Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech (13 page)

Azaam’s attentions were devoted to the decaying husk of something that had once been human. Piled on the floor beside her was a heap of entrails and organs. Her knives were caked in gore and filth. Obscene runes and animation glyphs defaced the mangled body, each symbol exhibiting the same sanguine gleam Lorca had noted before, blood dripping from each scar as though pumped into it by a still-living heart. Clustered around the blood hag, silent and indifferent to her butchery, lay rank upon rank of the grisly risen. Some already bore the attentions of her blade across their rotting bodies; others appeared new and unmarked.

“Repurposing our workforce.” Moritat’s slobbering voice echoed through the cavern. The necrotech was scurrying about a broad slab of stone. Whether it was meant as a table or an altar, whether the remains strewn about it were meant as an offering or simply the raw materials for one of the monster’s creations Lorca was unable to tell. All he did know was that the sight of the spidery necrotech pawing at the butchered remnants, picking and probing at them with tiny knives and crooked saws was the most sickening thing he’d ever seen.

Moritat chuckled as Lorca hurriedly turned his back. “I felt that certain adjustments would make my creations more efficient. Better capable of undertaking their new duties.” The necrotech paused and fixed his grisly gaze on Lorca.

The metal legs of the necrotech’s armature clattered across the floor as he moved toward Lorca. Moritat reached out with a necrotic hand, his decayed face gleaming with fascination, then sighed as the gangster cringed away. “The frailties of flesh,” he said. “How the living do cling to their weaknesses.”

Lorca bristled at the necrotech’s condescending tone. “I’m not the one who’s weak,” he said. “Your attack failed! You massacred scores of people, practically demolished the Scrapyard . . .”

“All according to the plan you agreed to,” Moritat said, a trace of ironic humor in his voice. “You wanted everyone to know it was nothing mortal behind the attack, for no one to consider that you might be involved.”

“But the attack failed!” Lorca’s fury poured fire into his nerves. “Volkenrath escaped! You didn’t kill him! All you’ve done is make the whole city go wild with panic. The watch has sealed off the bridges to Hospice, the Ordic Navy is trying to inspect every ship coming or going from the island. The high captains have even set aside their differences to help look for you. Riordan has his men scouring any place two Scharde have been seen together. Hurley has his enforcers roughing up every pirate rumored to have set foot in Cryx. Waernuk’s sealed off the Wake Islands and has almost his entire syndicate checking for even the slightest sniff of Cryxian entanglements.”

Moritat grinned. “Some people should be careful what they look for. They just might find it.” The necrotech settled back on his metal armature, adopting a contemplative look as he considered the humor in Waernuk looking for agents of the Nightmare Empire. It was a good joke, good enough that he thought he might let Lorca share in it. But he set aside the notion. If he did that, he’d have to kill the gangster, and he still needed Lorca alive. At least for a little longer.

“The high captains are putting real pressure on everyone,” Lorca said. “The law and the gangs are hounding the city trying to find you and eliminate what everyone thinks is a Cryxian intrusion.”

“Was that not your plan?” Azaam said, turning away from her work. “To draw attention away from yourself. To use the great terror of Cryx to deceive your enemy about his true peril?” Her tone dropped into a menacing growl. “I wonder how you intended to get us out of the city once the alarm was out.”

Lorca met the crone’s murderous gaze. “That’s why you still need me,” he said, taking courage from the fact. “I can get you and your necrotite out. It’s already been arranged.” He glanced over the silent ranks of risen and the latest victim of the blood hag’s attentions. “Though it looks like you’ve suspended your mining operations.”

Moritat scurried across the cavern, his rotten claws caressing one of the undead Azaam had already prepared. “There is a purity in the things we make,” he said. “A purity of purpose not found in the confusion and disorder of mortal flesh. When we build something, it is with a certain task in mind. Change the labor and the laborer too must be changed.” He turned, running his paw down Azaam’s withered cheek. “The blood magic of the Satyxis is a remarkable thing, a marvelous force to be incorporated into the designs of the necromechanikal art. But it is a violent, raw sort of force. Unsuited to, should we say, more domestic purposes?” He dug a ribbon of decayed flesh from the sutures around one of the pipes embedded in his gut, sniffing at it for a moment before tossing it aside and turning back toward Lorca.

“You of all people should appreciate our work,” Moritat said, gesturing to the silent machinery all around them. “We have suspended our own operations in order to create the instruments necessary to fulfill our compact.” The necrotech’s smile broadened. “I’ve anticipated that you intend us to make a second attempt on your enemy’s life?”

“It’ll be harder than before,” Lorca said. “Vulger’s terrified. He’s locked himself up on his estate. The place is a fortress. He’s brought in a small army of syndicate men and mercenaries to protect him.”

Azaam ran her thumb across the razored edge of her knife, drawing a bead of blood. “They might be expecting an attack, but they won’t be prepared for it.”

Moritat picked another shred of skin from around the edges of the hose, this time nibbling experimentally at it before throwing it to the ground. “It is convenient that your enemy is so obliging as to stay in one place for us.”

“I told you, his estate is a fortress.”

“A fortress is naught but a prison viewed from another perspective,” the necrotech said. He stared across the masses of boring tools and digging equipment stacked throughout the cavern.

In gruesome detail, Azaam described for Lorca how they were going to turn Volkenrath’s refuge into his tomb. Lorca hung on every word, appreciating the insidious genius that would make a mockery of Vulger’s defenses and turn his own precautions against him. After hearing the blood hag’s plan, Lorca left the cavernous mine, intent on carrying out his own role. It should be an easy thing for the syndicate leader’s trusted lieutenant to play upon his chief’s fears and keep him within the supposed safety of his estate’s walls.

