He could see those tentacles wrapping about Taryn, tightening and tightening, crushing the breath from her, squeezing the life from her as it flitted across the sky.
Rutger was looking down into his cup when the bat-wing doors of the Ten Kings swung open and a new customer walked into the tavern. He heard someone speak his name and glanced toward the bar to see who was asking Brandle about him.
It took only a heartbeat for the shock to overwhelm the depression, guilt, and anxiety filling Rutger’s head. The mercenary nearly fell back in his chair as he found himself looking upon a man whose face he’d never be able to forget. A man who was supposed to be dead. The bounty killer Kalder.
Rutger’s hand dropped to the hand cannon holstered at his side, fingers tightening about the grip. He listened as Kalder interrogated Brandle, trying to drag his whereabouts out of the keeper. Brandle, to his credit, was refusing to squeal on one of his patrons, though the man squirmed uncomfortably when Kalder said he’d been watching the Ten Kings and waiting for Rutger to come out. The bounty hunter emphasized his statement by glancing about the tavern.
“I don’t see a back door,” Kalder said, his gloved hand tightening about the front of Brandle’s apron, pulling the keeper halfway over the bar. “So I have to ask myself how he got out of here. Maybe there’s a secret door. Maybe we should look for it together.” The bounty hunter slammed Brandle’s head against the counter, then frowned at the dented wood. “Hmmm, not there,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to look someplace else.”
The fear Rutger had always held for this notorious hunter twisted itself into raw hate. If not for the threat of Kalder looking for him, they’d never have gone to the Scrapyard and become enmeshed in the struggle against Cryx. Taryn had said Kalder had been killed there. Rutger didn’t know how he’d survived, but he intended to fix that problem.
“Try looking over here,” Rutger said. His boot kicked one of the chairs out from his shadowy corner.
Kalder spun around, dragging Brandle over the bar and holding the keeper’s body between himself and the corner. The lowered ceiling forced him to duck down to see Rutger. The bounty hunter flinched when he saw the hand cannon aimed at him.
“I only came to talk, Shaw.”
“Pick your last words with care then,” Rutger said.
Kalder smiled coldly. “I was told you’re looking for someone. I can help you find her.”
Rutger’s face pulled back into a hateful sneer. Taryn had been right again. Trask or somebody in Parvolo’s command was feeding information to the bounty hunter. The rat had told Kalder he’d be at the Ten Kings and why. The loathsomeness of such a cruel deception made his blood boil.
“That’s a low trick, even for bounty-hunting scum,” Rutger said. He was watching for even the slightest chance to fire at Kalder without hitting Brandle too. So far, the bounty hunter had been careful with his human shield, but there was always a chance he’d slip.
Kalder’s eyes darted from side to side, taking in the Ten Kings’ other patrons. Accustomed to strife and violence, few of them had bothered to leave the tavern when trouble broke out. Several were even eying the bottles behind the bar, obviously wondering how much longer Brandle would be detained.
“You should hear me out, Shaw,” Kalder said. “Or are you more comfortable believing Taryn’s dead?” The words were like oil poured on the tiny ember of disbelief still burning inside Rutger. They filled his mind with a new horror, a new despair more awful than what he already felt. Taryn in the clutches of the Nightmare Empire, her body and soul polluted by their obscene necromancy and technology. Taryn, rising from death to serve Cryx as one of their undead abominations.
Still, he couldn’t forget that this was Kalder, a human vulture who would stoop to anything to claim his blood money. Even in the depths of his despair, could Rutger pin his hopes on a bounty hunter?
“Sit down and talk,” said Rutger. He nodded his chin to the chair his kick had sent flying. “There’s your chair.”
“I’d prefer somewhere more discreet.” Kalder shook his head, but there was a cunning smile on his face. “Put the hand cannon away, Shaw.” The bounty hunter shoved Brandle to one side. “I don’t want to shoot you, and you don’t want to shoot me.
“Not if you want to see the woman again.”
