, I could feel where they were. I can't feel any of that now." A hint of sorrow entered her voice, like a wistful whisper of wind underlying what she said. No one else could tell that it wasn't sorrow that they were gone, but rather that it was better that they were gone. Her father, at his best, had been manipulative. Her brothers had, in many ways, been outright evil.

  One of the Norskrinjar had gone hunting with a bow he kept in his car. He'd come back with a deer, but the meat needed to drain before it could be roasted. So they were reduced to meals from cans for dinner that night. A couple had suggested going back to the diner, but Griffin had nixed that idea. They had already been there twice in one day and would be there again tomorrow. They didn't want to arouse any more suspicion than they had to, and the campsite was still empty of normals. That was more luck than he could have hoped for. The park rangers or whoever owned the land had not checked it today.

  Griffin worried about their presence in Montana. The one thing that annoyed him about the U.S. was that he could never remember whether one needed a camping license in a state or county or other niggling things like that. He no longer had the support structure that had given him that information as a matter of course.

  He waited impatiently for the next day. After all, there was only so much he could do, and he’d never liked waiting. Sleep did not come easily to anyone in the camp that night. For the Norskrinjar, it was the changes they faced. For the sane Sisterhood members, it was explaining Sara's actions to their brethren. For Sara, it was a broken mind. For Griffin, it was anticipation. Joy's difficulties came from the burning pain of her missing hand. For Nin and Brianna, it was a fear that the man they both had come to love did not care if something killed him.

  Order Administration Center, Montana, Edge of the Wilderness, March 30th

  Thankfully, before they had been captured and imprisoned by the Norskrinjar, the three Sisterhood leaders had sent word to their best, most combat-ready cells, to prepare for an operation. Not only that, Elrick had convinced two of the other four Norskrinjar to support his switch in allegiance. Griffin grinned internally at that. If there was that little loyalty to the King, his father, any plan to remove him from the leadership of the Conclave stood a better chance. You could often tell how effective a leader or ruler was by the loyalty of his followers. Griffin shook himself.

  He needed to get his head straight. The woods encroached closely on the Villa, as part of its disguise. Some rich man's dream that he made reality They would be better off driving straight up to it than trying to sneak through the woods. They would achieve the same amount of surprise, but with less risk involved in getting people back out. Their vehicles would already be at hand. If one of the people working and living on this site got word to the authorities, it would be at least twenty minutes before they could get here. The Order did not like its dirty laundry being readily available by local authorities.

  One of the things that had always confused Griffin was how meticulous the Order was in its paperwork. The paperwork could cause the Council a multitude of problems. Griffin suspected that at least some of the Order’s resources had been used to take care of people that the members of the Council found inconvenient, either in business, political or other spheres.

  They needed that information. At best it would give them something they could use to figure out who the individual Council members might be, at worst, it would give them the ability to blackmail the Council.

  If the people on this site were following standard practice, there would be two guards in the foyer. The Order never expected these sites to be attacked, and the precautions against any aggression were rudimentary most of the time. Griffin and a few others had put some serious contingency plans in place just in case a force started attacking the Order. Few below the senior Paladins knew about them unless they had worked at one or another of the administrative sites.

  Griffin stood in front of the doors, with Nin standing ready beside him. Once they entered, he would lead one team to the left, and she would lead the other to the right. Between them, they would push hard for the back rooms, hoping that whoever was in them didn't get enough warning to destroy any of the records, electronic or physical, by the time the assault reached them.

  It had been suggested that Nin cover them with her ability to cloud perceptions, but Griffin and Joy had nixed that idea. Griffin, because if it only partially succeeded, such a plan would
leave a part of their force trapped at the back with the rest of the forces up front. Joy, after consultation with Nin, had also objected. It seemed unlikely that an unexpected entry through the front door would not break the shift in their perceptions for any present in the foyer.

  Their best option was to rush the rooms and leave pairs behind covering any uncontained Order members while the rest of the assault pushed forward. There were eight rooms to each side in this villa, plus two cross hallways that would need to be covered in case someone was smart, or brave enough to hide and launch a counter attack from them.

  Much to her disappointment, Brianna had been left at the campsite to care further for those too injured to come along, and to watch Helka. Griffin had left her in charge, and Helka had acknowledged her seniority. He didn't want Norskrinjar trying to rescue their brethren. Nor did he want any attempt to escape or run away from their new positions.

  Counting down from three silently with his fingers above his head, Griffin drew in power from the Etheric and slammed it into the door. The spray of splinters from the shattering door momentarily stunned the three guards inside the foyer. Both Nin and Griffin rushed past these guards, trusting people from their teams to knock them out. The sound of axe butt and sword pommel hitting bone could be heard behind him.

  Drawing on the Etheric again, Griffin blasted the next door which deformed and opened with a shriek of tortured metal. Evidently, they had reinforced some of the internal doors in this location since he had last looked at their defenses It still wasn't enough against the power either he or Nin could draw upon.

  Rushing through the chamber, he had but moments to see the white- faced shock of the people at their desks. The sound of breaking computer screens was heard as someone jumped one of the desks to neutralize an over enthusiastic worker, but Griffin continued to charge forward. None of the other doors in his run to the server and storage areas of the Villa were closed. He heard no further sounds of violence behind him.