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

Ilia walked down the corridors with the stride of a conquering queen. The blood she had consumed filled her with power, and for the first time in years, she felt truly strong. Her senses stretched out and took in all around her. The artificial souls of the constructs Frankenstein created were everywhere, many of them wounded and dying, others lost and leaderless. More and more mortals were pouring into the top of the castle and flooding downward into its labyrinths.

She welcomed them. More food for her. Now that she had restored her strength, she looked forward to expanding her power base. She needed thralls. She strode down the corridor, stepping over the mangled bodies of Frankenstein's twisted abominations. She had seen some of those while she had been imprisoned, and she had no interest in partaking of their substance. Nor did she want them for minions. The pride and power of a vampire were in dominating the true souls of humans. Nothing so pathetic and worthless as animals or constructs. It was only in the corruption of the human spirit that there was truly a sense of accomplishment.

Ahead, she felt two such spirits. One bright yet stained. This was the soul of someone cunning and resourceful, ambitious and capable, who had already partaken in a great deal of evil. The other soul was more difficult to read. She sensed in it more than a fair share of spilled blood and violence. But more than that was difficult to read. There was a sense of ancient weight about it. Not like a vampire, but something else she couldn't quite place.

As Ilia approached the corner, she could hear their voices in argument.

"I can help you," a man was saying. "I can be of value."

A woman's voice responded immediately. "No. The value you could bring I no longer need, and I would never be able to trust you. Go before I change my mind."

"You killed all the others, and this place is trashed. I can't go back to General Morozov empty-handed."

"You can, and you will. I only spared you because you returned my property and because you were somewhat of use in the past. But that time is over, and I no longer have need of your services. Leave before I change my mind."

Ilia strode around the corner, and two heads turned in her direction. The man was middle-aged, not tall but muscled like a man who'd seen plenty of action. He had keen eyes and a scar on one cheek.

The woman was more of an enigma. She wore a tattered black cloak that seethed with power. Light seemed to slide off it and make her difficult to look at.

All around them, on the floor around them, several bodies were scattered. They wore bland, insignia-less uniforms. As the humans looked her way, Ilia smiled.

"Ah, mortals, so nice to meet you. You may kneel before your queen," Ilia said. She extended her spirit and pressed her will down on them. The man immediately fell to his knees on the tiled floor. His body remained upright, but his head bent down to his chest.

"Mistress," he murmured as Ilia's will washed over him. The woman in the dark cloak merely frowned. Then she turned with a dismissive air and moved to leave.

"Hold, mortal," Ilia's voice echoed in the hall like the crack of a whip. "I have not dismissed you."

The woman didn't turn back, but merely tilted her head to talk over her shoulder. "You may have him if you like. I am through with him, and I have business elsewhere." She took a step away.

Fury crackled through Ilia's veins. How dare this pathetic mortal defy her, queen of the night?

"Hold!" she cried, focusing the entirety of her will on this one mortal. She wasn't an ancient vampire, but she had several centuries of experience. The force of her will should have sent any mortal dribbling and struck weaker minds dead in their tracks. But this woman merely half-turned and looked at her.

"I have business elsewhere." Her tone was cool and matter-of-fact but had a hint of iron in it. "It does not involve you."

Ilia sneered. "You have business with me here. Starting with learning proper respect."

The woman turned and gave her a full-on gaze, and despite herself, Ilia, felt the barest tremble of concern shiver up her spine. Who was this woman?

"My line normally does not concern itself with your kind. And in return, we are left alone. But I will make an exception."

Ilia's rage was a burning inferno. Her face twisted, and she could feel her features turning into their true form. She lifted her hands, and her fingers made claws. "Insolent worm. For your arrogance, I will eat your heart."

She had enough of this pathetic mortal's defiance and disrespect. She lunged forward, clawed hands flashing, the air ripping around her as she moved with inhuman speed.

Her claws slashed forward and met…nothing. Her attack cut through where the woman had been a moment before, and Ilia found herself standing among the bodies in an otherwise empty hall. The man still knelt behind her, his expression blank. The light flickered and died.

Ilia was a queen of the night. Darkness did not bother her. Her eyes penetrated its gloom effortlessly. But there was something else in this darkness. A presence.

