Free Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech by C. L. Werner Page B

within the Scrapyard. Through the rent in the wall, in the wake of the bonejack’s murderous advance, other undead horrors now stalked into the arena. Taryn recoiled at the sight of the risen, their flesh ripped and torn in the most unspeakable manner, their chests and foreheads mutilated with loathsome symbols that wept blood and burned with an unholy light. Mechanithralls, their desiccated bodies implanted with necromechanikal engines, their arms fused into monstrous gauntlets of steel, were not far behind.
    While the Deathripper ravened about the floor of the arena and the risen hacked vindictively at those trying to escape, the mechanithralls hurled themselves at the lowest layer of tiered spectator platforms. They gouged handholds with their necrotite-powered claws and pulled themselves up the stone foundation like monstrous beetles. The crush of people trying to flee down into the arcade became a wild stampede. Spectators were trampled beneath the mob, and others shoved from the tiered seats plummeted to the arena floor far below. Those too paralyzed with fear to move were callously brushed aside, abandoned to face the advancing undead.
    Kalder kept a tight grip on Taryn as he forced his way through the crowd. The bounty hunter made no pretense about the gun he’d smuggled into the Scrapyard, brandishing it openly now to intimidate the mob around him. Against the horrors of Cryx, however, there was only so much fear Kalder’s pistol could invoke. Trying to smash his way past a richly dressed Tordoran, the bounty hunter found himself staggering back as the merchant’s fist slammed into his jaw. Reflexively, Kalder shot the man, sending him pitching down to the next tier of seats.
    The crack of Kalder’s pistol drove the mob back. The panicked spectators scattered ahead of Kalder, climbing over one another in their haste to clear a path for him.
    Before Kalder could exploit that gap, Taryn drove her elbow into the killer’s throat. The bounty hunter reeled, gasping as he tried to draw a breath. Before he could aim his pistol at her, Taryn grabbed his wrist. She didn’t try to take Kalder’s weapon from him. She knew she couldn’t match Kalder’s brawn. Instead, she used herself as a fulcrum to turn his spin into a wild dive, releasing her grip and sending him crashing to the tier below.
    Taryn didn’t look to see the bounty hunter’s fall. Before the mob could once again converge on the stairs, she was rushing past them, racing down. Panic lent speed to her legs, her feet barely lighting upon one step before she was leaping down to the next. It wasn’t fear for herself that made her heart hammer against her ribs, but fear for Rutger, helpless inside his cage. In the chaos and confusion, no one would spare a moment’s thought for the mercenary hanging above the fighting pit. If anyone were going to help him, it would have to be her.
    To do that, she needed her magelocks back.
    The arcade was choked with panicked humanity, shoving, pushing, desperate to reach a safety they didn’t know how to find. Taryn shook her head. There was no way through. If she were going to reach the main gate and the arsenal locked up beside it, she would have to take a different route.
    She turned toward the lowest tier of spectator platforms. Anguished screams and moans of horror told her the mechanithralls had finished their murderous climb. The eldritch monstrosities were slaughtering the people who had been trapped in that ring of seats.
    The cries emanating from the bottom tier only grew more terrible when Taryn bullied her way through the swarm of refugees filling the arcade. The short flight of steps leading down into what had been the choice seats in the Scrapyard was eerily devoid of life. Any who had been able to escape were already out. Only those marked for slaughter by the demons of Cryx were left.
    Lights flickered in the ceiling, sending fitful, unsettling flashes across the shambles. The wreckage of benches and