Rutger followed the bounty hunter into an abandoned fish shop a few miles from the Ten Kings. The shop had been prosperous enough until it found itself in the middle of a turf war between High Captain Kilbride and his rival, Riordan. After the third time the proprietor was coerced into paying protection to a different gang and then had his shop vandalized by their counterparts, he no longer had the funds to eke out a living on Captain’s Isle. His neighbors said the poor fellow had gone to live among his suppliers on Crabbeggar Island.
The shop was in shambles; any salvageable furnishings had been looted months ago. What was left were a few piles of splintered wood that once might have been crates and a few strings of dried eel too tough for even the rats to gnaw on. As he stepped into the shop, Rutger brushed aside one of the hanging strands of desiccated eel, disturbing a cloud of flies.
He knew Kalder could be leading him into a trap. Rutger wasn’t so naive as to trust the bounty hunter. With a man of Kalder’s stripe, no treachery was off the table so long as it brought him closer to his blood money. At the same time, Rutger didn’t care overmuch what happened to him now. Not with Taryn gone. Let Kalder march him into a trap: he would meet it and survive or he would fall. But he would make sure the bounty hunter came with him on the dark journey to Urcaen.
The moan of creaking wood echoed loudly through the abandoned shop. Rutger didn’t turn at the sound but instead pointed his hand cannon squarely at the bounty killer’s belly.
“A cat,” Kalder said, pointing toward the source of the sound. Rutger kept his eyes and the barrel of his gun trained on him. Kalder grimaced. “Is that necessary?”
“Yes,” Rutger said. He didn’t need to explain further. Kalder could read in Rutger’s eyes that it would take only the slightest provocation to make him fire.
“Listen to me,” Kalder said, carefully keeping his own hands well away from his pistols. “This isn’t necessary. I need you just as much as you need me.”
“So you keep saying.” Kalder’s hints that Taryn might be alive had set the mercenary wondering. He’d thought about how the Cryxian machines typically functioned when they weren’t operating under the orders of a guiding intelligence. The things would kill anything around them. The strange iron lich hadn’t done that. It had swooped in, caught Taryn, and flown away. The more Rutger thought about that, the more he believed the thing had been operating on instructions Azaam shouted to it before her plunge into the channel. Perhaps she had been controlling the creature after all.
Keeping his gun trained on the bounty hunter, Rutger waved his other hand at the room around them. “You wanted privacy, Kalder, you’ve got it. Say your piece and make it good.”
Kalder seated himself on the remains of a lobster cage and stared up at Rutger. “I know what you’re thinking, Shaw. I’m trying to trick you, trying to get that bounty on your head. I’m not, I assure you. I haven’t been interested in you at all. I’m after your friend. I have been from the start.”
Rutger wasn’t sure what he’d expected to hear, but this wasn’t it. His eyes went wide with surprise.
Kalder laughed. “She didn’t tell you, did she? A vindictive harpy back in Llael is offering a fat little bounty for Taryn di la Rovissi.” He shook his head in disgust. “I caught her in the Scrapyard, but I waited around to finish you off after your fight. I know how sentimental you get and didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the way back.
“The Cryxians spoiled my game. Taryn got the drop on me and it was all I could do to keep from getting pulled apart by a thrall. I had another try at her at Volkenrath’s estate, but again the undead made things complicated.” He laughed when he noticed Rutger’s eyes widen agai
n. “She didn’t tell you about that either?”
Rutger glared at Kalder. So that was why Taryn had been so tense and reclusive. That was why she’d refused to help Parvolo and why she’d tried to sneak away. She was worried Kalder would show up again. When she confessed to Rutger that she was scared, it wasn’t fear of the Cryx, or even fear for herself, but fear that if Rutger was around when the bounty hunter showed up again, he’d be killed.
“Don’t worry about what she did or didn’t tell me,” Rutger said. “Worry about what you’re going to say that’ll keep your head from being splashed across that wall.”
“I know where that thing took her after your fight over the channel,” Kalder said, smirking. “One of my informants saw it when it came to land.”
