“I shall need much more for my purposes. My experiments are most exhaustive.” The morbid flesh floating inside the glass spheres emerged from the liquid depths. “You have the amount you promised?”
“You’ll get what we agreed on,” Lorca said. He glanced away from Moritat as he caught motion from the corner of his eye. One of the bodies lying on the floor had started to twitch, its mouth contorting in a silent moan. Despite the thing’s obvious agony, there was no chance it could still be alive, not with the organs that had been cut from its mutilated flesh. Azaam stalked over to the moaning thing. There was a look of pleasure on her face as she started to work on the body with her knife.
It only took a moment of watching Azaam for Lorca to look away in disgust. “I brought you here to do a job, not . . .”
“So you did and so we will,” Moritat said. “But it would have been impractical for us to bring everything we need all the way from Cryx. We felt it would be more efficient to improvise some of the more mundane elements from . . . shall we say, local materials?” The necrotech’s spidery legs scratched at the floor as he came scuttling closer. “You must want this man dead very badly.”
Lorca squirmed under Moritat’s gaze.
“What is so special about one death, when there is so much all around us? Everything that thinks itself alive is already dying. Only the Dragonfather is eternal.” Moritat pulled another sliver of rotten tissue from the slash-like vent. “So much trouble just to kill one man. You should have asked for a few dozen, bought your murders wholesale.”
Lorca stared back at the monster. Ambition dulled the horror coursing through his veins. He was a man with an insatiable appetite for power. On his own, he’d risen through the ranks of High Captain Kilbride’s syndicate, eliminating anything and anyone in his way. But he’d reached a plateau. To climb any higher he would have to stand on the corpse of a murdered man. Not just any man, but his own boss within the syndicate, Vulger Volkenrath, first mate to Low Captain Haggise, Kilbride’s second-in-command. Lorca didn’t have any qualms about murder, but killing his own boss—if the crime could be traced back to him—would be like slitting his own throat.
If Volkenrath were slaughtered by horrors from Cryx, however, not even his fiercest rival would suspect Lorca’s involvement.
“He’s the only one I need dead,” Lorca said. He forced himself to look back at Azaam and her gory adjustments to the recalcitrant corpse. “Do whatever you need to do to get ready, but I want you to act soon.”
Azaam stepped away from the mangled carcass. She stretched her blood-soaked hand toward it and arcane runes glowed in the air around her fingers. The same runes flickered briefly where they had been carved into the corpse’s flesh. Slowly, the thing sat upright, then clumsily pulled itself to its feet. The blood hag had invested it with the foulest echo of life, the obscene vitality of the undead. The corpse was now one of the risen.
“We will step up our preparations,” Azaam said. “We will be ready. See that you can say the same.”
“I’m already making the arrangements to ship the necrotite out of Five Fingers. Don’t worry—with me working it, you’ll be able to get your necrotite safely out of the city,” Lorca said. “And I’ve already figured out where you can hit Vulger. He has a hobby. He likes to watch steamjacks beat each other into scrap. Once a week he operates a fighting arena called the Scrapyard here on Hospice. That’s one of the reasons I chose this place to hide you, so you’d be close to the hunting ground.”
Moritat gave the nugget of necrotite one final caress, then slipped it back into his satchel. “My creations are not known for their restraint,” he said. “They are liable to kill everything in the arena.”
Lorca watched as Azaam used her magic to animate a second corpse.
“You’ll get what we agreed on,” Lorca said. He glanced away from Moritat as he caught motion from the corner of his eye. One of the bodies lying on the floor had started to twitch, its mouth contorting in a silent moan. Despite the thing’s obvious agony, there was no chance it could still be alive, not with the organs that had been cut from its mutilated flesh. Azaam stalked over to the moaning thing. There was a look of pleasure on her face as she started to work on the body with her knife.
It only took a moment of watching Azaam for Lorca to look away in disgust. “I brought you here to do a job, not . . .”
“So you did and so we will,” Moritat said. “But it would have been impractical for us to bring everything we need all the way from Cryx. We felt it would be more efficient to improvise some of the more mundane elements from . . . shall we say, local materials?” The necrotech’s spidery legs scratched at the floor as he came scuttling closer. “You must want this man dead very badly.”
Lorca squirmed under Moritat’s gaze.
“What is so special about one death, when there is so much all around us? Everything that thinks itself alive is already dying. Only the Dragonfather is eternal.” Moritat pulled another sliver of rotten tissue from the slash-like vent. “So much trouble just to kill one man. You should have asked for a few dozen, bought your murders wholesale.”
Lorca stared back at the monster. Ambition dulled the horror coursing through his veins. He was a man with an insatiable appetite for power. On his own, he’d risen through the ranks of High Captain Kilbride’s syndicate, eliminating anything and anyone in his way. But he’d reached a plateau. To climb any higher he would have to stand on the corpse of a murdered man. Not just any man, but his own boss within the syndicate, Vulger Volkenrath, first mate to Low Captain Haggise, Kilbride’s second-in-command. Lorca didn’t have any qualms about murder, but killing his own boss—if the crime could be traced back to him—would be like slitting his own throat.
If Volkenrath were slaughtered by horrors from Cryx, however, not even his fiercest rival would suspect Lorca’s involvement.
“He’s the only one I need dead,” Lorca said. He forced himself to look back at Azaam and her gory adjustments to the recalcitrant corpse. “Do whatever you need to do to get ready, but I want you to act soon.”
Azaam stepped away from the mangled carcass. She stretched her blood-soaked hand toward it and arcane runes glowed in the air around her fingers. The same runes flickered briefly where they had been carved into the corpse’s flesh. Slowly, the thing sat upright, then clumsily pulled itself to its feet. The blood hag had invested it with the foulest echo of life, the obscene vitality of the undead. The corpse was now one of the risen.
“We will step up our preparations,” Azaam said. “We will be ready. See that you can say the same.”
“I’m already making the arrangements to ship the necrotite out of Five Fingers. Don’t worry—with me working it, you’ll be able to get your necrotite safely out of the city,” Lorca said. “And I’ve already figured out where you can hit Vulger. He has a hobby. He likes to watch steamjacks beat each other into scrap. Once a week he operates a fighting arena called the Scrapyard here on Hospice. That’s one of the reasons I chose this place to hide you, so you’d be close to the hunting ground.”
Moritat gave the nugget of necrotite one final caress, then slipped it back into his satchel. “My creations are not known for their restraint,” he said. “They are liable to kill everything in the arena.”
Lorca watched as Azaam used her magic to animate a second corpse.
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