Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech (16 page)

Bracing himself against the ground, setting one knee against the back of the steel cylinder, the stalker dropped the grapnel down the tube. Gears shuddered into animation. With a soft huff, the grapnel was hurled upward, flying over the top of the wall. Even as the hooks clattered against the far side of the obstruction, the reel was spinning, retracting the wire that had been played out. When there was no more slack in the line and the claws of the grapnel had caught and secured themselves, the reel fell idle. The prowler unhooked the spool of wire from the reel, securing it to a steel spike he deftly pounded into the ground.

Returning the steel cylinder to his satchel, the man busied himself fitting a set of iron spikes to the soles of his boots. He scuffed the soles against the ground to ensure they were strapped tightly, then strode to the wall. Taking hold of the wire and using the spikes to assist him, the prowler made a rapid ascent. A cold smile flitted across his face when he saw the jagged glass embedded in the top of the wall. He removed a thick blanket from his satchel and flung it over the glass slivers before finishing his climb. He nodded in appreciation when he saw the gap between the first wall and the second. He tugged the grapnel free. Then, with some effort, he freed the wire from the stake at the base of the wall.

Recovering both items, he withdrew the tiny knee mortar from his bag and began to repeat the procedure by which he had conquered the first wall. The second would be trickier. He’d have to secure the line so it ran horizontal instead of vertical. That took a bit more finesse, but he was an old hand at such intricacies.

The intruder soon bypassed the other defenses of Volkenrath’s estate. He had to wait for a time in the garden until one of the patrols came past where he lay hidden among the flowers. By day there wasn’t a chance in a million that they could have missed him, but in the dark he blended perfectly with the black blotch of the flowerbed. Now he watched as the two gangsters came marching past his position. He took note of the long coat and broad-brimmed hat one of the men wore. Just the sort of thing he needed. When he sprang up from concealment, his knife opened the throat of one guard before the man knew what was happening. He left the dying guard to thrash and bleed and pounced upon his comrade in the long coat. With one hand clamped across the man’s mouth, the stalker punched his knife into the base of the guard’s skull.

The prowler rose and scanned the darkness, every sense alert for the slightest indication that someone had noticed the struggle. After a moment, satisfied that he was still undetected, he bent down and stripped away the floppy hat and long coat the man had worn. In this guise, the intruder ran toward Volkenrath’s manor, gesticulating wildly and making anguished sounds. Lights winked on throughout the mansion, and excited guards appeared on the roofs. Briefly they aimed at the stalker, but the sight of the familiar hat and coat were enough to deceive them in the dark. Training their guns on the garden beyond, they let their supposed comrade run to the main doorway.

The portal was just opening. Gangsters came boiling out in every state of undress. Though many had forsaken robes, not a man among them had failed to bring pistol, blade, or bludgeon. The intruder, bundled in his stolen coat, feigned a weakened wave of his hand, indicating the garden, then slumped against the open doorway. Most of the thugs rushed off to pursue a phantom enemy.

One lingered behind. He stared at the man slumped against the door. His brows knitted in confusion; it took him a moment to register what was wrong. As the realization struck him, so did the slim blade of a knife. Thrusting upward, the intruder plunged his steel deep into the thug’s vitals and shoved the dying man over the threshold. Then he rushed inside and slammed the heavy door shut. As he slid the bar into place, he heard alarmed gangsters rushing back across the garden.

The intruder’s hand flicked beneath his coat, drawing a pistol. Without a second’s thought, he shot down the young gangster running toward him. A second guard, seeing his comrade’s fate, turned and ran screaming down the hallway, shouting for Volkenrath.

The intruder had a second pistol in hand now, but he didn’t shoot the fleeing gangster. The idiot was running off to warn his boss and in doing so, he would lead the enemy straight to Volkenrath. Holstering his spent pistol, he hurried after the gangster. A richly appointed parlor lay ahead. Vulger Volkenrath and a score of his bruisers were there, the gang leader barking out orders to his men and trying to deploy them throughout the room.

The hunter sneered. If Volkenrath had been his target, the man would be dead already. But it wasn’t the gangster Kalder wanted. It was the sneaky bitch who’d entered the man’s employ.

The groan of an opening door brought Kalder spinning around. He grinned viciously as he saw Rutger Shaw standing in the doorway, his mechanikal sword in hand, the immense bulk of his warjack looming behind him. Where Rutger was, Kalder knew Taryn wouldn’t be far away. This time, the bounty hunter would do things in reverse. First kill Rutger, then secure his real target.

Kalder was just aiming his pistol at Rutger when the whole mansion shook as though caught in the coils of the Wurm. The bounty hunter was sent sprawling, spilling across the floor and rolling behind a marble pillar. Instead of lessening, the tremor grew more violent and persistent. Then an entire section of the tile floor fractured, dropping away into a ragged hole that had formed beneath the hallway. But it wasn’t what dropped into the hole that arrested Kalder’s attention—it was the thing that came lumbering out.

In shape, the horror vaguely resembled the bonejacks that had assaulted the Scrapyard. Hideous modifications had been made to it, the bony jaws distended to accommodate two whirling drill heads, the feet elongated into splayed claws that resembled nothing so much as scoop shovels. Gigantic black iron forelimbs tipped with wickedly serrated crescent blades drove themselves into the pit’s lip. The creature dragged itself up from the hole, the glow of Cryxlight rising from the soul furnace buried at its core.

Even as the thing climbed from the pit, the tremor continued unabated. Screams rang throughout the mansion, alerting Kalder to the grim reality. The scene he was looking on, the burrowing bonejack erupting up from beneath Volkenrath’s estate, was being repeated throughout the mansion.

Once again, the bounty hunter found a horde of undead monstrosities between himself and his prey.