The news staggered Rutger. For an instant, his aim on the bounty hunter wavered. The hope that had been rekindled inside him wanted so desperately to embrace this information, to accept it. Rutger refused to let it take hold. He knew only too well the pain of cheated hope. He turned his gun back on Kalder and took a menacing step forward.
“Alive?”
The smirk faded from Kalder’s face when he took stock of desperate, barely restrained fury boiling inside the mercenary. With exaggerated solemnity, Kalder shook his head. “My informant wasn’t close enough to tell. But does it matter? If the Cryxians have her, live or dead, can you resign her to such a fate?”
“Damn you,” Rutger hissed.
Kalder smiled. “I’m gambling that she’s still alive, Shaw. She’s worth a lot more to me alive than she is dead.”
“This informant of yours, can you be sure he’s telling you the truth?”
The bounty hunter laughed at the question. “People don’t lie to me. Not twice, anyway.”
Rutger could believe that. In Cygnar, Kalder had been infamous for his brutality and ruthlessness, a firm believer in the old adage that fear was the most powerful motivator a man could command.
Rutger holstered his hand cannon. He’d reached a decision, one he felt he had no choice but to accept. If Kalder knew where Taryn had been taken, then there was nothing he could do except agree to whatever the bounty hunter demanded.
“You’ve explained why I need you,” Rutger said. “Now tell me why you need me.”
Kalder rose from the lobster cage and paced across the shop. “Your opinion of my abilities is gratifying, but even I’m not going to stick my head into a nest of Cryxians. Not alone. I’m practical enough to recognize when I need help.”
“Why me?” Rutger asked.
The bounty hunter laughed. “Because you’re the one man I know who isn’t going to balk at the prospect of facing the horrors of Cryx. The list of people crazy enough to help me right now is a short one and you’re my best option. You’re not going to turn tail and run at the first sniff of a thrall or bonejack.” A cold gleam shone in Kalder’s eyes. “And, when things are finished, I know you won’t try to collect the bounty yourself.”
Rutger’s expression darkened. “What makes you think I’ll let you collect it?”
“Your word of honor,” Kalder said. “Most people, that wouldn’t mean anything, but I know you, Shaw. I know when you give your word, you keep it.”
Rutger shook his head. “Save her from Cryx just to turn her over to you?” He scoffed. “She’ll be just as dead.”
“At least she’ll only be dead,” Kalder pointed out. “That’s better than what the Cryxians will do. A damn sight better.” The bounty hunter shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I won’t see things through to the other side. Maybe neither of us will.”
“And if we do? I’m supposed to just stand by and watch you ride off with Taryn tied across your saddle?”
The glint in Kalder’s eye hardened. “No. I don’t think either of us would like that. If we both survive after she’s been rescued, we’ll duel for her. My pistol against that artillery piece you carry.” Kalder laughed when he saw the reluctance on Rutger’s face. “Maybe you think you’ll get a better offer someplace else? I’d remind you that if she is alive, time is as much our enemy as the undead.”
It was despicable, bargaining over Taryn like she was a side of beef. The desire to grab Kalder and twist his head off was like a fire in Rutger’s veins. Only a bounty hunter could suggest such an abominable proposition. Only a man without any choice would agree to it.
“I want your word there’ll be no tricks. You deal fair by me until Taryn is safe.” Rutger’s eyes filled with hate. His face twisted with contempt. “Swear on the graves of your wife and child.”
Kalder smiled. “You have my word. No tricks until she is free. On the cherished memory of my family.”
The bounty hunter walked toward Rutger, offering his hand. Rutger snubbed him. “Just lead me to Taryn,” he growled.
“First we’ll need that warjack of yours,” Kalder said. “We need every edge we can get.”
The stench of decayed flesh permeated the atmosphere within the underground chamber, stifling even the odor of burning necrotite and the coppery tang of spilled blood. The light of arcane lamps and tallow candles was turned a sickly hue by the Cryxlight that blazed from the soul furnaces of the undead machines. The same glow emanated from the soul cages dangling from Moritat’s belt as the necrotech scuttled about his sanctum, muttering to himself. The machine he labored upon was a giant of steel and bone. Entwined within its mesh of wire and sinew were pieces plundered from the hull of a Buccaneer and parts stolen from the bodies of a dozen men. Moritat grinned as he studied his handiwork, sometimes clucking to himself in an amused manner.
