Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech

by Werner, C. L.

  “Every soldier is afraid before the battle,” Rutger said, remembering his days with the trenchers. “But they fight on because it’s their duty, because they know it’s right. Because they know their comrades are depending on them.”

  He meant his words to be reassuring. The last thing Rutger expected was the pained expression that crossed Taryn’s face. She quickly turned to hide the expression from him, walking over and slipping under the sheet to the portion of the room that had been partitioned for her use.

  “I’m going to clean my guns,” she said.

  He’d started to follow her, but that sentence stopped him short. It was a quirk of hers, like drumming her fingers against the butts of her magelocks when she was feeling anxious. When Taryn said she was going to clean her guns, it meant that she wanted to be alone.

  Rutger walked to the little side door and drew back the bar. He stepped out into the yard and made a quick inspection of Rex. The tarp was filthy from a midday shower, but the Toro itself was in good shape. Junkers Zahn had patched up the damage the Cryxian ’jacks inflicted. Except for the left hand, the injuries had only been superficial. Zahn was getting quite familiar with the ’jack, even suggesting that with the frequency of its visits that he should probably start painting advertisements on the Toro’s hull to direct customers to his workshop.

  The image brought a smile to Rutger, and also an idea. Where sympathy and reason might not be enough to get past whatever Taryn was afraid of, maybe a bit of levity would. He stepped back into the tiny apartment.

  “Has it occurred to you what splendid advertising helping the watch is going to be?” he said. “We’ll accrue a lot of goodwill and earn quite a reputation helping Parvolo sort out this Cryx incursion. Just the sort of thing to bolster our careers as mercenaries.”

  He fell quiet for a minute, waiting for any kind of comment from Taryn. The only sound was the rustle of the sheet flapping in the breeze.

  Rutger stared at the sheet for a moment, his curiosity aroused. He glanced behind him, thinking maybe he’d left the side door open. It was closed. With the chimney blocked, there was only one way a breeze could find its way into the room. “Taryn?” he called.

  Still no answer. This time, he pulled back the sheet.

  Taryn’s side of the room was deserted. There was no sign of her, only the cool breeze rushing in through the open window.

  Taryn hated to leave Rutger the way she did. She knew it was hurtful and cowardly, but it was the only thing she could think to do. Many more of his appeals to her martial pride and sense of camaraderie and he would have broken her resolve. She’d have agreed with him, gone off with him to help the watch. She only hoped she’d managed to delay him long enough that he wouldn’t be able to get to the launch to help them on his own.

  Parvolo was a good man, as watchmen went. He wasn’t Taryn’s sort, but she could respect what he was trying to do. Somebody under his command, however, wasn’t playing a strictly fair game. Someone had let it be known that she and Rutger were going to be up at Volkenrath’s estate. Kalder had come there looking for her, not the gangster, and she didn’t see how it could have been any of Vulger’s men, not the way he kept everyone penned in behind his walls.

  No, working with the watch was the last thing they should do right now. There was just no knowing if another tip would be handed off to the bounty hunter. Fighting the monsters of Cryx was difficult enough—as her brush with the pistol wraith had made hideously clear—without the necessity of looking over one shoulder to see if Kalder was aiming a gun at her back. Or, worse yet, at Rutger’s.

  Taryn hurried along the crowded streets of Captain’s Isle. She wished she’d told Rutger that Kalder was still alive. But that would have meant telling him why Kalder was after them, or rather her. If she did that, nothing would keep Rutger from trying to help her. She didn’t want him sticking his neck out for the sins of her past. It wasn’t like sharing the danger fighting Khadoran soldiers or gatormen or even the undead horrors of Cryx. This was a threat that existed because of something she’d done. It was her burden, and the consequences should be hers alone.

  Gradually, the crowded streets opened up into the waterfront. Taryn could see the distant cliffs of Chaser Island, the two suspension bridges stretching out to the island across the murky waters of the channel. The hoot of horns, the screech of steam whistles, the dolorous ringing of bells, all the clamor of the river traffic rolled across the waterfront. Taryn smiled at the noise. She could use something to distract her from her gloomy thoughts.

