bodyguard, he and his comrades had been assigned by that royal personage to
clean up the crime and corruption that abounded in the town. It had been hard
work and dangerous, but it was honest work a soldier could take pride in. The
townspeople had taken to calling them Hell-Hounds, a title they had smugly
accepted and redoubled their efforts in an attempt to live up to.
Then the Stepsons had come, an arrogant mercenary company which one of the Hell
Hounds, Tempus Thales, had abandoned his mess-mates to lead. That had really
been the start of the Hell-Hounds’ downfall. Their duties were reduced to those
of token bodyguards, while the actual job of policing the town fell to the
Stepsons. Then the Beysib had arrived from a distant land, and the Prince’s
infatuation with their Empress led him to replace his Hell-Hounds with fish-eyed
foreign guards of the Beysa’s choosing.
Denied even the simplest of palace duties, the Hell-Hounds had been reassigned
under loose orders to “keep an eye on the brothels and casinos north of town.”
Any effort on their part to intercede or affect the chaos in the town proper was
met with reprimands, fines, and accusations of “meddling in things outside their
authority or jurisdiction.”
At first, the Hell-Hounds had hung together, practicing with their weapons and
hatching dark plots over wine as to what they would do when the Stepsons and
Beysib guards fell from favor and they were recalled to active duty. Exclusion
from the war at Wizardwall, and finally the assassination of the Emperor, had