Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech

by Werner, C. L.

  “It might not look it, but even a place like this has certain standards,” Rutger said. As he released her arm, he lunged at Marko, grabbing the thief by the front of his cloak and lifting him off the floor with one hand. “They probably won’t mind if we settle with him outside.”

  Marko yelped. “Is this the thanks I get for warning you about the ambush in the coalfield?”

  Rutger pulled the thief close, getting right in his face. “Who was it that sold us out to Olt to begin with?”

  Marko squirmed in the mercenary’s grip. “Now . . . there . . . there is some . . . some truth to that,” he said. “But . . . but I’ve come . . . to square things. To do you both a big favor.”

  “You can stand still while I shoot your fingers off,” Taryn suggested, rising from the table.

  “Listen . . . wait . . . just hear me,” Marko said. “I know you two are in a tight spot and I want to help.”

  Taryn reached over and twisted the thief’s ear, smiling when she saw the little man wince in pain. “What do you know?”

  Marko glanced around at their surroundings, a sly look coming over his face. He answered in a whisper. “The watch has put posters out on you both. One hundred silverweight. Dead or alive, naturally.”

  “And you think to collect?” Rutger tightened his grip.

  “Me? Betray old friends for such a paltry sum?” Marko sounded genuinely offended.

  Taryn frowned, a thought occurring to her. The ear she held between her fingers was adorned with a sapphire stud. “Does he look different to you?” she asked Rutger. The mercenary shared his partner’s frown. When they’d first encountered Marko in Five Fingers he’d been eking out an existence with a band of muggers on Chaser. To judge by the rings on his fingers, the gemstones in his ears, and the necklaces adorning his chest, the thief had come up in the world.

  “Nice of you to notice,” Marko said, winking at Taryn. He howled when she gave his ear another twist. “Stop that before you tear it off,” he whined.

  “Maybe we should hear him out,” Rutger said, lowering the thief to the floor. “You can always kill him later.”

  Taryn kept her gaze focused on Marko. “I’ve heard that one before,” she grumbled, giving the Midlunder’s ear a final twist before letting go of him.

  With exaggerated care, Marko smoothed his rumpled clothes and adjusted the stud in the ear Taryn had twisted. “This is nice,” he said. “I come looking for my friends because I want to make restitution for past misunderstandings, because I know they’re in a tight spot and could use my help and this is the thanks I get.” He looked from Rutger to Taryn. “But only a small mind holds a grudge. I will overlook this unpleasantness.”

  “Just let me wound him,” Taryn hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Let’s hear what he has to say first,” Rutger said. “Then we can flip a coin for who gets first crack at him.”

  Marko smiled, clearly doing his best to make the expression look genuine. “You’ve no doubt taken stock of my recent prosperity. Now I’m in a position to invite you to share in my good fortu—”

  “Not interested,” Rutger said. “All I want to hear from you pertains to the bounty the watch has put on us.”

  Marko shook his head. He sank down into the empty chair beside Taryn. “That’s a bad business, very bad. It’ll be a few days yet before they start distributing the posters to the other islands. That dwarf whose business you ruined, I’m afraid he has a good memory for faces, and to make things worse, some talented artistic friends.” He reached beneath his striped vest and unfolded the top portion of a large sheet of parchment. Rutger and Taryn groaned in unison when they saw the excellent renditions of their own faces staring up at them.

  “Everything’s for sale in this city,” Taryn said. “Who do we pay off to make this all go away?”

  “Lots of people,” Marko said. “First, naturally, there’s the Chaser Island Watch. Then you have to make restitution to your dwarf friend. Then there’s the Tordoran Way Community Guild, they’ll expect to be compensated for the cleanup. You have the landlords of the residences above the—”

  “How much?” Taryn said.

  Marko made a quick calculation on his fingers. “About nine hundred royals should do it,” he decided.

  “Nine hundred gold?!” Taryn shouted. “The bounty on us is only one hundred silver!”

  “Justice doesn’t come cheap,” Marko said. “Now, if you’d like to hear my proposition . . .”

  “Not interested,” Rutger said. “We’ll get the money our own way.”

  “If you had the time, you mean,” Marko said. His face grew grave, even the cunning gleam leaving his eye. “Kalder’s in town,” he whispered.