  The gun mage turned away from the bridges. They were fine for a short walk one island over, but she was going further than that. She wanted to head back to Bellicose and from there strike out across the mainland. Hiring a ferry would be the quickest way.

  As she descended the winding tiers of steps and platforms leading down to the docks, Taryn’s gaze drifted toward the rusty bulk of the Old Colossus. A relic of the final battle that drove the Orgoth from these islands, the giant machine had become a local landmark. She looked down toward the metal giant’s submerged legs, saw the sleek prow of a launch pulling out into the channel. Parvolo, she decided, wondering if Rutger had made it in time to join him after all. And whether Kalder was nearby, watching the boat.

  Taryn consoled herself that if she wasn’t around, the bounty hunter wouldn’t do anything to hurt Rutger. Kalder would be too hopeful that Rutger would lead him back to her.

  Now that Parvolo’s launch was moving, Taryn noticed other ships steaming rapidly out to block the neck of the channel. Ordic naval ships, their sides bristling with guns. Taryn remembered what Parvolo had said. He wanted to take the Majestic intact, try to take prisoners. The navy, it seemed, had their own orders. If Parvolo failed, they’d lose no time blasting the Majestic out of the water.

  She felt a pang of guilt when she spotted the suspect ship. It was an ugly black-hulled merchantman. Chains dripped down the sides of its hull in long coils. She could see the crew bustling about on the deck, gesturing excitedly as Parvolo’s launch drew near. The sailors reacted angrily when the launch hailed the Majestic, several of them producing pistols and crossbows, others taking up javelins and casting them down at the launch.

  The watch lost little time returning the hostility. A swivel gun roared from the launch’s wheelhouse, cutting down a half dozen of the sailors at a go. The marksmanship of Parvolo’s men accounted for several more. It was during that first bloodletting that one of the sailors threw open the hatch covering the ship’s main hold. A ghastly monstrosity leaped up onto the deck. Taryn felt her breath catch in her throat as she recognized the loathsome shape of a bonejack, similar to the thing she’d fired on in the Scrapyard but with the addition of a lethal-looking cannon protruding from between its jaws.

  The creature scrabbled toward the railing, a clutch of undead risen following it up from the hold. It reached the railing and reared itself up as high as its clawed legs could stretch, then sprayed a sizzling green foam down into the launch. Even from such a distance, Taryn could hear the agonized screams of the men caught by the burning slush.

  The watchmen, to their credit, held their ground and lobbed grenades up onto the merchantman’s deck. Several explosions caught the bonejack, ripping one of its legs clean from the chassis. The tanks that contained its caustic ammunition must have also been punctured, for a jet of green slush spurted across risen and enemy sailors alike, melting living flesh and undead corruption with equal rapacity.

  The bonejack toppled to the deck of the merchantman, thrashing with its remaining claw. Taryn noticed the evil-looking green light that surrounded it, the same light that surrounded the helljack in Vulger’s mansion. Gradually, the glow faded away as whoever had exerted an enchantment over the machine realized it was too damaged to draw any benefit from the bolstering spell. Taryn searched the merchantman for the necrotech. Rutger had said the abomination was some sort of minor warcaster, if the power to merge one’s mind with the cortex of a ’jack coul
d ever be described as “minor.”

  She saw no trace of the necrotech. What she did notice was the absence of the chains that had hung from the boat’s hull. Almost as soon as she noticed they were missing, the chains reappeared, rocketing up from beneath the surface of the channel, a big grappling claw attached at the end of each. The claws slammed down on the deck of the launch, sliding around as the chains dragged them back toward the water. Most of the grapples eventually caught hold of a hatch, a bit of railing, even the corner of the wheelhouse. As they caught and held, the chains fitted to them shuddered, groaning as they pulled a tremendous weight from below the channel.

  Taryn couldn’t believe her eyes. Fastened to the end of each chain was another bonejack, hideous with sleek black carapaces of metal and oversized claws arching upward from each shoulder. A squat vulturine head jutted from the front of each lobster-like chassis, sharp beaks of bone snapping malignantly at the crew. The bonejacks’ crab-like claws flashed as they clattered onto the deck, ripping through watchmen like a scythe through wheat.

