Knight Esquire ya-2 Read online

  “I’ll cede that one to you if it’s that important, but keep pushing me, and I will end you. If you think I can’t because I look too young or small to be a threat, then go ahead and try something, because it probably means you’re too stupid to live anyway.”

  The giant man stormed off, probably to go get some weapons. Tor shrugged. He really just couldn’t care right now at all. He’d explained himself, even if he had been a bit of a prick about it. But these people had to learn that he wasn’t a child and wasn’t going to put up with insults about it anymore.

  Kolb landed near him and walked over slowly.

  “Say, Tor… What exactly is that thing you used? It’s rather… effective.”

  Oh, right. Tor got it out and showed him. “I made it the other night. Just in case I have to fight, you know an army or two… It’s just an explosive. Like the one I gave you only larger in power and size of effected area. It has continuous activation too, but I didn’t think that would be needed right now, so I just tapped it once.”

  Huge shoulders slumping a little the bald man glanced at Tor with a slightly wry expression. Then, for the first time Tor could ever remember, the Knight sighed at him.

  “So, are you really sure that you want to start a fight with a Count’s heir? It’s clear you could take out his forces, but is that really a good idea? I know that things haven’t been going well for you lately, but I can’t see how that would really help anything. It’s a lot of people to kill just because you don’t feel happy in the moment.”

  “What?” Tor let his voice sound shocked. “He’s a Count’s heir? I thought he was the Count! Well, that changes everything. I was being nice because of that you know. After all, Gary said he’s a Countier sixth, so it’s not like they need this one for anything, right? Lots of spares.” Tor waved his hand in the air just a little, moving the tiny device around with it. Then he shook his head and sighed and put all his weapons away. No need for him to make things worse, not really.

  He felt like doing it though. Like killing the giant moron would make him feel better. Take some of the pain away. Pain didn’t work that way though. Even Tor could see that.

  “I’m just kidding. I’m sure that we can let this go now. It was just tempers flaring due to stress. Since we all know what the situation is, I don’t think we have to continue on with it.”

  The old man next to him winked and moved to pat him on the back.

  “That’s using your head now. Figured you for a smart one, thinking to bring in all that gear with you. We’d be trying to hold an evacuation route instead of people sleeping cozy in their own beds and complaining about the smoke and frightening noises right now without it. Still, we aren’t out of danger yet. This may be the largest city in County Ross, but we have a lot more to deal with if we’re not going to lose thousands of lives to this thing.”

  That, Tor knew, was true, he’d gone up and seen it in the air himself several times. It all looked smaller from up there, but the bright lines of the fire were clear, day or night. Worse, the farther they got from the city, the harder it would be to fight. The pumps wouldn’t reach that far, built short so that they could never get out of control or be able to cross back on themselves.

  He could lengthen that of course. Tor had run a river three hundred miles once through the air, he could build something smaller that would go out ten or so, if he could get the time to work, and a place to do it. He didn’t know if he could manage here. It was noisy and he really couldn’t relax, thinking that a giant and angry man might sneak up on him, and say, kick him in the head, as he worked? He couldn’t build the field while wearing a shield either. It was a quandary.

  Finally he decided to just do it. If Scotty the giant wanted to kill him, then it wouldn’t work, but otherwise it needed to be done. Tor wished he could sleep first, but that wasn’t happening, he knew. This was too important for him to nap. Without preamble or preparation, Tor plunked down on a bare patch of dirt, took two plates, and started building. No one bothered him that he could tell, even though it took at least a full day before the work was ready. Someone had given him sips of water while he worked, but other than that, nothing.

  He didn’t test first, the field needed to be copied too badly for that. It just had to be right, that was all. In two hours he called over Karen, who looked exhausted, and explained the new devices to her. Two hours later he had another ten ready to go.

  Then he kept building until everyone that could fly out had one. The number of flying people had grown somehow, but Tor didn’t ask about how. The devices were his job, deploying them he had to leave to someone else. He figured that someone had just grabbed the rigs from his gear and handed them out, probably along with lessons. If so… Then fine. Technically it was illegal for anyone not a member of royalty to have a shield and the flying gear was nearly as closely guarded, but he could give them away. Really to anyone he wanted. The idea was that if Tor felt strongly enough about it to not sell the things for thousands of golds, then it was probably important.

  These devices hadn’t been given out by his own hand maybe, but he’d back it, if anyone asked. It was, oddly enough, late in the day when he finally stopped working, his eyes wouldn’t focus right, but he’d encountered that before after long work sessions. He also had a bad headache that made him want to throw up. Not a big deal. Builders got those if they pushed too hard and having just come off of being poisoned, not even being recovered fully, not even by half, he should have expected it. It would go away in a day or two. Most likely. It could last longer. A week. Not more than that. Hopefully.

  A sleeping area had been set up near the wall, it was light out still, which always made it hard for him, but he decided to just rest his eyes for a while. He flipped his shield on just in case. Enough attempts on your life and you start learning to be cautious, that or you died.