  Rutger settled back in his chair, his expression turning dour. Taryn looked at the two men. “Somebody mind telling me who this Kalder is?”

  “A bounty hunter,” Marko said. “One of the most vicious in the trade.” He wagged a finger at Rutger. “Some of us have crossed his path before.”

  Taryn shrugged. “So this Kalder knows you? If he’s got a reputation, he must be expensive. He won’t bother about a one hundred–silverweight reward.”

  “He will for me,” Rutger said. “You know something of my past. In my youth I often lived outside the law. Kalder was an established bounty hunter even back then. He managed to track me down after I’d stolen some jewels intended for Duke Skarholt’s mistress. He turned me over to the duke, but before he was paid I managed to escape Skarholt’s dungeons. Skarholt was so enraged, he had Kalder thrown into the dungeon in my place.”

  “I can see why he might bear a grudge,” Taryn said.

  Rutger shook his head. “Not a grudge. A vendetta. Kalder spent six months in Skarholt’s dungeon. While he was there, his wife caught the plague and died.” He drank down the rest of his rum, so focused on his memories that he barely felt its bite. “Kalder used to be a decent, honorable man. He always gave his quarry a chance to be taken alive. He gave me that chance. His wife’s death burned away whatever sense of honor he possessed, any empathy he might have had for those he hunts. Now he’s a killer, a headhunter trying to fill the void in his soul with blood money. They could post a black penny for me and Kalder would come looking.”

  “Which is why you should listen to me,” Marko said. “I have a plan that could make us a couple thousand royals within a week. Two weeks tops.” He pushed his chair closer to the table, dropping his voice to a subdued squeak. “I’ve heard all about the fight in Blood Alley and that warjack you’ve got. Now, I know about a certain place where your ’jack can earn some big money quick. Granted, it’s maybe quasi-legal, but the gold’ll spend just the same.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Taryn snarled. Worried about Rutger, she was in no humor to entertain one of Marko’s duplicitous schemes.

  “Pit-fighting,” the thief said. He raised his hands to stave off any angry retort. “Not a blood sport, mind. Nothing like that. Well, not really like that.” He hurried to explain, appreciating that Taryn’s patience was growing dangerously low. “I know a place where they stage fights once a week. Very lucrative.”

  “Listen, you little weasel, if you think you’re going to talk Rutger into getting himself slashed to ribbons by pit fighters . . .”

  Marko blanched at Taryn’s intensity.

  “He’s not talking about me,” Rutger said. “He wants Rex.” He slammed his cup onto the dilapidated table. “You’re talking about ’jack-scrapping, aren’t you?”

  Marko grinned. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t really need you, would I?” He tapped the fingers of one hand against the rings adorning the other. “After what happened in Blood Alley, your ’jack has developed quite a reputation. The operator of this . . . establishment we’ve been discussing would pay enormously well if he could promise his patrons a ‘celebrity’ fight.”

  “Not interested,” Rutger said.

  “Why not?” Taryn asked, rounding on her partner. She knew he was thinking only o
f Rex, thinking about his ’jack getting demolished in Marko’s arena. One of Rutger’s most frustrating quirks was his way of treating ’jacks almost as if they were alive. Taryn didn’t need some sentimental nonsense to give her the worries. She was thinking about the price on her friend’s head and the vindictive bounty hunter who’d be only too happy to collect it.

  “Because we’re not,” Rutger said. “I’m not going to let Rex get torn apart just to gratify a mob of drunken degenerates.”

  “But letting a bounty killer slit your throat, that’s fine?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t need to come to that,” Marko said, looking from one mercenary to the other. “The proprietor of this venture, he’ll want to build up Rex’s reputation first. Stage some preliminary fights for a month or so. Put you against repurposed laborjacks and the like. Nothing too serious.” A titter rose from the thief. “We can make our money on the preliminaries and when it comes time for the big fights, we can simply tell them we’re no longer interested.” He leaned closer to Rutger, tapping a finger against the splintered table. “After what happened in Blood Alley, you need to practice with your ’jack a bit more. Work out the bugs. I ask you, where else are you going to find controlled battlefield conditions to really put Rex through its paces?”

