Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Books 2 & 3

Natasha stood in the one-room hut. A fire blazed on the hearth. A cauldron sat beside it, bubbling away merrily, smelling of cabbage, potato, and homey things. Strings of garlic and onion hung from the low rafters. The thatched roof overhead was shrouded in darkness. There was a bed against one wall and a pallet beside the bed, the pallet where she had lain for all the years of her childhood, where her daughter had slept year after year in her absence.

Behind her was the familiar wooden table, worn smooth by years of use, the tall-backed chair that was the only one in the whole hut, and the low bench which offered the only other seating. She heard a creaking and knew when she turned that the chair would be occupied. She didn't want to turn. Instead, she walked to the window and tried to unlatch the shutters, but they wouldn't open.

"There's nothing for you out there," came the familiar querulous voice.

Natasha didn't turn. "Not for you to say.”

“If you haven't learned it yet, you never will," the old woman chuckled. "You've been running for so long, Natasha. Have you forgotten what you were running from?"

"You tricked me," Natasha said. "You knew I didn't want anything to do with you, so you sent the girl out with the firesoul, knowing I couldn't resist."

"You fooled yourself," the old witch said calmly. "The firesoul contains my power, yes. Not all of it. What did you think would happen if you got your hands on it?"

"The same thing that happens every time you let your power into others' hands," Natasha said. "I would take it, adapt it, and make it mine."

"You think that if I wanted my old hut back, anyone could stand in my way? If I snap my fingers, it'll stand up on its chicken legs and come to me wherever I am. I choose to let these fools play with things they don't understand."

Now Natasha did turn. Baba Yaga sat in her chair, her wrinkled face more lined than Natasha remembered, her gray hair matted and in need of a good wash. The old woman sat at her table, a mug of something hot and steaming beside her. She wore a faded and patched blue peasant dress, and she was grinning at Natasha. "Well?"

"Well, what?" Natasha asked.

"Aren't you going to ask me what I want?"

"I know what you want, Mother," Natasha snapped. "You want me back under your thumb. You resent the fact that I was able to escape from you, and you're here to claim your toy once more."

Baba Yaga shook her head. "No, my daughter, you are as stubborn as I am, and as stubborn as your daughter after you. I could never hope to rule over you. If you thought that's all I wanted, then why leave your daughter with me?"

"Because she wasn't safe anywhere else," Natasha admitted. "Pavel's family would have taken her, and I couldn't trust them,”

“Not after you killed your husband," Baba Yaga cackled.

Natasha looked away, her eyes blinking from the smoke in the room, or so she told herself. It wasn't fair of her mother to bring that back up.

"I told you when you left with him you were making a mistake, but it's the same mistake we all make," Baba Yaga said, sighing.

Natasha peered into the smoke that rose from the cauldron as it twisted into various shapes. Almost she imagined she could see the form of a young man in a cavalry uniform, his sword at his hip, a cap pulled low across his forehead. She tried to remember Pavel's face. It had been so long, and there was nothing of him in Eva's features. Baba Yaga's blood was too strong to allow any man to leave an impression on the daughters sired with that line.

"Pavel was kind and gentle and offered me the world," she said. "Everything you weren't."

“And when he offered those same things to your rival?”

Natasha looked up, her eyes flashing. “Even then, even then I would have taken him back. I had the standing in the court by then, my rank and my reputation as a Mech killer. All he had to do was wait. I would have taken my commission and my Mech back after the child was born. But he was lonely and bored in Moscow. His eyes went elsewhere.”

"What a fool. He knew whose daughter you were."

“I told him I would have taken him back if he had thrown over the ballerina. He was so weak. He went to her and begged her to let him go. And instead, she poisoned both their tea. And I got the blame for it," Natasha said. "There were too many rumors of whose daughter I was. Too many deaths under my command," she admitted. “So they assumed I had killed my husband and her lover.”

"Yes, you told me all that when you fled to me begging for my protection for your daughter," Baba Yaga said. "I took her in. I never asked you for anything in exchange. But then when I sent you my summons, you refused. You must have known you were losing your power by then, Natasha. Why did you run? Why did you flee?"

Natasha's hands were balled into fists. "I wanted it to be my choice. I –” I didn’t want to become you.

"It was always your destiny, daughter," Baba Yaga said, as though reading her voice. "Didn't you ever wonder why girls gain the power to use desh in adolescence and lose it in their thirties?"

Natasha shook her head. "Nobody knows.”

