by P. S. Power
“So, Davie, these are all yours, but you can't have them at school, obviously. These are just too dangerous. I'll keep them for you until the duel, if that's acceptable?” This question was addressed to Rolph, who nodded slowly.
“Yes… Um, Tor, I'm going to have to request that you not give these out as gifts. Especially those explosives.” His hand flew up. “I know, by law you can, and I can't order you not to… but…”
Tor snorted. “No doubt. I'm not even making extras of these. I'll turn the templates over to your dad directly if you want, or whatever. These aren't something for the open market. Maybe the force lance for battlefield use, but who else would need it? I wouldn't have even made them if this Count wasn't being so insane about this. Sorry, Davie, but if he was just planning on giving you a beating, I would have just handed you the shield and flying gear and called it good, you know? As it is, if it turns out that's all he's going for, well, I think you should just take the beating and let it go. This could all go wrong in so very many ways…”
David nodded somberly.
“I know. I promise, if I can deal with this that way, I will.”
Rolph clapped him on the back and chuckled, sounding a little weak. No one said anything about it after that and Tor was able to spend the next two days making poison detectors instead of weapons prototypes. A few batches even got packaged up to go to peoples families, including Meredith Sorvee who he sent ten to, with written instructions. He'd kept up a steady flow even while working on the new fields for Davie, so a lot of people already had them, Tor had seen them at meals even. Sara passed them out for him, because she was really sweet that way, with some help from a few special school kids he didn't know, just setting up a table in the court yard and going down the list.
Wensa had at least backed off from mentioning how he didn't have anything for poisons yet, but she kept giving him sour looks every time they met. Dark things, like she felt bad about not having killed him yet. Or something at least. Tor couldn't think of what else she’d be thinking about him.
The night before Davies duel, the evening that he finally got to take the splint off, as Tor walked slowly out of the dining hall, he came under attack. A real one too, not just someone calling him names or glaring.
The person was masked, and too small to be a royal, probably at least, but wore a familiar gray skirt. Wensa.
She didn't do much, just kicked him down the stairs, a single stomp to the middle of the back which sent him flying down the first twelve feet or so, landing with a solid thud. Stone struck him over and over again as he fell. He couldn't even slap the shield on and then, as he turned to face her, he found himself all alone. Tor activated the shield and waited, then limped back to his room, his leg killing him. Rolph wasn't in, having some kind of big Prince meeting he had to attend with the Dean. His friend had just mentioned it this time, happy that he didn't have to pretend to be drinking to try and fool him this time.
Tor just sat in the room waiting to come under attack again, his shield turned on. Hastily he made a copy of the force lance he'd designed, putting it on a much shorter piece of copper tube, making a single cut in the metal for the activation sigil. Who needed a weapon like this? He asked himself sardonically…
Right, anyone that had a crazy Royal Guard after them. He built it as fast as he could, because he had to sit in the room without his shield while he worked. Then he waited.
As he really should have expected, nothing happened. Wensa was good about biding her time after all. Tor knew that already. She'd waited months just for this and probably wouldn't stop now.
About two hours later the door opened and he just managed to not hit Rolph with the force lance.
“Shut the door!” He must have looked a sight, because the Prince didn't hesitate, slamming and locking it quickly.
“What happened?”
“Wensa tried to kill me! She kicked me down the stairs outside the dining hall. Well, I don't “know” it was Wensa, right build, gray skirt, but she wore a leather mask so that I can't really lodge a complaint, after all, I can't prove it was her, right?” Tor gripped the force lance tighter, which got Rolph's attention.
“That's not… one of those explosives is it?” He said the words softly, as if he talked to a mad man. Rolling his eyes Tor snorted, a slightly more derisive sound than he'd really intended.
“Gods no. That would be moronic. I'm not that far gone yet. It's just a force lance, better that I just die myself than accidentally take half the school out. I just didn't have anything else that would work better for this, so I had to make do. What did I do to her anyway?” He touched his face, bruised in at least three places by the feel of it.