  “Wurm’s breath,” Taryn said. “I hate to say it, but the little weasel’s right.” She could see the turmoil in Rutger’s eyes. “You know it too,” she said.

  Marko beamed, puffing out his chest as he leaned back. “I’ll act as your manager, save you from all the drudgery of arranging fights and negotiating with the proprietor. Rutger, of course, will need to operate Rex. Taryn, we don’t . . .” The thief almost choked on his words when he met the gun mage’s glare. “You can come along for moral support.”

  Taryn ignored the Midlunder. Rising from her chair, she laid her hand on Rutger’s shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do,” she said.

  “No,” Rutger said, “it’s not the right thing to do.” He clenched his fist. “But it is the smart thing to do.”

  “Excellent.” Marko laughed. “I’ll go make the arrangements and we can discuss the split.”

  “Even shares,” Taryn said. Her tone brooked no argument.

  Marko shrugged. “It’s a lot of work to do, a lot of favors to call in, but seeing as we’re old friends, I’ll settle for a third.”

  “A quarter,” Rutger said, his decision drawing bewildered looks from both Marko and Taryn. “Rex gets a share too.”

  Marko blinked in disbelief. “The . . . the ’jack?” he said. “You want to give the ’jack a share?”

  Rutger nodded. “He’s the one that’s going to get knocked around. There’ll be repairs and upkeep to take into consideration. If Rex gets his own share, then we can make sure he gets the treatment he deserves after each fight.”

  Rat Run was appropriately named. Since entering the shadowy, stinking morass that passed itself off as a shortcut from Chesake Market to Haggler’s Square, Lorca had seen no fewer than a hundred of the vermin scurrying along the gutter or across the rigging overhead. Some of the loathsome rodents looked big enough to serve on the lord governor’s staff.

  The southernmost of the islands that made up the city of Five Fingers, Hospice was a labyrinth of filthy slums, a quagmire of human misery and despair. It was to Hospice that the poorest of the poor were discarded, condemned to a starveling existence in a place the rest of the city did its best to pretend didn’t even exist. For those who wanted to disappear, Beggar’s Isle offered a dismal anonymity, provided one could tolerate the obscene broth of poverty and disease.

  Even Lorca had been forced to use caution, a threadbare coat concealing the expensive cut of his clothes. The half-dozen brutes who escorted him down Rat Run were from a local gang with loyalties to Lorca’s syndicate and ultimately to High Captain Kilbride. The thugs kept their clubs and knives at the ready, and any sign of movement brought a wary glance from at least one of them. Kilbride had been fighting High Captain Waernuk for control of the Beggar’s Maze area for several years, but it wasn’t the rival syndicate that most worried Lorca. Elsewhere in Five Fingers, even the independent criminals were leery of angering one of the big syndicates. On Hospice, there were many too desperate to care whom they crossed. It was hard to worry about consequences when you hadn’t eaten for a week.

  From the Beggar’s Maze, Rat Run led into the dilapidated Southhold Prow. Once a bustling industrial area, the district had since fallen into the same squalor as the rest of the island. Full of abandoned warehouses, dilapidated mills, and run-down tenements that had once housed thousands of factory workers, the district was a wilderness of rust and decay.

  Lorca’s escort led him toward a rotting warehouse on the area’s periphery. The brick walls were gradually crumbling away, the tile roof had been stripped bare by storms to expose rusted iron beams, and the windows were boarded, the doors chained together. As they approached, Lorca felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. There was an indefinable atmosphere here, something more depressing than mere abandonment, something more elemental in its wrongness. The feel of the place was more than simply doomed. It was forsaken, even damned.

  He could see that his guards felt the same. Their vigilance took on an almost frantic quality. Even the rats were repelled, straying no nearer the warehouse than a few hundred yards. Lorca frowned at his own uneasiness. He dismissed his escort, unwilling that they should see his timidity. He waited until the gang had withdrawn into the broken hulk of an old steel mill before forcing himself onward.

  Unlike the rats and thugs, Lorca knew the reason for the dread that chilled his heart. That knowledge gave him the courage to press on alone. Indeed, the ordeal emboldened him with each step. The source of his fear was no mystery because it was something under his control.

