Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech (19 page)

Sculler treated Captain Nestor Parvolo and the men he brought with him from Captain’s Isle like interlopers, and the other captain did his best to marginalize their contribution to what he adamantly insisted was
his
investigation. If not for the presence of Middleton and his unswerving demand that the matter be resolved as quickly as possible, Sculler would probably have had Parvolo thrown off the estate.

As it was, Sculler had condescended to allow Parvolo to interrogate a few of the survivors. Among the scraps Sculler threw his way, Parvolo was careful to take charge of Rutger and Taryn.

“You were right, Captain,” Rutger told Parvolo once they were all out in the garden. “The Cryx were after Vulger.”

“Any idea why? Did Vulger drop any hint about a connection between himself and—”

“Nothing,” Rutger said. “If you ask me, he was as much at a loss to explain their interest in him as you are.”

Taryn took up the theme. “A man as paranoid as Vulger, who turned his home into a fortress the moment he found himself answering to a new high captain, wouldn’t have endangered himself by colluding with the Nightmare Empire—not without taking more precautions than we saw. I think if Vulger had been working with the Cryx he would have had a regiment of priests and sorcerers making sure nothing happened to him.” Her expression darkened. Now that the crisis was past, her mind returned to the image of the pistol wraith waiting for her to reach for her guns, goading her. To be spared such an experience, she would have welcomed Thamar herself as a comrade-in-arms.

Parvolo shook his head and waved his hand back at the mansion where Middleton and Sculler were conducting their investigation. “They haven’t found Vulger yet. And except for a few stray parts and what was left of that helljack you turned into scrap, damn little solid evidence that the Cryxians were here.”

“They took away their dead,” Rutger said. “As for Vulger, the last Taryn saw of him, he was being led to some escape route by Lorca.” He turned toward his partner. “Isn’t that right?” He had to repeat the question. Ever since the attack, the gun mage had been strangely distracted, almost brooding. Whatever was troubling her, Rutger sensed it went deeper than the horror evoked by the creations of the Nightmare Empire. It pained him that she didn’t want to share whatever it was with him.

“Yes, Lorca took Vulger away,” Taryn said, uneasiness making her words clipped and terse. “That was the last I saw of him.”

A bitter laugh rose from the watch captain. “If I know Lorca, that’s the last anybody will see of his boss.” His expression darkened as a new suspicion came to him. “Did you ever hear Lorca mention anything about Cryx?”

“We barely saw the man,” Taryn said. “He didn’t seem to like us much.”

Parvolo nodded. “He might have good reason,” he said, but didn’t explain further. Reaching into his coat, the captain drew out a sealskin pouch that jangled with the sound of coins.

Rutger smiled wryly at the captain as he took the bag. “I thought you said there’d be no money.”

“There isn’t,” Parvolo said. “You did a good job for me and I might want to use you again.” He pointed at the bag in Rutger’s hand. “That is for Captain Sculler, to make sure you don’t end up locked away somewhere as either suspects or material witnesses. It’ll also ensure he doesn’t impound your warjack.”

Rutger hefted the bag in his hand, frowning at its weight. “Sculler must sell himself cheap,” he said.

Parvolo chuckled. “Give him every coin in that bag. It’s the exact amount he owes at one of Kilbride’s gambling dens. Give him that, and he’ll think you’re from Kilbride. Once he starts thinking that, trust me, he won’t be able to turn you loose fast enough.”

CHAPTER VII

T
he subterranean grotto was brighter than Lorca had ever seen it. The collection of mining lamps had been supplemented by a profusion of foul-smelling candles. As he walked past the greasy, ugly lights, he tried not to think too hard about the materials his gruesome allies would have used.

