Revelations (The Boris Chronicles Book 3)

by Paul C. Middleton

  "My King had two sons, both highly capable. Both wished the glory of conquering and ruling a new kingdom. However, in the end, it was decided the eldest should go. The youngest already had a wife and a son, and was the preferred heir of his father for the stability that gave his future rule."

  "My father was getting on in years, and this campaign would enable him to secure the future of our family. Thus, my eldest brother was chosen to replace him as champion, and the rest of the family followed our father into the war."

  "Our force numbered in the thousands, with adventurers, poor freemen and former thralls joining our ranks. However, once we reached the lands we were to conquer we found a problem. There were no large bodies of troops to face us, only small harassing forces. But the King's eldest son had been a wise man too. He declared that each man would choose to form warbands around a single leader, who he would name Jarl. Each Jarl was responsible for declaring the borders and eliminating any who objected to their rule within their lands. Fully half the warriors decided to stay under the King, some of these being younger sons of Jarls from the homeland, but the majority were freed thralls and townsfolk hoping to prosper in this new land. The losing natives would be slaves to aid their enterprises and crafts."

  "It was a fine land we found ourselves in, with large flat areas suitable for growing grains. My father and his youngest son and I all joined the same warband, ostensibly under Firi, the youngest of my brothers. My father did not wish to erode the legitimacy of any of his sons. By refusing to take the title of leader and Jarl in the new land, he prevented this. By aiding his youngest, most saw him giving the wisdom of experience to the son who needed it most. He was old, and I think saw his last chance to die in battle. He was saddened by the thought of not dying on the field of battle he loved so much. It was with joy, not sadness that we found ourselves engaged by perhaps the largest of the former ruler's remaining factions. It was a battle in which we were outnumbered, though not by a large amount."

  "We formed shield walls and moved towards each other, as this is how our battles were fought in that time. Axes were rapped against our shields to keep the movement pace. But my father saw an opportunity, dropped his shield and called for his great ax. He charged the enemy alone. The impact of his body into the opposing shield wall was heard across two fields. The impact had cracked the two enemy shields his body hit, allowing him to penetrate the formation and forcing it to slow. An enemy soldier was thrown into the shield wall from the inside by a mighty swing of my father’s ax, forcing the formation to slow further and disrupting their planned movement.”

  “Our group quickened its pace. Moving at a rolling speed, we slammed into the hampered formation."

  "When we collided with the enemy shield wall, it crumbled. Three others and I found ourselves surrounded for a short time by the enemies. Two of my companions attempted to flee back to the safety of our main group but were cut down. The remaining man and I fought back-to-back keeping several of the enemy away until our shield wall reached us. That day, I found my husband."

  "After that battle, and after we had buried the dead, which included my father, the time came to split the land for the freeholds. What was the Jarl's alone, and what was given to others for service in the Jarl's forces. What was to be held free of the Jarl. Before the land was split, I declared my intention to marry, and my brother gave his blessing. Therefore, myself and my future husband were given a freehold, as were many of the warriors who fought in that battle. My new husband and I shared a patch that was larger than the grants to individual fighters. Some objected though the grant was smaller than any other two warrior’s grants.”

  "The original holding's borders are not more than thirty kilometers from where we sit today."

  "I was happy for many years with my husband and bore him four children, one son and three daughters. We were happy until he was killed in revenge raid against the Sami tribespeople to the north. Then trouble started occurring. None of my children were old enough to be fully trained in the warrior's arts. Many, especially from the local population, thought I could not hold the former lands without him. Our holding was on the border so that we were obligated to protect our lands and to watch the border for the Jarl. That placement left us without his easy support. The distance became known along with the fact my husband was dead. Many raiders thought to take advantage of this. That was despite my reputation as a shieldmaiden of great skill, one to be feared on any battlefield. I was sucessful in defending the holding, but suffered grave losses."

  "I was captured by the strange alien with my children as we started on a Yule trip to my brother's hold. Partly to celebrate with family, and so my children could meet their cousins. Partly to ask him for aid. It pointed one of its devices at me, and I crashed to the ground, shrieking in agony. When I could move again, it pointed it threateningly at my children and told us to follow. What choice was there for us?"

  "For some time, the creature was only interested in tormenting me. What it did to me, the pain it caused I cannot and will not describe. It kept assuring me it was improving me, and eventually showed me how to change my form into the other one you have seen. I was content at this time. My children were not harmed, were healthy, and fed with food the creature provided and deer I hunted. It only seemed interested in me."

  "Then it started doing things to my children. I felt true despair and began searching for a way to, if not free us all, free them from its control. We were not slaves. We were not thralls. We were proud descendants of a Jarl's line. That it treated us all as slaves, that it hurt my children..." She broke off, sobs wracking her body. Janna moved close to comfort her, but Gyada shook her head.