  Tor felt his eyes shut as he settled on the bare ground, not having a blanket or anything like that with him. It didn’t matter. He slept anyway. Once he woke up with dirt in his mouth, which shouldn’t have been possible, not through a shield, but that didn’t bother him too much, he was just so tired that he spat a few times and laid his head on his arm and went back to sleep. He’d gone to bed while it was light out and didn’t wake up until the morning, as a light spray of water hit him. Opening his right eye he saw the sky above him, a dark and even gray color.

  That would be good, he thought. Rain would, as long as it wasn’t coming with lighting, help a lot. If it was hard enough it might even take care of the worst of the fire for them. The part that hadn’t already burned out. Luckily the harvest season had already passed, so that they didn’t have to contend with the loss of all their crops. Otherwise the grains they harvested for the kingdom would have gone up already. That would be bad. Even in Two Bends most of the flour was made of grains from Ross. All they really had to deal with now was the damage and the remaining fires. Rain away sky, Tor thought, hoping it would be enough to make a difference.

  He got up and rubbed at his face, the black of his beard stubble must have looked a sight. He could, at least theoretically, grow a beard. It might even make him look less like a little kid if he did that. He never had, but he did have to shave every day and had for years. It was an idea at least. Not shaving was easier even.

  After he got up and used the facilities someone had partitioned off about twenty yards from the wall, Tor got some water and drank until he didn’t want any more, then asked the first person he saw that kind of looked familiar, a big man who wore student browns that Tor was almost certain had clobbered him in practice at least a few times, a question.

  What day it was.

  It was hard to keep track of things while working sometimes. He thought it was Monday morning, but the guy was adamant that it was Tuesday already.

  Argh.

  Well, Tor had things to do, at least if nothing here needed him for the time being. The rain made that unlikely, nature easily trumping any work Tor could manage. So h
e should at least try to make his appointment with the King and Queen. Not that he really cared. Being sent away from the palace again didn’t really thrill him as an ideal plan for the day.

  Still he shaved and scrubbed up in a bucket of cold water. Halfway through he laughed and went to get one of the bathtub water heaters. Then the bucket steamed slightly as he washed up. Other people were looking at him enviously and muttered about special perks, so after he finished he broke out the other water heaters and set them out near the wash bucket line. Using some bits of rope he found, hard brown stuff that barely qualified as twine, he hooked up all the buckets so everyone could have warm, or even hot, water to wash with if they wanted.

  That done standing out in the rain shirtless and not getting any drier, but not cold either, thanks to the equalizing field he’d just put back on along with all the others, he dressed and went to find Kolb.

  “Right, so, off to the palace. If they let me in, I’m going to resign still, if they don’t, well, then I’ll resign with cause. Getting real tired of all this stuff, you know? Anyway… Um, which way is the Capital from here do you think?”

  It took a while for him to get all the equipment, now that the fire was largely handled. Tor noticed that not even half of what he’d lent out had come back yet. No big thing, it was almost dumped a few days before anyway, but he didn’t want people to think he was a pushover. Smiling a little, he told the old guy that any other gear that came in they could just toss in a box for him and for anything that was missing they could just toss fair market value in gold into the same box. Tor didn’t think that it would be a hardship for them overly. It was just incentive to not rip him off after all. If they returned the gear, they didn’t have to spend anything at all on it. Well, the cost of sending it to him, but that wasn’t a big deal, all things considered, they could send it slow post and it would only cost about four silvers.

  Some of it was, clearly, still out being used to fight the fire. The new pumps for instance were all mainly out still and should be. The flying gear and shields for the people doing that where there’s now. The rest that he didn’t have, well, if someone wanted anything of his that badly, they could get off their butts and come ask him for it themselves. He didn’t really need it all, but it was the principle of the thing.

  He shrugged, because this kind of led to another problem, didn’t it?

  “I don’t really have an address. I…” For a moment he came up blank. There was always his family though. That would have to do.

  “If you could send it to Two Bends, County Lairdgren, addressed to Tor? That should get it to the right place, eventually.”

  The gardener looking fellow said that he’d see what he could do. He didn’t seem displeased by what Tor had said, so maybe something would actually happen. Probably not, but hey, life was too short to waste worrying over things he could make more of in a few days worth of work.

  By eleven in the morning he was in the air and flying towards the Capital fast, but with a deep sense of dread. Now, if he could just “accidentally” take a wrong turn he wouldn’t have to deal with even more people that hated him and thought he wasn’t good enough. The very idea almost made him just turn around and fly back to the remaining bits of fire. It took all his will to keep flying straight on in the direction he was told to go.

  At least this time he had some funds with him if he needed it.