Everywhere, the sound of pick and hammer rang through the grotto. The clamor had a disturbingly methodical, untiring quality. The risen, their bodies scarred with the bloody sigils of Azaam’s magic, hacked away at the walls, dislodging clumps of necrotite. Others gathered the glistening black rocks, their necks shackled to ore carts, eventually dragging them across the grotto to a final collection point where more of the animated dead were packing the sorcerous ore into long, shallow crates. The size and shape of the boxes made it clear they’d been recycled from coffins, probably the same ones that had once contained their miners.

Strewn about an open area at the middle of the cavern were the remains of the Helldivers. Two of the bonejacks had been destroyed in the attack on Volkenrath’s estate, but Moritat had used six for the assault. The survivors had been disassembled, stripped down to the bare husks of their chassis. The necrotech was fussing about these husks of metal and bone, cobbling together new appendages and attachments. Lorca noted what looked to be a disassembled steamjack lying behind Moritat, a Buccaneer if the bulbous diving helmet was anything to go by. The ’jack’s components were laid out in a row, almost like a display of anatomical specimens. As he puttered about the exhaust of one Helldiver’s soul furnace, Moritat giggled and whispered to himself.

“Now is not a good time to disturb him,” Azaam said. The blood hag rose from the crate she’d been sitting upon. Lorca noted with revulsion that she’d been filing down the jagged stump of her missing horn with one of her grisly knives. Blood dripped from the stump and streamed down the side of her face.

Lorca shook his head. “I need to talk to him.” Before Azaam could intercept him, he approached the necrotech.

“Vulger’s dead,” Lorca said. His temper flared when Moritat didn’t even look up. “I said Vulger’s dead.”

“Then you should be pleased,” Azaam said. “We’ve kept our side of the bargain.”

“Have you?” Lorca glanced from Azaam back to Moritat. “What was that thing down in the tunnel? I was expecting you or Azaam to be down there, even that gun-ghost, something with enough of a brain to tell its friends from its enemies. That monster of yours could have killed me just as easily as Vulger.”

Moritat tossed aside the valve he’d been fiddling with. The necrotech’s cadaverous face was rendered still more horrific by the crude stitches and wire holding his damaged cheek and jaw together. There was an unpleasant gleam in his gaze. “Yes,” he conceded. “It might at that. Sometimes Caracalla gets strange ideas into his heads.” The necrotech’s damaged face stretched in a smile. “Must come from having three minds fused into a single entity. I sometimes think maybe Caracalla is spying on me. If I thought he could comprehend even a fragment of my work, I’d probably break him down into his constituent parts.” Moritat shrugged. “Of course, if Fulmenus sent him to spy on me, I might get into trouble. That could interfere with my experiments, and we wouldn’t want that.” He wagged a finger at Lorca. “So you see, Caracalla is less expendable than you are.”

Lorca tapped the side of his head. “Exactly how crazy are you? Without me, without my connections you’ll never get out of Five Fingers! Then what good will all your necrotite be? How will old Toruk like it if his fat little spider has to sit here and twiddle his thumbs because no ship can get him past the watch and the navy?”

“It is fortunate then that Caracalla didn’t become overzealous,” Moritat said. “I abhor letting anything go to waste.”

The ghastly interest with which Moritat was regarding him set Lorca’s skin crawling. “You still need me,” he said. “This attack on Bellicose has sent panic all across Five Fingers. There’s been talk of bringing the army in to augment the watch, even rumors of a Morrowan crusade from Cygnar to cleanse the city. The high captains are being pressured to put the pressure on the syndicates and the gangs they control, which in turn is causing the independent street gangs to be suppressed. The lord governor is lighting a fire under Five Fingers, and the city’s starting to boil over. It’s time to get you out of here.”

“Meaning you’ve gotten what you wanted and now it’s time for us to leave?” Azaam said. The witch fingered her gore-crusted knife and licked her lips.

“We’ve all gotten what we agreed on,” Lorca said. “You’ve removed Vulger for me, I’ve given you the necrotite you wanted and clear passage out of Five Fingers.”

