Fortress of the Dead

by Chris Roberson

  For his part, Major Wilkins had been listening to Werner relate the stories he’d gathered from the refugees in relative silence, only once or twice asking a brief question or requesting a slight bit of clarification. Jun wondered whether it was simply a question of Werner giving a fairly exhaustive and detailed account to begin with—and she had to admit that he had gone into considerable detail—or whether the major was withholding any kind of judgement or assessment on his part until after he’d heard the German soldier’s full account. She’d had only limited interactions with the major before, and almost always in situations where the camp’s ranking officer had dealt with one of Jun’s superior officers in her presence or address her simply as part of a larger group. She didn’t have a strong sense of him as an individual, nor did she know him well enough to make any judgements or assumptions about his abilities and aptitudes as a leader. Earlier in their conversation he had seemed more weary than anything, seeming to still be mourning the loss of the personnel who had died in the course of the recent incursion of the Dead, or else struggling with feelings of guilt and remorse that the incursion had happened on his watch—or possibly both. But then Werner concluded his report on the rumored Alpine Fortress and, after clicking his heels together and bobbing his upper body forward in a brief motion in a kind of abbreviated bow, returned to his seat, and Jun and the others sat quietly watching the major sitting in silence at the far end of the table, his expression unreadable.

  The entire mess tent seemed to sit blanketed under a pall of silence, all eyes on the major. Jun wondered whether the permanent residents of the camp knew something about the ranking officer that she didn’t. Was he the type of leader given to even more violent outbursts than occasionally slamming his fist onto tables, despite an otherwise placid exterior? Back home in Datong there had been a block captain who often behaved in just that sort of fashion, seeming the picture of decorum and propriety in most situations but then flying into a spittle-flicking rage when things didn’t unfold exactly as he had foreseen. After the Japanese withdrawal from the city he had been almost entirely unbearable, insisting that his neighbors follow his every suggestion and direction as the city began slowly to work out some semblance of self-governance after years of occupation. But he had been struck down by a heart attack soon after, and thankfully those who succeeded him in leadership positions in the neighborhood tended to be a little more adaptable and flexible in their outlooks than he had.

  Because, even more than in any conventional conflict, the war between the living and the Dead required flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances quickly. When the enemy could burst forth from the ground beneath your feet without warning, or burst into flames as they rushed your position, or continue advancing despite a hail of bullets tearing the very flesh from their bones, a leader who was not prone to rigid ways of thinking and hidebound adherence to traditional ways of waging war was almost always preferable.

  For a passing instant Jun feared the worst, and braced herself for some sort of outburst. But when the major finally spoke he put her fears to rest.

  “Sergeant, I want you and your squad to get a good night’s rest,” he began, calm and collected, pushing his chair back from the table and climbing to his feet. “You should find ample room to billet in the barracks. Then you are all to report to me for a briefing at oh eight hundred hours, after which you’ll be resupplied by the quartermaster before heading out on your next mission.”

  “Sir?” Josiah said, a little perplexed. “What mission would that be, now?”

  The major nodded in Werner’s direction.

  “If this supposed Alpine Redoubt does exist and the bloody-handed bastard running the show there has somehow managed to figure out how to command the movements of the Dead, then that just might be the answer that we’ve been looking for. Both to the question of where all of these ruddy Dead blighters are coming from, and what we can do to put a stop to it.”

  The major took in the blank stares from the sergeant and the rest of the others, then rolled his eyes towards the ceiling before continuing.

  “If that blasted mountain fortress is there, then I need someone to find the bloody place and deal with it, once and for all. But as I said, we’re short-handed, and all of the other deadhunters squads are already out in the field,” he said like they were some sort of simpletons and he was explaining a blindingly obvious point, then gestured to the whole squad with a broad sweep of his hands. “So you lot are going to have to take care of it, obviously. So sleep well, and show up bright and early, ready to steal a march on the Dead!”

