time. Still, selfishly enough, he didn't want to die just to make the man feel better.
Was there some way he could fight without using a lot of energy or movement? Where speed and strength wouldn't matter? One that didn't require magic or a weapon? Well, if he could know what the man was going to do and he didn't change his plan when Tor slowly reacted to it, that would work. He'd even practiced that before. Unfortunately that just didn't seem likely at all. Anyone sane would try and adapt using best speed in a fight, wouldn't they?
But…
What if he used his mental abilities anyway? It would be risky as all hell, but he could make himself not feel pain, that was even easy. He did it all the time and it barely affected his field at all, it was just a trick, distracting himself from what was happening. He did it every time he meditated or worked deeply even.
Also, if he focused in the right way, he could view time as if everything moved slowly, like going through water or something. He hadn't done it on purpose before, but it had happened a few times in life, usually when he was about to get beaten anyway. So if he could learn to do it on purpose and trained for it, that could help. Maybe.
Then all he had to do was fight perfectly, without any errors at all.
Against a giant that he had to assume would already be willing to do anything to win, including possibly cheat himself. Tor decided to be careful of poisons and attacks coming in himself. It kind of made sense, what the King had said. Rochester, for some reason Tor didn't really get, feared him. Even now. He could use that.
If the man was afraid enough, he might just pull out. If he didn’t the fear would still help steal his fine motor coordination and cause him to burn up energy faster than he would otherwise. Worth fanning the flames on for certain.
It was a good plan. Not a great one sure, but doable with what he had. Maybe.
In a dream at least.
Tor shook his head, and started working, it was all he had for the moment.
The next day Tor tried to get in touch with Burks at Grenwyn, but no one there knew where he was. He talked to Barbara who was pleased enough to hear from him at least.
“So, what's this I hear about a dual? That sounds bone headed. Fail to bow at the right time or something? Maybe refused to marry the man's son or whatever nobles go on about these days?” She sounded slightly annoyed by the idea. Dour.
Disproving.
Tor snorted and tried to force a chuckle.
“Ah, well, I can't go into the reason why, but I beat him hard enough to leave him crippled for life, except, oops, someone used a healing amulet I made to fix him. So, feel free to laugh. It's all on me.” Tor held a sigh, but felt it keenly.
Not it was his older cousin’s turn to make a derisive noise, “did he at least deserve it?”
“Yeah. He really did. It wasn't personal and no one else could have done it without starting a war. So… In that way this is better. Anyway, are you and the people from Grenwyn all coming down for Postern?” They were relatives and all, some of them at least, so he had to ask them. Even if he hadn't met most of them.
“Certainly, just magic us down there in one of your carriages and there should be twenty of us descending on you.” Her voice held a laugh. “If not a few hundred.”
“Oh, good then, Um, we'll have people around to collect you then. It would be good if you could tell us how many will be coming though, if we need to send a bunch of transports, then that will have to be scheduled.”
“Wait… you're serious?”
Tor blinked for a second, eyes batting at the device in his hand with its multi-colored glowing sigils on stark white glass-like stone. Why wouldn't he be serious?
“Yes… that's why I said it. So, get back to us here? I'm leaving the communications device out so someone around here should be able to pick up, but don't be shocked if it's not me.”
They spoke about what the festivities would entail, which did sound fun. Plus, he assured her, there would be that spectacle involving him and the angry disgruntled Baron on Postern morning. Then he had a large luncheon planned for the afternoon.
“That confident then? Sure you'll have your teeth left and all that?”
Tor smiled, really feeling it. Not because it was sane, just at the stupidity of it all.
“Nope. Not at all. I could very possibly die as… infirm as I am right now. But in that case, people will still need to keep their strength up, so a big meal won't hurt anyway.”
“Oh. As long as you have it planned out then. Well I won't miss it. I could get Hobert to make a coffin for you? The work is always better when it's not a rush job…” Her voice was playful, but a little dark.
“Sure. Let me know the price when you call back, I'll make sure to send some gold along for it.”
That ended the call pretty quickly, since Barb would be needing to go tell her friend about the task and wrangle a good price for him. He called her back after just a few seconds though.
“Um, not be a pain here, but would it be possible for him to make it seven and a half foot long and really sturdy? Strong enough to hold hundreds of pounds at least? I have an idea.”
It may not help, but hey, what the hell? If Rochester feared him at all for real, pushing him there wouldn't hurt anything at this point. The man already planned to kill him after all. The man really couldn’t complain if Tor didn’t just oblige him.
Then Tor practiced again, focusing his mind as hard as he could on being whole and well, alternating with finding the most basic and simple to use unarmed fighting techniques that could possibly work on a large man and viewing things in a slowed down framework. That part was being a problem. He thought he had it, a bit, but it wasn't nearly enough. Not even a tiny bit. He needed to push to make it work.
It was a little dangerous, but in the end, the deadline looming, he forced himself into a deeper and deeper state, trying to get ready, knowing he just wasn't, and wouldn't be for months. Unless he gave himself over to the deepest part of himself. That part was far more powerful than his day to day conscious being. Everyone knew that. But… If Tor did that, he wouldn’t really be in control of himself. Would he?
The day before Postern, early in the morning, everyone started showing up, flowing in by the hundreds, large groups of people suddenly underfoot. It was magical.
Wonderful.
All his people were here. Everyone. His whole family, all his friends from Two Bends, Barbara and Uncle Dan from Grenwyn came in with nearly a hundred people he'd never seen before, some of whom were relatives in truth. Everyone from Lairdgren came too. Even the barber and his family.
“Oh! So good to see you all!” Tor called to them when they wondered into his personal residence, since that was where the Lairdgren school people were staying. He clasped the man’s hand, since he was a far more earthy guy than most and did the same with his missus, since her hand had come out too, if tentatively.
The school kids had already taken over, flowing in and out, going into the city to spend coins if they were wealthy or, for the scholarship kids, just walking around the house, playing with it. Making chairs appear and asking him if he had anything for them to do. They meant work, he knew, not anything fun. Tor smiled.
“Um, Henry?” He called out to the boy wearing a humble looking brown set of clothing. It was what a lot of the poorer kids still wore, even though they had clothing amulets on. It was a matter of pride, apparently. A uniform of sorts.
“Tor! Hey, I, um, heard some bully was going to beat you up. Do you want… I mean, me and some of the others, we could, you know, get him to change his mind.” He looked at his feet when he said it, which probably had to do with the fact that if he and a bunch of school kids, especially common ones, or even merchant kids, did that, they'd all be hung.
“I had something else in mind, could you get the scholarship kids around and, if it can be done without shaming them, the others having a shortage of coin? Just meet me in the dining room in half an hour?”
The boy didn't ask why, he just nodded, as if it were a military mission. Given the time frame and how hard it would be to find anyone it might just be. Then, he might have supposed that Tor was really planning something, a strike against a certain Baron perhaps? If so he'd be disappointed. One life wasn’t worth many.
That was just math so basic even Tor could do it.
But alive at the end of the next day, they all would be. Maybe not him, but the others. So why shouldn't they have some fun too?
