“So why should you believe them now?”
“No one has seen them in days. They were supposed to show up with their share of the take a couple of night’s back but they never did.”
“Maybe they legged it with your money.”
Uri looked at him and guffawed. He poured more vodka. “They would not dare. And they would not leave their families behind either. Standa’s wife Lucie says he was pretty strange the last night she saw him. Eyes were blank. Seemed to be in a trance. He just walked out, never came back. Kept muttering something about graves.”
“If you want to talk about blank eyes take a look into the Barbarian’s sometimes.”
Uri had another drink. He did not offer Rik one. It did not seem to have too much effect on him, except that he was becoming more aggressive. “Look, pretty boy, I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s just my friend Weasel there brought word that you and the Taloreans were looking out for just this sort of story so I mentioned it to him.”
The voices whispered to Rik that he should kill this arrogant fool, and drink his life. He forced them down. “Maybe you made this up because you heard there was money to be made for such tales.”
“Yes, and maybe I have nothing better to do with my time than sit here and tell these stories to you. However I have other ways of making money. This was a favour for a friend. One I can see is not much appreciated.”
“Calm down,” said Rik. He did not need any trouble with the local gangs. “You know where this bodysnatcher had his premises?”
Uri nodded. “My boys have had it staked out since I sent you the invitation.”
“Then here’s the deal. We’ll check this out, and if there’s anything in it, you’ll be owed. Money, favours, whatever you need. We don’t forget the people who help us.”
Uri looked as if he was considering asking for money up front, and remembering that he had claimed he was doing this as a favour. Eventually, he nodded. “Tell your masters to check out the basement of the old ruined tenement on Angel of Hope Street. The whole area was wrecked when you boys came to town but there’s still a few beggars around there.”
“Why don’t you arrange for somebody to show us the way?”
Uri nodded. “I can do that.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sardec lay on his back and looked up at the bright moonbeams slipping in through the chinks in the curtain. Sleep would not come. Rena stirred beside him. He lay still, not wanting to wake her. Soft footsteps sounded on the stair and he sat upright. Someone knocked on the door. Sardec rose, slipped the lock and looked out. Sergeant Hef stood there.
“What is it?” Sardec asked.
“Weasel and the Barbarian just came in, sir. Lady Asea is below. Looks like they found a lead on the necromancers everybody is looking for. Her Ladyship would like you to lead the lads out and investigate.”
"Can't it wait till morning, Sergeant?" Sardec knew that it could not, but he felt he needed to vent his exasperation.
"I don't think so, sir," said the Sergeant. "They say it’s important."
"All right then, lead on," said Sardec.
“What is it?” Rena asked from the bed.
“Duty calls,” said Sardec
Sardec trudged through the snow, wondering what was going on. The raggedly dressed men with Asea had led his unit to the remains of a collapsed building. There were some signs of burning but it looked like it had fallen when hit by something big. This whole street had suffered during the siege; a large section of the city was abandoned now by all but scavengers and beggars and worse things. There was a strange smell in the air, a hint of something he had encountered before, something disturbing and strange that reminded him of the graveyard encounter with the ghouls. The moment his nostrils twitched he reached for his pistol. Sardec dreaded the presence of ghouls.
“This is the place,” said the more villainous of the two men. He was a Kharadrean human of the lowest type. This war had certainly given them some strange allies. He checked his pistol and made sure all the men had truesilver bullets loaded. He had been told to expect sorcery. The stump of his missing hand itched where the gutta-percha padding met flesh, a constant reminder of how dangerous evil magic could be. He looked at Asea who stood there with her half-breed lover. She was garbed for war, in her strange living leather armour and silver facemask. Sardec lifted a lantern.
“Wait here,” Sardec said, just to let everyone know he was in charge, and then gestured for the Foragers to enter the ruins. There was still a ceiling overhead although tumbled at a crazy angle. The bright moon shone through the gaps, illuminating an interior partially covered by snow. Shafts of silver light speared the ground in a dozen places. Wreckage lay everywhere — broken furniture, torn clothes. At the back of the room was an open trapdoor of the kind that would normally have run down into a coal cellar. As he approached it, the smell got worse; there was a hint of rot, and chemical bleach, as if someone had set up a tannery inside an old abattoir.
He looked at the men. They were pale and nervous and looked to him for leadership. He picked up the lantern with his hook and made for the stairwell. The Sergeant and the Barbarian and Weasel fell into step behind him.
Blood, he thought, as he descended into the gloom. Blood and chemicals. The stairs took him down into a large cellar. Something squelched beneath his foot as he reached the bottom. The stink of rot followed a bellow's wheeze. His footing was soft and slippery and he realised why soon enough. He was standing on a dead body. More dead bodies lay round about. They were oddly pale. He got off the corpse, looked around and saw that the flesh was white, the eyeballs grey. There were faded bruise marks in the arms and neck.
"No blood," said Weasel. His voice was sombre. "Something drained them of blood."
"What's that?" Sardec asked pointing to the large metal tub, bigger than a wine-vat, that dominated the centre of the cellar. It seemed like they had encountered nothing but dark sorcery this whole year, ever since they had ventured into the valley of Deep Achenar and fought with the followers of the Spider God and the thing they had worshipped. Sardec shivered. He had lost his hand during that encounter, and almost his life. It had made him wary. He wished he still had his truesilver blade, but that had been turned to slag during the final battle in the abandoned city.
He looked around the walls. More corpses hung from hooks, some split like pigs at a butcher's shop, others still intact but pale, so pale. His skin crawled. He fought the urge to run from the place. If he had been alone, he might have, but it would not do to let the men see he was afraid, so he strode forwards towards the vat, conscious even as he did so of the fear that gnawed at his stomach, as if a massive rat were in there trying to bite its way through to his heart.
He heard something and paused, shocked. One of the corpses had shifted on its hook. For a moment, he feared that it had come alive, and was about to attack him. Memories of the Nerghul, the strange sorcerous assassin Lord Jaderac had sent to kill the Lady Asea back in Morven, gibbered at the back of his mind. That thing had almost killed him despite the presence of a squad of troops and the most powerful sorceress in the western world.