The Lost Prince

by Edward Lazellari

  Cal had rushed the barn stupidly like a one-man cavalry, and Seth felt pressured by Cal’s opinion of him as a coward to follow. They barely avoided the stampeded cows. Seth was scared out of his mind. He looked around for a place to hide should things go south, as they most assuredly will, and spied the long concrete pit of the milking station at the other end of the barn. Extraction hoses hung from racks on either side of the pit designed to accommodate several cows. Typical for Seth when under pressure, his mind wandered, and the farm’s operation gave him an idea for a porn set—amply endowed women fixed to the milking hoses: Deflowered Rebel Milkmaids.

  Cut that out! he admonished himself. His former self still lingered in the dark places, waiting for the chance to pop out. At least die with clean thoughts.

  “Let the prince go, and I’ll let you leave,” said Cal, snapping Seth back into the moment. “My word by the Twelve.”

  “Not very sporting of you, me lordship. Is it?” said Krebe stolidly. He appeared unafraid of death—or more accurately, unbelieving that this was the moment of it. There was a scary cockiness about him. His voice was rusty nails and shards of glass scraped over sandpaper. “You know full well Dorn would ’av us kilt if we return empty-handed. No. I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a pickle. Me an’ the boys—we end up dead in most of the ways this little drama turns out—we ’ave nothing left to lose—but you … you got everything to lose.” Krebe looked at the boy. “The rightful prince of Aandor—grand duke of the kingdom, father of the future emperor, lord regent of the realm and all that whatnot—such a tragedy to die so young.”

  “No one needs die,” implored Allyn. “Hunting innocent children is madness. This child has done you no wrong. Walk away…”

  Krebe ignored the preacher and remained focused on Cal. “I’ll make you a deal, me lordship. I take the boy, and spare your wife. You have my word.”

  “My wife?” Cal said.

  Seth was as confused as Cal looked.

  Suddenly, a group of young people stormed into the barn. Two men with guns and a fat goth girl holding a pitchfork surrounded Daniel, Allyn, and their captors. They were wet and their legs caked with mud. A fourth man snuck up behind Cal with his gun pointed at the cop’s head. Cal didn’t budge, keeping his gun squarely fixed on Krebe only a few feet in front of him.

  “Ya’ll just hand Hauer right over,” said the man behind MacDonnell. He wore a mullet, so naturally Seth assumed he was their leader. “I got no quarrel with none of you,” added mullet head.

  “Cody, you’re an idiot!” Daniel shouted.

  “You think I’m gonna just let you go? After you screw my girl? Specially with sixty thousand dollars on your head?”

  Krebe maintained his happy cool. “On second thought, I see a better arrangement,” he told MacDonnell.

  Krebe addressed the newcomers. “Kill the captain,” he said pointing at MacDonnell, “and truly we will have no quarrel.”

  “Is he a Fed? Shit!” Cody said.

  The meth dealers must have been sampling their wares. They were jittery and bloodshot—shaking from more than the cold—too much energy with no clear release.

  Another armed foursome of local boys rushed in behind the first group through the entrance, drenched to the bone and caked all over with mud. This was the crew from the SUV Cal had pushed off the road. They took positions around the barn, one with a pistol on Cody, another covering Cal, the third covering Krebe, and the fourth on Daniel, his captors and Cody’s people. They too had sampled their wares to give them a boost under stress and pressure. No one in this barn was in his or her right mind. The situation had deteriorated into a scene from a Tarantino movie; everyone shifted pistols nervously from target to target to target. Only Krebe and MacDonnell remained unfazed, with Cal’s gun locked squarely on the point between Krebe’s eyes. They were one jittery finger away from a melee not seen since bootlegging days.

  “Everybody cool it,” said the large square pink guy with the big silver belt buckle.

  “Hauer’s mine, McCoy!” shouted Cody. “This is personal! He—he fucked Luanne.”

  “Everyone’s fucked Luanne,” McCoy said in a cruel tone. “Now, put your fuckin’ guns down.”

  Krebe’s laugh rose slowly like the sound of a coming train—the intonation of a man who seldom uttered such a sound, who lacked mirth unless it involved the torture and death of another living thing. If fear was infectious, this man was its carrier, seeding the disease among the unwary. A shiver ran down Seth’s spine. Everyone was transfixed in the presence of this force, looking at him as though nails were running down a chalkboard.