  Chapter eight

  The two hour long trip through the winding streets of the Capital reminded him yet again how much he disliked carriages. The road here was really pretty nice, smooth, with well fitted stones that should have been like riding on glass under the wheels, so it wasn’t the roughness of the ride. No it was the close space around him while the whole thing moved. The little jolts and divots in the road that would have gone unnoticed if he could see outside through more than a tiny window, left him feeling a bit sick and disoriented instead.

  It would have been so much better if he could have just flown.

  That got him thinking, which at least distracted him from the ride he was on if nothing else.

  What if he set the flying rig to go slower, no more than say, twice what a carriage could do, and fly only a few inches above the ground? Did it count as flight at all if you were still shorter than everyone else around you, and went no faster than a very quick person could run? It really only had use the Capital of course, unless other cities started to decide that flying inside their limits should be forbidden. Still, it would be easy enough to make happen, and might make a fun toy for kids. In a lot of ways easier than a real flying rig too. Not so easy that he could make one riding along in the back of this box on wheels, but he was able to do most of the planning for it.

  That had gotten a lot easier with practice. Planning out new builds. He used to have to take note and work things down over several times, but now it was just mainly going through the whole thing mentally first. Way easier.

  The carriage, unfortunately, got him to the gate about half an hour before seven. The driver helped him offload, and then left, having already been paid. Too bad, because Tor had been willing to pay the man for his time to wait and at least see if he had to leave or not. The gate guard wouldn’t let him stand out front of course, so Tor had to walk up and down the street while time passed, his luggage following him along so it wouldn’t get in anyone else’s way. What did they think he was going to do, camp out in front of the gate?

  The idea of a lean-to made of scraps from around the city tickled him. He could set it up right next to the little hut that the guards hung out in, using the wall around the palace for one of the walls and the corner made by the guard shack as the other. It was all pristine white already, so he wouldn’t even have to paint. Maybe he could pump water over the palace wall from the pond garden and set up a little pool that floated in the air for bathing? Of course he’d probably have to fight with the Royal Guard daily and there were no restroom facilities out here. Maybe he could build a separate lean-to for that? He didn’t really know how to dispose of waste, so it would just have to be a bucket or something like it for now, but he’d used worse.

  Seven came, at least by the bells he heard ringing somewhere off in the city. They were pretty, deep chimes that would have woken the dead had they dared trying to sleep at this time of day within the walls of the Capital and maybe a little ways past the tall outer wall. Tor walked up to the gate, little invitation in hand, waiting to be turned away again. He actually held his breath as the gate opened, but they let him walk through and no one even tried to kick him out yet.

  Or broke his legs. That was good, because walking was still hard enough as it was.

  Tor kind of remembered Varley or Karina mentioning that he was supposed to be met by the King and Queen, but no one else was outside. Not even a servant to tell him what to do. He’d come to the correct gate, hadn’t he? This was the main one… right? The courtyard was empty. Not even the guards were walking around in here. He’d have triggered his shield in case an attack was about to come… but didn’t have to. He’d never turned it off, not even for the ride over.

  Nothing happened. It was just like everyone had vanished, leaving the world silent and still.

  What was he supposed to do, he wondered, go and knock on the front door?

  Chuckling a little, he did just that. Still, no one came at all. Were they pretending to not be home? That… seemed beneath them. He used the big knocker in the center of the door, but still no one came to let him in, or even send him away.

  For a second he contemplated building a cutting field and slicing through the door, but that seemed far too rude and destructive. Even if he wasn’t welcome here anymore, it was someone else’s home, not something to be casually destroyed because of a whim. Or anger, no matter how deserved it might seem at the moment. Shrugging he decided to walk around to the back of the building and see if he’d just gotten the wrong place. Maybe he’d misunderstood the directions. He knew it was the right day, or the guards wouldn
’t have let him in.

  When he saw the small outbuilding used as the kitchen he got what must have happened to delay everyone. Then nearly panicked.

  Black and gray smoke was pouring out and flames had engulfed the side closest to the palace. It was far enough away that he could barely hear the shouting. Looking around he didn’t see anyone near him, so he activated the flying rig, hoping that this being an emergency and not technically “in the city” would get him out of too much trouble. He struggled to dig out an “air choke” from his waist pocket with his right hand; it was what the people fighting the fire up in Ross had started to call them.

  It worked; you just had to make sure no people were in the field when you turned it on. Of course, hands still clumsy, and far too shaky to not look palsied, he managed to drop it on the ground, and had to land to find it. He still had everything else at least. He checked, fire or not, because someone accidentally checking their food with his little “poison snoop” explosive would die. Anyone around them for a long distance would too. It kind of needed to stay with him.

  Clutching it tightly in his right hand he flopped up to the burning building, where some people screamed at others not to try and put out a grease fire with water. The water group didn’t listen, being made up mainly of guards. The Queen stood back, not trying to yell anything, just looking scared, Varley was next to her, both dressed up very prettily, but that was so normal for them Tor ignored it almost instantly. The King shouted orders, but he was supporting the water group.