The woman's voice echoed all around her, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It sounded different, older, and more sinister. "We have had an understanding in the past, but every few centuries I must give your kind a reason to leave me alone. A reason to stay out of my business."

Something in the darkness shimmered, and reality warped. Ilia felt a prickling on her skin. The hide of a vampire was impossibly durable, and mere discomfort did not bother them. The pinprick of a thousand legs, of a thousand clawed limbs, crawled up her legs. A moment later, Ilia began to scream.

“General Morozov, look!”

His underling had leapt to his feet and stabbed his finger at the wraparound glass windows. On the mountainside they were passing, a dark hole had opened, and something glittering silver emerged. “And there!” Another of his young officers was looking out the opposite side.

Morozov leaned forward. All around the valley in front of his airship, sections of ground were splitting open, and strange metal contraptions were exposed. They looked like rings of silver stacked up below a shining ball.

"Frankenstein's defenses!" he yelled. "Where are the gunships?"

General Morozov rushed to the window and craned his neck, looking upward. Two of his super gunships barreled down past him. Their cannons winked, and the rumble of guns rolled over the airship a moment later. Both of them dove for the valley floor, guns blazing. Mountains of dirt blasted up near one of the contraptions, and another was blown to bits. But there were more, dozens, maybe hundreds of them. Far above, one of his gunships was climbing to get away.

Cowardly traitors! Morozov seethed, then his skin prickled as the air filled with the tingle of electricity.

"What is this trickery?" he started to say before the world exploded.

Frank Lewis looked over at his Polish co-pilot as he leveled off the captured Russian gunship. Far above, the valley below, the valley that had just turned into a gateway to hell. Lightning and fire roared up at them, and he adjusted his course to the south to avoid it. Where a moment before there had been fleet of Russian air-machines now there was only fire and death.

The Polish corporal swore a low curse and then crossed himself.

"You can say that again," Frank muttered. "That was too close."

He trimmed the luff engines on the stolen Russian gunship and turned the machine towards Frankenstein's valley.

Angelica and Hannah made their way down several corridors. Here and there, bodies of twisted creatures or golems lay. For the most part, the place was empty. Angelica carried Eva over her shoulder. She was an awkward burden. Even with her magic depleted, Angelica was finding it difficult. They turned a corner to find Eva's mech crammed into the tunnel in front of them. It looked up and made an almost friendly growling noise. It sounded like metal being bent to the breaking point.

"She's fine," Angelica said quickly. She didn't trust the strange machine and wanted to take no chance that it might attack them.

Hannah stepped forward and pointed down the corridor behind it. "Does this lead to an exit? We need to get out of here."

From deep in the fortress behind them, an alarm started sounding, a low, mournful klaxon.

Angelica turned to look back. "I don't know what that means, but it can't be good."

The strange mech rumbled again and then started worming its way backwards. Its bulk filled most of the corridor. The tunnel behind it was cracked and broken from its passage, where it had apparently been crawling forward to get deeper into the fortress. Despite the tight corridors, the machine worked its way backwards with remarkable ease.

Hannah took a turn carrying Eva over cracked and broken floor tiles, dodging around bits of ceiling that dangled from the rebar. Eva's mech had smashed most of the ceiling lights on its way in, and soon they were traversing a dark tunnel. They slowed to a crawl as they picked their way carefully through the rubble. The noise of the mech's passage faded away as it outpaced them. Then light bloomed ahead. Daylight.

They picked up the pace and came to a massive trap door, opened at an angle where the tunnel exited a hillside. The mech stood there holding it open for them, and they stepped blinking into the sunlight.

The valley was a war zone, covered in scattered plumes of smoke and the flickering flames of burning vehicles. All around, broken and burning bunkers lay speckled across the rolling grassland of the valley floor. A grass fire had started somewhere off to the south, judging from the smoke plume. Some aircraft hummed up in that direction. Angelica remembered from the briefing that Frankenstein had an airfield there, which was most likely where the biplanes that had attacked their transports had come from. Something was still flying over there, but whether it was Frankenstein's or Russian, she couldn't tell. Not that it mattered since they were both enemies.