  After the major had turned on his heel and marked out of the mess tent, Josiah glanced over at Jun and the rest of the squad, one eyebrow raised, gauging their reactions.

  “Could be worse,” Jun said, shrugging, “at least we’re getting a good night’s rest out of the deal.”

  Chapter 11

  THE SQUAD ALL slept in the same barracks that night, with no divisions observed amongst them with regards to sex or rank. Each member of the squad got their own bunk in the barracks—and Jun tried not to think too long or too hard about whether the previous occupants of those bunks were simply out on patrol, or buried in a communal grave at the rear of the camp, or worse—which was the height of luxury compared to their typical accommodations while on maneuvers. Curtis snored, Sibyl talked in her sleep, and Josiah tossed and turned all night in the throes of some long-running nightmare, but Jun managed to tune all of them out in short order and fell into a deep, blissfully dreamless sleep.

  She woke in the still dark hours of the morning to the sound of a low thrumming coming from somewhere outside the barracks, like the ceaseless growl of some enormous beast, or the buzz of an impossibly large swarm of bees. Jun went from drowsy bemusement to being alert and alarmed as she sat bolt upright on the bunk, trying to identify the sound she was hearing. Were they under attack?

  Then she heard the thrumming sound change in pitch, rising first up sharply and then dropping steadily down in an increasingly low register. And it was then that she realized what she was hearing, and breathed a sigh of relief as she scolded herself for failing to recognize it sooner.

  “Goddamn annoying planes,” Curtis muttered from the bunk beside her without sitting up or even opening his eyes.

  There was a small airfield attached to the basecamp, used primarily for small craft ferrying supplies and personnel from the larger installations in the southern reaches of the country to these outposts dotted across the north. But it was also home to a small fleet of planes used to survey the countryside from the air on a routine basis, as well as a staging ground for bombing fleets such as the one which had decimated the nameless village in the shadows of the Alps where the squad had first encountered the band of refugees. The sound that had awoken Jun was the noise of the planes’ engines as the dawn patrol took off for their morning scouting run.

  “Come on, y’all,” the sergeant said, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk and reaching for his boots. “That’s enough lollygagging, we’ve got work to do.”

  Werner was already on his feet, a washcloth draped over his left forearm and his shaving kit held in his right hand, heading towards the row of jury-rigged buckets that served as sinks that lined the rear of the Quonset hut. Curtis was still lying flat with one arm draped over his eyes, moaning slightly. Sibyl was still in her bunk as well, but had pushed herself up onto one elbow, gazing around the largely empty room.

  “I suppose that breakfast in bed is out of the question,” the Englishwoman said with a lopsided smile. “Room service in these places is just dreadful, isn’t it?”

  “I am just glad not to be sleeping on the ground for once,” Jun said, as she reached under her bunch and pulled out the rucksack in which she kept her toiletry items. She stretched her shoulders, hands probing the small of her back, wincing slightly as she did. “I think I can still feel the rocks from that horrible little hillside we slept on last week?”

&nbs
p; “You might just come to miss that hillside yet, kid,” the sergeant called over, shaking his head. “From the sound of it, the nights to come ain’t going to be anywhere near as comfortable as those rocks were.”

  Curtis pushed himself up off his bunk with an overly dramatic groan, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Any chance that major was joking last night, sarge? I mean, about sending us up the side of a damned mountain?”

  “I didn’t hear anyone laughing, Curtis,” the sergeant said with a slight grin, “did you?”

  “Nah,” the young American groaned again, shaking his head, “but just ’cause it wasn’t funny doesn’t mean he was kidding us. I mean, as jokes go it’s not really much of one, but that would make a whole hell of a lot more sense than him being serious about it.”

  “What’s so hard to understand about it?” The sergeant sounded genuinely confused.

  “Well, for one…” Curtis gestured broadly with both hands pointed towards the ceiling of the barracks. “Mountains?!”

