faster than anyone could track the shields the girls wore triggered and both Ancients soon found themselves lying flat on the floor, beaten down by nearly invisible forces for the second time in two days.
Tor stopped.
The room flooded with Royal Guard then, but they didn't know what to do, what they did, almost bafflingly, was aim their weapons at him and Ali. Tor chuckled.
When in doubt blame Tor?
It seemed to be a rule now.
Chapter Eleven
Tor yawned. It wasn't that he was tired really, all the drawn weapons kind of got him to perk right up. No, it was just that he wanted to show the room that he wasn't all worked up, even if everyone else was a bit. As long as people weren't attacking his friends, they weren't going to have a problem with him. If they did, well, then no matter what he'd see things through. For now though, nothing truly unforgivable had happened, which Tor promptly pointed out.
“Which means that we can all just put the weapons away and relax. The Royal Guard can't start firing on the Princess for trying to hold a prisoner I don't think, and attacking Ali means fighting Karina too, in this at least. I really doubt Rolph is going to stand by and watch someone trying to hurt one of his sisters and… you can see where I'm going here? So, how about this. Everyone, and I mean all of you, put the weapons away and lets actually talk about things first for once? If you agree with me, let's see a show of empty hands?” Tor grinned and raised his right hand to head height.
The Queen went next, a funny look that was half smile, half terror on her face. The King nodded to the guards and raised his own hand, which got most of the room to follow suit. It was just Ali and Karina left after that, at least openly. The people in the walls probably had weapons honed in, but nothing they had would probably touch the girls, which everyone in the room already knew.
“What should we do Kari?” Alissa asked innocently, sounding very young suddenly.
Karina sighed and unloaded her hands into her side pockets. Ali followed suit, her eyes still wide and afraid. Tor got that, without a weapon in hand, no regular people could take on the Royal Guard like this. But if all went well, they wouldn't have to.
Rolph strode forward and bent a little to look at the two on the floor.
“They’re breathing. So, um, sis, what the heck? I missed the part of the plan where we start a war with Lairdgren, possibly Tellerand too. Maybe you should fill us all in before he wakes up?”
Tor snorted.
“That's obvious, she wanted Green and Black to tell on Brown, but that's not needed. We need to wake these fellows up, apologize politely and send them on their way now. Just a mix up, you know. Tell them that you just… Gods and the universe, what can we tell them? Don't mention Brown though, got it? Trust me on that one.” Would anyone listen to him? He tried to be trustworthy, but that didn't mean anyone else saw it that way.
Karina was crying, silent tears running down her face, oblivion behind her eyes. Tor could feel it coming off of her. Holding up a single hand he shook his head.
“Don't worry. Things are closer to what you want than you think, but we need to let these nice men go. It's urgent that we do.” There, he dropped in the palace command code word, urgent. If Tor had the meaning right that meant basically “do what I say, this is more important than I can explain right now.” Karina's eyes went wide, but after a few seconds she nodded to him.
Rolph and Tor got chairs for the two Ancients and rounded up some cold compresses to place on their faces. If that didn't cause them to wake up feeling loved, Tor was out of ideas. Of course it didn't work at all. Black woke up first and promptly hit Tor a dozen times, all of them stopped by his shield, but the man was beaten unconscious again too. It was the auto-defense thing. Tor winced and stepped back, got everyone to move away and just waited then. It took another seven minutes for him to come to again, with Burks having already done so, but just sitting quietly, as if afraid anything he did would invite another attack.
Now all Tor had to do was figure out a way to let the two men get out of the palace without this all happening six more times. To his surprise Karina did it for him.
She knelt on the floor, not bowing, but a humble enough thing for a Princess. Alissa followed suit without having to be told and bowed low when Karina spoke, her voice soft and contrite.
“Forgive us, please. We acted a bit rashly, wanting to make you apologize to Tor for what you did earlier Count Lairdgren. You haven't yet. We should have used words, not weapons. Your response was, well, it should have been expected. No one in a tense situation wants to be made to feel powerless or trapped. Again, we both apologize from the bottoms of our hearts. Things got out of control way too fast.” She went quiet and bowed low.
Ali spoke then, her voice nearly silent and full of real tears, “I'm sorry. I…” She sobbed a little, a single tear fell from her cheek and hit the ground, leaving a single blotch on the dark stone.
“I erred. I… please don't punish anyone else for what I did.” She said her voice a little desperate suddenly, as if she expected a beating for what she'd done.
Or for death to descend on her and those she loved. A Count could do that, after all. Not to a Princess, but that really only left her. Given her life, just being married to his grandson offered no protection at all as far as she knew. Burks could order anything. It did, in reality mean the man would never hurt her, but even if told she wouldn't have trusted it. Not really. Her life had taught her to fear men with power over her and Burks, to her mind, had that. She honestly expected to be tortured or worse.
If the man had been any other Count that might even have happened.
Burks had a single hand on his head and a bit of blood coming out of his nose, but he waved the girls up. After a second Black caught on and started chuckling.
“Ah, this place is full of surprises isn't it? Well, no lasting harm done, I could do without the constant beatings though.” He turned to his brother and spoke with decent humor, considering how his head must have felt.
“You know Green, next time I think we should send some notes around first. That and maybe you could visit my home instead? I have a feeling that Tellerand would be many times more pleasant, at least for our heads sake.” He waved the girls up, not differentiating as to who should go first, rank possibly not meaning too much to him at the moment.
If someone had asked him, Tor would have guessed the men would practically run, trying to get free of the place after that, but instead they moved at an almost glacial pace. Tor kept his mind calm and worked on his schedule for the next week, since all this stuff was going away, for the time being. Really, given everything, he needed to get some land and start on that house Ali wanted. Rolph had offered him a large second of the Wildlands, which was basically desert, except that they could easily bring in water now. That would work, if his friend was still willing. He'd see to it as soon as the meeting was over.
Ali looked worried but Tor wasn't, not overly. Burks wouldn't hold a grudge over something an automatic defense shield did. It was his own fault for running into it like that, he knew they existed after all. Black would probably feel the same. Kind of hard on the man, since he couldn't always control when he attacked or fought though.
Thinking about it Tor realized that the Ancients as a group probably had to be pretty good at letting little things go, didn't they? After all, if they held long term grudges they'd all be dead by now. Picking fights and insisting that violence is the way had to be a bad plan long term and they were the ones that would know that best. So this probably wouldn't be a huge issue. The girls just wanted him not to have to be humbled by the others, regardless of his age. That was really sweet of them, even if they were a bit over the top, what with the pulling of weapons, but Burks would understand that, wouldn't he?
Of course he would. They were family.
That last bit was true of course, and Tor remembered to have that fight with his grandfather about the family line. He was his own grandfather, and his mother and little sister were his grandmother? That was wrong on about sixteen different levels, wasn't it? Just crazy.
