Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

The man’s features were nondescript. He was tall but thin, his eyes pale. Actually, all of him was pale, like he was a ghost. His cloak swirled like black mist, shifting and changing constantly. His knife was out and bloody, a thin foot-long stiletto, stark white. It didn't look like metal. Bone, perhaps. Or ivory.

“You,” Eva hissed. “You don’t scare me.”

“So nice to meet you again. Last time, our little chat was interrupted."

"I have nothing to say to you." Her voice sounded scared but defiant.

"Oh, but the Red Widow would like very much to make your acquaintance."

"I told you I want nothing to do with her."

"Her offer is kind and generous. If you refuse, her reply will be neither.” The man held his knife casually, but I could tell he was ready to use it.

With a squeal of metal joints, Eva’s mech slowly stood. The ceiling here in the converted battlements turned gun deck was high overhead, with equipment suspended from the crossbeams and an overhead crane system for servicing the cannons. But even so, the metal monstrosity had to hunch slightly to keep from hitting the ceiling.

The cloaked man had reached the bottom of the stairs. He approached us slowly, moving like water, slipping between gun emplacements and supply crates.

The room had six metal posts near the center, holding up the ceiling. Racks of ammunition and stacked machine guns stood everywhere. It made for a crowded battlefield. From my perspective, that was good. We didn't want a knife fight with an experienced opponent in open spaces that gave him room. Not when he moved more like liquid than like a normal human.

Another set of boots appeared at the hatch in the roof and started down the stairs. Black boots. The same flowing cloak. Shit, there was more than one. The first man stopped several yards from us in roughly the middle of the room, much closer to the stairs back down than we were.

His companion spread out to the left as another one followed down the steps. Shit, how many were there?

The talkative man brandished his knife. "I urge you to reconsider our offer," he said, gesturing at the other men, now flanking out left and right as a fourth started down the stairs. "You will be well looked after. The Red Widow is a gracious host to those in her good graces."

Eva didn't answer, but her charger growled, a rasping, squealing grind of metal. At first, I thought the growling was its joints, frozen by age and rust, but then I realized the sound was coming from its mouth.

The cloaked man looked as surprised as I felt. "Now that's interesting," he said. "Where did you find that museum piece?"

The mech hunched, barely brushing the ceiling, and took a step forward. Its steel foot shoved a crate out of the way. Its growl grew louder. The cloaked men spread out even more, and the others all pulled out stiletto blades. Long, thin, white, and probably, based on what the cloaked man had said before, covered in poison.

I had to keep them away from the girl. The cut had stung last time, but the poison seemed to give me no lingering effects. My golem resurrection had some perks. Eva wouldn’t be so lucky.

I drew my gun. Remembering our last encounter, where bullets had passed harmlessly through him, I reached for my knife too. Would that affect him? Last time he had left after I drew it. Though he had seemed nonchalant. Would any ordinary weapon harm these freaks?

I should be scared shitless, but I wasn’t, just a little worried. I thought that might be another side effect of being a golem. I just didn’t seem to feel as surprised or scared as I should.

But I damn well could get mad, and right now I was boiling.

The four cloaked men were all around the room now: the talkative one in the center, a man on both his right and left, and one back near the stairs to the roof. Their cloaks seemed to turn to smoke as they swirled around them. The effect reminded me of wraiths from a certain fantasy movie.

Wraith soldiers. That was a good name for them. Until someone told me different, that’s what they’d be.

"Last chance to reconsider," the man said as the smoke curled up, concealing even his face. In a few breaths, he transformed into a pillar of black swirling cloud.

"No," Eva said.

"Very well." And then they charged.

The giant mech stepped forward to meet them, brushing past me. I shifted to engage the wraith on my left. He was little more than a swirling cloud as he stepped in, but even clouds have a center of mass. I put two rounds of 9mm through it. The reports were deafening in the closed metal room. The bullets crossed harmlessly through the cloud and ricocheted off a big breech-loading gun. They bounced, struck the ceiling, and then rattled to the floor with a ring of metal that made it sound like I had fired several more times.