“It is a cruelty of the universe that the mortal mind is doomed to decay and dissolution just as it begins to understand, to truly understand, the patterns of the world around it.” Moritat used a set of tongs to pull a fleshy ribbon away from the machine’s armature. He raised it to the rotten stump of his nose and sniffed at it experimentally. Frowning, he tossed it aside.
Chains clattered against stone as Lorca struggled in his bindings. Moritat had relocated his lair from the necrotite-filled grotto to the old Orgoth dungeon above it. He had proudly extolled the virtues of his new laboratory, the pits and cells that afforded such convenient storage of materials, the still-functional torture devices that promised such intriguing ways of breaking those materials down into their desired components. The half-effaced reliefs of grinning infernals glowering from the walls lent the place, in the necrotech’s opinion, a most delicious ambiance, an inspirational quality that set the mind wandering down new avenues of creativity.
For Lorca, the place was a charnel house of horrors. Corpses in every state of decay were piled about the chamber, awaiting the attentions of Moritat and Azaam. He’d seen for himself the atrocities visited upon the captives the Satyxis brought into the place, made all the more horrendous for his suspicion that the Cryxians had employed necromancy to keep the victims alive well after death should have ended their suffering. Once the screaming stopped—sometimes even before—Moritat would begin cutting out the portions of his victims he felt had a place in his new creation. Lorca didn’t want to think about that moment when the monster’s attentions would turn toward him.
“You still need me!” Lorca shouted, desperate to make himself heard, to drive home his point in Moritat’s crazed brain. “Even if they believe you’ve been destroyed, the Ordic Navy will still be watching every ship closely for even a hint of necromancy.”
Moritat busied himself removing the tendons from a human arm, inspecting each bit of tissue with a cloth measuring tape. “Thanks to the Dragonfather, we of Cryx needn’t fear such doom. Our minds expand beyond the paltry years of our fragile flesh. For us there is no tyranny of the grave, no slow slide into senility and decrepitude.”
Across the chamber, Azaam moved away from the stone table where the portions of her last victim lay strewn. The witch’s skin was coated in fresh blood, the fluid glistening with a sorcerous sheen as it was drawn into her wrinkled flesh. The blood hag had used the process t
o revivify herself for years, but each time the treatment was less successful than before. The effects lost potency and duration as her body acquired a natural tolerance to the enchantment. After the fight on the cable cars and the extent to which she’d been forced to draw upon her magic, Azaam’s vitality was a mere flicker. As she heard Moritat discussing the immortality of Toruk’s chosen servants, she stepped forward.
“You’ve promised to bestow the gift of longevity on me,” she said, bowing before the necrotech. “To remove the shadow of the grave from my flesh.”
Moritat stared at her with his putrid eyes, scrutinizing her as he might a peculiar insect.
“I have served you loyally, master,” Azaam said, frightened by that cold, analytical stare. At times, lost in the depths of his many experiments, Moritat seemed to forget who she even was. She feared this was one of those times. When the necrotech looked away from her and back to the helljack he was assembling, she was certain of it. There was an alarming grin on Moritat’s grisly face, the amused smile of an idea Azaam didn’t want taking shape.
“The ship was destroyed,” Azaam said, just as if she hadn’t told Moritat the same thing hours before. “I ensured that there could be no doubt of a strong Cryxian presence. Caracalla deployed your Scuttlers against the raiders’ boat,” she added, referring to the amphibious bonejacks Moritat had crafted from his Helldivers. “They performed remarkably.” Something more primal than mere panic flared through Azaam when she saw the grin was still on Moritat’s face.
She backed away from the necrotech, then dashed toward one of the cells, waving her clawed hand at the unconscious woman locked inside. “Look! I even brought you the mortal who dared harm you! She will make a most fitting subject for your experiments!”
Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech Page 17