  Aquatic bonejacks! The perversity made Taryn’s blood curdle. To think that it might be possible for the fiends of Cryx to simply walk from their necrofactoriums and march under the sea to strike the lands of men. The marauding fleets of the Nightmare Empire were vile enough, but at least there was some hope of warning. What alarm could be given when the first anyone was aware of their peril was when the undead horrors came marching out of the surf.

  Arcane energies swirled about the bonejacks, which glowed with an eerie light. Their hideous frames surged forward with an enhanced swiftness. She looked again at the merchantman, but there was still no sign of the necrotech.

  Instinct or perhaps simply premonition made Taryn look skyward. The lines of several elevated cable cars stretched across the river, running between the towering buildings of Captain’s Isle to their rivals on Chaser. One of the cable cars stood frozen high above the channel, almost directly above the battle. Taryn could see a figure standing there, its red robes whipping in the wind, pale hair streaming about it like a mane. A spiral horn rose from the figure’s forehead, where once there had been two. It took little imagination to transform the distant figure into the Satyxis witch Taryn had shot at Volkenrath’s estate.

  The witch was alone on the roof of the cable car, but another Cryxian machine hovered in the air beside her, floating like some monstrous paper lantern. The strange, octopus-like machine was not like a ’jack—concentric rings of arcane runes glowed in the air around it. Taryn was amazed at how many different circles of runes there were, and she felt more than a touch of horror when she considered that each separate strand must correspond to one of the bonejacks down below.

  Her horror collapsed into a sensation of utmost dread when Taryn appreciated what that meant. The monster, whatever it was, was empowering the bonejacks, but not from the ship! She could see grisly lights streaking from the ring of soul cages dangling from the creature’s hull, each light screaming downward to add its energies to one of the monstrous machines. She remembered what Rutger had told her about defeating the helljack by luring it outside the control range of the necrotech. If this new monster was also some kind of warcaster, there was only one reason it would shun closer proximity to the battle.

  The Majestic was a trap to snare Parvolo and the watch!

  It was hopeless to warn Parvolo now. Whatever trap the Cryxian forces had laid, the watch was caught. The only thing she could do to help them now was disrupt the malignant influence controlling the aquatic bonejacks. She had to stop that infernal machine floating beside the Satyxis witch.

  The idea made her shudder. She wasn’t callous enough to want to see Parvolo and his men die, but she wasn’t going to risk body and soul for them either. There was no knowing what sort of abilities that octopod horror might be capable of. Even more disturbing for Taryn was the possibility that the pistol wraith might also be lurking nearby, hidden in reserve. That prospect alone killed any foolhardy notion of rushing off to confront the monsters.

  She had just started to retreat from the waterfront when the thunderous sound of a heavy warjack on the run caught her attention. Spinning around, Taryn felt a rush of relief when she saw Rex’s familiar bulk charging toward one of the bridges, Rutger just behind, shouting directions to it as they hurried along. It was as well for Rutger that nearly all foot traffic had quit the street and scrambled to the waterfront to watch the river battle, given the way Rex smashed through the carts and sledges left behind.

  She hadn’t seen Rex on Parvolo’s launch, but now she could be sure he was free of whatever trap the Cryxians had set. She ran toward him.

  “Rutger!” She had to shout his name three times before he heard her over the rumble of Rex’s engines. He spun about, and the relieved smile that filled his face struck at Taryn more forcefully than any reprimand could have. In that moment, she decided to explain to him why she’d left, but it was an explanation that would have to wait.

  “They’re attacking Parvolo’s boat,” Taryn said, before he could speak. She waved her arm at the channel where the embattled launch and the sinister merchantman could be seen clearly. “Rutger, it’s a trap. The Cryxians were waiting for the watch.” She pointed up at the cable car where the blood hag and her grisly companion gazed down upon the battle. “Maybe we could knock out the cable car somehow.”

