made by him. Good. It made the next bit easier.
When he had as many of them as possible taken down, four of the nine seemed about what he could manage at once spread out as they were, because they stood up too fast for more, he rushed them full speed, using the new field to hover just over the floor. Way faster than he could run. Bodies flew again as he hit. At the door he found Counselor Smythe standing in the way, hands raised, burning pain coming off of them, so he hit the man with the direct beam of the lance, knocking him out the door.
The stumbling and flailing of the large older man would have been either sad or funny, depending on the situation, if it wasn’t so dire in the moment. The man had set the military on him. Commando’s it seemed. Who the hell did that? He was a seventeen year old kid for god’s sake. Tor wasn’t even particularly dangerous. What was he going to do, run away at them?
The thought made him laugh out loud, since that was pretty much what he’d actually done.
“Run away!” He called out, as if it were his battle cry.
Even after knocking them down he heard their foot falls behind him, closing fast. Tor pinned the man’s head to the ground with the force lance as he closed with him. It couldn’t have been comfortable at all. Smythe had tucked the explosive device into his left front pocket, which would probably be impossible to get to, depending on the type of shield he had on, he knew. When Tor moved slowly though, his right hand passed. It felt like reaching through thickened mud.
Finally, just as the first of the military men got to him with their pain devices and air chokes, he got it and pulled it slowly from the field. Yes, he couldn’t breathe and was in pain the whole time, the air thick and hard to move through… that didn’t matter though. All that did was making sure a madman didn’t have his super- weapon.
The big difference now, other than that he was armed with a weapon they couldn’t match again, was that he was outside. Rules against it or not, if you tried to kill him, he was going to try and run away, even if that meant flying.
Run away!
The motto came back again clearly. Kolb really knew his business Tor decided, having drilled that into him so forcefully for years. Trying to fight the army meant eventual death, but this… He started to fly straight up when he heard the yelling. The relief from pain was almost instant as he rose, like cool water caressing his tender flesh. Air sucked into his lungs hard, making him cough due to the force of it. That hurt too, but it felt better having the air than not.
“Stand down!”
He couldn’t see who was yelling it at first, but after a few seconds twenty black and purple clad Royal Guards rushed the courtyard pointing weapons. At first he thought they were trying for him, so he rose to a few hundred feet, ready to bolt. Instead they pointed them at Smythe and his men, who dropped their own weapons in an orderly fashion. Tor didn’t go anywhere, but also didn’t let himself be lulled into a sense of security.
It would have been a very convoluted trick to try and pull, using the Royal Guard to make him feel safe from the military, then everyone attacking him, but the royals did things like that. It was like they couldn’t enjoy a victory if it didn’t have six layers of intrigue or difficulty built in.
Finally Richard and Connie came back out, and so did Rolph. They didn’t yell up at him or anything, but they all looked, and finally Rolph waved to him. Tor lowered to about twenty feet so they could all talk, hoping it really wasn’t just another trick.
“Hey, so, guys… What the hell? One minute were having a nice, if slightly heated conversation about how to handle some shady merchants, the next, military guys come out of the walls? What kind of a set up is that? Or do you want me to believe they just live in the walls and pop out on command? If they were Royal Guards I might have bought that excuse, but military commandos living at the palace full time? I think not.” Tor shook his head broadly so everyone could see it.
Smythe stood on the ground, unarmed, or at least without his interesting gloves, looking angry. Well, he wasn’t alone in that, was he? Tor landed, holding the explosive device in his right hand. The man didn’t cringe away, but did speak as if he wasn’t right there again.
“I told you that he was unstable sire! Look at him, holding us all hostage. Ready to kill us if we don’t accede to his demands! We should have killed him when we had a chance. Now who knows what he’ll do?” The man looked smug instead of scared, which frightened the hell out of Tor. He shook after all that and felt a pressing need to use a restroom, but this man looked angry, and then smug, about something? When technically Tor had just won the little skirmish, at least if it was judged by the criterion of his not dying.
“In general people that try to assassinate other people without good cause, and fail, don’t act like the cat that had all the cream Smythe. Do you think that you’re winning anyone over by claiming that the guy that handed you a weapon as a good will gesture not three minutes before you launched an attack is the unstable one?”
He obviously did because he smiled then.
“Oh, I think I’ve proven my point well enough.”
Tor shrugged. Maybe he had at that.
“Well, if your point is that you’re off your rocker and a dick-head, I think you’re doing just fine. Did you have some other point? Because notice, I didn’t set you up with an appointment with a death squad when everyone else was having a conversation about what to do. God, haven’t you ever heard of venting? Didn’t you think that Rich was going to come pat me on the back and tell me to stop being an a-hole and that Connie was going to give me a hug and I’d back down with some minor face saving gesture from Debri house? Haven’t you noticed, in all of this, that, no matter how hurt I’ve felt, how injured I’ve been, I’ve never, ever, seriously injured, much less killed anyone? What — the fuck — is wrong with you?”
Tor put the dangerous device back around his neck for safe keeping, then crossed his arms and glared at the military counselor. He wanted to tap his foot at the guy, but figured that would be a little too farm wife to be taken seriously just now. After a minute of silence Tor looked at the King.
Hands going out, palms to the sky Tor gave the man a puzzled look. “Did he at least ask your advice before doing this? Cause if you told him to kill me, that kind of puts an end to our friendship. It’s a hard and fast rule of mine. I just made it up right this moment, but you know, it really makes sense don’t you think?”
“He didn’t let me in on it at all. I wouldn’t have authorized it if he had let me in on it either. I’m not very pleased right now Smythe. Consider yourself under arrest and confined to your rooms until the council hears this. What happens then will depend a lot on what your exact orders were to these men.”
So, Tor wondered out loud, had Smythe been the one really behind trying to have him killed then? Or maybe this council if they were responsible for the man? No one seemed to know. It was really a grand situation. Tor shrugged.
“So, I kind of need to get out of town now I guess, and not tell anyone where I’m going either. I can’t keep fighting the whole military by myself, not forever. You saw how well these guys did and there were only eight of them. They even used my own weapons against me! The ones I gave you for safe keeping Rich. Not to attack me with. That’s not a small point either. Kind of ticks me off to be honest. I can’t be safe anywhere can I?” He tried not to pout about it, but the idea hit him hard. What little sense of security he’d had was gone now. Tor couldn’t even go home, because Two Bends was even less ready to fight off an attack than this place was. At least here the army, presumably at least, wouldn’t attack innocent people to try and get to him.
That… would have worked.
If they’d grabbed the King and Queen or… Or even some serving girl or man that he didn’t know, maybe Burks or Laura the cook… He would have had to give up to protect them, even if he knew the bad guys were going to kill him. Thank god they hadn’t thought of that yet. He needed to get clear, fast.
Richard walked over and patted the shield behind his shoulders, nothing connected of course, but the gesture was right. “Don’t be silly Tor. I can assure you that this won’t happen again, and at the very least any new threat will be novel.” He smiled and nodded to his wife. “Connie will see to your safety from now on, at least while you’re here. That way if anyone dares try to attack you, we can simply execute them out of hand. It’s one of the Queen’s rights you know, the writ of full protection. Even I can’t breach it. It’s actually the only law that I can legally be put to death for breaking. I’ll have it announced now, if you wish dear?”
“Do it.” The Queen’s voice was steely and hard. She glared at Smythe as she said it and the man actually winced. It sounded like a bigger deal than Tor would have thought.
A vision filled his mind for a moment, of him being ambushed by more black garbed military men and the
