Kindred (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 3) Read online

  The easy to get to wood was all gone however. Seeing that, Petra grinned.

  “Right. From now on, we’re practicing with these at the beach. No one else activate yours here right now. I don’t want to ruin our practice space if we can help it. Kolt, that means you’re up. Work with Havar. I want full power blows, to the arms, legs and bodies. Go until one of you can’t stand.” She grinned, wickedly, but it was a test, and Kolt, while young, wasn’t exactly a coward.

  Possibly not sane, but definitely not the type to shy away from dangerous things out of fear.

  The fight looked and sounded brutal, and they did go until they couldn’t stand, but the fight, using real swords, didn’t actually harm either of them. They just eventually couldn’t manage to swing the things any longer. It was Kolt that went down first, but Baron Havar was struggling and gasping by the time that happened as well. Laughing, too.

  “This is good quality stuff. Lighter than most, and it doesn’t dent! It should help, from what I’ve heard. We need to test the new weapons. Derring can handle that, I think. Later?” The man glanced at Petra, since she was the one in charge, but she actually looked over at Dareg, as if wanting to know what he had to think about the issue. She didn’t speak for a long time, or it seemed like it to him, but finally she waved to David, who smiled and jogged over.

  “I agree, let’s do it sooner though. The armor seems to work, but I don’t want to risk a bunch of kids to Dare’s wacky building experiments too often.” There was a teasing grin to go along with that, and a brushing at her short black hair.

  He nodded at her, smiling back and holding it, so that it wouldn’t just flicker across his face.

  “That’s probably closer to reality than you might think. These things are dangerous. We can do that now? You have a shield on, Derring?” It was a bit risky calling him that, or could be. The man was a Countier Second, after all. If he wanted to make a big deal about it, the man could have gone as far as challenging him to a duel over the lack of using his full title. They didn’t really do that in the weapons area however. Half the time they even just used first names. Going by the last was the military standard, or so he’d heard.

  “I do. Right, Canton and I have this part. If we live, I’ll report back in an hour or two. Are we flying in?”

  That was spoken to Dare, who cycled his bloody clothing as he walked toward the opening in the low protective wall, the other man matching him. On the way there he picked up two of the new weapons, and stopped to quickly drink a can of the beverage that he’d been given for the day. It was keeping the worst of the hunger away so far, which was nice.

  “Let’s? It will be faster.” Almost not worth it as well, since they were there about thirty seconds later, lifting straight up, flying over a tiny bit and landing fast enough that it probably felt like stunt flying to the other man. Diving at the ground as fast as the fields would allow them to. David matched him however, or nearly so, which was impressive, most likely.

  When they got there, the other man pointed down the range, which was just an empty dirt area about three hundred feet long, which had some scrubby grass on it. That was all dead, given that it was the fall already.

  “Pick a stone. Any stone. How about the one with the yellow triangle on it?”

  Dare saw it and withdrew the focus stone tile that he had. It wasn’t that big, since being able to hide the things might come up as important. He held it between two fingers, and nodded. It was about the size of his own pinky, and would be even smaller than that for the other man, who was at least seven and a half feet tall, if slender.

  “There’s only one sigil on it. If you tap it, the mentally selected target will be hit with small moving projectiles. They’ll collect out of the environment, using air to make them. It’s kind of like the food magics? Only it takes air, and makes it into hard bits of stone that will hit the target at about a thousand miles per hour. New ones will form and keep going for the same target, as long as the sigil is hit. It can’t go through a regular shield. I can make them that. I know how, I mean. But I didn’t want to on the test versions of the thing. The Adversaries haven’t used any shields so far in a fight, even if they had them. So, like this?”

  David nodded as Dare pointed at the large, man sized, rock down the way. The world started to roar for that part of things, and the stone sparked a bit as a cloud of dust grew around it. Dare tested it carefully, meaning to hit the exact center of the stone, at first, and then turning his thoughts around him, to make certain that the device wouldn’t change from what was selected. Then he pointed the thing at the ground and turned his back, as the gray thing behind him was worn away.

  Finally, Derring clapped, twice.

  “Try turning it off now?”

  That just meant lifting his thumb, which worked instantly.

  The other man whistled, and pointed at the stone.

  “That would kill a man. Should I try now? How do I select the target?”

  “Just mean to hit it. There’s no visualization needed or anything like that. Pick the blue circle?”

  The man did it instantly, but stopped a few seconds later. The right thing was targeted, perfectly though. Then he turned his back, and playfully held the tan stone-like sliver up and did it again. Then, as Dareg watched, Derring changed, one by one, hitting different targets, without even looking at them.

  “Nice. What happens if they try to run away?”

  “It should try to keep hitting them. Eventually they’d be out of range. That’s about two miles or so? It gets harder to make a strong field the further it gets away from the generating device. For me anyway. There might be a way around it, but…” The fact was, he was too new to building to have really figured out all the tricks yet.

  David looked away and smiled a bit.

  “How certain are you that a regular shield will protect you?” He was being sly, and was clearly going to try to hit him with the thing, if he claimed to be absolutely assured of the results. Instead, Dareg put his right hand out to the side at far as it would go and smiled, turning his shield on with a thought.

