Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech (4 page)

Down the road, Taryn received the charge of her own adversaries. A quick dart to one side, an upward swing of her empty magelock and she shattered the jaw of one enemy. The other man was a craftier foe, managing to keep the gun mage off balance with probing thrusts of his knife and sweeping slashes of his axe. Like an eel, the slippery thug squirmed away whenever Taryn tried to brain him.

She cursed at her opponent, cursed again as she saw Rutger’s distress at the other end of the street. The sight of the warjack towering over the fray made her wince. They’d agreed to use the thing only as a last resort. Bitterly, she tried to bludgeon her foe with one of her pistols. “This is all your fault,” she told him.

Over the thug’s shoulder, she could see the gang assaulting the warjack. While their leader kept Rutger busy with a mediocre display of swordsmanship, the other rogues hacked at the exposed pipes and pistons on the ’jack’s hull. She wondered why the stupid lummox didn’t do something to defend itself.

The next moment, she wished the behemoth had stayed still and let the ruffians reduce it to scrap metal.

With a speed incredible for a machine of its size, Amok’s torso rotated forward and flung one of the thugs chopping at its steam engine into the street. Before the other men could react, the ’jack caught one in its left hand. Originally outfitted with a chain cannon by its former master, Amok’s cortex was having some difficulty manipulating the new arm fitted to its chassis. When the steel fingers closed around the thug, they only crushed his ribs rather than grinding his body into paste.

Amok’s last opponent turned and fled. The man who’d been thrown into the street joined him, and they retreated into the only refuge they could see: the open door of Relics of Rhul.

An angry, almost animalistic growl vented through the grill of Amok’s head. The hulking machine pursued the thugs, oblivious to the screaming man yet gripped in its steel paw. Amok’s pounding feet sent tremors through the neighborhood. The ’jack’s optics glared at the front of the shop, the cortex evaluating the obstruction.

Reaching out with its right hand, the warjack seized the projecting beam to which the shop’s sign was chained. Wood splintered as the metal fingers tightened.

“No!” Taryn gasped. She ducked under the sweeping axe of her foe and smashed the butt of her magelock upward into the thug’s groin. The man uttered a shrill yelp and sagged to the street. Taryn slugged him behind the ear with her other pistol to be certain he was out of the fight. Then she dashed toward Amok, yelling at the machine to power down, to walk away, to do anything except what it seemed to have set its mind to doing.

Rutger grimaced as Vigo made another darting feint. The thug knew he couldn’t cross blades with Jackknife, so he wasn’t even trying. He was simply keeping Rutger busy while his gang dealt with Amok. It had been an intelligent scheme until the warjack started mopping the street with Sea Wolves.

“Look, let’s call it a draw,” Rutger said. He nodded toward the shop, where Amok was chasing the last of the rogues. “I really need to take care of that.”

“I’m not falling for any of your tricks, sell-sword,” Vigo snarled.

Rutger shook his head in dismay as he saw Amok seize the roof beam projecting from their employer’s shop. Quickly, he calculated the amount of force a Toro-chassis warjack could exert. The answer wasn’t comforting. “Amok!” he shouted. “Stop! Power down! Knock it off!”

The racket from the heavy warjack’s engine drowned out his voice—or perhaps the ’jack just wasn’t listening. He’d begun to wonder if Amok’s cortex didn’t pick and choose which commands to obey and which to ignore. Certainly, it had a peculiar manner of interpretation.

Vigo dove in, trying to exploit the mercenary’s distraction. The rogue’s blade raked across Rutger’s breastplate with a metallic screech. “You knock it off too!” he said, driving him back with a slash of his mechanikal blade. “Can’t you see I’ve got bigger problems right now?”

Rutger smiled with relief when he saw Taryn running toward the warjack. At least she was safe and unharmed. Then he noticed what she was doing, running around Amok’s legs, shouting at the machine. Taryn knew she couldn’t command the ’jack, so her only way to stop it was to distract it. She was trying to get Amok to go after her!

“I’m all the trouble you can handle,” Vigo said. The ruffian slashed at his forearm, cutting the sleeve of his shirt. Almost automatically, Rutger drove the villain back with a flourish of Jackknife. His attention was riveted to Taryn now. She’d given up shouting at the warjack to get Amok’s attention. Now she was crouched down, reloading one of her magelocks! Rutger felt the bottom drop out of his belly. Shooting the ’jack would certainly get its attention. It was also liable to get her torn to pieces!

“Fight me!” Vigo roared.

Before the thug could rush him again, Rutger lunged forward, barreling into him. He cracked Jackknife’s pommel against the thug’s skull. Stunned, Vigo pitched face-first into the gutter.

Rutger dashed toward Taryn. Even the rumble of Amok’s steam engine was drowned out by the loud crack that sounded from above Udric’s shop. Rutger risked one glance at the building, then caught Taryn in a flying tackle. The two mercenaries tumbled down the alley.

With a final tug, Amok wrenched the beam free and brought the building’s entire facade crashing into the street. Six stories of plaster, brick, and timber hurtled into Blood Alley with a deafening roar. A pillar of dust and dirt exploded into the sky, carpeting the neighborhood in a gritty grey film.

Shrugging off a mantle of chipped plaster and broken brick, Rutger rose from the street. He reached down to help Taryn to her feet. The gun mage glowered up at him.

“What happened to ‘We’ll only use it in an emergency?’” she asked.

