troops, in case night attacks came from the Austrans. The man wasn’t fat, but had that obnoxious kind of beefiness that some men got from a sense of entitlement, taking just a bit more than their actual share at the table each time. His blue uniform had bright red trim and shiny buttons of silver that were probably supposed to look impressive, but made him look like a children’s entertainer instead. Tor decided not to like him. They wanted a half million lights or more? From him, personally? That was… insane.
The final man was short. Only an inch or two taller than he was and maybe in his mid-twenties by look. Instead of asking for something first, he stuck out his right hand and shook country fashion, leaning in from a good ways away, nearly six foot, as was proper when you didn’t already know someone. He wore a nice outfit of heavy canvas that reminded Tor a bit of student browns, except that it was a deep green that pushed into the territory normally held by black. If the others in the group looked a little scary or obnoxious, this man looked efficient, and like he was supposed to be out in the middle of nowhere like this, not getting ready to walk into an audience with the King himself. The properly sized man grinned.
“I’m not here to ask for anything, just thought I’d stop by and say hi. I’m, well it gets complicated, but basically, for all intents and purposes, I’m your uncle. Dan Green. Laurie is my vastly younger sister by the way. By about three hundred years. Dad asked me to handle this little war thing for him and represent County Lairdgren in the council and all that. Finds all this war talk tedious. I can see you’re busy, but remember not to work yourself to death. Trust me; you have time to do things later. If you get a chance, in a few months or so, come by the Capital at Grenwyn and visit your family. Everyone’s curious about the fabled Tor already. Of course I can see why. I was warned, but… Yes, you really do look exactly like him, don’t you?”
“Um, not to sound brilliant, but whom am I supposed to look like?”
Uncle Dan grinned.
“Your grandfather. My dad? Your both… well, I’ll let him explain it, but let’s just say that you have his looks. More closely than anyone could really describe fairly. Don’t let it worry you. I’m sure you’ll both get along famously.”
His smile widened and his eye twinkled as he said all this. Tor just had to thank him, very humbly, and with real feeling, for not asking for anything. It was probably just from being tired, but for a brief moment he really felt like running away and hiding somewhere that no one would be able to find him. The men went away then, laughing, after Rolph told them that he’d been awake and working for nearly four days and so had Tor, and that work had been harder than the Prince getting water and food by far.
“So, not to be rude, but go away. Shew. Shew. Don’t make me… Well, I’m too tired right now to think of something not to make me do, but I’m sure you can all come up with something appropriately menacing.” He pointed a finger towards the little group and gave them a playful look that said he wasn’t really kidding, even though he was.
Dan Green chuckled and started to walk away, calling out for them to not be strangers. The man seemed nice enough at least. Tor hadn’t even known he had an uncle on that side of the family. Then again, what he knew about that side of the family ended at them all mainly having two arms, two legs and a head. That and they weren’t all overly huge.
The pillow nest in the back left hand corner invited him and he couldn’t resist it, falling asleep so fast that he kind of surprised himself. It was light when he woke up, but when he stumbled outside he saw that it was morning and not sundown at all as he’d half wondered when he first saw it. The little hut he’d built, the size of a decent house really, kept out all the light from outside, cave dark he liked to call it when they turned the lights off. It still didn’t have a front door, just his windy privacy entrance, so he nearly walked into Sara as he came out.
She stood there looking anxious, her hair had been cut a lot shorter than he’d seen it before and looked lighter in color. It was cute on her, but he didn’t comment on it, not sure if he was still mad at the girl or not. Tor looked around, first for Trice and then for the trap. He didn’t actually see either one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. No matter what else, Trice was crafty and could probably think four steps ahead of him in intrigue. He was still sleepy after all, so maybe more than that. On the good side women were so rare here that you could spot them in the distance just by how they walked. She stared at him shocked. He couldn’t imagine why though. It was, for lack of a better term, his house. Why shouldn’t he be there?