  “Try hitting my right palm? That way, if I’m wrong I get to live to fix it later.”

  There was nearly no hesitation in the action, but the impact, while it made a pile of stones on the ground and the Earth under his feet pop a hundred times or more as the shield transferred the impact into the Earth, didn’t harm him a bit.

  When he stopped, David took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Incredibly accurate, and easy to use. Not currently a danger to a shielded person, which means the kids can practice with them, if they’re careful. Good. Well, I can go and report on this. Are you going back?”

  “Yep. I need to practice too much, and don’t need to sleep anymore, so… I really have no excuse now. Besides, my food is still there.”

  The rest of the morning felt like it took days to him, but Dareg didn’t complain, and worked very gently with Wendra for most of it. She was nice after all, and, now that he bothered to recall the fact, they were kind of dating. He smiled at her, as Petra finally called for them all to leave, but to be back the next day. She didn’t even call him over for a special conference, just going off with Havar and Derring, toward the weapons range.

  “I missed our date!” Dareg tried to look sad about that, and got ready to explain, which had the girl going a tiny bit wide eyed. She was tall and thin, but had a nice even tan coloration to her skin, which was a bit darker than what Petra had going on. Her hair was black, and had some curl to it, but wasn’t that long. In all she was cute, rather than pretty, but smiled after a few seconds, nodding.

  “That’s right. I’d heard about you having to go and fight those aliens, and figured that it was just off for a while. That must have been scary.”

  He nodded, more to show that he was actually listening, instead of admitting to his own inner cowardliness. Not that he’d been that terrified. A bit, in parts of the action, but it wasn’t enough to make him feel
bad. No one had ever said that you weren’t allowed to feel fear. Just that you had to fight when the time came.

  “That’s not a great excuse really. We should go and do something soon? I don’t get off days for a while, I don’t think. I missed some time here, and need to make that up. Otherwise Kolt will come and thrash me, I bet.” The kid was intense enough that it really could happen. It might anyway, now that he thought about it.

  She giggled at that, as if it barely made sense for him to worry over things like that, and patted his right arm. Her hand staying there for a very long time. Enough that even she probably noticed it. That couldn’t have been that pleasant given how damp with sweat he was.

  “You still get the afternoons. I have tomorrow off, if you want to do something? I was thinking about going to the Capital, since my family lives there. We could meet up? My parents and sister live at Master Timon’s palace. Which sounds pretty grand, but…”

  Dareg knew why she was blushing, though didn’t think it was really needed. Her mother worked as the house lady there. A servant, but also one that lived and worked in a magical palace, for one of the Ancients. That probably meant she was in the top ten or twenty servants for the entire Kingdom, really. It was hardly something to be ashamed of.

  “That sounds fun. I can meet you there? Call it noon? I’d pick you up here, but the new ships won’t be ready for a few more weeks. Which… Honestly, I need to get onto in a bit. After I eat and shower however.” He smiled and wiped his right hand on his damp clothing, which was starting to smell. To him, anyway. Probably not to Wendra yet, thankfully.

  She dimpled at him, which was rather charming, he decided.

  “Good. We can get luncheon there, if you don’t mind eating in the kitchen?”

  “Sounds fun to me. Noon. Barring calamity or emergency, I’ll be there. Possibly even if those things happen. Though in that case it will be to collect you up to help with it. That will make a good first date, don’t you think?”

  She laughed, as if he weren’t being serious, and started to walk away. She glanced at him over her shoulder, smiling, until she was out of sight.

  Then, leaving the little box of armor and dangerous weapons out in the open on the table, he left. No one would think to steal them, he didn’t believe. If they did, then hopefully the things would end up where they needed to go. He had thousands of each of them, after all.

  Which got him to think about who would be able to use them first. Which meant, after he jumped home, going up to the vacuum of space first, since it was needed each time, he had a plan of sorts in mind. It would mean getting more of both things set up however, so Dareg wasn’t even getting his communications device out until about five in the afternoon.

  Tapping the correct name, his disguise amulet turned on to be polite, he waited.

  It took a bit, but finally a rather nice looking, light tan face glared at him from the palm of his hand. The normally blue eyes looked gem green today, which was different, but the rest was the same.

  “What? I was sleeping, so this had better be good, or I will hunt you down and remove the ability to reproduce without concern for your personal plans.”

  Dareg nodded, his face feeling a bit stiff, the shield material of the disguise not really following along smoothly enough.

  “Hi Alice. I have new armor for you and your people. It’s what you’re used to using, but will form around you when you need it, so you can have regular or magical clothing on the rest of the time. Also a new weapon. It’s physical. Um… It uses tiny stones at high speeds, made out of air?” He was willing to describe it all to her, but she was actually smart enough to get it, even if being just woken up.

  “This sounds good. I’ll have to test them. How many units can you deliver, if it works out?”

  He shrugged, and smiled again.