They had done what they came to do, finding Eva. Angelica regretted not having more time to plunder Frankenstein's secrets, but she had never cared about that part of the mission anyway. Now that they had gotten out alive, they just needed to find the others and get out of here before the Russians changed their minds about letting them go. She still expected the general to have another card to play, and she would prefer to be long gone when he did.

As if cued by her thoughts, she started hearing a low rumble in the north. Hannah must have heard it at the same time because they both turned to look. The valley, which was long and skinny on the north-south axis, tapered to the north before dwindling to a narrow valley, little more than a canyon. This, she recalled from her briefing, wound away to the northeast until it reached the open lowlands of central Transylvania. They had rejected flying in this way due to defenses in that valley. Now Angelica heard a growing sound she recognized as Zeppelin engines.

It was still full daylight, but shadows were starting to lengthen. As Angelica looked off to the north, a bright light flashed on the horizon. It pulsed several times and then vanished. Just a white glow over the horizon that was there and then gone. She stared for a long moment, wondering if she'd imagined it. Then a distant rumble of thunder rumbled down the valley. The rolling sound continued on and on for almost a minute, rising and falling with sharp peaks like a series of explosions miles distant. Something big had happened, but she couldn't be sure what.

She glanced at Hannah. The other girl was looking up.

"Someone's coming down," Hannah said. Angelica followed her vision and saw a Russian gunship over them. It grew bigger, dropping down toward them. Should they run? Was this an attack? She had expected the general to betray them and remove them as loose ends. But the ship was lowering straight down from above, not a good angle for an attack. Its gun turrets were mounted along the sides. As it got bigger, she could see burn scars along the bottom. One of its side motor nacelles wasn't turning. The other propeller only spun lazily, since the machine wasn't moving forward.

As the vessel came closer, she saw motion from the open hatch on the side. Veronica standing in the open bay, waving to them. Angelica’s jaw dropped and she stared upward. A few moments later, the gunship settled into the grass next to them.

The women greeted each other, exhausted and too worn even to exult in their victory. Veronica seemed weighed down by the events of the day. Only Tamara was unaffected when she appeared a minute later with a big grin on her face and her usual bouncy disposition. Her enthusiastic chatter was difficult to follow, but Angelica put together that they had dropped off Sam –who had of course hijacked the gunship in the first place -- on the flying piece of castle.

She looked up. The castle fragment was thousands of feet in the air and a mile over the valley. It was drifting east and was already over the mountain range in that direction.

Angelica and Hannah took a moment to summon their mechs, which had already left the fortress and were swinging wide around to rejoin them.

They were still discussing their next plans, their mechs only just visible in the distance, when another gunship came in low and fast. It swooped over them before they could react. This one was considerably larger and apparently faster than the others. It swung around them in a great arc. Angelica considered their options. They had no cover here, no heavy weapons. Running would be futile. The gunship would easily be able to keep up with them and rain down destruction from the air. But none of its turrets seemed to be tracking them, or even moving at all.

The big machine swung in closer. From the front, Angelica saw frantic waving.

Veronica, who had been unusually silent, cried, "It's Frank!"

Sure enough, Frank Lewis was on the control deck of the gunship, waving to them through the glass. A large hatch opened on the side, bigger than the one on the gunship Tamara had just landed. This newer model looked to have plenty of room for holding mechs.

Inside the opening bay stood a young Russian officer in dress uniform. He lifted a hand in greeting. That would have been concerning except for the men with him. The Polish support crews that they had left behind in the Russian camp, their survivors from the battle in the mountains, were all there, cheering furiously.

Angelica felt her heart swell. As the ship touched down, they rushed out to cluster around the women. Their greetings were enthusiastic, though without all the back-thumping that they would have done for male compatriots of similar rank to themselves. It raised Angelica's spirits considerably to see them there, healthy and enthusiastic.

"How did you get away from the Russians?" She looked back and forth between her crew and the Russian officer who stood a few feet away.

Frank came out. "We should get out of here before we start story time."

Angelica nodded. She looked up at the distant speck of Frankenstein’s flying citadel. "What about Sergeant Golem?"

"I already sent someone to retrieve him.” Colonel Mazur’s voice said. She turned with a start to see the man standing just behind her. She gaped at him. He nodded a reserved greeting to her.

Angelica just stared at him.