  She wiped the tears from her face, "I found a way to allow my children to escape. The being did not need sleep, not like humans do, but I learned to recognize the signs of when it wasn't paying attention to the world around us. During one of those periods I changed, broke my children free of their chains, and told them to run far and fast. To change to the forms that had been inflicted upon them and use those forms to aid in their escape. And never to look back. To warn their children, and their children's children, that this area was too dangerous to return to."

  "When the creature woke up, it took some time to learn my children were no longer there. It started ranting that it would catch them, bring them back, and cause me pain until I broke, and would become obedient to its wishes. I shifted and charged it, moving faster than I ever had ever attempted. It seemed to be in shock, and the blows from my paws interrupted it as it tried to yell something out."

  Her listeners were now captivated for various reasons by her tale. Boris because he realized this may well be his ancestor telling him the story of how his people were created. Janna because of the loss the woman had faced. Shen and Alecta were both fascinated by the technologies she was describing.

  "I found myself unable to return to my human shape. I was in despair. I hoped that there was some way that my brother’s village would take me in, so I traveled there. They tried to chase me off with fire and sword. When the first blade bit my skin, it was as if the Beast took over. The anger of the betrayal added to my rage, for I had traveled by my homestead first and scented that nobody had investigated the fact that I had not arrived when I had sent messages ahead of my imminent arrival."

  "I am ashamed to admit that I left the village without another living creature in it. That I ate the flesh of many that I killed there that winter. My rage that nothing had been done to avenge my capture burned strong at the time. I continued to raid my other brother's holdings over the next few years until finally I was hunted by a man with strength beyond my own. With strength beyond anything that I had ever encountered. I then retreated back to the cave, making brief forays out to hunt for food, then returning. But that powerful man tracked me down. He cornered me in the cave, and I was certain it was my time for Valhalla. There would be worse ways to go than being killed by this great warrior."

  "Instead he showed me a kin
d of mercy. I do not know if he realized I would survive as long as I have, but rather than kill me he collapsed the entrance to the cave. It happened to be the only entrance to the cave that I could use in my animal form to escape."

  "In my time within the cave, a voice talked to me. At first, I thought it had been some sort of spirit sent to punish me. Eventually, I came to realize that it was trapped the same as me. I learned many things from it. Learned of wonders I never thought I might have the opportunity to see." Her eyes glittered for a moment as if there was something she desperately wanted but was still not sure she could achieve.

  "I couldn't know how long had passed when I finally found my way back out of the cave. I was also much calmer, having realized that seeing my animal form would have terrified many normal humans. I did my best to limit those I killed outside the caves to those who sought to harm me."

  She looked looked up, "And so here we are." Gyada finished the story, showing a mixture of relief and exhaustion. Relief from finally telling someone what had happened to her, finally being able to give these people who had treated her with kindness, her past. Exhaustion from going through her memories, with so much pain in them.

  Boris and Janna looked at each other. It seemed likely that whatever the alien had shouted had activated something that had rewritten the critical portion of the nanites code for changing forms. That explained the section that TOM and ADAM had found garbled.

  Finally, Boris felt they had enough information to conclude that she was remarkably adaptable. When taking into account the time she had spent alone, or at least only in contact with an AI of questionable sanity, he had to conclude that she was as sane as anyone else in the group he'd met. They all had their quirks. They all had things they kept hidden.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  New Romonavka, Celebration of the Second Battle of Romonavka

  "... So I found myself in command of the entire force and had no idea if Boris was alive." Danislav said. "Boris had made me second in command the night before. I wasn't sure I was his best choice for the role, but it had to be someone who wasn’t in his bunker. I thought Paul would have been a better choice and would have been better out of the bunker." There was a murmur from the old hands. "Boris pointed out that Paul might be a great XO, hell even a great small unit commander, but with his luck, no sane person would put him in command of an entire operation." Laughter traveled around the room as the old hands thought on the number of situations Paul had gotten himself into, and somehow out of. Paul saluted Danislav with a beer in his hand and a grin on his face.

  "Still and all, we had a good killing that day. We had the enemy outflanked, and although they had light armored vehicles, the tactics we used restricted its utility. The worst they managed to do to us was take out Boris’ bunker, and that was more a case of luck than anything. Encircling them and taking out their vehicles probably got rid of a quarter to a third of the NVG's forces at the time. Nothing more than the svlotsky deserved. We got to hammer them for our dead and what they tried to do to our town and to Mother Russia." A cheer went up, and glasses clinked in a toast to the Motherland.

  The crowd then broke into smaller groups, talking about individual actions. Boris directed an intense gaze on Janna. She had never told the story of what had actually happened in the bunker, not even to him. He felt it would be a good tale, one that could give people a good example of Murphy's Law. Not that Danislav hadn't shown that in his story.

  His tale was a better example of how proper planning prevents piss poor performance, though.

