P. S. Power
Ambassador
Chapter one
“Uh…”
OK, not the most brilliant statement of all time, but he was being detained? For what? Tor really wanted to know that before he just went peaceably. After all, it could be a trick. The King hadn't mentioned it to him after all. Worse, Captain Curtis, the city guardsmen in charge, wouldn't tell him. No, he just stood, backed by a hundred red and white uniformed men in funny round hats with a flat top and bill on the front to shade the eye.
A hundred armed men.
Well, it was Smythe who asked, so this probably wasn't aimed at him personally. It rankled, but what could they do? They all lined up and went along. Captain Curtis demanded everyone give up their weapons and shields as well as any other magical devices they were holding. That made Tor wary again.
Why would they want them unarmed? They were just witnesses to an attack, not the assassins. They’d caught those and delivered them already. It didn’t make sense.
Tor tried to treat it as a joke, but he felt really worried, like the whole thing was horribly wrong. Then, he’d always been nervous around guards. They didn’t have those in his home village at all.
“Are you going to steal them? If you do I'll be upset, and possibly badmouth you by name in the streets, Captain Curtis.” Tor was joking, mainly, but he didn't want to be robbed like he had been before, and have to start all over yet again. It had only been a month since the last time. It was really about too much. The man didn't say anything to him, just fingered his weapon and glared, menacingly. He was good at it, like it was part of his job or something. The man looked about thirty and over six-four, now that Tor saw him on the ground. His moustache was brown, and kind of thin, trimmed that way.
Seriously though? They were being taken prisoner? After everything this was how they were treated? Like criminals? In public too, just to humiliate them? Tor couldn't grasp it at all. Was it possibly…
Nope, nothing came. It just didn't make sense. Even if the world had gone insane it didn’t.
Smythe wondered out loud if it was to check for spies in their midst’s. Austran ones, Tor guessed. Well, they did have several assassins with them, but they weren't a real threat now, were they? The red and white clad men started to get more and more uneasy while he stood thinking. No one else had moved either. Finally he started taking his amulets off, but readied a new shield just in case. It wouldn't help the others, but if this was really bad, an attack or something, he could do more prepared than not. A man with a box came around to collect things, poking and patting at clothing, to make sure nothing was being hidden. They took all of his things too, his trunks of amulets and gold. It felt sad to watch them leave like that, trailing behind a guard private, little puffs of dust behind his black booted feet.
They didn't go anywhere; they just had to stand under the hot sun. Tor wore only a pair of shorts, since they'd taken his magical clothing. It was humiliating, but he didn't let it gnaw at him, at least he'd had this clothing left in his trunk and grabbed it before they took everything away. They weren't to talk, or sit. Just stand, sweating and baking under an unforgiving orb in the sky. Tor used the time to build field after field into the loose undergarments. They wouldn't last long, he felt, more than knew. The material was too soft to hold a field more than six months or so, at a guess, especially making them while standing and trying to keep his eyes open. Finally he let them close. No one noticed for a long time. That lasted for a while, which he used to build a nice solid new weapon, until one of the guards came and pushed him, knocking him forward.
The others laughed, because he didn't catch himself properly, being too deep. He just didn't have a reaction time at all in states like that. Not at all really. On the good side Tor didn't really feel the impact, about the only saving grace in the situation at all. He heard the pop though. His nose bleeding freely for a while after that, clearly broken, as he tried to keep his eyes open. The guards all pointed and laughed at him openly, as if watching Torrance Baker bleed was a great game.
Then the men made a point of mocking him every few minutes for a while, calling him names. Mainly focusing on the fact that he was short, common looking, and probably had a small manhood based on his physical size. Though they used more colorful language for that part of him. It got bad enough after a while that even Smythe was starting to look a little angry about it. Given their history together, Tor decided to take that as a sign that what was happening might just be out of line.
A little bit at least.
They stood till near dark. The Larval were put under a tent, but the rest of them weren't allowed even water. As night fell they were finally escorted around the city by a full company of one hundred guards in their silly uniforms.
They all had shields. All ones he'd made. Old ones from over a year before he noted, checking them all closely, feeling the fields call to him. Everything they had of a magical nature was at least based on designs he'd created. Even the weapons.
Gods and puppies, had his work really sucked that much back then? That made him wince, if it was that bad then, how bad was it still? Gah, so much to learn. The fields weren't fading at all, but they had… holes, weaknesses, and things that he'd fixed over time, in later versions. For instance, if a person were focused enough, practiced enough, they could turn them all off at a distance. Say, a hundred feet? It wasn't a sure thing, but he thought that might be the case.
Especially true if the person doing it had designed them in the first place.
The twin streams of dried blood had flowed down his sparely haired chest, pooling at the top of the cotton shorts, matting the hair to him so that when he shifted, even a little, it ripped up from the roots. Sure, it wasn't the worst pain he'd felt in the last day, not even close, but it was a further indignity. Not exactly a hero’s welcome, was it?
If he didn't have a good explanation soon, he was going to have to do something. Lack of water was taking its toll, as the men and women with him hadn't had any for a day already by then and the sun had baked the rest away. His mouth was parched and bitter, so much that it tasted like sand inside his mouth. Everyone else had shoes at least, his feet were sore, tender, but not bleeding when they got around the outer wall, the far side, away from the river. He couldn't even smell water in the air. His shoulders were burned red as well as his back, causing a less than friendly guard he'd never met to slap him there several times. Hard.
“Stupid little peasant should have worn a shirt!” The man quipped as he struck again several times. He didn't react to the pain, so it became a game to the bored men, coming up behind him and slapping while they walked past. Each coming in with an insult, as if the guards were trying to outdo each other in creativity with each curse. The blows got harder and harder too, each one finally rocking him forward as he walked, the blows making enough sound that the people around him jumped from it. Tor didn't let himself do that, sinking deeper within between each.
No one else got such treatment. The girls had even been given water. Smythe too, but not Count Ward. He looked about ready to kill someone, even though no one had even spoken harshly to him. Too big, and a sitting Count, if one out of favor. No, most of the abuse got heaped on Tor, being the smallest and youngest looking one there.
Low level maybe, compared to true torture, but enough to tick him off. The slaps had turned into closed fist blows before they got all the way around the wall. All to his upper back at first, but a few aimed at the back of his head, the game being who could knock him down apparently. It seemed, from what the guards called out there was a wager on.
Houses were set up for them, or perhaps just to tease them. All magical “Tor-houses”. The older kind. Well, they were sturdy enough and if you barricaded the doors well, they'd be hard to get out of. If, you know, you hadn't built them yourself. Or if you didn't know how a basic sigil worked. So in other words, if you were a moron.
Really, you’d think that they would have caught on that trying to keep Tor a prisoner in a “Tor-house” might be a poor idea, but no one seemed to notice that. The guardsmen didn’t seem to be noticing much of anything
