“But how are we supposed to get them open?” The King’s voice asked as if it was just a novel way of storing the amulets or something. He went quiet for a long while when Tor didn’t say anything, a deafening silence. Finally it broke, sounding… frustrated.
“Oh.” The single word sounded pissy really, like Tor was in the wrong again somehow.
It got a soft snort of derision from the short builder into the communications device.
“Don't worry, it's no worse than what they did to us, they can even sit or lay down if they want for comfort. I'm sure they'll be fine if we let them out in ten hours or so. A day or two tops… What is it with you people? What have you been doing while we've been kept prisoner and trust me if you say, “eating a multi-course meal and then chatting about patriotism” I'm coming over there and… Well, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll ask around for ideas and trust me these people are ticked enough to come up with some good ones!” There. That would show him.
Vague threats that would probably involve bending all the silver up or something if anything happened at all. Well, it was the best he could think up, as poor as it was. Maybe call the Council of Counts names?
“No… we did get side tracked, but not on anything that trivial. You were supposed to be given good accommodations and left in comfort to await debriefing. I…” The voice trailed as voices laughed in the background.
One of them said, quite clearly enough for everyone to hear, even on far side of the device, “Sounds like Tor was already de-briefed!” A few chuckles followed.
Ah. A short blast of irritation ran through him then. Then a stronger one. He really didn't feel like being mocked at the moment. He'd had enough of that. Hour’s worth. While being beaten.
It was enough.
“Seriously? After all this, you want to mock me and laugh at what I’ve had to put up with? What we all had to endure?” The voice that came out of his own mouth sounded different. Low. Dangerous. The tittering on the other end of the device stopped dead.
“Ah, I didn't know you could hear me this far from the device….” The voice said, an older male it sounded like. Old enough to know better then.
Tor let his voice go light and pleasant as Trice and Sara moved in on him. He shook with rage, but didn't let it be heard in his voice.
“That's alright… say, what's your name?”
“Um, Count Holstead.”
“Holstead, Holstead… someone help me out here, that's up in the cold section of Noram, on the west side? I'm so shaky about things like that geography….” Tor waited until Smythe helpfully said it was. Actually he gave very precise sounding direction, just in case Tor wanted to visit.
“Oh? Good. Well, fine then, I'll remember that. If someone could get the names of the others that were laughing too?” It wasn't a threat, not really, after all, as far as he knew Holstead had never even done business with him at all. What was he going to do anyway? Refuse to sell them anything? Over a bad joke? He felt like it, sure, but that would just be punishing a bunch of innocent people for the words of one. Hardly fair.
No one spoke for a long while after that. Finally the King said that he'd be there in ten minutes. It took more like a half hour, because royals were slow sometimes. They had to arrange guards and who sat where, that kind of thing. In the transport with the King was a slightly unusual group. Maria Ward, Rolph and Ursala. There were some other people too, probably Counts, including Holly Printer and somehow, wedged into the back, Count Ford.
If the others were big, Ford was ridiculous about it. To make matters worse he wasn't even thin like a lot of royals, but held vast muscle that rippled as he moved. He was serious faced and had probably come to call Tor on his insolence, which he deserved no doubt, but couldn't seem to care about at the moment. They had Royal Guards with them, which made everyone stiffen, but they didn't attack, not yet at any rate.
He spoke clearly, but in a low tone.
“Hold fast. The Royal Guard are a tough group, but they can't match our armor or weapons right now. If it comes to a fight right now, they lose.” It was just the truth. If this were a fist fight, any two of them could probably take out most of the people with them, sure.
But it wasn't and none of the Royal Guard had high quality shields or weapons at all. Sensible, since those would probably be ones he'd made himself. He did see a couple of the ones that had come down to Ward for the investigation though. They'd obviously got the others out during the attack, with Sorlee. Good idea. They probably couldn’t have taken the Larval anyway and running made sense if you couldn’t win any other way. So they let Tor fight and buy them time, and did the part they could that would make a difference.
Brilliant really.
Tor felt like he could barely stand, then it got worse, so he sat on the ground which was better, because when he fell over into the powdery dust it didn't hurt. Not that it would have with the shield on. After a while he noticed it, a buzzing kind of thing. Different pitches started to come through and finally with a lot of effort, he pried his eyes open to see what was going on.
People he didn't know were over him, speaking in some foreign tongue. He was so thirsty that he couldn't stand it, so he tried to get up and run away, in case they were bad people. The big people could be, his ma had told him that. If he saw any he was supposed to run home.
He stumbled as someone cheated and tilted the earth under him so he couldn't move right. That didn't make sense did it? No one tackled him, but they followed him as he ran. No matter how fast he went, they just walked along with him, saying something. They looked funny, too huge. Was he a child again? But these weren't his parents or friends from the village. He had a cutter, right, or no, it was a… pushing thing in his underpants. That made him laugh. He said underpants in his head. That was dirty.
So thirsty. Where was the water? He saw some and went to take a drink, but couldn't. Someone told him why, a giant girl, the shield had to go off? Right… He hit his chest and started drinking from the bucket, just sticking his head in. It made him sick, which hurt when he threw up, but he drank more water after that anyway. Some man came and told him something, and he said maybe, even though he didn't understand, not wanting to be rude, and drank more water, but then he fell asleep and couldn't get up.
A bit later Tor woke and felt groggy but not so much he couldn't stay awake. He needed more water. They'd nearly killed him with the lack, especially after the massive healing the day before taking up all that water to fix things. He looked around, but couldn't remember where the water was. Well, at home. But he didn't have a home now, did he? Several large men came over when he got up.
“Better Tor? People are wondering about the guards…” It was Rolph. His friend.
It was so hard to think though. Rolph was here in Two Bends and he was a little kid still? It was a dream wasn't it? He had a magic thing that let him fly in his dreams, so he hit the stone on the back of his left hand and went up, high in the air. Other people started flying after him. It was funny, because he was standing up and not even flapping his arms. He tried it and felt sick, because his stomach tossed and turned. There was a big river so he landed there, trying to get water. But a woman came, she had golden hair and looked pretty, but was mean and said he couldn't have any water, because it was too dirty to drink and that no one wanted him too. He didn't like her. Hitting his other hand he rose a tiny way into the air, which was easier to do and floated around. Other people did it too, some big men in purple and black clothes tried to hurt him again, grabbing at him, so he ran away.
“Run away!” He called out loudly, easily going faster than the slow big people. They didn't know it, but his magic was better than theirs. He'd made it that way before and didn't tell in case… In case this happened. In case big people tried to hurt him. Again.
He was smart. Except he fell down somehow, tripped by the ground on a low hill when he ran into a large rock, and hit hard. Things snapped and crackled again. It hurt. He slept in a darkness greater than he could remember then.
When he came to he felt better. Normal really, Ursala was kneeling beside him and giving him water, fresh water from somewhere, not a bucket. Tor was still on the ground, lying in the dirt kind of made that apparent, so no one had bothered to move him inside. He drank slowly and carefully, but he had to keep doing it, over and over again. Too much had been removed. When he couldn't take any more for the time being he sat up.
“Hey.” Tor said weakly, looking around from a lower place than normal. He wasn't a child, just lying down.
“I… think the healing takes a lot of water and other resources and I was hurt pretty badly before, and didn't have anything for over a day, then with the sun and heat, the beatings. Not a good thing, you know? I just ran out of everything all at once.” It seemed no one was listening, but Rolph nodded and walked over to him.