  The sergeant shrugged. “What of it?”

  “He has a point, Josiah,” Sibyl put in without looking up, crouched down by the side of her bunk and apparently in the midst of organizing the contents of her rucksack. Jun always marveled at the sheer volume of personal items that the Englishwoman managed to fit into her backpack—keepsakes and mementos, cosmetics and sanitary materials, emergency rations and expensive candies—both in terms of her ability to cram so much into so small a space, and her capacity to carry it around all day without collapsing under the weight.

  “How’s that, now?” Sergeant Josiah arched an eyebrow, giving her a sidelong glance.

  Sibyl put down a pocket knife, a wrist watch, and a tube of lipstick on the edge of her bunk before straightening up and turning to give the sergeant her undivided attention. “How many mountains have you climbed, hmm?”

  “Well,” the sergeant began, crossing his arms and sighing, “there was one time in Yokohama when the ship’s quartermaster and I got mixed up with this pair of geishas on the run from a bunch of gangsters, and they chased us clear up the side of…”

  Sibyl held up one hand to signal him to pause, a stern expression on her face like that of a teacher upon hearing an outlandish story about a student’s homework being eaten by the family dog.

  “Not one of your tall tales or fabulations, Josiah,” she said, even tempered but with steel beneath her words. “Have you ever climbed a mountain?” She paused, and then added, “A proper mountain, not just a hill scarcely worthy of the name.”

  The sergeant scratched his chin

  “I knew this Cajun fella back home who bet me that I couldn’t…”

  Sibyl sighed loudly, shaking her head.

  “We are not spinning tales around the campfire,” she said, exasperated. “A mountain does not care about your bluster or your bravado. The peaks of the world’s tallest mountains are littered with the bodies of all those who attempted to scale the heights without the requisite skill, equipment, and blind luck to succeed in the attempt. So bearing in mind that what we are discussing, even in the hypothetical, would be a matter of life and death as grave as any of the undead menaces we face on a daily basis, I ask you one last time: have you ever climbed a mountain?”

  Sergeant Josiah scowled for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t reckon that I have, ma’am.”

  “Well, I have,” Sibyl shot back, eyes narrowed. “Several of them, as it happens, and on several continents at that. In fact, before the war Chester and I attempted to ascend to the top of Tirich Mir, the highest mountain in the Hindu Kush range of the Himalayas. Trained for weeks with our sherpa, a charming gentleman named Tenzing Norgay, and would likely have reached the summit if the weather had been in our favor. As it was we very nearly didn’t make it back down in one piece, and if not for Mr. Norgay’s expertise, some quick thinking on Chester’s part, and a bloody great deal of luck I dare say that our bodies would still be up there now.”

  “Well, if the Nazis were able to get up there…” the sergeant began, equivocating.

  Sibyl silenced him with a glance. “They had men, and equipment, and most importantly the benefit of time. And they enjoyed the luxury of carrying out their operation in relative secrecy without enemy forces hounding them. If the major tasks us with the mission that I suspect he has in mind, we would be ascending into terrain that would be treacherous and deadly on its own, and difficult enough to survive, without the added risk of marching directly into some sort of well-fortified enemy stronghold!”

  Sibyl was more worked up than Jun could remember seeing her before. The Englishwoman’s cheeks flushed red and a vein stood out on the side of her forehead, eyes flashing as she spoke. Jun couldn’t help but wonder whether something about the topic had touched a nerve. Normally Sibyl’s anecdotes about her late husband or the many quotations and sayings that she attributed to him brought a smile to the Englishwoman’s face, as if the mere act of remembering the man brought other happy memories along in its wake. But perhaps there was something about the recollection of this mountain climbing expedition the two had taken part in before the war that was different?

  Before Jun could chime in to inquire or the sergeant had the chance to mount some sort of reply, Werner came back from the sink, toweling the last flecks of shaving cream from his now clean-shaven chin.