And then the wraith was on me. I dodged to the side to avoid his knife thrust, staying close. I wanted to keep between him and the girl. The blade caught on my uniform, stabbing through and scratching my chest. It burned as the blade’s poison tried to do its work.

I lashed out with my knife. My blade caught at his cloak, tearing it. Where it struck, the smoke turned into black cloth. The man stumbled back. I couldn't tell if I had drawn blood, but he reacted like he’d been stung.

The cut cloth flapped in the middle of the swirling smoke. Somehow, touching the metal of my knife had removed the enchantment turning it into cloud.

Now we were getting somewhere. I roared and rushed in, not giving him time to prepare. Distantly, I was aware of the mech growling and a clang of metal on metal behind me. There was no time. I had to dispatch my opponent. The only thing I could do to protect Eva was take out this man as fast as possible.

The wraith stepped backward and stumbled into a crate. The smoke of his cloak slipped through the wood, but somehow it still tripped him and he fell back, only to be brought up against a cannon mounted on a pedestal behind him.

I was on him in an instant, my knife flashing. He struck at me desperately with his white blade. It cut through my sleeve and sliced another burning line on my skin. With a snap, his knife broke. Mine plunged down again and again. Each time I felt it hitting home into cloth or flesh or both. Bits of the man appeared out of the smoke, the black cloth uniform sodden and bloody. I stabbed one more time, feeling my blade sink home in his chest, and then turned back to seek another opponent.

The big antique charger was swinging ponderously at one of the men. The talkative one dodged around him, headed for Eva. He came between me and the mech and I charged, knife extended.

He turned to face me. My only warning was a swirl of black and the knife coming for my face. I swung my blade up to parry as I jerked my head to the side. I didn't stop my charge; I threw myself into the cloud of smoke.

As I passed through the cloud, my knife and the gun forgotten in my right hand both caught on something, throwing me off stride. The knife, with its big brass knuckles integrated into the grip, stayed in my hand, but I let go of the gun as it was smacked to one side.

I fell awkwardly and rolled over, coming up against a metal pillar. The cloud of smoke was still there, but he appeared to have stumbled. Getting my feet under me, I lunged. He was too quick and swirled away. Bits of cloth flashed in the swirling black.

Something about my weapons had affected him where bullets had not. A voice in my head, my own inspiration or some witchy intervention, whispered “iron”.

Iron had disrupted their magic. I had no time to consider, only to act.

I followed him and lunged again, but he was too quick, swirling away while dodging between metal pillars and gun emplacements. It fit. These pillars were iron, or steel, which was mostly iron, and so were the guns. Whatever was in the crates must be as well. Bullets were just lead, not iron.

The other man had collided with something in the crate and with a gun. I grinned suddenly. What did they say? Know your enemy if you wish to defeat him. And now I had knowledge. Somewhere behind me, the golem was still growling and smashing into things and hopefully keeping at least one more at bay. That still left two for me to face. But Mr. Talkative didn't seem keen to get close to my blade now. I waved it menacingly at him and the other wraith coming up behind him.

"Come, come, taste my steel. Or should I say, taste my iron?"

“What?” the wraith on the left asked. “It’s talking?”

"Oh, our little golem is not as dumb as he looks," the talkative man responded. “There’s more to him than meets the eye.”

I took advantage of their momentary distraction to glace to the side. The grip of my gun poked out from behind a crate, not four feet away. The talkative man suddenly reappeared. The clouds of dark mist stilled and turned back into cloth. They flopped down around him as they became a cloak once more. Somewhere distant in the fortress, an alarm started wailing.

He was looking over my shoulder. We both heard a crunch, and then the old mech roared in triumph.

The wraith leader’s eyes widened and he shifted two steps towards the stairs. "Perhaps it's time to leave."

"But our orders," the other man protested.

"Our orders aren't to die."