  It also might be a good way to get Gyada accepted and out of her shell socially. She didn't talk about her past or what it had been like 'back in the day.' None of the tales from that day of battle had gotten her to loosen up any either, although she had perked up at the story of a bayonet charge on a small group of shaken NVG around a troop truck.

  She finally displayed an interest when the descriptions turned to close in, hand-to-hand combat. She talked to the man who brought up the incident for a bit, discussing the tactics and movements used in bayonet drill. Boris overheard Gyada saying that from the description it was somewhat similar to those used in short spear fighting.

  Finally, Boris rolled his eyes at Janna. She looked at him angrily. The anger wasn't directed so much at him, like the fact that she knew that one way or another the story would become a tale to be told at every future anniversary, either by her or by someone else.

  It would become a legend, a part of the history of the region, the conflict and her. She moved quietly to the center of the room, and Danislav saw her. Catching Boris’ eye, he raised his arms and yelled, "Quiet, a new story is to be told."

  Janna flinched slightly and glared at him with some heat. She'd hoped for the noise to cover some of the story. Still, she started with, "There was a blast, and the entire front of the bunker disappeared, and everything went black. When I came to, I'd been thrown against one of the shelter walls. I found myself acting automatically, checking for possible survivors.”

  The mercs and ex-military in the room nodded unconsciously at that. It was their training if physically able and taking no fire to check for casualties after an explosion. And with the bunker half collapsed, like everyone in the room knew from previous stories, she wasn’t taking fire.

  She continued “Paul had a strong pulse, and his arm still moved. No external wounds and there was fuck all I could do about any internal bleeding or damaged organs. Above my skills. So I turned to Boris. He still had a weak pulse, but I couldn’t see him breathing. What I could see was a four-foot splinter from the bunker wall pinning him to the chair. It was at least six inches at the base…” As she delved more deeply into the telling of the story her fears from the event left her and she became more animated and portrayed it with strength and vividness.

  ---

  “... Waking up looking like a famine victim was one of the more unpleasant experiences I’ve had.” Janna concluded the story of how she had saved Boris and unintentionally initiated the change to a werebear. She knew the cost, the other prices she was still paying. The last thing she would do is encourage people by telling them that it wouldn’t be that way for someone else.

  Boris approved and his gaze settled on each and every Were in the room. None here knew both his and Janna’s nanites had been modified to prevent that happening again. Nor did they need to know.

  For once, even Paul kept his mouth shut.

  “Tis a lesson to learn in the story, too. That Changing someone isn’t something done lightly.” Boris said in a hushed tone, the memory of his close miss clear on his face. It was obvious to everyone in the room how much nearly losing Janna still haunted him. “It has a price, like everything else, and the price can be the death of someone. We will do our best to prevent unnecessary deaths, we have things that might help. But there is no ‘Silver Bullet’ that guarantees a fix here. People will die if we Weres aren’t careful when, who, and where we try to change someone. Understood?”

  A murmur traveled the room. Heads nodded, both Were and unmodified human. It was clear that the lesson had gone home… and that there was now a better understanding of the price many had paid over the centuries. A price forged from love more often than not, but a steep price at that.

  Faraday Cage, Beast Caves, Russia.

  It was a simple question that triggered the breakthrough that they needed on what the hell had happened at this location. Why a Kurtherian had crashed here after (based on the nature of Gyada’s transformation) having traveled to other locations on the planet.

  Gyada asked, “Why can’t I hear her voice anymore? I thought she’d just gone quiet, resting, thinking or afraid for a while, but this is far longer than she’s been silent before.” She paused “I think it is a ‘her’ at least. It’s hard to tell.” She grinned a bit impishly. “From what I’ve learned I was trapped for eight centuries. It didn’t seem that long to me, but to be honest, I think I just let time flow around me. Some of what she taught me
was fascinating,” a look of wonder crossed her face, “and I may have lost track of how long we were talking. I still find it hard to believe any race with the knowledge can cross space, see other worlds. But with what I’ve seen that we as a species have achieved while I was… away, I am starting to understand.”

  Paul looked confused and asked “Waddya mean? We weren’t gettin’ anywhere with stuff in space really until Bethany Anne and TOM got together.”

  Alecta punched him in the shoulder and said “We went from pounding metal to getting objects to the outer solar system in the period she’s talking about. Sometimes I wonder why I married you when you act like such an imbecile.”

  “I thought we agreed that you were going to restrict your insults about me to two syllables, dear,” Paul answered with a barely hidden grin. Alecta spun around and threw up her arms muttering in Russian. Once her back was turned, Paul’s grin broke out wide.

  Everyone else in the room smiled at him when she wasn’t facing them. A throat cleared at the corner of the chamber. Well almost everyone. Boris was standing at the back of the room with a thoughtful scowl on his face.