  “Frau Beaton is once again correct, Sergeant,” the German soldier said in a calm, level tone. He nodded in Sibyl’s direction, who scowled and refused to meet his gaze. “Whatever it is that the major intends, if it involves us scaling an Alpine peak then I fear that our chances of survival are perilously slim, and our chances of successfully completing our mission objectives are even less likely.”

  Curtis was now sitting on the edge of his bunk with his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands, groaning audibly. “Look, forget I even said anything, all right? I mean, at this point we don’t even really know what the mission brief is, do we? I’m the last one to walk on the sunny side of the street and try to find the silver lining in every storm cloud, but maybe we should at least wait and hear what the major has in mind before we start wailing and pulling out our hair by the roots?”

  The sergeant turned to the young American with one eyebrow raised, a bemused expression on his face.

  “I didn’t know better,” Josiah said, “I’d’ve said that you were quoting our Mrs. Beaton there, son. That sounded almost like optimism.”

  Curtis groaned even louder as he pushed off the bunk and onto his feet, and began staggering towards the sinks at the rear of the barracks to clean up. “Just let me finish waking up before we go get the bad news, willya?”

  “Hurry up, then,” the sergeant said, standing up. He reached down to pick up his pack, and Jun caught a brief wince of pain flash across the sergeant’s face as he shifted his weight. Then Josiah straightened up suddenly, back arched and shoulders pushed together, as he pushed the palm of one hand into the small of his back, gritting his teeth.

  “Is everything all right, sergeant?” Jun asked, genuinely concerned.

  “Y-yeah,” Sergeant Josiah answered, his voice choked. “Maybe slept on one of those rocks myself, huh?”

  Jun wasn’t convinced. Her father had complained about back pains in his later years, and she had seen him struggling with the odd pulled muscle or joint pain when standing or shifting position suddenly. Her father had said it was just the price of getting to live to old age, existing in a body long enough that eventually parts of it begin no longer to function properly.

  “My dad used to throw out his back like that,” Jun said, stepping closer to the still grimacing sergeant. “He always said it was common as we get older. I used to be able to help past it by pulling his shoulders and…”

  Josiah danced out of Jun’s reach just as she was getting closer.

  “Who said anything about getting ‘older,’ now?” the sergeant said, still wincing but with an annoyed look on his face and an angry tone to his words.
“Just twisted a little strange, that’s all. I’m not old.”

  “Of course not,” Jun hastened to reply. She knew that the sergeant was always cagey about his age, but that he was clearly older than he usually let on. It was seldom discussed, but he did tend to get defensive whenever the suggestion arose that the years might have taken their toll. “Here, let me.”

  Jun reached down and grabbed hold of the strap of the sergeant’s backpack, then lifted it and held it out towards him. It was somewhat heavier than her own pack, but not by much, and it wasn’t a particular strain to hold up at arms’ length.

  “I’ve got it, okay?” the sergeant said through gritted teeth, still sounding somewhat annoyed but clearly making an effort to restrain himself. He slung the backpack over one shoulder, jaw clenched and shoulders hunched up as he tried to mask any sign of discomfort that he might be experiencing. “Now get your own gear together, we need to move out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jun said, resisting the urge to snap off a salute, and hurried back to her bunk to finish packing up her things. She glanced around the barracks at the rest of the squad as she did so. Tempers that might otherwise have flared had cooled, and the discussions of the morning had failed to erupt into full-blown disagreements. At times such as this she felt a kind of kinship to these four people who had been complete strangers to her only a few short months before. The weeks and months that they had spent side-by-side since then—the hardships they had endured together and the dangers they had faced as a team—had knitted them together as close as any family. Whatever perils might lay in store for them, whatever impossible task might be set before them to complete, she knew at least that she could count on each and every member of the squad to have her back, and she trusted that each of them knew that they could count on her as well. Men and women brought together from the four corners of the world, to fight as one to protect the living from the armies of the Dead…