“Because it is based on my power, my daughter. They stole it from me and they did not understand what they had. Desh can only be used when a woman has the possibility of becoming a mother. When that window closes, she loses desh, but she does not lose the ability to do magic, no matter what you think. It merely changes. Just as greying hair and sagging teats makes you no less of a woman. It merely changes its form. As a girl-child changes to a maiden, then a mother."

Natasha whispered to fill in the last phrase. “And then a crone.”

Baba Yaga inclined her head to one side. "You make it sound as though it were a terrible fate. I assure you, it is much better than the alternative."

Natasha suppressed a smile. "But I'm not ready yet. I am still able to fight, to lead warriors into battle."

"For what?" Baba Yaga challenged. "For a country you never truly loved, adopted only because the boy with whom you were infatuated was their soldier? So that you may lead more young girls to their deaths?"

Natasha looked away in shame. She had gotten so many mech riders killed under her command. It ate at her. Even though she herself had followed orders that could and should have resulted in her death, yet survived. Now she wondered. Had it truly been her own skill or luck that kept her alive? Or had Baba Yaga been watching and intervening all this time just so that she would be here, now, at this moment?

"You can reject it," Baba Yaga said casually.

Natasha looked up. "What?"

"My power. It's coursing through your veins right now. You're lying unconscious on the floor in Frankenstein's castle. You can reject my power if you so choose. You may even take the stone and try your best to harness it in some other way. Perhaps if you do as your daughter has and install it in a mech, it would allow you to siphon desh and control the mech for a few years more yet. On the other hand, it is possible that you will merely find yourself in the soon-to-be-destroyed fortress of a hostile enemy, surrounded by people who hate and fear you. I am including your so-called compatriots in this as well. No magic, no weapons, and no mech. Frankenstein might be desperate enough to try to make a deal with you, but I assure you he has no way to back it up. Or," Baba Yaga spread her hands, "you can embrace the power and return here to me. I will teach you, my daughter. I am waiting for you to return. My power will be yours to wield."

Natasha's shoulders slumped. She didn't want to die, nor could she face life as an ordinary woman in her forties, with her youth and looks faded, few friends in Russia, no mech to back her up. No, there was no future in that.

But I don’t want to turn into my mother!

“No woman wants that,” Baba Yaga said, again reading her thoughts. “And no woman does. You will not be me, even when you wield my power and take my name. you will be you. Just… matured. Come to me, I will teach you everything I know." Baba hissed, and her eyes narrowed. "And then it will be your turn to decide, just as I did when I took the power from my mother. Should you leave my toys in the hands of these foolish children? Their wars are growing more and more terrible, more and more fierce. I though if I let them play with my toys might learn a better way. It was my choice. Perhaps, you will choose otherwise. It's up to you."

“Is it, though? Do I have any choice?”

“One last thing.” Baba Yaga held up a finger. "Frankenstein has displeased me. We made certain deals years ago. By capturing your daughter and holding her prisoner he has violated our truce. Nor would I wish your former compatriots to get their hands on what is in his castle. Seek vengeance, my daughter. Take what should be ours, and flee. If that fool golem that I brought into this world has not destroyed Frankenstein, see to it yourself." Her expression wavered. Was that regret? "I have lost sight of him. I am no longer sure if he lives. I have not felt his soul attempt to flee beyond the bounds of this world. But it is possible it has slipped past my grasp. I have been slightly distracted lately. And do make sure that your daughter escapes. After all, she is our future."

The hut and Baba Yaga faded away.

Natasha felt herself lying on the floor of a dungeon. Pain wracked her as power flowed through her veins. It was there for her to take, should she choose. Or she could once more reject it. As though that were a choice anymore. Everything Natasha had ever done, at least since the day that Pavel died, had been to ensure her own survival. She would not now change.

Natasha opened herself to the power, even as it burned her veins and seared through her, making her over and anew. She cried out in pain, in fear, and loss.

When the pain receded, Natasha sat up. She was alone in a room full of dead bodies, fortunately, not those of her daughter or the other Polish Hussars. She could feel her daughter and the Firesoul. They were attempting to flee this fortress. That was good. If Natasha could help them, she would.

The Fire Soul was drained now and worthless. It had served its purpose to bring Baba Yaga's power to her. Now that power belonged to Natasha. She stretched out her hands, noting how yellowed and the nails were, how wrinkled her skin had become.

Only a few hours before, that would have dismayed her. Now she understood what Baba Yaga had meant. Youth and beauty had gotten her nothing.

It was time for old age and treachery to take its turn.