“Tor! My god, what have they been doing to you? You look… Half dead to tell the truth. Have they been starving you or something?” She blurted all this, her voice sounding concerned as if it were a real emotion for her and not an act.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Watching carefully he kind of wondered how the men had let her get past the fence line, or more likely, since she wore a flying rig, over it. They…
What were they supposed to do? Jeer at her menacingly? They had a few weapons, but nothing that would touch her if she wore the shield he’d last given her and she was a moron if she wasn’t, with a war on and all.
Tilting his head he regarded her carefully.
“Someone had to take up the slack that Debri house left in the orders. What the hell is with that? The whole retooling barely coming up with two hundred fifty units per month on the flyers? About four hundred shields? You should be doing that per day. Or… I don’t know, are you guys hiding them or selling them at inflated prices to the black market or something? The military said they’re still willing to pay the same for them, no matter how many are produced, so I don’t think it’s a great strategy if you’re sitting on them. Plus, with the war, we all need to be doing whatever we can, not worrying about making gold, yeah?” He didn’t really expect her to answer him. On the good side, unlike that last time they met, he didn’t sound angry, just exhausted. At least part of that was because he hadn’t really woken up yet for the day. If she had a problem with that, she could try showing up at a more appropriate time. Not that he really could call this early, since it was light out.
She blinked rapidly, changing thoughts in mid stream if he still recognized the look. If he’d ever really known what it meant to begin with. His eyes finally focusing he noticed that the hair cut wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Instead of student brown, or in her case black, she wore a dark leather outfit, a brown that should have been so dark as to look black, but was scuffed and covered with dust so as to look a much lighter. She had soft looking boots that hit past her ankles, also dyed to match the outfit she wore, but made, he saw, of heavy material, only the soles were leather, or at least something like it.
“Tor… only you would look at the largest device manufacturing effort in history and put it down as not good enough. Just because you can work yourself to death and past it like this over and over again doesn’t mean regular people can. Anyway, I didn’t come to talk business… I came to see my friend…”
That got his attention.
Of course, he hadn’t been thinking about anyone else in all this, just himself and Trice. Rolph and Sara hadn’t been able to hang out for months because of him making her go away. It had been a little thoughtless and cruel of him. Well, a lot more than just a bit. Duh. Well, he could fix that.
“Right. One moment. I’ll get him.”
Rolph woke up grumpily, throwing a pillow at Tor that hit him in the head, uncannily accurate considering the plates had only been turned on enough to dimly light the cavernous space within the hut. Laughing Tor jumped in and grabbed an over-sized arm, pulling on his friend to very little effect.
“Hey, you have a visitor! Get up before she goes away and you’re stuck with only me for company again today.” He added in a few playful pokes to the ribs just for good measure. Rolph didn’t like to get up sometimes and had to be prodded into it.
It was enough to get his attention and only three minutes later he stumbled out into the bright light. He straightened up and smiled when he saw who stood waiting for him. The wall of red hair and lanky muscle slid towards the girl smoothly, taking her up in a hug that was returned joyfully enough. As they made happy sounds at each other Tor made his way off to the restroom that everyone staying at the little compound shared. It was big enough for about twenty people, but they never had more than a half dozen around at any one time now. Most of those were just people coming in for a single night to pick up devices or make materials deliveries.
They had a cook too, or at least he thought they did. He’d never seen the man, or woman, but the food had suddenly gotten a lot better a few weeks back and stayed that way. Not palace level maybe, but not hunks of day old bread and hard cheese either. It was also just possible that someone flew food in from the Capital instead of wasting a whole cook just on them. He hadn’t asked, because there really didn’t seem to be any reason too. They had food, it was good enough.
He went to his little cabinet in the bathing area, a separate facility from the restrooms and took out some clothes and his cleaning gear. The other men had to keep their clothes locked up, so that people wouldn’t “borrow”
