A Creature of War, Book 4, CH17

“Well, yes, I guess we’re on time.” The man said, not sounding convinced.

“You guess?” The tone of Vee’s voice was sharper, not quite angry, but El wasn’t sure how long that would last. The bull had had to pull each and every answer from the team leaders seated around the table.

The man shrugged. “Yes.” He didn’t look up from the little food he pushed around the plate. For the amount of complaining they always did about how hungry they were, El expected them to devour the food they were given, but it seemed they were only hungry for good looking food.

Vee sighed. “Care to elaborate?”

The man played with his food again, or rather, El realized, played harder with it. That’s what they’d been doing, all of them. Focusing more on the food each time Vee asked them a question. Did they think Vee didn’t already know they were hungry?

“Well, no one’s working as fast as before, being hungry, you know. There’s a distinct possibility things are going to be delayed.”

“I asked you to take the reduced productivity into account when you made the initial estimate. I made it clear I wasn’t interested in make-believe time frame. I need accurate estimates so I can plan.”

More playing with his food. At this point, El wouldn’t be surprised if the plate cracked under the pressure of the fork.

“Well, I thought I had, but I can’t be sure we’re going to be able to maintain even that speed of work anymore. Being hungry and all.”

El heard the anger in the sigh. “Alright. I understand that you are hungry. We all are. These maneuvers won’t make more food appear out of nowhere.” Another sigh, more resignation this time. “Let’s move on then. What’s the time frame for the next block of rooms? I have thirty people who will be able to leave the infirmary soon. They’re going to need a place to stay.”

“Well,” the man said, more scraping of the fork on the plate. The snap of Vee’s fork in his hand kept him from adding anything.

“Maybe Harry can take a few of the rooms?” Malcolm offered while Vee glared at his hand and the broken fork. He was the only one of them who had eaten everything with the gusto of a hungry man. “As far as I know, he’s slightly ahead.”

El looked away from the bull and at the six construction leaders. Harry glared at Malcolm.

“Yeah. I can probably manage one or two without affecting my part.”

“I’m on time,” the woman next to Harry said. The two men next to her nodded eagerly.

“I’m going to be late,” the man seated opposite Harry said. “I’ve had two injuries and I can’t find anyone to replace them. Everyone’s going for guard duties, for the extra food.”

The woman seated next to him glanced at Vee. “Maybe we need to limit the number of guards? That would ensure we have enough workers for our crews.”

The bull shook his head. “I want anyone willing and able as guards. Come spring, you’re going to need a decent force to protect you from the other cities that are bound to be hungry too. Right now, the snow is keeping them from attacking you. Once it’s gone, some of them will decide it’s easier to steal food than grow it themselves.”

“I wouldn’t worry about a lack of workers,” El said. “Vee might not want to limit the number of guards, but I’ve reached the limit of how many police I can handle. I don’t have the time to train unit leaders. Once those left realize they have to go on the wall and endure the cold, I expect they’ll decide that staying indoors is more to their liking.”

“Can I ask a question?” the woman next to Harry looked at El.

“Go ahead.”

“Aren’t you part of the guard? Shouldn’t you be getting their level of food?”

Vee snorted. “Oh and how much complaining would that cause here?”

El ignored him. “I’m not a guard. I’m in charge of the police. The police might be part of the Guards, but I’m their leader. That puts me at the same level as you.”

The rest of the meal was more of the same. Every department leader, storage, infirmary, sanitation and so many others El wish he could have left halfway through, made a show of how little food they had while forcing Vee to draw out every answer he needed to plan for the days ahead. Malcolm was the only one who’d given his answers easily, which earned him glares from the others.

As the meal came to a close, everyone seemed to find their enthusiasm for the food and by the time the left, all the plates had been cleaned off.

Malcolm was the only one who didn’t stand, so Vee remained seated. El stayed too because now that this was over. Reports were all he had to go back to. He was trying to keep away from practicing his power and that meant staying occupied.

Malcolm looked at the door when he closed. “May I offer a suggestion, well, more of an opinion?”

“Of course,” Vee motioned for him to proceed.

Malcolm hesitated. “I think these diners reports might be a mistake.”

“What do you mean? This is how Artell did things. I’m trying to change things as little as I can.”

“I know, but have you noticed how they’ve found a way to use them to get you angry?” The man motioned to the broken fork. “They purposefully force you to work at getting answers and you hate that. I don’t want to be insensitive, but what happens the day you actually lose your temper? You can heal with a thought, can you hurt the same way?”

“I’d never do that.”

“Very well, but you’re getting closer and closer to losing it. Getting you angry will give them something to report to the masses, of how their leader is unpredictable, how you just lose it and rant. And if some of them have figured out your power lets you cause harm, linking that to you losing of temper could put the fear of you into many of the people here. They are stressed enough. It won’t take much to make them snap.”

Vee nodded, drumming his fingers on the table. “I never liked these end of the day reports. It’s too late to do anything about problems. I prefer midmorning reports. And I like them short and to the point.” He motioned to the table. “Not these sprawling affairs.”

“That would work. They’ll be distracted with whatever is happening with their crews so won’t be in a position to bring up food.”