“Do you think he can be trusted?” Azaam asked after the gangster was gone.

Moritat scurried back to his experiment, taking his time as he considered the question. “No more than he can trust us,” he said at last. “He has allowed his ambitions to trap him within his own deceit.” The necrotech lifted a chunk of glistening black ore from the table, turning it over in his hand, watching the alchemical lamp reflect off its surface.

“Lich Lord Fulmenus will be pleased,” Azaam said. A hungry, almost desperate note crept into her voice. “The properties of this vein will propel your research to new heights.”

The necrotech laid down the nugget of ore. “Longevity without purpose is a thing devoid of value.”

The blood hag’s face twisted briefly in anger. Fear tinged her voice. “Have I not displayed my value? Has my magic not led you to new innovations? Have I not inspired you to new experiments?”

“Yes,” Moritat said, thrusting a probe into an almost shapeless lump of muscle. The tissue began to quiver and throb, reclaiming some lost echo of its extinguished life. “You have been a capable collaborator. But I must wonder how capable you should be if you were divorced from your mortality. It is that weakness which makes you such a zealous confederate. A sad irony.”

Azaam’s fist clenched about the gore-crusted grip of her blood razor. “You cannot deny me!” she cried. “I have done everything you’ve demanded! I—”

“And you will continue to do so if you expect me to extend your existence through my studies.” The necrotech didn’t even look up. “You will serve me faithfully and dutifully.” He thrust the probe deeper into the tissue, driving its necrotite tip to the core of the muscle. The lump of flesh shuddered, then burst into gory fragments.

Moritat chuckled, wiping bits of muscle from his skeletal face. “Defy me, Azaam, and I shall leave you to what few years your aged flesh has left to it. Perhaps I should even repurpose your remains. Your possibilities as a thrall might make a most intriguing line of research.”

The blood hag retreated from Moritat. The necrotech hadn’t been voicing a threat. He was simply expressing a new idea.

She knew from experience how dangerous his ideas could be.

Junkers Zahn bustled about Rex’s battered hulk, a continual stream of gobberish mutter spilling from his lips. Several times, the gobber threw up his greasy hands in complete frustration as he inspected the warjack. The black looks he directed at Rutger had all the accusation and rage of an animal lover who catches someone beating a dog.

Rutger shifted uncomfortably on the stool where Zahn had sent him. He felt he should be doing something to help the mechanik. “That’s where a spike pierced his hand,” he called to the gobber as Zahn’s examination turned from the warjack’s hull to its limbs. The gobber’s expression was almost murderous.

“Ruined,” he snapped, jabbing a long green finger into the gash. “The whole hand needs to be replaced.” Zahn waved his arm in the air as though trying to snatch hold of a cloud. “This is a complete loss!” He hopped down from the ladder he was using to reach Rex’s towering frame. He started pointing at the other damage he’d found, rattling off a catalog of injuries that seemed to incense him more with each addition. Rutger cringed before the gobber’s tirade.

“You should be happy about such good repeat customers,” Taryn quipped, turning away from the bin of cog wheels she’d been idly rummaging through. Her remark brought the mechanik storming toward her. She started to smile at the gobber’s display of outrage, but a closer look at his expression made her rethink her amusement.

“Because I enjoy seeing the ’jacks I sweat over being turned into scrap,” Zahn growled up at her. He spun around and glared at Rutger. “You should thank your gods Rex was even able to walk back here on his own!”

Rutger licked his lips nervously. He hesitated to ask the obvious question, which seemed to irk mechaniks at the best of times. Still, he found the words stumbling across his lips. “Can you fix him?”

The gobber paced back toward Rex, tugging at one of his ears as he considered the question. Rutger darted a hopeful look at Taryn, who sighed and nodded. They’d had a long talk about how far they could stretch their dwindling funds. There was only so much they could expect Zahn to put “on account.”

“We can pay fifty silverweight now and I can leave my hand cannon with you as collateral,” Rutger said.

Zahn shook his head. “Let me look first. We’ll discuss price later.” The mechanik pointed a finger at Rex. “I’ll need to take the cortex out. The chassis has extensive damage and will take a lot of work. I don’t want to risk smacking the cortex around while I’m making repairs.” The gobber waited expectantly for Rutger’s permission.

With extensive repairs such as Zahn was describing, it was a normal safety measure to extract a ’jack’s cortex, to eliminate any chance of its accidentally activating. Nodding in agreement, Rutger tossed the gobber the key to the service hatch behind Rex’s cortex.

Zahn caught the key in one hand, scurried back to his ladder, and climbed up onto Rex’s hull. A deft turn of the key had the hatch open. Fishing a bolt-driver from the tools dangling off his body, Zahn set to work. It was a few minutes before the mechanik climbed back down. The complex sphere of metal and crystal that acted as the warjack’s mechanikal brain was suspended in the claw of a small crane the gobber had wheeled over to help in the extraction. As he stepped away from the ladder, all the anger seemed to drain out of the gobber. Indeed, he wore an almost comical expression of embarrassment and apology when he turned to face his customers.

“Sorry,” the mechanik said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

The gate leading from the work yard into the street was suddenly flung open. Armed men rushed into the yard. More men appeared from the interior of Zahn’s workshop. Taryn eased her hands away from the grips of the magelocks she’d half drawn. Even with her pistols in hand, trying to defy a dozen armed combatants was a losing proposition. She darted a look at Rutger and saw her partner had reached the same conclusion. His arms raised in surrender, it was his turn to glare accusingly at Junkers Zahn. Pulling Rex’s cortex had cinched the ambush, removing the only thing that could have spoiled the trap.