Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Stubs Soon!

The fortress was an ominous looming structure, an edifice of stone capped by steel looming over the pass. It didn't sit right in the saddle between the mountains; that's where the road went. A quarter mile or so from the road, the fortress sat on the slope of the eastern shoulder of the pass.

The lower 20 feet of wall was bare and smooth except for massive iron gates. Above that were ranks of slits that looked like they may have once been for arrows. The lower half of the structure was a dark, wet-looking stone, indicating some older construction. Above that was newer stone and then on top of that was steel roofing and iron gun ports, the most recent construction of all.

We pulled up and parked a respectful distance away, near some trucks and a vehicle maintenance shop. I went with Angelica to the front gates and we stood waiting for a response to her pounding. Eventually, a tiny metal slot scraped open and someone asked who we were, as if they hadn't seen our giant hauler crawling up the path from miles away. Angelica’s reply was stunningly sarcastic.

A few minutes later the gate slowly squealed open. We were greeted by a bedraggled-looking squad of privates, their uniforms similar to the other Polish soldiers I’d met, although they wore different devices on the shoulders and I still was inept at reading them. Their leader was an unkempt man with three days of stubble and a hat that needed replacing. His uniform was wrinkled and stained. He was an officer, but I wasn’t sure of his rank.

"You're here, you're here, oh just in time, you're here," he exclaimed, his voice wavered and cracked with a trace of desperation and madness. The soldiers around him had a similarly wild-eyed expression. "With you here we can stop them, we can keep them away, we can live.”

"Slow down. What's going on, captain?” Angelica's take-charge attitude always cut through the clutter.

The man looked to the side as if expecting to see someone listening around the nearest corner and then leaned forward conspiratorially. "The utopce are coming." I didn’t know the word, but I recognized a paranoid delusional when I heard one. This wasn’t some name for Russian soldiers, these men were seeing ghosts.

I expected Angelica to straighten the man out, to scold him for his improper decorum. But instead she just crossed her arms and frowned at him. "Nonsense, man! Utopce live down by the rivers."

I goggled at her. This place just kept getting more mad every time I dug deeper.

"Have you been attacked?” Angelica prodded.

"Yes! Every night they come swarming, skulking out of the shadows, scratching at the gates. For the last two nights they've taken to climbing up the ramparts and dancing on the battlements. The soldiers are too afraid to man the upper guns anymore. And last night, one was scratching at the upper hatch."

Angelica frowned. Was she buying this nonsense? What the heck could be out here? Given my own situation, I couldn't exactly scoff at belief in the supernatural. But still...

"Those don't sound like utopce, they sound like bebok,” she said.

The man nodding his head up and down. "Oh, could be. But they have long flowing robes and fingers with claws.”

Angelica turned to me. “Sergeant Golem, we need to move the hauler up past the lip of the pass, then put out a threshold. We have hours before the sun goes down.” She pointed. “Just before it hits that ridge, pull everyone back in. We want everyone inside and the ship as buttoned up as we can make it before dark.”

"Sir!" I snapped off my best salute and headed back to the hauler.

The bizarreness of the exchange with the captain started wearing off as I gave familiar orders. That changed to unease bordering on dread when I thought about what we might be facing. Clearly, they both took it seriously, and so it was best if I did too.

But what were we facing? Creatures skulking about, scratching at locks, at doors. Locking all the hatches and doors made sense. If any of them weren't latchable from the inside, we would need to weld them shut. I inspected the hauler, from stem to stern, looking for unsecured vents or ports. Could these things go like incorporeal and slide through ventilation holes? They hadn't said anything about that, so I would assume no.

I was concernced about the cargo on the back deck, but what could supernatural boogeymen do to banged up and damaged mechs? Would they get into them and damage the components like giant gremlins? That seemed unlikely. If they were anything like run-of-the-mill horror stories, they would be after the people. I assumed they would be going for doors and hatches, so I focused our attentions there. To be on the safe side, because its hatches were so large, I had them close off the hangar entirely and seal the gangway between the forward car and the back. We'd keep all of the men inside the engine itself.

Should the turrets be manned? Best to be on the safe side and do it. I didn't know what these things were, but long robes and claws sounded like the best choice would be anti-personnel and melee weapons. Men would stand guard at every hatch, two at the bigger ones, with knives, axes, shotguns, rifles, whatever could be found. Stuff good for close quarters. Finally, I could think of no more preparations to make, and I made my way back up to the fortress, leaving Sergeant Wozniak in charge of the hauler.

The smaller hatch in the main gate was still open with two guards flanking it. They waved me inside. Another two guards were stationed inside the gate. They gave me directions up to the command center. I managed to follow them with only three wrong turns. This place was a labyrinth inside, a warren of passages that sometimes seemed to lead nowhere. Probably the result of years of haphazard modification and expansion.

Finally, I found a door in a larger hallway with a guard stationed outside. "Is this the command center?" I asked.

"Yes, Sergeant," he replied. “They told me you might be coming.” I stepped inside.

The room had an array of map tables, radio consoles, equipment racks, and big plotter desks to do any World War II command center proud. The whole thing was at odds with the medieval castle halls. I half expected it to be lit by flickering torches, but they had proper electric arc lamps.

