Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (7 page)

When
she stood, she looked at the kids, who, being clever, had simply put the weapons
away, as if they owned them. It was thievery, pure and simple. But cute anyway.
Rolling her eyes at the ceiling she wondered how many they'd already tucked
away out of her things. She didn't bother asking, knowing that it was going to
be more than two. Not even just two each.

She
held out her right hand.

"You
can have
one
, each. Give me the rest." Her eyes probably looked
hard, but she was fighting a smile at the same time. The boys both looked so
very guilty after all. Like little kids with their hands literally in the
cookie jar still.

Lewis
shrugged and passed over six of the things. "We were taking them to share
with the rest of the group."

Clyde
had six as well, and she pretended to be counting on her fingers.

"That's
fourteen. There are only ten of you."

Lewis
rolled his own eyes, which she suddenly realized was incredibly rude. Here she'd
been doing it most of her life. No wonder people thought she was stuck up.

"Ma'am?
Two for each of us, and then two for Mr. Havar."

It
made sense to her, but if they were doing that, why not two for everyone? She
got the big canvas sack out again and filled it up. It made a nice clanging
sound really, as the wands danced against each other.

"One
each for now. At
Baron
Havar's discretion. That part is important here,
in Noram. If someone has a title and isn't a close friend, you should use it. Make
certain to learn them before you talk to people, when possible. Some nobles can
be picky about things like that."

There
was a chorus of yes ma'am from her friends and more eye rolling, since even
little kids from Austra knew that being a nobleman couldn't mean all that much.
They'd lived with that being the case all their lives so far after all. It was
probably true, but when in Noram, it was best not to goad the people with
armies of their own.

She
got them jogging to the dining room, which meant going several buildings over
and up a nice stone staircase. When they got to the door, the place was packed
with people, but they didn't have to wait very long, since Karen, Havar and
Kolb moved their people out, and Sam stood to leave, only to be followed by six
other people.

She
recognized them all, of course, but it was a bit of a strange group. Some of
them however, were friends of hers, she realized.

Ali,
her sister in-law waved to her, and Sheri Bonner saw what was happening and ran
from the back of the room. Oddly enough, to a person, all the little kids that
noticed her
saluted
. Which she did right back. That got some stares,
along with Farlo Ross, Judith Kerry, Mark Sorenson and Guide. It was, for a
group of school kids, kind of an impressive bunch.

Five
of them were in the Lairdgren Group after all. Ali was too. It was, in a very
real way, a nice percentage of the world's most powerful wizards, standing
right there with them. They may not be Tor, but they were all in the top few
hundred anyway. Maybe higher than that, when you got right down to it.

Havar
looked at them, and nodded to Farlo, Judy, Mark and Ali. Then, almost as if he
had to force himself to do it, he nodded to Guide as well. It wasn't grudging
though, just an afterthought.

"We're
making a delivery out to the Space Training Center. I didn't know we were going
to have this many with us, but I believe that the new devices need to be tested
up there?" He pointed at the ceiling, in case anyone didn't get it.

Judy
smiled.

"I
might be able to arrange that. I'm supposed to take my crew up in a few hours
anyway. I just came by to see who was around, since I was in port. What's the
test for?"

Sam
suddenly looked like he was the inventor of bread and waved at Lewis, who was
holding the deep blue silk bag in front of him. The boy liberated a few of the
tiles and handed them around to various people. It was interesting to see who
he picked too.

Terry
got one, and so did Havar, Judy got hers with a little bow that was actually
almost correct, given that the boy was giving her a present. It wasn't his to
give, but Tiera didn't mind. She didn't get one at all, but he held his up to
his throat, which got Sam to do the same, and then the boy walked from the room
before speaking. She could hear what was said just fine.

"If
you hold one of these to your throat, anyone with another at their own can hear
you. It works up to fifty miles away from each other. They're for space
walking." That last term was a new one to her, but Kolb smiled at the use
of it.

Judy
quickly slapped hers into place. "Dang. Now
that
is amazing. We
need this pretty bad. Right now we have people going out into the big dark
trying to communicate with hand gestures. That don't work so well." A bit
of a Printer County accent crept into her voice, which Tiera assumed meant she
actually felt at least a little impressed.

Without
asking, Farlo took the one Sam had and tried it with a happy lilt to her voice.

"This
would work on the battlefield too, I bet."

That
started a discussion, but they were all just standing around in the dining
room, the wooden floor needing to be swept and the first years that had that
duty looking at them as if they badly wanted to leave, but didn't want to run
screaming at the little kids with waving brooms. Since that might well start a
fight, Tiera thought that was both a good, and polite, plan.

She
just walked out, and felt surprised when anyone at all followed her. Clyde and
Lewis both did however, sticking with their buddy, like they were supposed to.
It was going to make going to the restroom later a bit awkward, she decided,
but didn't make a big deal of it.

Instead
she listened to the others talk as she slowly made her way toward the practice
area. Really, she needed the magical weapons range, but that was about three
miles away. Judy waved at Kolb and then spoke, her voice a bit rougher than it
had been.

"I
really can't stay. I need to get back to the ship for lift off. We leave in
three hours, so if you all can be there an hour ahead of time, that would be
good. If you don't show, you don't go. We leave at eleven sharp,
regardless." Then she walked away, taking to the air as if it wasn't any
kind of big deal at all. Since she had a new shield unit, she didn't have to
use her hands to do it either. It was, Tiera decided, very interesting to look
at.

