By the time the dust settled, dozens of thugs and gangsters had died. The artists fled to quieter parts of the city. The nobles and dilettantes found safer places to patronize. Many of the jewelers and gem-cutters, their livelihood tied up in the properties they had struggled so long to build, were left behind to eke out an existence selling whatever wares they could secure cheaply and unload quickly. A new name was bestowed upon the once-exclusive Tordoran Way. Now the inhabitants of Chaser Island referred to it as “Blood Alley,” in memory of the gangsters who died trying to claim it for their high captains.
Whereas wealth had deserted this little corner of Rivergrav North, crime lingered, becoming more brutal and desperate in direct proportion to the poverty of its victims. Many times since the wars of the high captains, Blood Alley earned its gruesome name.
The ragged huddle of a beggar, almost shapeless beneath the mass of sailcloth bundled about him, cringed in the doorway of an abandoned shop. The group of villainous-looking men who marched boldly down the ill-favored stones of Blood Alley gave him no notice. Once in their cups, with coin in their pockets and wicked humor in their hearts, the roughs might have been inclined to make sport of the beggar. Now, however, they had no attention to spare. They were wolves on the prowl with minds only for the hunt.
The gang called itself the Sea Wolves, the terror of Blood Alley, and around each man’s neck hung the leathery fold of a dried wolf ear. They were accomplished in the brutal art of the smash and grab, attacking shops with the mindless savagery of a rabid burrow-mawg. They stole anything they could carry and destroyed anything they couldn’t. To the alley’s struggling merchants, the Sea Wolves were like the fangs of the Wurm itself. Beneath the linen dusters the toughs wore, each thief carried an array of weaponry, from wicked blades to grisly clubs and axes. Though the Sea Wolves might shy from murder, several cripples on the street could bear witness that they weren’t squeamish about mutilation.
What little foot traffic there was in Blood Alley quickly cleared for the Sea Wolves. Pedestrians would rather sprint through gutter muck than get in the gang’s way. The ruffians appraised each refugee, estimating the worth of his raiment and the fullness of his purse. Today, none of the pedestrians earned their notice, only a few surly barks to clear the way. The gang had better quarry.
“You certain the runt has it already?” said the leader of the gang, a broken-nosed brute named Vigo, to the lanky Thurian who marched beside him. The smaller man, a cutpurse called Marcheti, was effusive in his assurances.
“I heard it myself in the Ten Anchors,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Udric is getting a consignment from the main island, some sort of private commission for one of the royals in the Lords District. Wants a necklace and won’t trust anyone but a Rhul-rat to do the work.” Marcheti gave an ugly cackle.
“His gang’s gonna pay plenty for takin’ that idea into his noggin,” Vigo said, adding his own vicious chuckle. The seven thugs with him laughed at their chief’s prediction. The thinly stretched Chaser Island Watch rarely invested any interest in places like Blood Alley. When they did, it usually took only a small bribe to get rid of them so long as there weren’t any corpses around. There was nobody to keep the Sea Wolves from taking whatever they wanted.
The gang didn’t notice the huddled beggar they had passed rise from the doorway. Wrapped in shabby sailcloth, the tatterdemalion shape followed the ruffians down the winding course of Tordoran Way.
Suspended by a rusty chain fastened to the projecting end of a roof beam, a splintered wooden sign proclaimed “Relics of Rhul” in tarnished bronze letters. An oversized plaster ring dangled beneath the sign, illustrating for less literate customers the services the shop provided. The Sea Wolves stopped as they came within sight of the sign. Vigo grinned at the dilapidated shop. Boards covered the glassless window—victim of an earlier visit by the gang—but the door stood open as an indicator to passersby that Udric’s shop was indeed open for business. The clamor of the steam-driven printing presses located only the next street over would drown any cries for help.
Vigo nodded to his men, motioning them to fan out. They stalked down the street, glowering. Those they encountered scurried into their shops or retreated back the way they had come. The gang chief grunted in satisfaction. People hereabouts knew better than to trifle with the Sea Wolves.
“Haul your smelly carcass!” Marcheti said.
Vigo turned away from the shop to glare at his lieutenant. He found the thief standing over a mangy beggar in the gutter beside a mound of trash. The beggar was a big man, powerfully built with broad shoulders and square jaw. His strength was evident even beneath the patina of dirt and grime. Vigo’s instincts had him reaching beneath his coat for his sword before he was aware what he was doing. He snickered in contempt as his eyes took in the rest of the mendicant he’d momentarily imagined to be a threat. The beggar sat in the gutter, one leg extended into the street. Where the other should have been there was only a bandaged stump.
A hero, Vigo decided. Some bold champion from a war already forgotten by the kings who declared it. Whole, the beggar might have been a formidable adversary. But he was just another worthless cripple. He wouldn’t interfere.
“Leave something in the scum’s bowl,” Vigo said. He waved the rest of his gang toward the jewelry shop.
Marcheti leaned over the cracked clay bowl resting beside the beggar’s stump. He spat on the few alms there. “Don’t spend it all in one place.” He sneered at the cripple, rising to rejoin the gang.
“Mercy, master,” the beggar said, lifting the bowl with one hand and shaking it so the black pennies rattled.
The thief rounded on the beggar with a snarl. Before he could kick the wretch, however, the beggar’s free hand grabbed his belt and pulled him down. As Marcheti fell, the beggar shattered the bowl across his head.
The sound of the breaking bowl and Marcheti’s howl of pain brought the other Sea Wolves spinning around. They stared in shock as the beggar rose from the gutter and threw off his filthy cloak. Beneath, he wore a suit of heavy armor. With one hand he reached down and pulled away the fake stump tied to his knee. It was his turn to sneer as he stamped some feeling back into the leg he’d sat upon, hale and whole as any of the Sea Wolves.