As I entered, Angelica looked up from studying the table and gave me a nod before returning her attention to what the captain was saying.

"No, no. They always come from the east," he was saying. "We've sent patrols that way, but only in the daylight, and they don't get out more than a half a mile. Any farther than that and they haven't returned."

Angelica was frowning at the map. "How are your stores and ammunition?"

"Good, good. They keep us well stocked up here. Replacement troops are in short supply with the war on. Most of our equipment and stocks are from before the war, but they always kept this place filled to the brim with everything we need."

"Well, that's good."

“It's on account of the snow storms we get up here. The passes can be blocked up for months at a time, so we always had to have plenty of equipment. Excuse me a moment.” The captain turned and conferred with a radio operator wearing a pair of headphones. Between strings of code, he exchanged a few words with the captain.

Angelica came over to me and spoke in a low voice. "Go down, find their quartermaster, and take stock. He says they're well-equipped, so see if there's anything we can use. Maybe I can convince him to let us resupply."

"Yes, ma'am," I replied, and slipped out of the room.

I got directions from the soldier in the hall and then directions three more times while hopelessly lost before finally making my way to the deepest dungeons.

There I had a rather interesting encounter with the man who was the quartermaster. He was dressed in dungaree pants and a woolen undershirt stained with sweat. He kept mopping his brow even though it was dank and cold down here. I spied a couple of half-empty bottles hiding in the papers on his desk.

I asked about food supplies and, on a whim, uniforms, given his own undressed state. I was surprised to hear they were extremely well stocked in uniforms, including sizes and seasons that they couldn't even use. “Some of them are your size even. Would you like to take a look?"

"That would be excellent. Thank you," I said.

Together we toured three closet-sized rooms deeper in the basements. These might have been dungeons at one time, but now they were packed floor to ceiling with stenciled crates, boxes, and all manner of parcels. He moved confidently like he knew what he was looking for, but we still had to check three different places before he found what he had in mind. Uniforms, big ones. Everyone had reacted to me like golems couldn’t be regular soldiers, but either there were some absolutely gigantic men in this empire, or the quartermasters had not gotten the golem memo, because they stocked uniforms that fit me perfectly about the chest and shoulders.

The biceps, however, were still a problem, and the arm length wasn't right either. Eventually, I just tore the arms off, assisted by my knife. Even more fortunately, the trousers fit rather well.

We found boots that weren't too uncomfortable. By now, the quartermaster was in a frenzy of gearing me up. That was his job after all, and he went all out. Several shirts, pants, undergarments that seemed like they would fit, boots, socks, the whole works. Even one of those big furry hats that looked like an office trash can covered in shag carpet.

After that, he got even more carried away, and soon I was equipped with a rucksack, another combat knife, a trenching tool, a large duffel like a seaman's bag, and all manner of toiletries and gear that he rambled on about being standard issue or useful for this or that theater or situation.

Anyone who spent any time in an army knew that when the quartermaster was in a good mood, you just smiled and took him for all he was worth. He hesitated only slightly when he got down to the real weapons. Oversized handheld cannons are not very useful for normal proportioned men and women, not unless they're enhanced by magic or they have a robot following them around who can carry it for them. So I was able to get my hands on a sidearm and a satchel full of loaded clips.

It was the sidearm that gave a strange experience. Quartermaster Cerny handed me the pistol belt wrapped around a flap holster. I adjusted the belt and slung it around my hips. Flipping open the flap, I seized the grip.

That’s when it happened. A wave of familiarity bordering on nostalgia hit me. I slid the handgun out and pulled back the slide in one smooth motion. With the same motion, I locked the slide back. The control for that was at the very back of the frame. Instead of inspecting the action, which should’ve been un familiar to me, instead I pulled a stripper clip out of its pouch on the side of the holster and slid it in the top of the open action.

Next I shoved the full load of cartriages into the action and palmed the empty clip. I dropped the slide and snapped on the safety. It took all of two seconds, all with a firearm that was about as different from a modern handgun as it is possible to be and still be an automatic. I used to have a buddy with a broom handle Mauser but he never let me touch it. I had fired a M1 Garand once but never a handgun that loaded from stripper clips.

“Oh, I see you’ve handled a Styer Hammer before.” Quartermater Cerny looked impressed.

I shook my head. “No, never.”

“Ah,” He shrugged. “They are more or less the same as an M.7.” He named another gun I had never seen or heard of. Bizarre.

When I left the dungeon I positively waddled, festooned with bags and slung gear. It was easier finding my way out of the keep than in, and I took note of the route before returning to the hauler to dump off my load.

There were still empty cabins aboard, and I claimed one of the smaller ones and filled it with my gear. If I could get a crew to rip the upper bunk out, then I could actually use it as proper quarters. As a sergeant, I rated my own room.

I took Sergeant Wozniak aside and filled him in on the quartermaster and his well-supplied dungeons. I suggested he send men down there, two at a time to see what resupply we could get. The sergeant got a huge grin and then hurried off to round up some men for a supply raid.