by Power, P. S.
A large hand was held out as if to forestall speech.
“Yes, we already have shields, so you know that the basic idea can work. But, you aren't allowed to just make a copy of one. I expect novel work, since you've shown yourself capable of that now... Understood?”
Tor did.
The man really did mean to kill him. He'd never even set eyes on a working shield before, and now he had to make one, from scratch, inside two weeks? That kind of work could take years to get right. He was so dead. He may as well run off, or at least send a letter to his parents explaining why he died.
Kolb just laughed as he stood shaking.
“You look cold. Go ahead and run to Lenders and back to warm up, then we'll work stones and unarmed for a while. Don't worry, you have some time to work on your new shield.” The voice held a warm and jovial quality that Tor didn't really associate with the man at all. It wasn't something he could trust then. New things generally weren't, as had been recently pointed out, they needed to be tested first.
Tor ran, and for the second time since he'd come to the school, really considered the idea of just going down the dirt road to the nearest town. It took about an hour to run the distance and back and no one would be following him. After all, this was just part of his daily routine.
The first time he'd considered it had been after he'd foolishly asked a girl if she'd like to attend one of the student parties with him. Everyone else was getting dates, but the girl, one that he hadn't thought totally outside of his social standing and class, had shut him down cold. And loudly. In front of everyone in the dining hall. That had been during the spring of his first year.
The only reason that he hadn't run off then and just gone back home was because of Rolph, who'd told him that things like that happened sometimes. Some girls couldn't see a good thing when it was presented to them. Their loss. That was easy for Rolph to say, rich, good looking and gregarious to boot. Tor hadn't done anything for weeks after that, even avoiding meals so that he wouldn't have to see the girl again. Two weeks later the girl disappeared, pulled back home by her parents for some reason. At least then he'd been able to go to meals in peace. Except for the people talking about him, pointing and staring when he came in the first few times.
After that he'd kind of withdrawn from everyone except his roommate and the instructors. He was there to work and learn. No matter how pretty a girl was being humiliated like that was too much for him to handle, so he didn't give them a chance to make fun of him like that anymore.
Now this...
Well, he considered, as his feet tapped the ground lightly, a steady jog being good enough for the first half of the trip he felt, could he make a shield like that? What kind of magic would it take? Did he know how to make anything that would help?
His mind turned in on itself as he moved, his focus increasing until he didn't notice the strain of running or that he'd sped up a little. What, he asked himself, was the real problem to be addressed?
A cutter was, he knew from experience, a powerful tool. Just look what it had done to that log. But the basic idea was simple enough. The field just organized a region of space on the tiniest level of being. It told all the energy on each side of a sliver thin line to move in opposite directions. If the gap became large enough, meaning a strong field, it separated matter into two pieces. It didn't cut so much as get the object to pull itself apart, name aside. It was simple and elegant, as well as powerful. Not even requiring outside energy to be made to work.
If he could disrupt that field, scramble it or put in conflicting instructions, that should stop any kind of cutter or even explosive magic from working on him directly. Explosives were similar, he thought. He didn't know it for a fact, but it made some sense that if everything tried to move away from a central point it would blow up. As long as the field had enough force behind it.
That left physical blocking, which baffled the hell out of him for a minute. Luckily for him it did, since he found himself halfway into Lenders and still going, have missed his turn around about half a mile back. Oops. He turned and started going the other direction, making a point to take it a little faster, since Kolb would think he just slacked off if he didn't get back at the expected time.
So, physical blocking...
Nothing came to him, so he set the idea on the back burner of his mind and started working on the food dryer again. It would come to him or it wouldn't, and worrying over something that didn't want to come wouldn't help at all. It would just waste time he could be using for something else.
When he got back a few other trainees, most in brown like him, but two in black, meaning special school kids or senior students that could afford specialty exercise clothes, were going through their paces in the yard. This included, to his surprise, the near black haired girl he'd met the day before. At least it looked that way now, slightly damp with sweat. Trice? That was a funny name, but no weirder than what some of his sisters had. Even Torrence wasn't exactly a winner as far as names went. Easy to remember at least. Trice. Treez. It made him smile to think about. Who didn't like trees?
The girl didn't wait for him to get all the way in the gate before pouncing on him, figuratively at least. She jogged over, followed by the lighter colored girl, Sara.
Trice spoke first.
“I heard that the testing is going well on your new dryer! When can we start getting them? Sara already lined up sales for twenty of them on metal at eleven gold apiece. Of course she'll want a percentage since she did the work getting the sales. Ten percent is standard; don't let her tell you otherwise.” This came out in an excited rush, the other girl blushing when she heard what her friend told him.
“Um, I know that we didn't have a deal in place, but I thought that if I could show how useful I could be... If you know, you can make them?” The blond spoke softly, without making direct eye contact for some reason. They both had black on again, which confirmed that they weren't regular students here at least. If they'd been around Tor hadn't noticed them, but then they were girls. He tried to ignore those kinds of people, so that he wouldn't be tempted into embarrassment and humiliation.