  “Wha’s so funny, Fauntleroy?” said McCoy nervously.

  “Every one of you with your peasant schemes has failed to aim your weapon at the most dangerous man in the room,” Krebe answered, pointing his knife at Seth.

  Seth had been happily under the radar until this point. Not a gun aimed at him, barely a notice for the skinny photographer in jeans with dark ruffled hair and a passing resemblance to John Lennon around the eyes. The staff was the least threatening item in a barn filled with meth dealers, cops, assassins, giants, firearms, pitchforks, and knives. Even the fat goth chick looked more dangerous. Now, in the midst of this jittery strung out assembly, Krebe turned the spotlight on him.

  “He a ninja?” Cody asked sarcastically. The Carolinians laughed thinly, like graduates of the same school of comedy.

  Then it came to Seth like the flicking of a switch … Cal was not the reason Krebe’s men were frozen in the standoff. Lelani once said, Only a fool goes into battle undefended against a wizard. The boys from Aandor thought they were compromised.

  “Wizard,” Krebe answered McCoy seriously. “We could all be dead at a word. We should be, and yet…”

  Every successful spell Seth had cast came with the aid of Lelani or the tree wizard Rosencrantz. Neither was present in the barn. Krebe was beginning to wonder why this whole situation wasn’t over already. That too much time had passed without a magical resolution. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of Seth’s neck, camouflaged by the dripping rain. His stress level, already at DEFCON 2, had crept up another notch. Cal never took his focus off Krebe’s glabella. Was the cop waiting for Seth’s move? Something to get the prince away from Hommar? That wasn’t fair. Seth agreed to do anything Cal asked of him on this trip, but strategies were the cop’s domain.

  Cody and McCoy had positioned themselves to include Seth in their coverage. Their hands were shaking, their eyes confused. It was apparent that someone tonight was going to die, maybe a few someones … maybe everyone in this barn. The tension rose like a symphony playing toward its fourth movement.

  “He’s the most dangerous man in the world,” Krebe said, throwing fuel on the fire.

  “We got no beef with them, mister,” said McCoy. He wiped the sweat off his brow and fought to stay focused under the drugs. “We just want the reward money for the kid.”

  “I AM the reward money!” Krebe bellowed, stressing the key points for his mentally deficient audience. “I AM the sixty thousand, and HE’S going to STEAL your money,” he said pointing at Seth. “He’ll take the boy, and the MONEY will be GONE, and the cop will arrest you and throw you in the dungeon WITHOUT your drugs … no more sweet rock to smoke.” Krebe turned to Cody. “And the boy will FUCK Luanne until his cock shoots dust and her belly swells with his spawn, and—your—life—will—be—SHIT!”

  “I don’t wanna go to jail,” Cody cried.

  Cal whispered to Seth, “You need to do something now.”

  “Even now they plot to end your existence!” Krebe hammered away. “End them first!

  Krebe’s motion was both the fastest and slowest move Seth had ever seen in his life. He dropped the farmer’s rifle at the same instant that a second smaller dagger dropped from his sleeve.

  Relative to everyone, Krebe was a blur compared with the frozen minions around them, but because Seth was the object of his murderous rant, each second of movement
seared into his brain, slowing time to where a hummingbird in flight became still. In that next nanosecond, Seth was aware of the following: the knife’s trajectory was perfect for Seth’s heart; Krebe’s attack triggered every itchy finger in the barn; they all opened fire—every gun had been pointed at Cal and Seth; a gaggle of bullets flew at them.

  Seth’s internal distress exceeded its preestablished parameters. His stomach and shoulders clenched tightly to the point of pain, anticipating the impacts of multiple slugs; he thought he’d squeezed out every drop of juice, every ion of energy in his corporeal form. His staff soaked this tension like a sponge—a spot in the back of his brain erupted in a fiery burst as though a blot of boiling oil had dripped onto his occipital lobe; he believed a hoodlum had shot him in the back of the head, until the sensation exploded throughout his brain and his staff emitted a burst, like radiation from a nova, just as the knife and bullets approached him.