Rutger looked at the sky, at the street, anywhere except his partner. “I thought we had an emergency.”

“No,” Taryn said, brushing dirt and dust from her clothes. “This, this right now is an emergency.”

The dust was beginning to settle. Amok stood idle amid the destruction it had caused. Five floors of residents peered down from the hole where the outer wall of their apartments had been. For the moment, shock and disbelief held them. Anger would soon follow.

Two dust-caked shapes came stumbling out from the rubble of Udric’s shop, choking and sputtering. The two Sea Wolves blinked in horror at Amok, then turned and fled through the debris-strewn street.

Slowly, Rutger approached the idle warjack. The ruffian with the broken ribs sobbed in its left hand. “Put him down,” Rutger said. As though aware of its master’s anger, it didn’t turn its head to look at him, but simply opened its fingers. The injured thug crashed to the street and began screaming again.

“Nice work,” Taryn said. She kicked Amok’s leg, wincing as her toe struck metal.

“We stopped the gang,” Rutger said.

Taryn looked past him, shaking her head as a short, dust-covered figure climbed out from the wreckage of Relics of Rhul. The dwarf’s face was a grey mask of dirt with two green eyes glaring out from it.

“Dice of Bolis!” Udric cursed. “I’m ruined! That gang could have robbed me for a hundred years and never done this much damage!”

Rutger opened his mouth to say something, but Taryn stopped him with a whispered warning. “I wouldn’t ask about our pay.” She nudged him with her elbow. “It seems demolishing half the street is one of the few things that’ll bring the watch down here.”

Rutger turned his head and groaned. Indeed, a squad of soldiers in the uniform of the Five Fingers Watch was dashing down the street.

“We can explain,” he said. “We were employed by Master Udric.”

An ugly scowl formed under the dwarf’s mask of dirt. “Employed!” he sputtered. “Employed!”

“Yes,” Taryn snapped, “we had an agreement.”

The dwarf shook his fist at her. “An agreement to protect my shop, not destroy it!” A cunning gleam crept into his eye, and he glanced at the approaching watch. “Not with me! No such thing! The watch can have you! I hope you all rot in Blackstone!” He jabbed a finger at the unmoving warjack. “And I hope they melt you down into a spittoon!”

Taryn grabbed the dwarf by the collar. “Listen, we have a signed contract!”

Even through the dirt, the smug look on Udric’s face was obvious. “Did you have a lawyer notarize it? Then I didn’t sign it!” He pulled free from her hold and grinned maliciously at the watch. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll hang you.”

Taryn was about to throttle the dwarf when Rutger grabbed her by the shoulder. “It’s our word against his,” he said. “And I don’t think our word’s going to count for much!”

The sergeant leading the watch motioned his men to halt. He stared in astonishment at the destruction. Wounded Sea Wolves littered the street. His eyes focused on Rutger and Taryn, took in the hulking mass of their warjack. Any hesitancy on his part was decided when Udric started jumping up and down.

“They did it! Them!” the dwarf railed, pointing at the mercenaries.

Drawing his sword, the sergeant started toward Taryn and Rutger. “Stay where you are. By the authority of the lord governor, you are under arrest.”

Rutger shook his head. “Amok, forward!” he shouted. The huge machine lurched to life, plowing through the ruin of Udric’s shop. Rutger and Taryn hurried close behind the charging ’jack. In short order, they broke through to the street behind Blood Alley.

As soon as they were clear, Rutger turned his warjack around. The watch had been startled but soon recovered, and a howling mob of constabulary was now scrambling through the wreckage. Rutger smiled at the sergeant, then pointed at the roof beam projecting from the back of the building.

“Amok, pull it down,” he said, letting his voice carry to the pursuing troops. The sergeant’s eyes widened, and he ordered his men to withdraw.

Rutger and Taryn took cover. Amok pulled, and the facade crumbled away. Rutger hoped the obstruction would buy them enough time to get clear of Rivergrav North and Chaser Island.

For the second time, Taryn tried to wipe away the dust caking her from toe to crown. “I don’t suppose you’d consider leaving that behind?” she said, jabbing a thumb at the warjack.

The yard outside Resurrection Repairs was a scrapland of hollowed-out hulks, dismembered armatures, rusted boilers, corroded smokestacks, and gutted steam engines. Disembodied steamjack heads were stacked in a row against the perimeter fence, their optics extracted. Tangles of pipe and wire hung from the severed necks of some, providing a seemingly endless source of fascination for the scrawny kitten that batted at them with an oil-stained paw.

Taryn stepped away from a rusty metal rack sagging beneath a riotous array of pistons and gears. “Any of this junk even worth anything?” she said, dropping a blackened gearbox onto a pile of decaying rubber tubing. She frowned at the soot coating her fingers. She started to reach for a strip of rag hanging from the shelf, but a glance at its condition had her wiping the soot onto her breeches instead.

“Sometimes,” the gobber replied, his voice a shrill squeak. Far smaller and more sparely built than his human customers, he was bundled into a filthy leather smock riddled with a confusion of pockets. From those pockets an assortment of wrenches, pliers, hammers, and tongs protruded. Smaller tool belts circled the gobber’s thin arms, and a variety of bolt-drivers hung from the bandolier looped across his chest. An array of smaller precision wrenches and calipers was thrust beneath the strip of calfskin that circled the mechanik’s head. A selection of magnifying lenses dangled from this headband on tiny chains.