Free Slave Line (The Young Ancients) by P.S. Power Page B

to death making a device to stop Trice from setting off combat rages in everyone all the time, but it wasn't really true. The rage she'd sent him into first, one that lasted for days on end before he could stop it, had really done the damage. It took almost everything he'd had. The building itself had been pretty much incidental after that, even though it took months. It was a good work, a true master work even, but it had saved his life, not the other way around.
    When it had happened, or rather nearly two months later when he woke up, Trice had been in such a state that he decided to not let her know about that part of things and just played it all off as him being too ambitious. It didn't matter whose fault it was anyway, right? She couldn't help the way she was born after all, so blaming her for it was wasted time.
    The short answer there was that he wasn't going to be doing anything useful that way for a long time. Especially if he didn't get a chance to rest up for a while. The fight two days before, on top of all the killing, didn't help either. He hurt. It was a deep thing that rested in his bones constantly now. So what was he going to do? Spend gold and pretend to be someone important? That would work well enough, for a while, but only because Rich and Connie would back him on the idea, being good friends. That didn't mean it was true though. He was nearly useless now.
    Burks was talking to him he realized, which made him shake his head a little, not having understood a word of it.
    "We need to be the first ones to the summit of course. The others will trickle in over the next weeks, depending on how they have to travel. Orange will probably be coming in by foot for instance, which means she's nearly always the last to get in. She bothers to come though, which is better than about half of us. Has to be done though. Have you been in touch with Miss Ward? Captain Ward I mean?" He sounded bland and relaxed about it all, as if it almost didn't matter.
    "Weeks?" Tor kept the anger out of his voice, but just barely, "what the hell Burks... I agreed to go to a meeting and chat with some people about a problem. I didn't realize it was just about me going and sitting around for weeks, waiting like a moron while everyone else showed up as they please. They've had six months to get there for goodness sake. Not to be petty here, but why waste everyone's time? This is up to Brown and you. I get the idea that Lyn needs to get there, since it's her land, but I don't need to be wasting my time sitting around doing nothing and neither do the rest of us. It would have been nice if you would have mentioned all this earlier. We could just send you three off in a Fast Carriage with a communications device and show up on the first day of the actual thing." No, Tor realized as he ended the statement, he hadn't really kept all the ire out of his voice at all. Not good. The man was his grandfather after all. Still, he hardly knew him for all that.
    Burks rolled his eyes.
    "Well, it's the way it's been done for over two thousand years. Sorry we didn't think of you back when we originally made the rules." He didn't sound sharp or anything, but managed to come off as a little bored.
    Tor went still, rage suddenly spiking through him. It was almost like a combat rage it was so strong and sudden. It took all his will not to punch the man in the face. He almost did it anyway, his fist curling and starting to move on its own, even though doing that would probably have his butt kicked almost instantly. Burks was way better at fighting than he was after all.
    Tor clenched his jaw then and let out his breath slowly, trying to stay calm. Return to that state at least.
    "I see. Well, if the rules say that's what has to be done, then I don't see any need for me to go at all, do you? I'm sure the rules also preclude anything I say or do from being taken seriously at all anyway. This is your problem Green, and Brown's mess. Why don't you take care of it