  “Ten thousand of each for the first wave of things. I have those right now. You might want to test them on the ground first though. The things are a little dangerous. Designed to work on a ship, but also to hurt anyone attacking you. Including the armor. So…” He waited, while the woman yawned, and then snorted at him.

  “Ah. I see. So you lure me in with presents and then try to get me into bed? Typical man.” She was, he realized, mainly deflecting what she thought was actually his real reason, instead of bringing the idea up to flirt with him.

  Though it wasn’t a horrible idea. She was superhumanly tough and strong, and if he was going to practice having sex with anyone, it needed to be someone like that, and not innocent and easily bruised Wendra. Dare was supposed to get married in a few months as well, which meant there was a real deadline for him to get that kind of thing safely around.

  “I… Actually, we should talk about that for real? I’m sure that you’ll still think that it’s a trick, but there could be some need that way. I need the practice. The new speed might make it a bit dangerous until I learn to control myself. So, you’ll come for dinner, even if we can’t do that? I don’t know where to hold it. Maybe at Tor’s Palace? I think I can beg my way in over there. I hear a rumor I’m related to the man, if you can believe that.” It probably wouldn’t take real begging, of course.

  It was his father’s place, after all. Even if that was still too hard for him to really believe. For far too long he’d had no family at all, and now, at least people claimed, he had more than he knew what to do with. If it wasn’t for the fact that he couldn’t find any way for it to be one, he would have considered it as a trick. Part of him did anyway, he realized. He had people now, but he didn’t know if he could ever really fit in with them.

  “In four hours?” She was clearly checking a clock, but nodding, which was a good sign, really.

  That was going to seem like forever, to him, but he nodded, matching her speed, perfectly.

  “I’ll meet you there. Thanks.”

  She smiled, and cut the feed without saying more. Part of that was just that she was a bit surly, at the best of times. The other bit was simply that she probably didn’t really care that much about him, in particular. Useful at times, but too new to her world to be counted on. She was three thousand years old, or better, after all.

  That had to make you a little strange.

  Left with all that time, Dare called up Collette, hoping that he wasn’t going to be interrupting a large dinner party or anything. Also praying that the woman was around to answer. Otherwise he didn’t know at all about how to get dinner that evening. Or, rather, he did, he realized. They could just go to a restaurant, like normal people might. Dare could even afford it. Tor had been rather generous with his monthly allowance after all, and so far he’d just been saving it all, for school after the Winter holidays.

  Which got him to blink and nod, since not only was he supposed to be getting married soon, which meant he needed to get some houses around for his new princess. There were also Noram Day gifts that had to be made, for about fifty people, unless he wanted to slight anyone.

  Those, thankfully, didn’t have to be much for each of them, but if he did nothing, it would be noticed. Including some world leaders on his list, and Ancients, so those would have to be at least something of note.

  Collette smiled prettily from his palm, her voice even kind when she spoke his name, which was nicer than might be expected. They’d had a rough patch, after all. The woman hadn’t exactly trusted instantly that he was Tor’s son, figuring him as the kind to make false claims in order to get at the man’s treasure and wealth.

  Really, he didn’t know that she’d come to accept him yet, to be honest. She had been polite however, since their first meetings.

  “Dareg? How are you doing today? I was just thinking about asking you over to dinner later, actually. So that we can plan out Dorgal’s birthday celebration?” She made a face, which appeared slowly, and seemed to be her saying she felt bad about suggesting that kind of thing, as if his time was too precious to bother with trivial matters like that. “Or… I could handle that, of course.”

>   She seemed to be seriously rethinking her words then, but Dare smiled at her, which did get her to light up a bit in response.

  “That sounds fun. Can I bring a date? I was just going to ask actually, myself. I have Alice Orange coming in for a meal and then to test some new magical devices I came up with. I… Really, if I can get him or Neesa in, I’d like to ask Hess as well. I haven’t spoken to him in a week. That’s poor form on my part.”

  Instead of being put out, Collette started to nod.

  “Wonderful! Please, see if they can all come? At nine. Regardless, we’d love to have you. Every day, if you’d like. Let me see about that now?” She was a lot gentler getting off the line and took a few minutes, making sure he was ready to end things rather than being abrupt. It was highly polite, but started to strain his nerves by the time she finally tapped off.

  Smiling, Dare found the right name, and tried to get in touch with Hess, who didn’t answer instantly, which was strange for the being. It took so long that Dareg started to wonder if he simply didn’t want to talk to him, or if he wasn’t allowed. That…

  Actually made sense to him.

  He was a wanted fugitive, after all, and while the Ysidril and the Forten had different power structures, they were allies and it was possible that shunning Dareg was required of the being. Possibly of his entire race. If so… Well, that would make Dare feel bad, but he could get with Prince Alphonse, and make certain the lines of communication stayed open. Even if he had to be shunned, that didn’t mean he could get out of protecting the Ysidril. It was a duty of his, after all. One that he’d chosen, so it held even more weight than if it had been assigned to him.

  When the line finally came on, the being opened his mouth, showing all of his many rows of sharp looking teeth in his narrow purple and green face. Except, that he had a small triangular white patch on his nose. Which meant that this being wasn’t Hess.