A renowned artist from Fhlee, whose race in adulthood grew to be no larger than a young child and were sought throughout the realm for their diminutive work, had painted the likeness with tiny hands. Dorn had set a few of their villages ablaze to bring them into line with his uncle’s reign. Though the artist was a slave by conquest, so fine was the portrait of his aunt, that in a rare act of veneration, Dorn actually paid the painter with gold instead of a flogging. The portrait was his anchor to home.
A knock at the door reverberated through Dorn’s headache.
“What?” he roared.
The gentleman entered-tall, lean, combed and manicured, in gray pinstripes, white gloves, and a black long-tail jacket.
“Oulfsan?” Dorn asked, pocketing the locket.
“No, master. Krebe.”
Dorn noticed the slight hunch in the man, the nervous twiddling of fingers. Krebe’s speech was heavy on the tongue.
“I’ll never get used to you two switching about,” Dorn said. “Well…?”
“On their way up, they are, sire. Wounded it seems.”
“I should hope so,” Dorn said, as though this was the least they should be. “When does Oulfsan return?”
“It don’t work like that, me lordship. ’Tis random.”
Dorn considered the man, ill-suited for his body, and waited for something to change.
“Leave me,” Dorn said.
2
The elevator, with some effort, carried the great weight of Hesz the giant and his two cohorts toward the upper levels of the hotel. Pools of blood from various wounds collected on the floor of the lift. Hesz supported Symian on his good arm. They had retrieved him from the sewer they’d stowed him in following the flare attack in the South Bronx tenement. The hope being that the dank, cool, darkness of the tunnels, similar to troll caves, would aid in his healing.
Hesz and Kraten ended up hiding down there with Symian for the better part of the day, much to Kraten’s verbal dismay. A police officer had cornered Hesz for questioning as he attempted to buy bandages and alcohol at a drugstore in the early morning. MacDonnell had initiated an APB for Hesz and his companions, and unfortunately, the giant could not help but be indiscreet. Hesz dispatched the police officer with a quick snap to the neck, and they remained underground with the troll until well after the sun had set.
Symian was still in bad shape-blind, his normally gray skin was blackened and crunched into flakes beneath his raincoat wherever Hesz applied pressure to support him. Symian was only half conscious for the pain.
They had done no better without the troll in the North Bronx when they had attempted to kidnap MacDonnell’s woman and child. Indeed, the woman herself had managed to wound Hesz before the sorceress appeared again with her magicks. Symian was one of a few besides Dorn in their group who knew how to wield magic-a fact that was lost on Kraten but was always in the forefront of Hesz’s mind. Magic was power. It was the keystone of humankind’s hold over their kingdoms and dominance over the nonhuman races.
The police swarmed the city looking for them. Because he was so unique looking in this world, they had to remain in the sewers and attempt to find their way back to the hotel underground. A city the size of New York had thousands of miles of tunnels beneath it. Hesz was angry, and in the true spirit of his forefathers, he wanted to smash things and break people. Dorn could have sent someone with an auto to pick them up, injured as they were, but his policy regarding failure was absolute. No mercy for failure. They were left to fend for themselves, not even a gurney for the injured lad. A stupid policy for such a fragile race as the purebloods. It would one day be their undoing. For now, Hesz drew on the three-fourths of his human blood to contain his temper.
“Stay your breath,” Kraten ordered.
“What?” Hesz responded, pulled out of his thoughts.
“This lift is as cold as a grave,” Kraten said, rubbing his arms for heat.
Hesz realized his anger caused him to breathe harder. Frost formed on the elevator walls. He held his breath to appease his cohort.
Hesz replayed the recent battles in his mind.
They had been outgunned and outclassed at MacDonnell’s home. Who knew MacDonnell’s wench had a firearm and the fortitude to use it? And then the sorceress appeared. But it never should have come to that anyway. It was Kraten who had forced the confrontation in the South Bronx tenement before they were ready. Symian was young and easily persuaded into action by the desert warrior. The swordsman was long on guts and glory but short on brains, a common trait among the desert folk of Verakhoon. Although a good warrior, Kraten was too brash and arrogant to be depended on, but he was Dorn’s favorite: a childhood playmate, and more importantly, a pureblood. They should have waited. How lucky they were to remain alive depended on Lord Dorn’s mood, which had become capricious with their extended stay in this world.
The group had been plagued by a series of blunders by Dorn’s own hand. Jumping into the transfer on a whim left them unprepared to function in this world. They lost weeks locating enough magical energy to cast the proper language spells, produce currency, learn about social hierarchies, and get the general lay of the society. Then, Dorn divided the mission into two fronts: one to search for the objective and one to destroy the opposition’s defenders-in hindsight a costly error. It had become apparent early on that none of the prince regent’s guardians was a threat. They were ignorant of their origins. Bad fortune had fallen among that group. Dorn failed to press this advantage.
The first few detectives Dorn had procured to find the boy came up empty because the trail was long cold. These men simply withered away in despair, unable to come to terms with their “heartless” existence. They finally stumbled across some good luck when Hesz spotted the newspaper article about the disgraced detective Colby Dretch. Perhaps the other sleuths had been too honest with much to live for. Instead, they required a cunning, deceitful man, desperate to redeem himself when confronted by his own mortality. Hesz brought Dretch to Lord Dorn’s attention, and finally they were on the boy’s trail.
Now, it was a game of catch-up. Had Dorn marshaled all their resources into finding the boy at the start of this escapade, and not put effort into eliminating the guardians, they might have cut the little bugger’s throat before the centaur sorceress rallied even one ally. The ultimate irony, it occurred to Hesz, was that the best strategy might have been just to leave things alone; in stirring the wasps’ nest, they’d set in motion the possible unearthing of the prince. This boy could have remained hidden forever: grown up, married, died an old man and, through union with commoners, bred his offspring out of any claim. He could even have been killed in a plane crash or drafted into a war. Anything was possible in this anarchic world. The odds had been in their favor. Now, it was a race.
The doors parted. Bellus, a skilyte, greeted Hesz, Kraten, and Symian with an oily smile. Two large humans stood guard at the entrance to the suite.
“The vanquished warriors return to the fold,” Bellus sneered. “You’ve been gone for the better part of a day while there is much work to be done. What do you have to say?”