Kolb looked over and saw who Tor was talking to, a smile coming over his face. He waved them all over. “Great! I knew you'd come around eventually to work with Tor here, too tempting a target to ignore. Today I'm planning on unarmed for him. Tor... Normally you'd know what to do if either of these young ladies attacked you right?” His smile went mischievous, a look that Tor hadn't seen on his face before.
“Run away?” He said, that being the standard answer. Plus, given that they were probably both able to kill him in less time than he could imagine, it made sense to him. Both of the girls looked at him as if scandalized for some reason. Or shocked. Possibly because he wasn't supposed to think that they could take him out almost instantly if he didn't scamper off? Or, just possibly, they just didn't think that he stood a chance of outrunning them? That was possible, he knew. For all that he ran nearly every day, a lot of people were still faster than he was. It was very possible that they'd trained for speed, or even that and endurance, they both had a long lankiness to their curves that spoke of a decent level of fitness.
“Exactly. Now, instead of playing merry chase, I want you to try and stand your ground for as long as you can with these two. One at a time please. He's fragile, and the dean would hate to lose him just as he's finally getting his act together...” Everyone laughed at that, so Tor did too, a polite chuckle. The dean didn't even know who he was as far as that went, so that part at least was slightly funny. They'd never met at least.
Kolb gave a bow to Trice and stepped back. Without warning a foot shot out at Tor's groin. He jumped back avoiding it, if just barely and nearly ran away out of reflex. Instead he held his ground as ordered and blocked the three blows that followed and then missed the next two, both blows to the stomach which almost took him to his knees. A kick came towards his head, a flashy thing that was really too high, a wheel kick he thoug
ht. Kolb would have beaten him senseless if he tried something that took that long to land. Was it feint, meant to throw him off or set up the next move? He blocked it with both forearms and pushed hard, sending the girl, not much larger than he was in weight, even if she was taller by nearly a foot, stumbling back.
She was better that he was on her feet, that was obvious, so he decided on a tackle, taking her all the way down to the ground with a soft “woof”. Her legs wrapped around him, pushing his hips downward, controlling him almost perfectly. For some reason she didn't struggle to get away, holding him close to her instead. Tor became highly aware that he was covered in sweat from his run, still sticky and damp.
The girl didn't seem to notice that at all, her eyes were locked on his. Something shifting in her right hand as he tried to get his body far enough away from her to throw some punches. He wouldn't actually hit her, because it was just practice, but if he could indicate the punches well enough, Kolb would let it count. Just as he managed to almost power out of her grasp, he felt a slight prick on his neck and froze.
Trice smiled up at him, her eyes were a lovely shade of cornflower blue he noticed before looking down to see a wickedly sharp looking dagger at his throat. Silver, shiny and deadly looking. He almost complained, since the instructions had been for unarmed combat. Then he realized that special school students probably didn't fight by rules at all, so that instruction had only applied to him.
Damn.
He really should have just run away. Tor couldn't move faster than she could stab him at this distance and they hadn't come up with any sign that he'd surrendered either. Yikes. That was bad. Well, maybe he'd get out of the shield thing in two weeks anyway? Hard to kill someone already dead.
That got him thinking, distracting him from the knife at his throat for a few moments. What could he do to drive a knife like that back? A pressure field could work, but that took personal energy and too much time to create. If he had six hours he could move the knife back. Possibly. In twenty seconds? Not a chance.
What if he used a low energy field though? Like... how a cutter worked, but in only one direction? It wouldn't drive the knife away exactly, but he could use her own force against her, so that the harder she pushed, the harder it would be to move forward. The blade itself would try to push her hand back.
Making a living field like that took focus, which he could do, normally at least. Right now things were a little distracting, what with the knife and the very pretty girl in close contact with him. Plus, he had to make it happen all around his body at once, because the second the girl realized what was happening, if he could get it to work at all, she'd just change the location of the knife. Could he do it? Probably not, he realized. It was an almost impossible task.
He could try at least.
Tor forced his mind as deep as he could, and started building the field, just off of his skin. The idea creeping as close to his flesh as his mind could get it on such short notice. He couldn't let it go, even for an instant or the information would fade and he'd be stabbed. It took hours of focus to build a strong field that would linger, and even longer to make one that would last for days or weeks. He felt the blade closing, a sharp pressure that drew blood, even through the trance state he'd moved in to. Suddenly the pressure stopped and the girl's eyes went wide.
“Holy!” She yelled, suddenly squirming to get away from him. She stabbed the blade into the side of his face three or four times, but it didn't connect, just stopping dead a fraction of an inch above him. He didn't let go of the field, keeping it as solid as he could as the girl tried to fight her way free of his grasp.
The other girl watched, interested in what he was doing it seemed. After a second she nodded.
“Shield. Might as well pull back Trice.” Sara spoke softly, amused. “I don't see the amulet, so removing it could be a problem. Probably under the clothing or maybe in a pocket? Activated already, so... well, it had to be something, didn't it?”