  The blade and every single bullet in the air shimmered and transformed into small purple blossoms, flowers with a pungent sticky sweet aroma that bounced forcefully off their jackets and heads. Real time reasserted itself as a final blossom bounced off Krebe’s ear while he attempted to avoid Cal’s return shot.

  Cal tried to fire off another round at Krebe, but the gun jammed. He pulled out his clip, which was completely wedged with purple blossoms. Everyone in the barn was picking flowers out of their guns.

  “Really?!” Cal cried. “Every single bullet? You couldn’t have left mine?”

  With that, Cal pulled Bòid Géard out of its scabbard in one artfully smooth motion that carried it through into an arc behind him to sever Cody’s gun hand from his forearm. Cody screamed like a little girl and dropped to his knees, clutching at his newly minted stump. McCoy threw his pistol at Cal, who deflected it with the sword, twisted to avoid McCoy’s feeble attempt at a punch, throwing the big guy off balance and exposing his back to the cop. In a swift motion, Cal changed his sword grip to that of holding an ice pick and drove the sword through the back of the man’s thigh and out through the quadriceps. Instead of pulling the sword back out the way it went in, he twisted the blade’s angle and yanked sideward, cutting the hamstring and anterior cruciate ligament like an Easter ham to free his weapon. The bull of a man went down in agony and bled into the dirt. MacDonnell had done both Cody and McCoy in less than five seconds.

  These people are all way too fast for me, Seth thought.

  The other meth heads, realizing no amount of money was worth getting hacked to pieces, took off. Each crew collected their respective leader on the way, wrapping belts and T-shirt tourniquets around their wounds, and disappeared into the cold darkness. Krebe’s face showed its first sign of distress—Seth wasn’t as magically neutered as suspected, and MacDonnell was better armed. Cal was upon Krebe in a beat.

  “What about my wife?” Cal said.

  Krebe reclaimed the farmer’s rifle in time to stave off Cal’s raging thrusts, parries, and ripostes with the steel barrel and his ornamental dagger. He lost his bowler as the cop’s offensive drove him back into a dimly lit corner of the barn.

  Seth had never seen Cal so angry, not even at him. The reverend, the prince, and their captors were the only ones left.

  “Back, wizard,” ordered Todgarten, holding the reverend like a shield. Seth appreciated the irony of the seven-foot bruiser’s fear of him, in lieu of his lack of magical proficiency. He didn’t know how he did the flower trick and didn’t think he could repeat it unless his life depended on it.

  Cal and Krebe continued to go at each other in the darker far corner of the barn. They could barely make out the figures, gray silhouettes against a gray backdrop. Someone was losing badly.

  “Why should you die for Dorn?” Allyn Grey posited to the two henchmen. “The captain will not harm you if you spare the boy.”

  “Krebe’s art is death,” Todgarten said, trying to convince himself more than the others. “He is a master.”

  So much for team loyalty … Todgarten had no intention of going to help Krebe fight Callum, Seth realized. Dorn’s style of management was fear driven; his people’s priorities shifted depending on what they feared most at the moment. How did Farrenheil ever get anything done? Dorn’s family must be the scariest in the Twelve Kingdoms.

  Daniel wheezed under Hommar’s forearm lock. He had to get the man off the kid’s neck. The lackey believed Daniel’s life was the only thing protecting him from Seth at the moment. Seth’s incompetence years ago put this boy in danger. Daniel’s life was hard and mired in pain instead of love. Hommar was waiting for orders—anyone’s orders. He was not a big-picture thinker, but if Hommar realized he could end Aandor’s claim with one well-placed snap, all their efforts to save Daniel would be moot.

  Colby Dretch snuck up behind Todgarten with a pitchfork. The detective jammed it into the giant’s calf. Todgarten yowled in pain and tried to swipe Colby with one arm while holding on to the reverend with the other. Colby retained the pitchfork and jabbed at the giant again, this time sticking him in the ribs. The giant let go of Reverend Grey to extract the farm instrument.

