“Uh…”

OK, not the most brilliant statement of all time, but he was being detained? For what? Tor really wanted to know that before he just went peaceably. After all, it could be a trick. The King hadn't mentioned it to him after all. Worse, Captain Curtis, the city guardsmen in charge, wouldn't tell him. No, he just stood, backed by a hundred red and white uniformed men in funny round hats with a flat top and bill on the front to shade the eye.

A hundred armed men.

Well, it was Smythe who asked, so this probably wasn't aimed at him personally. It rankled, but what could they do? They all lined up and went along. Captain Curtis demanded everyone give up their weapons and shields as well as any other magical devices they were holding. That made Tor wary again.

Why would they want them unarmed? They were just witnesses to an attack, not the assassins. They’d caught those and delivered them already. It didn’t make sense.

Tor tried to treat it as a joke, but he felt really worried, like the whole thing was horribly wrong. Then, he’d always been nervous around guards. They didn’t have those in his home village at all.

“Are you going to steal them? If you do I'll be upset, and possibly badmouth you by name in the streets, Captain Curtis.” Tor was joking, mainly, but he didn't want to be robbed like he had been before, and have to start all over yet again. It had only been a month since the last time. It was really about too much. The man didn't say anything to him, just fingered his weapon and glared, menacingly. He was good at it, like it was part of his job or something. The man looked about thirty and over six-four, now that Tor saw him on the ground. His moustache was brown, and kind of thin, trimmed that way.

Seriously though? They were being taken prisoner? After everything this was how they were treated? Like criminals? In public too, just to humiliate them? Tor couldn't grasp it at all. Was it possibly…