The tone sounded academic as if they were working on a simple math problem in class or something similar. Tor held the field solidly, letting it grow in power even as they both stood. With a smile the girl put the blade away and pulled something else out of her shirt, reaching inside the tunic, her hand whipping out towards him suddenly. White powder filled his vision, but didn't touch him. Blinding powder or something? He couldn't tell, since it didn't connect with him at all. It did make it nearly impossible to see, his vision being covered with white as he stood. He couldn't really move very fast, not and keep the field growing at least; trying to do too many things at once always degraded each of the tasks attempted. The dangerous girl danced away, getting about ten feet back before he could see her at all again.
“Yep, shield alright. Let's see if it can stop energy weapons.” Trice grinned and pulled a small silver piece, no larger than one of her fingers. Instead of slicing at him with it, she pointed it at his mid-section. A blast of some kind?
He didn't know how those things worked, but hoped that a scrambling field would take care of it. Not that he'd ever built one of those before. He didn't have time for a new field, so it would have to be built into the current one, without losing what protection he already had. How? That, he knew, was the question. He tried to wing it, panicking more than a bit, making the field around him move suddenly, ordering everything around him to shift away to the right as fast as it could go. Dust started to kick up at his feet.
“Trice...” Sara spoke softly, a bit of awe in her voice. “Wait! Aura! Combat aura!”
The blast nearly knocked him from his feet, even through the shifting space in front of him. He almost lost the field totally then, but managed to hold on somehow, keeping his focus solid.
“Trice, no!” Sara yelled, which got the girl to stop from hitting him with the next blast. A good thing too, because Tor realized he'd been holding his breath the whole time, no air being able to get in. He tried to breath, but nothing happened. He nearly panicked for a second, and then let the field go. It lingered for about twenty seconds, which wasn't bad considering how little time he'd had to build it and that he was trying to hold it without a physical location except himself. That was about the hardest thing to do, and having made up the field while he'd been doing it was probably nearly impossible.
Yay him.
Trice let him take two deep breaths before moving back in and kicking at his groin, which landed solidly enough to take him down. She looked at him strangely and backed up, as if expecting some kind of trick.
“The shield? Did it fail already?” She asked, concerned.
Kolb chuckled and walked over from where he'd been watching, some fifteen feet away.
“Oh, he doesn't have one. In fact, I don't think he's ever even used one before. That, I believe, was his first attempt at his latest project. I just assigned it to him an hour and a half ago, so I guess we can't expect any better yet. If that had been a military grade cutter instead of a student's practice lance you'd be dead right now Tor. Keep that in mind. You have two weeks to improve.”
Then, after about a whole minute to rest up from the blow to the groin, trying not to clutch himself and whimper the whole time, he had to face off with Sara. The girl didn't pull any kind of weapon, opting to kick his behind literally, or near enough, with a series of low kicks and a few elbows to the face. He ended up on his back after about thirty seconds, the girl mimicking a few kicks to his neck as he struggled to get up.
It was humiliating, but better than if she'd just gone ahead and delivered the kicks for real. After a few more seconds the weapons instructor decided that Tor was “dead” and had him work against Trice again. For the next two hours they took turns beating him. He didn't win at all; the best he managed was to get a few blows in every now and then.
“Alright Tor. Don't miss any more classes and have that shield ready on time. You can go for today.”
The girls smiled at him as he picked himself up. With a glance he realized how goofy he must seem to them,
both had not only handed him a beating, but they'd done it without being affected by him at all. He was covered in dust and mud from where the sweat had mixed with dirt. Well, he wasn't trying to impress these girls. They were way too scary for that. Who pulls a real knife in unarmed combat practice anyway? The answer that came to him was uncomfortable.
Who did that? A very deadly person. That's who.
Trice waved at him smiling happily, and reminded him of the deal that he had with Sara for those dryers. He waved back, trying not to seem like a poor loser. He hadn't made any deal at all with the girl though, had he? Then again, if it got past the instructors, it would be simple enough to make copies. He could do about ten in an hour or two. Most people couldn't, he knew. It was a complex magical set... but once made, it could be treated as a single thing instead of the dozen different parts he'd had to work with originally, and he'd built it as a template, so anyone with the skill could make copies from it, ideally. If she wanted to sell them and helped him get the metal and some acid to burn the sigils into place, he could do the work for her. If he lived through Kolb's little test at least.
That night he worked out what the rapid food drying setup would take. It wasn't nearly as hard as he thought it would be. He double, then triple checked the work. Tor could probably get it done on his next off day, if he skipped out on sleeping.
Then, out of a strange desire to not die, he started working on the shield. His experience earlier had been instructive about things he never would have even considered before. Like breathing. That dust had probably been designed to make it hard to breathe as well as blind him. Could he form some kind of breathing tube or filter to keep something like that out? Yes... It was particulate in nature, so he could just make sure that nothing less fluid than air could come through, no matter how small. Easy enough really.