Vigo laughed as he drew his sword. “So the little Rhul-rat hired himself a watchdog?” His other hand fished a crooked dagger from one of his pockets. “I hope you enjoyed your playacting, friend, because when we finish with you, it’ll be for real!”
With a flourish, the mercenary brought his own sword from its sheath. Much of the bravado faded from Vigo’s face when he saw the massive mechanikal sword in his adversary’s hand. “Care to surrender now,” Rutger Shaw asked the thug, “or are you going to make me work for my pay?” He thumbed the activation stud in the hilt of his sword. The runeplate fixed to his blade blazed with magical energies.
Vigo took a step back, then glanced at his men. They were still seven to the mercenary’s one. The realization brought a snarl to the thug’s face. “Make the bastard bleed,” he said.
“He’s only one man,” Vigo snapped when none of his men seemed keen to meet Rutger’s blade.
The crack of a pistol boomed through Blood Alley. Vigo yelped as the bullet struck the hilt of his sword, tearing the weapon from his hand. He spun around and glared at a second mendicant. This one gripped a smoking gun.
“He might be one man, but he has friends.” The shooter shrugged off the sailcloth cloak, revealing a tall, dark-haired woman in oiled leather armor. The gun in her hand was a richly engraved magelock. Slowly, she lowered the spent weapon and raised its mate. “That’s your only warning,” said Taryn di la Rovissi, her voice like the lash of a whip. “Don’t waste it.”
The Sea Wolves looked uncertainly at their leader. With the glowing blade of Rutger’s sword before them and the threat of Taryn’s magelock behind, the gang appreciated the trap they’d fallen into. For an instant the tableau held. A moment more and the ruffian
s might have laid down their arms.
The tension was broken by the man both sides had forgotten. Sprawled in the gutter, blood oozing from his scalp, Marcheti rolled onto his side and drew the pistol from his belt. The thief was an indifferent shot at the best of times, and with his head still ringing from the bowl smashing into it, his aim was still more atrocious. The shot he fired at Taryn went wide and slammed into the wall some distance behind her. The menace arose not from the bullet but the confusion it brought.
Taryn dove for cover, throwing herself across the street in a long sprawl that sent her headfirst into the opposite gutter. Rutger spun and smashed his iron-toed boot down on Marcheti’s hand, crushing his fingers into a mash of splintered bone. The thief’s agonized shriek rang out across the square.
The Sea Wolves leapt into motion. Two of the thugs rushed at Taryn while a third ripped a pair of his own pistols from the pockets of his coat. The pistoleer’s first shot gouged the cobblestone just beside Taryn’s head. She rolled onto her side. Runes blazed around her gun. “Seek,” she hissed as she pulled the trigger.
Sorcerous energies flared from the rune-inscribed bullet as it sped down the street, weaving around the charging thugs to strike the pistoleer behind them. The gunman shrieked as Taryn’s shot slammed into him, shattering his shoulder and breaking his collarbone. The wounded man collapsed in a heap.
Vigo and the other Sea Wolves rushed at Rutger, converging on him from all sides. The mercenary fell back a pace, looking past them to where Taryn lay. He wasn’t worried as much about the four men coming after him as he was the two charging at her. She’d emptied both her magelocks, and he didn’t know if either of the shots fired had hit her.
He glared at Vigo and the other ruffians, but when he spoke it wasn’t to the thieves. “Come,” he said.
Vigo scowled at the mercenary. “Oh, we’re coming! You can . . .”
The words died on the thug’s lips, the color drained from his face. He stared goggle-eyed as the mound of trash behind Rutger surged outward. Moldy rags, broken buckets, lumps of spoiled vegetables came tumbling away. Concealed behind the rubbish were the double doors of an old silversmith’s shop, a business the Sea Wolves had despoiled so often it had finally shut its windows. Now, through those doors, pushing its way through the heap of garbage that had helped muffle the noise of its boilers, strode a colossus of armored plate and mechanikal automation. The behemoth was nearly twice the height of a man but constructed in rough semblance of human form. Two pillar-like legs of steel supported a blocky torso, from which hung a pair of articulated arms with broad hands and massive fingers. From the front of the machine’s chassis, a squat, ovoid head protruded, crafted in the fashion of an archaic helm. The rear of the hulk supported a massive steam engine, its smokestack thrust up between rounded shoulders.
The metal giant was a steamjack, one of the fighting models—a warjack. A machine designed to decimate regiments of hardened soldiers. Staring up at it, the Sea Wolves felt like rats gazing upon a lion.
“Call off your dogs. Now!” Rutger snarled at the stunned Vigo.
The warjack turned its head as it heard Rutger’s shout. The arcane glow shining from its optics blazed brighter. With a shuddering rumble, the ’jack lurched forward. It had taken the command “now” as an order to attack. Marcheti shrieked as the giant’s foot pulverized his leg. The warjack ignored the maimed wretch and continued its advance against the Sea Wolves.
Rutger spun around, shouting at the warjack. “Stop! Amok, stop!”
Amok turned its head once more, staring down at its master. There was almost a quizzical quality in the way it tilted its head, as though the machine’s cortex, the intricate mechanikal sphere that served as its brain, were confused by Rutger’s restraint.
Vigo and his gang, however, were in no confusion. Having seen Marcheti’s mutilation, they were of no mind to give the warjack the opportunity to do the same to them. Desperate to recover the initiative, they swarmed toward the machine and its master.
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.”
Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech Page 2