  Reverend Grey lunged at Hommar, who was too distracted by Dretch’s attack to realize the minister was on him. Grey didn’t struggle—he closed his eyes as though in prayer. Hommar tried to pull away, then made a face like he was in shock, like he’d just materialized in the middle of Antarctica in winter. Reverend Grey moved a hand to Hommar’s face and touched his own forehead to the man’s. Hommar relinquished his grip on Daniel, and Seth pulled the kid away from them. Daniel’s neck was red from the pressure. He rubbed it and took several deep breaths.

  “Who are you people?” the kid asked. “When did I become the center of the universe?”

  “Kid, we need a whole lot more time than we have right now to explain it,” Seth told him.

  Hommar stopped struggling. “Prelate, how may this sinner serve the gods?” he asked the reverend.

  “Stop the giant,” said Grey. “Take him down.”

  Hommar lunged into a football tackle, driving into Todgarten’s back. The giant, who’d been focused on the unkillable Colby Dretch, was taken completely by surprise. Hommar jammed a hunting knife through his former cohort’s ribs.

  “Hommar, you fool,” yowled Todgarten. “You allowed the cleric to bless you.”

  As they struggled, Colby jumped into the fray, helping to weigh the giant down. Todgarten kicked the detective off easily and put his attention toward the more dangerous opponent. Colby shook his head, got up, and calmly joined Seth, Daniel, and the reverend. “Not jumping back in?” Seth asked.

  Colby produced a thumping velvet pouch, one that had been on Todgarten’s belt moments before. “Nope, got what I wanted.”

  Todgarten broke Hommar’s back on his knee and then snapped the man’s neck just as easily. He threw the man aside like a bag of garbage and faced the four.

  “Your tricks won’t work on me cleric and the wizard is a fraud. I will break your bones as I did—”

  The whup-whup-whup sound of the tumbling dagger was only audible for a second before Krebe’s ornamental knife lodged into the side of the giant’s neck. Blood gushed forth, but not as much as if Todgarten had removed the knife. Miraculously, the giant remained on his feet.

  A bloody Cal MacDonnell emerged from the dark corner of the barn. The giant picked up the pitchfork and swung it at Cal, who ducked and then used his sword to trap the pronged end against the ground. Todgarten tried to raise it again, but Cal snapped the handle near the tines with his boot. The giant started to lunge at the knight, but pulled back just in time to avoid a deeper cut across his abdomen as Cal arced the sword across Todgarten’s belly. Todgarten backed up and tripped on a hay bale.

  “I yield,” he said coming to his knees, putting his hands in front of him to ward off the knight. But MacDonnell hacked the creature’s hands off in one swipe, adding two more red streams to the giant’s tally. Todgarten wheezed and gurgled, his neck wound filling his mout
h and throat with blood.

  “For Tristan,” MacDonnell said. He pulled the dagger out of the giant’s neck, unimpinging his carotid artery. Todgarten’s blood poured forth like mountain streams in a spring thaw.

  “Holy shit!” cried Daniel.

  Allyn Grey lightly smacked the back of the boy’s head. “That’s what my daughter gets when she talks nonsense,” he told the prince. To Callum he asked, “Is that the last of them?”

  “Not quite. I came to get you.”

  They followed the knight back to the start of a red trail … a mortally wounded Krebe dragged himself along the barn floor, the bloody period on a red-streaked exclamation point he etched into the dirt behind him. His right leg below the knee was gone.

  Krebe propped himself up against a bale of hay to face his enemies. They observed him, like roadkill not lucky enough to have died instantly.

  “I—I choose who dies,” he sputtered. Blood spat out when Krebe talked. A wild, demented stare had set into the eyes. “I am the artist—the warden of death. The bringer of pain.”

  “Stealing the lives of young girls is a coward’s delusion,” Cal said. “You are a madman serving a mad master.”

  Krebe focused for a moment. He looked at his severed leg and smiled. Bloodstained teeth added to his sinister appeal, like hyenas after a kill. “My brother will be so disappointed to play the cripple for half his life,” he said, laughing hysterically.

  “What did you mean about my wife?” Cal said.

  “The master hears voices in his migraines,” Krebe said, responding to questions not put to him. He’d lost his train of thought.

  “My wife,” Cal repeated.

  Seth wondered about Cat himself. Something wasn’t right. They hadn’t heard from her in over a day and Krebe had been entirely certain of his ability to barter Catherine for his life.