no.
Right now he couldn't do that. He had to keep his mind sharp and focus tight or else the copies wouldn't take, then all this work would be wasted, which would suck. The last batch ate at his mind, almost making him ache with boredom, but he kept at it until finished.
Finally. It was good practice at least.
Every muscle in his body screamed at him to stretch and move. Tor hadn't gone stiff yet, but everything inside told him that he should run away from this evil place before some meany came and made him do more of that boring work. He laughed a little as he walked out, his legs protesting just a tiny bit. His left ankle must have had some of the blood cut off to it, because his left foot was getting a pins and needles feeling. No numbness. It was interesting… Maybe just didn't notice that he'd gone numb because of the pain difference that came in trance? He knew that he didn't feel pain as much in a deep working state and some people could block out even severe pain that way if they started to meditate before the injury happened. It could be useful if he was ever being tortured. Hopefully he'd never have to find out if it really worked or not.
As he walked back towards his room, the feeling got a little stronger. Then as he moved between the advisors' offices and the main class build, a wave of tingling hit him so hard it nearly took him off his feet. It didn't hurt so much as feel like he'd hit the back of his elbow too hard, his funny bone, only all over his body. His hands and feet went limp, weak. He could move them, but they suddenly felt like they lacked any kind of power at all.
He stopped walking, wondering what heck this was. Had he made himself sick? Or… he couldn't think of anything that fit. Could he have transferred the field incorrectly or had one of the fields attached itself to him directly? That would be, well, not impossible, but highly unlikely. He'd been careful, even when he got bored. Besides this kind of field shouldn't make him feel like this. Maybe a medical device of some kind could, but his clothes dryer? Not likely.
Torrence started walking again, as hard as it was, and noticed the two figures fighting as he got a little farther into the central commons area. He froze, not really understanding what they did at first.
Feet moved on the black and gray paving stones, a soft shuffle that spoke of people that knew how to fight and came prepared in shoes designed for the purpose. One of the figures was huge, the night was too dark to make out who it was really, only a black silhouette of the man, clearly a male, could be seen, back lit by the much lighter sky above. The person fighting with him was smaller. Faster. Still a lot bigger than Tor.
No one yelled or screamed, but the smaller figure held something that glinted in the early morning light. Not a knife, Tor didn't think so at least. It was too matte colored and kept being held wrong, pointed at the large figure, sending him staggering back just a tiny bit. The closer Tor moved towards them, the more desperate the movements of the smaller person seemed. They staggered back and forth, barely able to keep to their feet, even though they didn't let the big one close enough to hit them yet.
Unless they'd taken a few blows already. It didn't take a lot to leave you feeling loopy and seeing stars. He felt that way himself in fact, and he wasn't even within thirty feet of them yet. Tor felt tempted to run the other way. After all, that big guy was… huge. Bigger than Rolph, which was saying something. The smaller one cried out just as he started to turn away. It was a high pitched voice. A woman's voice.
Worse, it was a woman's voice he'd heard recently.
Trice.
Damn.
That meant that he had to go and probably get killed trying to help her, didn't it? Something like that at least. If nothing else she was Rolph's friend and the buddy of his new business partner, which in a sideways fashion meant he was her friend too, and responsible for her. All he could think as he staggered towards them was that she better have a good reason for being out fighting this late. Especially if she wanted to pick fights with giants.
Who did that anyway? If you were going to pick a fight it only made sense to go after someone smaller than you were, right? That's why Tor held to a fast policy of only getting in fights with people under ten years old himself, if he could help it. If she was just out having too much to drink and getting in trouble he'd…
Exactly what he'd do didn't come to him as the large figure threw a single punch that took the girl to the ground, her weapon not being effective anymore for some reason. Sparks jumped in front of Tor's eyes, seeming to fly all around the man in front of him as he closed on the downed woman.
Taking a deep breath Tor ran towards the giant in front of him and swung the cloth sack he had in his hand. The copper inside gave it enough weight to make a decent weapon, at least until the cloth gave way, Tor figured. The edges of the metal were a little bit sharp and might cut through with repeated use. The first hit landed on the big man's shoulder. He kept moving towards the still form on the ground, so Tor hit him again. And then again.
After five or six hits, all solid blows, the huge form slowly turned towards him. The first thing Tor noticed was that the feeling of not being in control of his body got a lot stronger when the man focused on him directly.
The second thing was that it was Count Thomson that stood before him.
A half second later the Count stopped just standing and looking at him, and attacked.
Chapter three
“Run away!” Tor chanted to himself, his feet sluggish, almost as if stuck to the ground beneath him for some reason. “Run away!”
Not bothering to turn all the way, he just started stumbling off at about a sixty-degree angle like he'd been taught to do if someone much bigger and faster decided to attack. Or smaller and faster. Or if they were something that could easily take him in a fight, like a small dog or a kitten.
Run away.
He could hear Kolb the weapons instructor chanting with him in his head. Of course Tor wasn't even halfway fast enough. The Count swiped a single long arm at him, connecting with his left shoulder, taking him all the way off his feet so easily that for a second Tor thought he'd fainted. It was the stupid glowing dots in the air that did it. He thought they were in the air at first, but… they were probably in his head weren't they? One of the strange powers that royals had then? It made sense, almost all of them had combat related abilities of some kind. Why was the Count attacking Trice though? Had she insulted him, or turned him down for sex or something?
That was probably it.
If the woman had publicly humiliated him or mocked him, that might send a guy over the edge like that. Then again, why would she? The guy was good looking, strong, rich and at what — twenty odd years old — had already assumed the head of one of the largest districts in the Noram kingdom. Maybe the girl had just bumped into him or something. Spilled his drink?
That didn't really matter right at the moment. No, what mattered, Tor decided, was rolling. A foot came towards his head as he tried to make himself move. Most of the time he was more than a little clumsy in a fight, but at this moment, struggling to stay alive, he felt like a fish that someone had pulled from the water, flopping and spastic, muscles not really acting like they should at all.
Making it to his feet, he ran as fast as he could, so not very, the bag still clutched in his right hand for some reason. Torrence didn't want to drop it, but ten hours of work wasn't worth his life. A thousand hours of work wasn't. It would take at least a thousand and seven, he decided as he flopped away. His fingers wouldn't release however, so it was a moot point.
He ran, feeling drunk and wobbly. Tor heard a solid pounding coming at him from behind as he struggled to get away, not bothering to look over his shoulder. The massive man would either catch him or not. Looking back would just invite falls or running into walls. No, if he was going to do that, run into a wall, he'd do it with his eyes open, thank you very kindly.
The foot falls close with him as he sprinted. At first. After a minute it sounded like they were farther away. Then they stopped altogether. Good. He stopped, only to feel the sparks start up again a few moments later. He couldn't hear anything, but the Count had to be getting closer, right? Looking back he finally got it. The man wasn't running anymore. That was all.
He'd risen about five feet in the air and flew after Tor, arms at his sides loosely, a halo of sparks around him.
Running again he didn't look back and didn't stop. It was just time to run. A half hour later, after running