“I've never done anything to her at all. Is she… insane or something?” Tor knew he sounded scared and didn't care. The woman had orders to not kill him or even attack him, from Count Thomson, unless the King had revoked those orders? His own voice going soft he asked Rolph if that was possible. Could the King have ordered his death?
“Not likely. If he had, well, he'd probably either send the whole army, or he'd order you to just do it yourself. And given that you would, killing you would just be foolish, right? Waste of resources if nothing else. I'll check, but I'm almost certain that this isn't anything to do with him. If it is, then it's probably a miscommunication. That can happen… You know, he tells Wensa or her commander that Tor, his good friend, needs to be taken care of, meaning give you hugs and cuddles, and somewhere along the line that gets taken to mean “kill Tor” or something like that, but… If that were the case, she wouldn't have worn a mask and really Tor…” The Prince looked strained.
“She wouldn't have stopped until one of you was dead. The Royal Guard don't. That's why I figured that at the shield test she wasn't really trying to kill you. If she had, then you, or she, wouldn't be alive now.”
Rolph went out, wearing a full shield and carrying his own force lance, which wasn't, he told Tor, half as powerful as the one he had, even though it was military grade. The plan was to alert the authorities and see what was going on. Worse come to worse Tor would at least know that he had to run away or something, right? It made sense, but Tor worried about his friends’ safety and told him so. Rolph just shrugged and gave him a careless grin.
“For once it doesn't seem like anyone is coming after me at all. Go figure, huh?”
When Rolph came back, the Dean, Kolb and to Tor’s surprise, Wensa, came with him. Tor pointed the force lance, shield already activated.
“Don't put your hands near those pockets… Please.” Tor wondered what the hell was going on. Had an order to kill him gone out then? Had they all come to make it happen? He didn't think Rolph would, even if it meant going against his own family, not without explaining it to him first at least. And the Dean? Well, the guy knew poisons, but Tor wouldn't fall for that, and his shield wouldn't let them through. Maybe he was a brilliant fighter or something in his own right… Kolb?
Yeah, the man would kill him if ordered too. That just made sense, he was a Knight after all. He had to follow the King’s orders without question. Normally not a problem, Richard not being unreasonable. Why then? What was this all about?
Wensa stepped forward slowly, hands raised above her head, properly raised, not ready to fight.
“It wasn't me. I was with several other instructors at the time of the attack. They've already vouched for me.”
“Right. Like you couldn't just order them to lie for you? I think you'll have to do better than that. I was there after all. I probably have your boot mark on my back from the kick that sent me down the stairs….”
Rolph walked around him slowly and asked him to lift up his shirt. Right, he'd made it so that no one else could do that, to prevent clothing from being used as a weapon against the shield wearer. It was a hard field addition to pull off and as far as he knew, totally unique to his newer work. He lifted it awkwardly, his left arm bruised and tightening up painfully; he pointed the force lance and readied him
self to fight just in case. When Tor got his right arm behind him, pulling up the hem for Rolph to take a look, Wensa rushed him.
Of course she did.
Just like he'd suspected she would, trying to finish what she'd done earlier.
He triggered the force lance in his left hand, which blasted the older woman back into the wall, breaking the door frame next to it and after a few seconds, punching her through the wall itself. On the ground outside she stood up, not even affected by the blast it seemed. He hit her again, which took her off the stone walkway and kept pointing the device at her, which drove her into the ground with a sickening thud. She rolled when she hit the ground, stood up and turned to run away. He swept the weapon over her. How was this happening? It took him a second to figure it out. She had a shield on. How had she gotten one? Had she stolen it?
Rolph jumped back. “Crap! Run, get away… Were losing him!” Everyone else standing behind him reeled. Had Wensa managed to attack them somehow? Some kind of poison or a special mind effecting military field? Well, it wasn't getting through the shield he wore, so he jogged to the stairs and walked down them slowly. His leg just wasn't up to running them yet. Especially going down.