While Rutger led Rex out into the hall, Taryn dashed through the door to the parlor. By separating, they would be able to guard one another’s flanks, at the same time providing a chance to better react to whatever had alarmed Volkenrath’s gang. She found the portly gangster dressed in a purple robe, a massive hand cannon with a gilded stock clenched in his fat fingers. Vulger snapped orders to his men, spinning from one to another, trying to keep them close yet also dispersed around the room. His lieutenant, Lorca, was far more calm and collected, yet even his unflappable demeanor was shaken when the floor suddenly subsided into the ground, nearly sucking one of the gangsters down with it.

A grisly atrocity of necrotic bone and black iron scrabbled up from the pit. There was a rough resemblance to the Deathripper Taryn had fought at the Scrapyard, but with changes that somehow lent it a beetle-like appearance. She’d heard of burrowing bonejacks deployed by Cryx, ghastly creations called Helldivers. This, she suspected, was a crude imitation, a digging monstrosity cobbled together from mining equipment and other bonejacks. As it scrabbled up from the pit, the flare of balefire cast a loathsome glow across the parlor.

Taryn started to shout a warning to Vulger’s men, but the panicked gangsters were already blasting away at the Helldiver with everything they had. Pistols, hand cannons, even a scattergun and a pair of military rifles were trained on the bonejack. The machine’s black iron hull was shredded in the fusillade, splinters of shattered bone flying in every direction. The thing crumpled to the floor, twitching as its corrupt volition slowly drained.

The gangsters were reloading their weapons when the real fighters clambered up from the pit. Taryn shuddered. There’d been no time to warn them.

A wizened hag, her skin grey and wrinkled, her head disfigured by the horns that spiraled from her brow, leaped over the smoking remains of the Helldiver and slashed at the closest gangster with a set of curved knives. Circles of red runes flickered around the driving blades. The thugs shrieked as the knives raked across their chests. The blood arced back toward the witch’s knives, soaking her forearms.

“Rutger! They’re after Vulger!” Taryn shouted, leveling one of her magelocks at the horned hag. Even as she started to pull the trigger, other creatures were rising from the pit. She saw a hideous, corpse-like thing come scrabbling up from the hole on a spider-like armature that served as its legs. A grisly sort of arcane power flowed around the creature. Taryn had seen a similar ring of runes only once, around a Khadoran warcaster on the battlefield. She shifted her aim, deciding that whatever this new horror was, it represented the greater danger.

“Rutger!” she shouted again. “Need help here!” The necrotech appeared to notice her shout, turning its skull-like face to stare at her with a set of grotesquely preserved eyes. “Shadow,” Taryn hissed, invoking her own arcane power. A circle of runes flared about the barrel of her magelock as she pulled the trigger. The bullet took on a phantom-like appearance as it passed through one of Vulger’s men on its way toward the bloated monstrosity.

The enchanted bullet just missed the necrotech’s forehead, where Taryn had aimed. Some profane energy deflected the shot, sending it blasting through the creature’s face instead. Teeth exploded from its shattered jaw as the shot exited its cheek, then slammed into the edge of the pit. The necrotech recoiled, then lurched forward again, one of its claws picking ribbons of torn flesh from the edges of its wound.

“Rutger! Really need help here!” Taryn yelled. The ring of runes swirling about the necrotech flashed even brighter as something utterly enormous rose from the depths of the pit. Taryn’s heart faltered when she saw the thing pull itself up into the parlor. It was bigger than Rex, a colossus of black iron, corroded bone, and necromantic power. A faint wailing emanated from the vents of the furnace within its armored chest. It was shaped like a monstrous ape, short stocky legs supporting a massive torso with broad, hunched shoulders. A bronze-cast head thrust outward from those shoulders on a ball socket, giving it the semblance of a human skull. Two mammoth bone tusks jutted from the distended jaws, and fires smoldered deep within its eye sockets. The monster’s arms were also ape-like in their length, but the left arm was a piston-driven spike of bone fused to black iron. Energy coils snaked from it to the machine’s soul furnace. The right arm was an enormous harpoon gun, loops of chain wound about a spool of human skeletons. The arcane energies Taryn had sensed around the necrotech also swirled about the helljack, bathing it in a ghoulish light as it marched up into the mansion.

An arctic chill rose up Taryn’s spine. That hideous, spider-like creature was some kind of warcaster! It was guiding the helljack not with commands, but with its thoughts.

“Rutger!” Taryn screamed, drawing her second magelock as the helljack came stomping toward her.

Before it could take more than a few steps, the machine was suddenly struck from the side, a dismembered black iron claw cracking against its head. It spun around with an alarming display of speed and agility, reacting far more like a living creature than a machine. The fires in its eye sockets blazed brighter as it focused its gaze upon its attacker.

Rex stood in the hallway, smoke belching from its exhaust pipe, a growl venting through the grate in its helm. The crumpled wreckage of a second Helldiver was strewn about the ’jack’s feet. Embedded in one of its hands were the drill-fangs that had once filled the bonejack’s jaws. Reaching down, the warjack pulled up another piece of wreckage and flung it at the helljack. Aglow with the invigorating energies of the necrotech’s sorcery, the helljack ducked the flying debris.

In that moment of weakness, Rex came charging forward. Its undamaged hand closed about the structure of the bony spike, pinning it to the helljack’s side.

Finally, Taryn saw Rutger. He was running toward the struggling ’jacks, his mechanikal sword clenched in his fist. He turned and shouted, “Get Vulger to safety!” He shook Jackknife at the embattled helljack. “There’s nothing you can do against that thing!”

Taryn knew he was right, but it didn’t make her feel any better. They were a team. Even if she couldn’t hurt the helljack itself, she might be able to stop the necrotech controlling it.