“Pass the word along, Malcolm. Tomorrow’s meeting is…” more drumming of the fingers while looking around the room. “Not here. Tomorrow morning, in the old Governor’s chambers. We don’t need all this space just for reports. I’ll move my desk there and make it a proper office.” He motioned to the cabinet where the hand-drawn maps were stored. “That’ll fit there too.”

“Very well,” the scope of the decision seemed to take Malcolm by surprise. “What do you want to do with this room then? We can probably make seven or eight rooms out of the space. I don’t have the material needed for it. It’s all allocated for the room blocks you want built, but come spring, we can get the scaffolding needed.”

Vee shook his head. “This room is going to be for the children. I’ve noticed how they’re mostly left with some of the older folks to watch over them in the hallways. Not only isn’t that safe, but they’d cool. This room is easy to keep warm, with the fireplace. It’ll keep them in one place, easy to monitor. I don’t expect there will be enough birth to overfill this room, and in spring you can run the numbers and see if more will be needed.”

Malcolm nodded. Not over the surprise it seemed.

“We could use that to create a new worker group,” El said. “Right now the elderly who watch over the children aren’t getting anything out of it. If we officially make some of them caretakers, it would qualify as workers.”

Vee nodded. “Which would entitle them to more food.”

“Is that wise?” Malcolm asked. “They’re old, shouldn’t the food go to those who can contribute more substantially?”

“I’m not Artell. I won’t judge someone less worthy just because they are older. If they work, they qualify for worker’s food.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry, I’m just thinking of the logistic of it all. More workers mean less food overall.”

“We’ll make it work.” Vee said. “I have faith in you.”

Malcolm nodded.

“It won’t be every elderly.” El said. “Just the numbers needed to watch over the children. We can arrange a rotating schedule different people on different days, so they can all get a little more food on the days they are working here.”

Vee looked at Malcolm. “Can you handle this?”

“I—I don’t know. This is going to require me to redo the numbers of the food stores. I—”

“I can take care of it,” El said. “I can have my officers talk with the elderly on their patrols. Let them know what we’re doing. They can also let the parents know.”

“Good.” Vee stood and squeezed Malcolm’s arm. “Don’t worry. I trust you to find a way to make it work.”

“Of course. This just caught me by surprise.” He stood, and they left together.

Once in their room, El sat before the fire. He closed his eyes and felt it move. Not just the heat on his fur, but the fire itself. On days when he let his imagination wander, he could almost believe the fire was a living thing, growing, eating, dying.

With a thought, he made the fire jump to one side of the hearth, then back to the other. Air was easier to control, but he had more precision with fire. He shrank the fire until all he had was a single flame. He had it spread until it wrote the two letters of his name.

He picked a twig from a bundle he’d made and kept by the fireplace, and held it over the flame, too far for it to catch. He focused on the flame as he lowered the twig. He tried to keep its heat contained so the twig wouldn’t ignite, but it caught on fire, just like the other ones. He threw it in the fire and release the flame from his control.

Vee sat behind him and pulled him against his chest. He had a bowl of water in a hand. “Just don’t overdo it,” he said, handing it to the lynx.

El looked at the bowl and tried to will the water to form a column. All that happened was the water domed in the center. He let it go and tried again, with the same result, although he thought the dome had been higher than last time.

He put the bowl down. Before he could reach for it, Vee handed him the bowl with the dirt in it. With it he simply tried to get the earth to accumulate in the center of the bowl, but he it didn’t even tremble under his command. He set it down and rested his hand against Vee.

This position let him see the strings he had attached to a branch and secures do it stuck over the fireplace’s mantle. A dozen strings. He tried to move only one of them with air, and they all flew about, settling back in place when he stopped. A few minutes of that and he stopped.

Lastly, he closed his eyes and felt for the lightning. There wasn’t any he could feel, but he didn’t know what his range was. Even if there had been electricity around, he wouldn’t have been able to use that as a test. Something about running through the wires made it different from lightning and he couldn’t even sense it.

Static came to mind. She’d been able to feel the electricity in the wires. Disrupting machines had been her thing. He wished she’d lived long enough so they could have compared powers. Could she sense lightning? That had never come up since back then, El hadn’t realized he could. What would she have discovered if she’d lived?

What saddened him more was that after all this time, he barely remembered anything about her. She’d been a skunk, but he couldn’t describe her. With a sigh, he turned and snuggled against his bull. What he needed was a distraction.

    *

With a growl he threw another burning twig in the fire. How many days now? And still no improvement? He grabbed another and pushed in it the fire throwing his anger into keeping it from igniting. The fire jumped to it.

He reached for another one and Vee wrapped his arms around him. “You need a break,” the bull whispered in his ear.

“I’m going to get this.” El snagged a twig and threw it in the fire, only to watch it burn.

Vee nuzzled the back of his neck. “You promised to take it easy, remember?”

“Vee…” his voice trailed off as the bull licked his ear.

“Think of this as being my part in helping you keep your promise.” He licked the inside of his ear and El shuddered.

“I hate you,” El said softly as he turned to kiss the bull. “You do this to me every night.”

Vee cupped the lynx’s ass. “Because you need it as much as I do.”

El’s moan was all the agreement he gave.