Tor kept hitting Wensa with the weapon over the banister and then as he traveled towards her. At least it was an old shield, not one of the new ones that would stop a weapon like this. Or not one that he'd made. He'd assumed it was one of his, but as a Royal Guard, she probably had one on all the time, right? Still, he wouldn't be able to do anything to really stop her, not with a shield like this one on. Unless…
He'd built a field that passed through the shield, two of them in fact and others that could work inside of a shielded space. What if he did something similar now?
The woman tried to get away, rolling again, with agility that would have put an acrobat to shame. Tor kept her off balance the whole time, hitting her without stopping. What should he try first? A smile crossed his face. It was a long shot, but it could work…
He built a small field, one that simply mimicked natural sun light, it wasn't a strong thing, barely enough to flash for a few seconds before it faded, but he built it right in front of her eyes. In the dark courtyard that should blind her for a minute or so. She didn't cry out, so Tor didn't know if it worked or not, but she seemed to have a harder time getting up as he closed with her, at least a little, so maybe it had a bit?
Once close enough Tor held the lance on her and held her pined to the ground with enough force that the woman probably couldn't breathe, shield or not.
“Why do you keep trying to kill me?” He asked his voice sounding strange and gravely, like he'd been screaming, which he knew for a fact he hadn't. “Why?”
No answer came. Of course not. She wasn't afraid of him after all. What could some baker’s son do to her anyway? He might make her uncomfortable in the moment, but that wouldn't get him any answers, she'd just wait and come back for him later.
“Look, tell me why you keep trying to kill me now or…”
It took way too long for real dramatic effect, but much like he had with the blip of light, he created an explosive field not three feet from her head. The sound had to rock her, even if nothing from it touched at all through whatever shield she wore.
“I can build one of those inside a shield space you know. How about the middle of your head? I don't think even a rock head like you would survive that. Now, tell me why.” He smiled and stepped closer to her, until only about ten feet of space sat between them. “Now!”
The voice he heard next was soft and wasn't Wensa's at all.
“Hey… Tor, what's going on?” It was Trice, standing beside him, with about half a dozen people behind her. Rolph and the people from the room. Sara and Count Thomson had come out too. Good, maybe they could help?
“Wensa tried to kill me, then faked up an alibi. We were all talking about it, peacefully even, and she attacked me again. In front of Rolph, Kolb and the Dean, so I have witnesses this time. Kind of confirms it was her originally, doesn't it? Not that it matters. I'm trying to get at why right now. Anyone have any ideas about what to do? How the hell did she get a shield anyway? Did she steal it or, I guess Royal Guards don't steal… Did she make someone give it to her?” His breath came in pants. Mainly because he was stuck now. What could he do? Kill her? He thought he could. He probably could create a small explosion in her head, at least with her pinned down like this. It would take a few minutes, but he could do it. Well, he could build the field. But… he wasn't a killer.
Even holding her down like this was hard. Not hard to do, but it felt… Mean. Wrong. But if he let her up she'd attack him again. Not that it would be right now, but… later, when he couldn't defend himself, in his sleep maybe. Did he have a choice?
His fiancee looked around and shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me. He's not in a combat rage. I've seen that on him and even if he was, Tor kind of stays reasonable compared to most people, however that works. So, why did Wensa try to kill him? Tor wouldn't lie about something like that. Really, I don't know if he can lie at all, so…” Her voice went into a questioning tone at the end and her hands came up. Right, now what.
“I think I really can kill her through the shield, we can't have someone like her running around trying to murder people, can we? I don't want to kill anyone, but, I don't think she's going to leave me any choice. First she tried to kill me at the shield test and no one believed it, because I wasn't dead, which I guess is fair enough, since she's a Royal Guard and all. Then she threatened to poison me. When I took that off the table, she tries to kick me down some stairs so that it would look like an accident. Which, considering she has orders not to kill me from a Count… Those still hold right?”
