Tor nestled into Karina contentedly. A liar he may be, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a good one. A lie lived well enough was the truth, he'd once heard someone say. His mother come to think about it. Back then he didn't realize that she'd been living a lie herself, hiding away in a small village as a poor baker’s wife for decades. It kind of proved the point though, didn't it? Live it well enough and it was made real.
For his friends he would do that. No matter the cost.
Even if it meant his life or sanity. The sanity was the big threat right now, since Tor didn't know how much more of all this he could take. Everything falling in on him constantly, making him struggle to get past it just to glimpse something normal.
Most days anymore he wasn't even getting close enough to normal to wave hello it seemed.
Chapter Eight
“Baker!” The voice was angry, really angry, and not one that he recognized at all. A male voice accompanied by pounding feet and a flash of purple and black Royal Guard livery.
Thankfully that man wasn't attacking him in the palace hallway, not yet, but it was a close thing. The guy, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, about six foot ten and had to weigh nearly three hundred pounds, all of it lean and hard looking, took a partial fighting stance in front of him. The fellow wasn't someone Tor recognized, but that didn't mean much, not with the guard here, they came out of the walls and sometime, when you least expected it, could go crazy like this.
“Um… hello?” Tor said, keeping his voice soft. He had a shield and was armed, but short of using a lot of force, he really doubted that he could take this guy. More to the point, he didn't know why he should have too. Had he done something… or insulted the man?
The man explained as he sidled closer to him. Moving deliberately so that he could attack.
“Are you trying to get her killed? Is that your plan you little useless pace of shit? Take her off to that school and let the Austrans just have her? Fuck! If you want to do that so bad, why don't you just put her on a ship? Did they turn you somehow over there? Is Austran pussy that good? Or is it your new lover Brown? I should kill you right here and make the world a safer place.” The man didn't clench his fist, and had yet to produce a weapon, so Tor guessed that this wasn't an actual death threat, but just this man’s way of letting off steam.
His scary, frightening way of letting go of things.
Tor hoped so anyway and hoped that it didn't really involve too big of a beating for himself in addition, just to help with the venting.
“Ah, well, I didn't have sex in Austra or the way over or the way back, so rest assured it wasn't their sexual wiles or me being turned somehow. I just… you've seen Karina, right? I mean you know what's been happening with her?” It was a good question, since the guy may be… Tor looked for some way the man could have missed what was going on and none of them fit.
The huge man stared at him hard for nearly twenty seconds, just when Tor thought he was going to move in for the kill, he spoke, sounding no calmer, but not actually raising his voice.
“So? Girls get moody! Her friend was killed and she's sad. She's tough, she'll snap out of it on her own in a bit.”
Ah. Well, Tor didn't think that was the case, but didn't really want to fight about it. Then again, did he have a choice?
“OK. So… your wrong. She isn’t snapping out of it and she needs her friends, all of which I took off to school with me, or, well you know the rest. So, I don't know, how do we do this? Are we supposed to wrestle for her now or something? Go outside and fight until I'm a puddle of mush? Debate in front of a judge to see who's right?” Tor was trying to be playful and shake the man's anger a bit, but that, obviously, wasn't going to work. Great.
“Fine,” The huge angry man said through his teeth, short blond hair making his head look nearly bald from Tor’s perspective.
“We'll meet out back over it.” It felt to Tor like that meant something other than sitting in the shade and having some juice, calmly discussing things. Too bad, he really thought he had a good argument or two on this one.
Was it a duel? What did he do now? Tor nearly panicked as the man stormed off, wondering if running away would be a valid option. The stone floor was shiny here, well polished and dark. Tor noticed that when he heard the footsteps behind him, there were six of them. All Royal Guards, all looking at him blankly. Great. So the idea was that he fought one of them, or six? Well, that was a fun option. None of these were as big, but the day Tor could beat six men and women, all bigger and stronger than he was, in a fair fight, he'd…
Tor didn't have anything that he'd do then, it had just never come up as an idea. It would be something though. He just wasn't that good. They took him out back, half leading, half following, probably to prevent escape. There was a hedged area that Tor had barely noticed before and never been into, near the wall around the palace. It stood ten foot high and was paved inside, about a hundred foot square. The Royal Guards practice area? It made sense, they had to have something, right? One of the guards, and older man, came and stood in front of him.
“The tradition is that no shields, armor or weapons of any kind are used.” George told him softly.
Darn. They had an actual tradition that basically said he had to have his butt beaten by this giant? That was hardly fair. Why couldn't they have a traditional bake off instead, like at a country fair? That would be better for him personally. Pie making contest? Or a foot race, he was tempted to make the counter offer, but the second that he took his shield off, still looking for a way out, the larger man danced across the room and hit him with a back fist.
After that, for nearly four minutes, Tor just fought, trying to remember what he'd learned over the years, what Burks had him practice. That he was making contact with the man was apparent, his hands and feet stung from the blows, but they didn't seem to do much. Tor finally found himself picked up by the face and slammed into the stone below him. Thankfully it was smooth. He lost consciousness for a bit, but managed to poke the large man in the eye it his right index finger somehow, going out or not. When he cleared enough to see again he was running around in a circle, keeping just out of the giants grasp. Almost at least.
Tor rolled and kicked out at a knee, which made something shift, the feeling of it ran down his leg, but that was all, the giant didn't do more than shift his weight back.
Tor finally got enough of his sense of self back to try and go after the man smoothly and actually try to target the weak points as more than an afterthought. Then he did better. Not well, but the harshness of the beating he was taking damped down a bit. And it was a beating. For all the he was hitting the guard twice for every once he was hit himself, he could barely stand and the other man still looked fresh and ready to continue. Even after two good solid strikes to the groin the man stood relaxed and poised, moving on him again.
Finally Tor had to just do what he could to survive, biting, kicking and scratching, advanced techniques and dirty tricks. At about ten minutes something happened, a blow to the back of the head, and everything went dark.
Tor woke looking at the sky, no one touching him at all. Well, at least the guy hadn't kept beating him while he was out. Standing on shaking legs, wondering if defensive wetting was still a good option, Tor faced the man again and raised his hands to continue. The man sneered at him. At least Tor thought it was a sneer. It might have been something else, based on what the guy did next, which didn't involve killing Tor at all.
“Alright, I'll cede the issue to you, but if you get her killed, I will come for you. Oath or not. Bet on it.”