  Rutger shook his head. “That might upset the witch, but she isn’t the one controlling those bonejacks. It has to be that thing with her. Whatever it is, it’s not standing on that cable car. It’s just floating there in the air beside it.”

  “What do we do then?” Taryn asked. “They’re too high up to shoot at.”

  Rutger nodded his chin at one of the other cable cars as it returned to its station and disgorged its cargo of frightened passengers. “We commandeer one of those things and go up to where you can get a shot at them.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Azaam cackled with delight as she watched the slaughter unfolding on the deck of the launch. The Satyxis longed to be down there where the smell of blood could fill her nose, where she would be at liberty to rake her knives across the throats of dying men and suck the liquid from their ruptured hearts. The beauteous carnage, the rapturous frenzy of the kill! These were the pleasures she longed to indulge, the glories of her vanished youth and vivacity. The youth that Moritat had promised he would soon restore.

  Sometimes the blood hag repented her alliance. The necrotech was dangerously deranged, so obsessed with his experiments and theories that he couldn’t be bothered with anything that didn’t directly affect his studies. He was even so lost in his work that he couldn’t appreciate the deadly implications of interfering with Lich Lord Malathrax and disrupting his operations in Five Fingers.

  Still, Moritat was Azaam’s best chance to stave off the ravages of time and undo the mortal decay that sapped her. The cold caress of death tightened its bony hand about her every day. She couldn’t abandon the promise of being restored to the splendor of her prime. The necrotech could do this for her; he had promised it many times. He had prolonged the lives of several other associates he found useful.

  Azaam gazed in revulsion at the squid-like creature hovering beside her. The iron lich overseer was horrendous, even to one accustomed to the creations of Cryx. Within it, the essences of three necromancers were merged into a single soul matrix, forming a gestalt consciousness, aware of its individual identities yet incapable of embracing any of them. This overseer, Caracalla, was independent enough to function on its own but not coherent enough to think ahead. It was, as Moritat had once expressed it, a trumpeter on the battlefield, relaying the general’s orders to his soldiers but never giving orders of its own.

  The blood hag repressed a shudder as she looked upon the trio of skulls leering from the bulbous hull of the overseer. Each of those skulls still harbored the essence of one of Moritat’s former disciples, necromancers who had added their knowledge to the necrotech’s research. The
ir “lack of vision” that Moritat had once described for Lorca had simply been the moment they could offer nothing more to their master. Finding no further purpose in collaborating with them, Moritat had used his disciples as the raw resources for one of his experiments. Caracalla was the result.

  Such an end wouldn’t be hers. Azaam was determined that Moritat would see the necessity of keeping her alive and keeping her identity and intellect intact, to assist him. She wouldn’t become a crazed thing like Caracalla.

  The fighting on the launch was growing ever more furious. The Ordsmen had deployed a swivel gun against Moritat’s amphibious bonejacks, and a pair of soldiers at the prow with slug guns were likewise taking their toll on the machines. After the initial massacre, the humans looked like they might well rally, something Azaam didn’t intend to allow. Moritat had wanted a report on how his creations performed. Azaam was more interested in making sure none of the men on the launch survived.

  “Loose the Scavengers,” she hissed at Caracalla.

  “Yes, yes,” the monster’s left skull said. “Rip and tear little fleshlings!”

  The right skull took up the theme. “So much skin to flay. So much blood to spill. I must thank Moritat for such an engaging performance.”

  The center skull’s lower jaw distended, and from the depths of the overseer a groaning incantation issued, boiling about Caracalla in a spiral of glowing symbols.

  Up from the open hold of the Majestic, a flock of abominable creatures took wing. They had the familiar curved spine and massive clawed legs of Moritat’s other bonejack designs, but the jaws that protruded from each were beaked rather than fanged, with razor-edged sheets of steel bolted to each jawbone’s outer facing. Metal armatures covered in sheets of flayed skin thrust out from each Scavenger’s back, forming massive wings. They took to the sky like a swarm of vultures, squawking and hissing as they circled above the doomed launch, preparing to dive.