Tovey nodded, but he too looked at Rolph. “Not countermanded?”
The Prince nodded in return, if a bit slowly. “Yeah, I checked, nothing like that from the Capital at all. Didn't think there would be.”
When Tor looked up four forms stood around him holding weapons of some kind. It was almost like they'd just appeared in the air, rather than walked up normally, but he knew he was more than a little distracted. Two popped to mind as being instructors at the school, the other two as weapons instructors. The other Royal Guards? Great. The situation hadn't been complicated enough already. Well, it showed that this wasn't just Wensa then, didn't it? The silvery glints in their hands looked deadly, especially being pointed at him.
“Down!” Tor yelled as they opened fire on him. He spun, sweeping his little force lance across where they stood. They, unlike Wensa, hadn't gotten hold of any shields, at least not any good ones. They flew back hard and didn't get up quickly. The lance he had didn't hurt them directly of course, it just made their bodies move after all, but the impact against the ground probably stung. Without hesitation he hit Wensa again as she struggled to get up, probably to attack him again.
“Uh-un. Your friends aren't going to help you out of this.” It took going back and forth several times, but he finally had all the other guards knocked out about half a minute later and didn't lose Wensa either.
“Right so, if there's no order to kill me from the crown, then all of these royals guards have gone rogue? Little hard to believe. I need an explanation on this pretty quick here Rolph… I don't know what to do, but I know I can't leave them alive to attack me later, Royal Guards don't stop. You told me that yourself. So… I mean, I have to defend myself, right?” His voice had taken on a panicked air but no one laughed at him.
Not knowing what else to do, he started building a small, tiny really, explosive field inside Wensa's skull. One with a simple mental trigger on it, so that he could set it off on command. It took about half an hour to form something that wouldn't just fade in seconds, but in the end he had one ready. During that time he'd had to knock out the other people trying to attack him several times, because they really didn't give up. It was both scary and annoying. Finally the Dean and Rolph managed to convince them to put their weapons down and mo
ve back.
“Alright, Wensa… I just built an explosive inside your head. What you're going to do right now is deactivate the shield you're wearing and go to whatever lock up we have around here. Then you'll stay there until we decide what to do with you. If you try to leave, no matter where you go, I can set this off. If you attack me I'll set it off too. Even if it means getting your brain splattered all over me. Do you understand? You have… Let's say, ten seconds, to comply.”
He turned off the weapon in his hand and put it away. It looked all confident, but what he'd just said about the field in her head, most of it was a lie. Showed how well Trice knew him, didn't it?
Yes, Tor could trigger it right here, watching her from ten feet away, but twenty feet away would be hard and fifty impossible, at least under this kind of stress. Plus, in about ten minutes the field would fade totally. He could set it off now, but the effects just wouldn't last all that long without a lot more work.
The woman glared at him as she got up, which earned her a blast from the force lance, that he pulled out almost instantly.
“No… I said deactivate the shield, take it off and give it to Trice. Then, if you know what's good for you I suggest you don't try to attack me or even look at me like you want to. This isn't that hard, really. Just stop trying to kill me, and don't force me to kill you.”
Seriously! What did it take to get this woman to not try and attack him? She finally tapped the field, but only because Rolph and Tovey both ordered her on that point directly, then she took it off and passed it to Trice. It wasn't around her neck, just in an inner pocket. Tor walked all the guards, hands high over their heads to a small building that he'd never noticed before, just off the commons. It wasn't that he hadn't seen it, just that he couldn't notice it, at least not without focusing on it tightly, which in the nearly three years he'd been at the school he'd never had any reason to do. Some kind of mental disruption field? That made a certain kind of sense. It had two small holding cells in it. Once inside it was easier to notice by far, like a normal building almost. Tor had all the Royal Guards locked up inside a minute and a half, then he spoke to them through the bars.