The Star of Morcyth_ Book Five of the Morcyth Saga - Brian S. Pratt [99]
“Arkie!” Roland scolds his son.
Not looking the least bit sorry, Arkie grins at him as James wipes off the residue of the impact from his head.
“I’m sorry James,” Roland says as he slaps his son’s hand. The grin from Arkie quickly vanishes as his father reprimands him.
“Seems he has it in for you,” Miko says from his place down the table. Giving James an amused grin, he holds up one of the boiled tubers in salute then commences eating it.
At first it was amusing now it’s getting downright annoying. An idea comes to mind and James excuses himself for a moment and leaves through the back door.
“Think he’s getting a helmet?” Uther jokes.
“Maybe full body armor,” retorts Jorry which causes everyone in the room to chuckle. As soon as the door opens again and James returns to the table, everyone quiets down.
“What did you do?” Miko asks with a smile.
“Just got something from the workshop,” he says. Taking his fork, he commences eating. All the while he keeps an eye on Arkie from the corner of his eye. Sure enough after he’s begun to eat, Arkie starts glancing in his direction. He sees Roland begin to say something to his son but James shakes his head, indicating for him to leave the boy alone.
Everyone in the room is watching the unfolding event to see what’s going to happen. They know Arkie is about to throw, but James appears unconcerned. Ezra is simply beside herself. She wants to stop him but had seen James’ indication to Roland to leave him alone. Hitting the master of the house with a mushy tuber simply is not to be encouraged.
Then all of a sudden, Arkie grabs a tuber from off his plate and with a squeal, launches it at James. Just before the tuber reaches him, he feels a tingling spike as the crystal in his pocket creates a shield around him.
Splat!
The tuber strikes the shield three inches from his head. Everyone looks to James in surprise and he returns their gaze with a satisfied smile. Then all of a sudden, the shield disappears and the tuber, now no longer upheld by the presence of the shield, falls. Striking his shirt, it leaves a trail all the way down to his lap.
He sees Arkie again pick up a tuber and this time he doesn’t interfere in Roland’s attempt to discipline his child.
“What happened?” Miko asks incredulously.
“Just something I was working on,” he replies. “I’ll not go into detail about it.”
“It stopped the tuber,” Illan says.
“And anything else speeding toward me,” replies James.
“Anything?” asks Miko.
“Anything,” confirms James.
Miko suddenly grabs a large tuber and launches it at James.
Surprised by the attack, he leans back in his chair as the shield suddenly springs to life and stops the flying tuber. The tuber disintegrates and plasters the shield with a large area of tuber pieces. Then, just as it had before, when there was no longer something coming at him, the shield disappears. James scoots back quickly but not fast enough to avoid being hit when the mashed tuber is no longer supported by the shield and falls.
“Miko!” cries out Ezra. Enough is enough.
He looks and sees the anger in her eyes. No one acts that way at her table. “Sorry,” he says in his most apologetic tone.
“It’s nice to see I’ll have some help cleaning the dishes after the meal today,” she says, never once taking her eyes off him.
James stands up, tuber coating him from chest to groin. The others on the table break into a laugh. Arkie looks around at everyone, thankful that the attention has been diverted from him, and joins in with a high pitched squeal of delight.
“Guess I’ll have to work on that,” he says. Taking one more piece of meat off his plate, he leaves the kitchen and heads to his room to get a change of clothes. He’s not about to bathe twice the same day, at least not unless it’s warmer outside.
While he changes his clothes, he thinks he may need to make it that once the shield is activated, it will need his vocal authorization to cancel itself.