P. Power - Knight Esquire

The man in green nodded to the boy once, and turned, yelling again.

“Again, the Count is offered his life. Do you wish to yield sir?” Yelling or not the man was a pro and kept the tone bored and bland.

Tor felt like wetting himself from all the noise personally, but thankfully didn't really have to go.

Instead of yielding, like a sane person, the Count demanded that the boy be stripped of all weapons and shields, so that they may meet on a “fair” footing. After all, borrowed or stolen weapons didn't count, only those owned by the combatant outright. Rolph patted him on the shoulder.

“You're up Tor.”

Right. He walked to the center of the field, near but behind David.

“These weapons, shields and flying gear belong to Countier David Derring, given by me personally, without reservation or outstanding debt of any kind, which I believe makes it legal for him to have?” He looked around to find that most of the crowd was nodding. Good.

“Further, if you want to demand a fair fight, how about you don't pick on a boy you've never even met? What the heck is with that anyway? Are you just a bully or are you actually insane? If you want a fair fight maybe you should kneel down so that you're at least close to the same height you over grown moron! What, are you afraid that if you faced someone not still in their first year of school it would be too much for you? Even making this challenge marks you as a coward, doesn't it? How about you withdraw now and save everyone here a lot of grief and heartache later instead of trying to act like this is anything but you having an ego issue and taking it out on an innocent person? Are you really so vain and… and evil that you'd attack a little boy because your angry at his da? If you want to fight so bad, why don't you try me instead? At least I'm old enough to need to shave each morning. No, wait, that would be too much for you wouldn't it? I'm sure we can scrounge up some six year olds for you to choose from if you don't mind waiting a minute. Perhaps my little sister, since you seem to like making sure the fight can't possibly be fair at all.” Tor shook a little in rage. Not combat rage, just the real kind for once.

OK, so it was a bad plan to taunt a man in armor who was holding a sword, Count or not, but the idiot was threatening the life of one of his friends. The laughing crowd seemed to be in support of his words. At least they were for the first ten seconds until the man in red withdrew the first challenge and threw down a second.

The Count challenged Tor.

He laughed.

Tor couldn't help it. Was the guy really that stupid? Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe he was just too pissed from the fight the night before to think straight, but either way he'd had about enough of this guy.

“Alright. Let's do this then. At least this time he has a reason to feel insulted. Moron.” Tor didn't wait for any fancy calling out by nicely suited gentlemen with loud voices. Instead he turned to the man in green and spoke softly, feeling like killing someone for the first time in his life.

“Clear the field please.” Tor growled, a low tone that most of the people around him probably couldn't hear. The loud guy near him swallowed and stepped back suddenly for some reason. Remembering not to turn his shield off this time Tor let his face pull into a grin.

“Clear the field!” The deep voice of the man in green rumbled so loudly that Tor could feel it in his chest standing over ten feet away. Did the man practice yelling then? It was impressive.

He couldn't take the shining giant in a fair fight, of course, and running away wasn't an option, not now. Instead Tor just walked towards the man, who dropped the sword and pulled an energy weapon of some kind, just like he figured would be the plan earlier. It didn't do anything to him, which caused the man to panic a little and scramble for his sword. Right, because the military grade weapon not working meant a sword would? Brilliant. The man should have run away right then if he couldn't bring anything more to the fight. Tor kept walking.

At about fifteen feet away the man charged. Tor just reached into his pants, understanding it probably looked a little rude when he stopped to think about it, which made him smile for a few moments and blush. Tor pulled weapons from the pocket as the man hacked at him vigorously. And uselessly. The ground popped and even rumbled a little under his feet. Tor largely ignored the other man all together while he worked. The guy had power behind the blows it seemed, but it didn't concern him overly. That could happen when you were eight foot tall and probably weighed close to four hundred pounds, most of it muscle. Tor sorted the weapons in his hand carefully and put the explosive one away again. No need to murder the guy, even if he was a bit cheesed at him. Not yet. Tor had all day if needed.

The force lance hurled the man back and then to the ground. Tor held him there for a while, then used the device in his left hand to make the air too hard to breath. The man gasped and choked on the ground, then flopped a little as he did. When it looked like he was about to lose consciousness Tor let him have a little air.

“Hey, would you like to yield? No real percentage for either of us if you die here today. I can’t say that I care overly right now myself, but it’s your call.”

“Never!” The man gasped.

“Really? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Here, why don’t you take a few minutes to think about it? I’ll even add a “pretty please” to sweeten the deal.” Tor knew he must look and sound insane, but really just couldn’t care.

“Yield, pretty please?” The crowd chuckled again.

Tor held him in place and then took his air away again. The man struggled and his mouth opened and closed like a fish on land. Really it was pitiful enough that Tor felt bad for the Count. He didn’t want Davie to get hurt, but that didn’t mean he wanted to kill this guy either. Even if he was a mentally defective a-hole with a superiority complex.

He let the field go. The man sucked in air loudly, signaling he was alive.

“Really? We can’t just call this here? You don’t even have to yield officially, we can just stop and all go home as friends. I’ll even apologize for making fun of you if you do the same for calling out a fourteen year old boy by… mistake. Is that fair do you think? Anyone can get angry and make an error. Not everyone is willing to simply admit it though. Only the good ones. What kind of person are you sir?”

The man struggled to his feet, still breathing hard. Everyone just waited. After two minutes the man bowed his head.

“I apologize for allowing my anger at the Countier’s father to drive me to challenging the boy. It was wrong of me and I now see the error of my ways.”

Tor nearly passed out. He been expecting the fight to resume after the Count recovered a little, this… well only the one honorable thing to do now, he realized.

“For my part I must express my own chagrin at finding that I have maligned a good man in error. I let my own anger foolishly get the better of me. I apologize fully and unreservedly. I was wrong. Let’s set this aside and all leave as friends?”

The Count approached him and bowed from about three feet away. Tor bowed back; making sure his bow was a little deeper. Burks the room servant had explained all that kind of protocol to him before he left the Capital, mainly after any of it would have been useful to him. When he stood he put the weapons away in the inner pocket.

“So, boy, who is it that I fought this day?” The man sounded far more genteel suddenly. It was probably just a trick so that he could turn around and attack him later, send assassins or something. Tor almost cracked that the man had fought his own ego and won, but decided not to push it.