  It took three keys to open the lock that bound the chains across the warehouse doors. By the time Lorca had finished turning the last key, his pride had dulled the last tremor in his hands. There was no fear in his step when he slid one of the iron-banded doors along its corroded runners and stepped into the darkness.

  Fear returned when the gangster’s eyes adjusted. Laid out along the dusty floor of the warehouse, close to the door, was a row of bodies. A dozen or more, each in a different state of decay and putrefaction. The sight of corpses, even in such profusion, wouldn’t have bothered Lorca. It was what had been done to them that made his gorge rise, certain mutilations that were as unspeakable as they were profane.

  “Feeling squeamish?” Azaam’s brittle voice sounded from the darkness. Lorca looked away from the row of corpses, stared as the blood hag came stalking out of the darkness. She had discarded the affectations of an elderly dowager, adorning herself in the savage splendor of a Satyxis sorceress. A kilt of tanned leather was wrapped about her waist, the dried fingers of the men whose flayed skins had provided the garment flapping against the hem with each step she took. A bustier of bleached bones circled her chest, grisly charms and talismans entwined with the skeletal framework. A headpiece of malachite and adamantine coiled about her brow, writhing like a serpent between the grotesque horns jutting from her forehead. It was the knife in her wizened hand that arrested Lorca’s attention, however. The knife and the fresh blood coating the grey arm that held it.

  “You were told to hide until I needed you,” Lorca said, pointing at the witch’s bloody arm and the row of corpses.

  “Who will notice if the forgotten disappear?” Azaam said. “Is that not why you chose this place for us? A place that has been forgotten?” She gazed almost wistfully at the mutilated corpses. “I must keep busy while we bide our time. And these had already wasted their lives. Why should they be permitted to waste their deaths?”

  “Because too much is at stake,” Lorca said. “Or do I need to remind you about the terms of our agreement?”

  A glottal, slobbering voice oozed from the blackened depths of the warehouse. “We remember the arrangement. Both what is expected and what has
been promised.” The sound of metal scraping against stone echoed through the abandoned building. The eerie glow of Cryxlight shone in the shadows and drew nearer. Lorca shuddered as the ghastly brilliance briefly illuminated a file of bonejacks. The monstrous machines stood in stony silence while the light swept past them.

  The gibbous light and gruesome sound drew closer. Lorca could see now that the glow came from a clutch of metal lanterns chained to a troll-skin belt. The belt, in turn, circled a distended belly, shapeless and bloated with corruption. Beneath the belt, the source of the harsh metallic scraping was exposed, for there was no waist, only a barrel-like plug of metal from which four steel claws protruded, flitting across the floor like the legs of some abominable spider.

  Above the lanterns’ glow, the horror’s body became an emaciated, almost skeletal shell. Coils of rubber tubing slithered from between exposed ribs; cables of copper undulated from heart to neck. At the base of the throat, a silver disc protruded, slash-like vents shivering as breath was sucked into the decayed lungs below. A bowl-like headpiece of black silk embroidered with cabalistic sigils shrouded a squat, toad-like skull. The leprous face that peered from beneath bore only a hole where its nose had rotted away. Two spheres of glass stared from its sockets, their tinted surfaces not quite concealing the macabre objects floating within.

  Azaam smiled at Lorca’s alarm. “You have heard of, but have not met my associate. This is Moritat, one of our most ingenious necrotechs.”

  Moritat’s face contorted with ghoulish amusement at the blood hag’s compliment. One of his skeletal hands reached into the satchel looped over his shoulder. From the bag, he removed a nugget of glistening black stone. He held the rock toward Lorca, his expression taking on a tinge of offense when the gangster recoiled.

  “I have examined the sample you gave our agents,” the necrotech said. “It is an unusually fine grade of necrotite. Great must have been the suffering that soaked into the vein. The potentialities for such a fuel are . . . enticing.” He waited, favoring Lorca with an expectant, indulgent smile, like a lecturer waiting for a student to understand the lesson he has just been taught. When the desired reaction wasn’t forthcoming, Moritat stuck a finger into the vent above his lungs and poked about until he pulled a bit of tissue free. He inspected it a moment, then stared back at the gangster.