The second wraith, still wreathed in black smoke, swore and rushed up the stairs toward the roof of the fortress. I took a step forward, but he was gone. I could hear his boots ringing on the metal and grinned to myself. If I was going to fight wraith soldiers, I had apparently picked the perfect place to do that. A place with iron almost everywhere.

"Going so soon?" I said, giving the taunting man some of his own medicine.

He gave a mocking bow and waved his knife in salute. "Perhaps we will meet again in some better place."

I laughed in relief and triumph as he turned and ran up the stairs. The golem roared in dismay and punched at the ceiling. I thought it was an act of frustration, but directly above him, the roof slammed open. It was a giant double door hatch that swung up and away, big enough to hoist equipment in and out. So that's how he'd gotten up here.

With another roar, the ancient charger leapt upward through the hole and vanished from sight. "No! Come back!" Eva called.

I spun to check on her. I had almost forgotten she was there. She had stepped out from her hiding place and was peering up through the hole.

Apparently, her charger friend was less obedient than Angelica's and Tamara’s. Interesting. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said without looking away from the hatch. "Oh, he's going to get himself in trouble. We should get below and warn the others."

That was probably unnecessary. We could both hear the sirens still wailing in the distance.

"What about him?" She pointed behind me and I turned to regard the crumpled figure on the floor.

Good question. I scooped up my pistol and returned it to its holster before stepping over to the injured man. Bits of his cloak were still swirling around, making a little cloud hovering above the ground, but much of his torso was visible, a bleeding mass of black cloak.

With my fist wrapped around the knife hilt and the attached brass knuckles, which were apparently more steel than brass, I prodded at his body. I didn't strike hard with the knuckles, more of a probing jab. The man groaned. More of him became visible as I contacted his cloak and flesh.

His head appeared as I punched him lightly in the nose. His eyes rolled wildly and blood trickled up the edge of his mouth.

"Fools!" he spat, blood bubbling in his lips. "The Red Widow will come for you.”

"That's hardly your concern anymore, is it?" I commented before reaching down to take a handful of his shirt. The man muttered something in Russian that sounded like ‘Rodinia’ and then slumped and died, right there in my grip.

I laid him down on the floor but couldn’t think of anything to say. I’d seen combat, and its aftereffects, but having a man die as I held him, because I’d killed him, hearing his last words, that was new.

I didn’t like it.

The girl was standing, staring wide-eyed at the body when I looked up.

"We should get downstairs."

She nodded silently before finally looking away.

Half an hour later, I was in the command center. Eva sat in the corner on a high-backed stool while Angelica looked over the map table.

"The patrol reports no sign of the wraiths," one of the fortress officers reported.

Captain Balcerzak, commander of the fortress, waved the man away and leaned over the map table. He waved a hand vaguely along a line east and west of our location. "They got clear and could be anywhere by now. Once you're in those forests, you’re almost impossible to track. We have to assume the enemy knows you’re here."

Angelica stood with her arms folded, eyeing the table. "And they know about this girl."

The captain looked over at Eva, frowning. "We're well supplied and as able to withstand an attack as we can be." But he trailed off.

Angelica shook her head. “We should get her out of here. If she’s what the Widow wants, let’s take her away.”

Captain Balcerzak sounded apologetic. “We got a report from a scout plane on the wireless. They spotted a regiment-sized group of Russians moving up the pass."

Angelina's frown deepened, and I swore silently. Regiment size varies from army to army, but we were probably looking at as many as four thousand men. “Will you be able to hold out?” Angelica asked.

The captain's forehead wrinkled as he regarded Angelica. "We'll do our duty." Which didn't sound like a yes.

"If they don't have artillery, we should be able to hold them off almost indefinitely. But you people need to get out of here. If they're really after the girl or after your hussar wing, the best thing you can do for us is get away from here."

Angelica frowned but nodded. "Yes, sir." She leaned forward to run her finger along the main road on the map. "They'll be coming south through here, right? So maybe we can do a little something for you before we go.”

The captain held up his hand. "The less you tell me about your plans, the better."