P. Power - Knight Esquire

Standing again, a little slowly Tor headed towards the back of the room, in the stack of chests along the back wall, all with flat tops so they wouldn’t topple if piled to high. They were two deep now all as big as his luggage trunks and were taking up a whole lot of otherwise useful space.

“Sergeant Wilhelm? If you and your friend there would give me a hand please?” He tried to pitch his voice seriously, as if he were really just talking to a real military sergeant that had come into the room, like half the people he met when he walked out for his daily strolls. They all kind of outranked him a little, since he wasn’t even in the service, but everyone was really polite to him anyway.

“Yeah, sure, not a problem.” Rolph answered getting up quickly. Not quickly enough to avoid the slap to the back of the head that the slightly older man with them aimed without hesitation.

“What? You trying to get us all killed Wilhelm? You don’t say “Yeah, sure, no problem” like that to a dignitary! This is Master Tor! Not only is he half the war effort right now, he could kill us all and eat our souls as an appetizer to his supper! It’s yes sir! And be happy he’s not one of the uppity ones that you have to use fifty-seven titles for. I’ll let you off this time, but do it again and it’s kitchen duty for a week. You’re only getting slack now, because you actually managed to hop-to pretty well…”

Rolph hung his head for a second, shot the man a sour look, then clicked his heals together as he stood very straight. “Yes sir, Master Tor sir!”

Standing near the trunks Tor had to fight to keep a grin off his face. He could see Rolph having a little bit of a hard time remembering to keep his act together with him. They’d just been friends for so long. After a second Tor realized something and pointed at the man that had just hit “Sergeant Wilhelm”.

“Heh… Now, start hitting him just like that again, getting a little harder each time… until he gets his shield on…”

Slapping his shield instantly Rolph laughed, but then tried to fight it and make his face go straight again. Tovey didn’t wait though, slapping his own shield on almost instantly. That was good, because he was going to be next.

“You have a shield too, don’t you, sorry, didn’t get your name…”

“High Staff Sergeant Stamos sir. I haven’t been issued a shield sir. Most of those are being given to the ground troops right now along the south eastern line. There hasn’t been a lot of activity, but when it comes, that’s the most likely, and traditional, target that the Austrans will hit.”

Tor pointed to a little box, open at the top, sitting on a low shelf behind the table. “In there, shields, temperature equalizers, Not-flyers and hand lights. Also a few new things that don’t even have names. Tovey, do the honors and make sure Stamos is actually equipped properly please? I can’t believe the military is letting people fly without a shield on. Get things for your other men too and anything that you don’t already have. Wilhelm here can help me with the palace shield.”

“The what?” Rolph said, sounding slightly incredulous.

“It’s what it sounds like. Shields for the entire palace. I don’t mean the personnel, I mean the whole building. I’ll work on others, for the rest of the Capital, as I can, but this thing has nearly six hundred separate field devices to make it work. I’m not even putting one up on this place, just the big building that Kolb built out back. Kind of a special shelter in case we’re ever attacked.”

They all listened, fascinated, when he described how Kolb and his forces spent two days testing it, building a small structure and then using everything they could to approximate Austran bombs to take it down with the shield up. Petra had even gone and sat inside while they did it. Tor had blanched at first, but the girl was perfectly fine. It was a good test, but showed a little too much faith in his work from the girl for his taste. After an hour of things that Tor had never even seen before, rockets and lobbed explosives as well as the thing being hit by the explosive weapon he’d built and gave to Kolb, the girl walked out with a grin on her face. Thank all the gods that Tor had put a field on to stop that kind of explosive too. It hadn’t been in the original plan.

She was happy and agreed that the whole thing seemed to work, telling them about how she’d barely even heard anything inside at all and the ground hadn’t even shook too much, but Tor was shaking, and felt like wetting himself. He decided right then and there that if any testing like that was to ever be done in the future, he’d always go first, himself. After all, if he wasn’t willing to test it personally, it wasn’t safe enough.

He did remember to ask Kolb to give him that “introduction” to the girl. Kolb raised an eyebrow, but passed the word along to her. Tor didn’t know if it was proper of him or not, since he was engaged already, but that was… impressive. It showed a trust in him that he didn’t feel he’d earned at all. One that Tor wasn’t sure could be earned. It certainly went beyond a little bit of flirting. He’d set up a date with her for when he was better, like she’d said. For the time being he just wanted to make sure she knew he hadn’t forgotten her.

“So, anyway, it works.” He finished, then pointed to some of the other boxes. “I also have two thousand more shields, the same on flying rigs and lights. The rest are odds and ends, sound dampeners, heat plates, water heaters and griddles, stoves and what not. Godfrey, the military commander here? He’s working on another two hundred transports. We already have more of them than people that can drive. As it is right now Sorlee has been setting up her own training school for anyone that wants to learn. When I get better, I’m going to take some lessons myself if I can. Ursala has already been soloing back and forth to the Capital each day for the last few. I think she’s practicing up so that she can personally take troops in to attack Ward.” Tor took a deep breath but didn’t let his worry show. If anything Ursala’s honor was more important and worthy than his own. She was a Countess and all.

She’d even discussed with him plans for a huge transport, one that could carry hundreds of people at once. It wouldn’t even take new fields, he assured her, just more of the lift plates like the regular ones had. The shields would have to be reworked, something similar to the palace shield, especially if they were taking it into combat. She didn’t tell him her plans specifically, or mention fighting at all, but then, she didn’t know that he’d put aside hundreds of fields for her people either.

Torrance didn’t know what the Wards had as far as defenses and weapons, but he didn’t want to risk losing his friend or her people. Tor was glad he hadn’t mentioned all this to Rolph, because the big, now dark skinned and haired, man looked constipated suddenly just from the mention of Ursala learning to fly a transport.

“What?” The words came out a bit more explosively than Tor had expected, but he could kind of see it. Tor didn’t want Ursala going off to war either. The very idea made him nervous in fact. Scared even. But who was he to tell her she couldn’t have her revenge?

They killed her family.

If someone had killed his family, or his friends, what would he do? Probably the same thing. If with a less aplomb. Ursala was like ice on the subject, hardly mentioning it at all, just quietly making her preparations each day. Tor knew he would have been spazzing out constantly, ripping at his hair and probably building super-weapons that were way more powerful than anyone should ever have.

“Don’t worry, she’s going to wait for the King’s orders, but when they come she doesn’t think that Count Ward and his wife are just going to give up and surrender. I don’t know how such things work really, but it makes sense to me. The guy has his own army, what, twenty thousand strong?” Tor had never actually heard that himself, just that someone he’d run into did… Wait, that was that Duke from the party, Winchester. So if a Duke had twenty thousand, then what would a rich Count have?