Azaam maintained her threatening pose. “There’s more here than we can take in a single ship.”

“No need to be greedy,” Moritat said. “One ship will be sufficient for my research. If I need more, we can certainly come to a new arrangement with Lorca.”

The gangster nodded at the necrotech. “I’m sure that we can, once things quiet down. A year or two. Three at the most.” He shook his arms in a helpless gesture when he still found Azaam glaring at him. “What do you want to do? Stay here all that time? Don’t you know they’re going to be scouring these islands looking for you? They’ll have every sorcerer and street-seer with a crystal ball using their magic to find you. They’ll have soldiers probing every cellar, vault, and basement searching for your hiding place. And they’ll start with Hospice, figuring they can cause the least public concern if they ransack the poor districts first.”

Lorca smiled. He could see from Azaam’s sullen expression that he’d impressed his point. He turned back to Moritat. “Can you have everything you need ready tomorrow?”

The necrotech scratched his chin as he considered the question, digging furrows in the wan flesh. He glanced down at the dismantled Helldivers. “Yes, I think that can be accomplished.”

“Good,” Lorca said. “I’ve contracted a ship out of Berck, the
Majestic
. It’s registered to one of the Mateu Merchant House’s subgroups. There aren’t many even in the navy who’ll look too closely at a Mateu ship. The captain’s agreed to hire on a crew of Scharde for the voyage.”

“Isn’t that a bit obvious?” Azaam asked.

Lorca laughed. “Who else would sail with this sort of cargo? They’ll be disguised as Tordorans and Thurians.”

“I am certain the arrangements will be satisfactory,” Moritat said, glancing over at Azaam and silencing any further protest from her.

“The ship will be waiting for you at the Coveward Docks just before dawn,” Lorca said. The gangster made an admirable pretense of looking unhurried as he withdrew from the grotto.

The witch ran her finger along the back of her knife. “How
will
we leave the city?” she asked Moritat.

Moritat chuckled. “Leave? Why, by the Dragonfather, should we leave?” He stretched his arms wide, gesturing to the grotto around them. “Everything I need for my research is right here.”

A feeling of horror swept through the Satyxis hag. “Lich Lord Malathrax won’t appreciate a neighbor,” she said. From the first, she’d cautioned Moritat against becoming too bold in his activities for fear of drawing Malathrax’s attention. Malathrax had been conducting his own operation in Five Fingers for years, exploiting the corrupt city as a central hub for the Nightmare Empire’s spies. Much of the information from the mainland that Cryx needed to plot its campaigns against the Iron Kingdoms flowed through the port. Despite Moritat’s insistence that his research was of profound importance, she doubted that his own patron, Lich Lord Fulmenus, would expend much effort defending the necrotech against the ire of Malathrax.

Moritat was back to fussing over the Helldiver exhausts and the motley assortment of valves he’d collected. “With the mortals so upset, Malathrax’s people will stay right where they are,” he said. “Certainly, some of his human agents will be out and about, but they’ll stop looking when the others do.”

“You are certain?” Azaam asked.

“One thing you must appreciate about these mortals is that they do respond to a spectacle. Do something on a big enough scale and they don’t think to look for subtleties. Right now they are looking for a battalion of monsters from Cryx. If they find them, if they destroy them, they’ll stop looking. Provided the bait is big enough.” He made an irritated wave of his hand. “Now leave me be. I want to finish these refinements so I can get back to more important experiments.”

Azaam rushed forward, her hand almost touching the necrotech, such was her hopeful excitement. “My rejuvenation?” she dared to ask.

Moritat picked a ribbon of skin from around his ruined cheek, grinding it between his fingers. “Time enough for that later,” he said, dashing her hope as casually as he would swat a botfly. “I was thinking about what went wrong with the Reaper. That mortal wasn’t even a warcaster, but he managed to get the better of me. He was relying on that machine’s crude mechanikal cortex, yet he turned my helljack into scrap.”