She
hefted the canvas sack and looked at Kolb.

"Two
whole hours to practice with the new weapons? Eh?
Eh
?" The man actually
looked around at the group, and sighed.

"This
is a decent team for the first batch. Let's all head out to the range.
Kids..." He didn't say anything else, letting Havar take over.

"Three
miles from here, slightly to the north east. We'll fly in a loose formation.
Five sections of four. Keep your current groups, and you new people can work
into the ones that already exist." Then looking around he fixed his gaze
on Guide. "You can join with us, Eastgreen." He didn't wait to see if
Guide was going to say yes, but Tiera was still impressed. She hadn't been
aware that Havar knew the man's name at all.

She
ended up with Ali, which was a comfortable enough match. She was family after
all. She was also Karen's sister, so that would have worked too. The girl
simply bowed to Clyde first and then Lewis, who both looked completely at a
loss as to what to do. Etiquette wasn't something that had been covered a lot
where they'd been, it seemed.

"You
want to bow back. If a person is of a higher rank than you are, you need to go
lower than they did. There are more rules to it than that, but in this case you
want to go pretty deep. What you did earlier, Lewis, when you gave that device
to Judith? That was pretty much a bow between equals. Since you were handing
her an expensive gift at the time, it pretty much meant you were planning to
ask her to get married. That would be a catch too, since she's currently the
heir to a County." She was trying to tease the boy a little, but Ali
smiled hugely and nodded.

"That's
right. She's
really
nice too. You'd have to get a title of some kind
first though, and that can take some doing. Right now I'd get with Timon Baker
and see about working into his lunar colony project. That way you'll be on hand
to claim an early title, if there are any."

It
wasn't a horrible idea, except for the fact that the kid was maybe eight. He
seemed to be taking her seriously though. At least his answer sounded like it.

"I
have to kill those Ancients first. The ones that killed my parents. When their
kind is wiped out, I can see about other things." There was a dead tone to
the words, as if he might just not actually be a little kid anymore, inside, no
matter what it looked like from the exterior.

Tiera
looked at him, debating what to say. Finally she just went with the truth.

"Not
all of the Ancients are bad people. Brown of Austra isn't bad, for
instance."

The
boy looked back at her, his expression clearly saying she was a moron of the
highest caliber.

"He's
a Revered One, not an Ancient. They're
different
. Ancients are evil.
Revered Ones help you."

It
seemed a funny way to split the difference, but she wasn't going to argue the
point with him. For all she knew everyone in Austra just agreed with him. Could
she blame them? The Others had stepped right over into the realm of evil a
while ago and she didn't think they could ever come back from it. In fact, she
knew it. She was going to kill them all. If Lewis and these others didn't get
to them first.

She
went on, ignoring the potential insult. The boy didn't know that she was an
Ancient too, after all. Or that Kolb was.

"This
is Alyssa Baker. Conserina Four, Derring. She's Tor's wife." She was about
to explain that, when one of the other kids rounded on them, his eyes going
wide.

"
The
Tor? From the dimensional play?"

Tiera
didn't really know about that, but Ali nodded. It was a thing, it seemed.

"That's
him."

Then,
almost as if to distract them, Kolb flew off, toward the range. They didn't go
really fast, but three miles was still only about a minute away, even at half
speed. When they got into place, Kolb grabbed one of the softly rounded
styluses, and pointed it down range.

He
didn't need to be told how to make it work, just rocking the central stone
target with it, then moving to the side and barely thwaping one of the wooden
targets, making a rewarding thump and not much else, except some rocking. Then
he waved the others back and aimed at the target in the field next to them,
making the weapon go up and down in power. After that, rather meanly, he turned
and pointed at Karen with his index finger.

"Shield
up?"

She
tapped the front of her shirt, "I'm set." She was too. It was pretty
clear she expected the weapon to either not do anything, or to rock her back
hard, but she blinked and after a bit tried to touch her other hand.

"Um,
my shield's off." She slapped it again, touched herself to show it was on
and Kolb turned it off again.

The
only thing left of course, was for him to demonstrate removing a field from an
amulet. She sighed as he simply took one of the tiles that she'd made that
morning and melted it, right there in front of everyone. Farlo got the idea
first, taking one of the other white weapons out and closing her eyes, which
got the rest of the builders to do the same thing.

Mark
whistled, then pointed the thing down range and ran it through its paces
himself.

It
was cute, but Sam explained to the kids how to use it too, instead of claiming
they were too young, and soon they were all using them pretty well. They
weren't hard to use, you just had to know what you were doing first. Most
weapons were easier, since all you had to really do was aim them correctly.

After
a bit, Farlo turned her weapon on Tiera and hit her with first a tiny little
flick of pulsed energy, then a solid beam of it, that got harder until her
shield turned on.

"I
see. So it can pass the shield, at least at low levels? Tiera was that enough
to do anything to you?" She seemed interested, rather than anything else,
which was decent of her, since they didn't always get along perfectly.

"I
don't know. Try aiming for my eyes." They needed to know after all. A
second later she had her answer.

"Ouch!
All right,
that
hurts. I don't think it would keep me from fighting, but
it would be hard to run straight into that either. Not that I couldn't just
turn my shield on manually, but people forget that."

Terry,
who'd been standing back, very quietly the whole time, after his little event
earlier, bit his upper lip. Finally he looked around and walked over to her,
acting as if she was scary or something. It wasn't her new growth, she didn't
think, because Havar was about as tall as she was.