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.
“I’m Tor.” He said instead.
“Ah… of course you are.” The man said weakly bowing slightly again.
Chapter three
“Torrence Green Baker!”
The voice ripped across the dueling field and sent a chill down his spine. Taking a deep breath he turned slowly, fighting the urge to run away. Flying away would be the better option he knew, since his leg was still a little gimpy from the break. When he finished the turn he was glad he hadn’t tried that. His mother stood next to Baroness Morgan, and both of them wore flying gear. The good kind too. He did leave the shield on, just in case.
That the Baroness was dressed in nice flying clothes of leather and silk was natural enough and she looked pretty in it too. He’d even seen her in them before so he recognized her instantly. His mother he’d never seen in anything other than a skirt or dress, and all those in country blah, a kind of blue-tan-gray, that plus the fact that she looked way younger than he remembered her ever being threw him for a few seconds. He put it all together, the whole not aging thing of course, she was pretty much immortal after all, but blinked a few times first. She looked like she could be going to school here, not nearly old enough by half to be his mother. Actually some of the other students looked older than she did.