Carnifex

32/6/467 AC, Panshir Base, Pashtia

Every day got a little worse. What had begun with directed terrorism and the distant siege of ambush of roads and blowing of bridges had grown to the point that most of the Tauran Union troops were confined to their bases, under frequent if not quite constant mortar and rocket attack. The Anglians and Secordians fought to keep the roads open, to rebuild the bridges, even to combat the terrorism on behalf of the TU troops that were forbidden by their governments from actively seeking battle.

In the larger sense, though, those English-speaking men and women were fighting to let the Progressive administration in Hamilton keeps it promise not to commit further Federated States troops to the war, but to rely on their "allies." In the largest sense, they were all fighting to prevent what their governments considered the ultimate disaster.

That ultimate disaster? It was not that the Salafis should regain control of Pashtia, nor even that they might use it for further attacks. No; the TU leadership—though many around the globe considered that expression to the ultimate oxymoron—lived in desperate fear that the fickle populace of the Federated States might once again elect an administration that quite simply considered the TU, indeed the rest of the world, to be largely voiceless and irrelevant.

"And even that's not enough to get the bastards to let us fight," fumed Claudio Marciano, as a large caliber mortar round detonated inside his camp, a few hundred meters to the east of his sandbagged command post. Following on the heels of the explosion he heard the cry "Medic!" and the scream of an ambulance siren.

"'Fighting never settled anything,' Generale," quoted Stefano del Collea, his eyes turned Heavenward in mock piety.

"Tell it to the city fathers of Carthage," Marciano retorted. "You know what bugs me about it, Stefano?"

"No, sir. I mean, other than the unnerving blasts, the wounded troopers, the sheer frustration of being here and not allowed to do our fucking jobs, sir, what could possibly be troublesome?"

Barely, Marciano restrained the urge to slap his cynical aide with his helmet. Instead, he said, "What bothers me is that they're able to keep this up at all. I mean, without the roads—which our masters made us give away—we can still get enough to eat. Our enemies are not only apparently eating; they've got the logistic wherewithal to bring in shells by the ton-load."

Del Collea sighed. "I know, sir."

* * *

About five thousand meters to the southwest, in a small village the Tauran command had made into a no-fire zone, Noorzad looked on approvingly as one of his newer recruits, Ashraf al Islamiya, strained to carry forty kilograms worth of heavy mortar shells to the guns. He ported them—two at a time, one over each shoulder—from a small cave in which they had been painstakingly secreted over the last several months, to the firing position in the town square. There, two 120mm mortars chunked out their twenty-kilogram cargos toward the infidel base.

Noorzad had chosen this firing position precisely because it was an absolute no-fire zone, a place where all fire, even in self defense, was forbidden to the Taurans. Had some other village in range been a no-fire zone he'd have used that. If there had been no no-fire zones, he'd have forced all the villagers to squat around the mortars anyway. That, he had learned, would stop the Taurans from shooting back no matter what he did.

Still, the patent idiocy of the Taurans was not Noorzad's reason for approval. Rather, it was the spirited way in which Ashraf put his whole body and will into carrying the shells. It showed Noorzad the power and the truth of Islam. It reinforced in a most satisfying way that of which he was convinced anyway; that his way of life, his religion, and his truth—which was the eternal truth—would triumph.

* * *

With a grunt, Ashraf flipped one shell off his shoulder to be caught by an assistant gunner. The assistant likewise grunted as he took the shell, but paused to pat Ashraf lightly on the arm and smile encouragement. Then the assistant turned, took the shell in both hands, and eased the finned base of the thing into the mortar tube. He released it to slide down, ducking while covering his ears with his hands.

When he turned back to Ashraf, he saw that the new man was shaken with the muzzle blast. The assistant tapped him, still lightly, on the face and twisted to show him how to deal with the blast while carrying a shell. This involved hunching one shoulder and pressing the ear on that side into it, while reaching across the head with the free arm to place a hand over the other ear.

The assistant took the next shell from Ashraf, who trotted back to the mouth of the small storage cave to get more. As Ashraf took the next pair he realized that he felt . . . What an odd sensation. I am . . . more than pleased . . . perhaps, even, I'm a bit happy. Why? Well . . . that someone had cared enough to show me even this one tiny thread of the ropes that went into serving a mortar. Whatever I was told about the Salafis was a lie; once you are one of them you are one of them.

He could not remember a time in the army of Haarlem when any of his then comrades had really cared much.

* * *

The shells were expended and the mortar crew breaking their gun down to hide it in the cave from which it had been drawn. They would camouflage it just before splitting up and pulling out. Ashraf, once known as Verdonk, helped with the disassembly, insofar as he could. Mostly, he was in the way of an otherwise expert crew.

"Ashraf," Noorzad called out in the English he shared with ex-Haarlemer. "Stop for a few minutes and come over here." He then said much the same thing in Pashtun, "Send the new one over."

The assistant gestured with his hands and his face, Go to the leader. We'll make do without your help for a bit. He was careful not to add, by voice, gesture or expression, Besides, you're just in the way.

What the hell; the ex-infidel kid is trying.

Ashraf turned and walked to Noorzad, who gestured for him to sit.

Feeling distinctly uneasy—after all, it was not so long ago he'd been given the choice of accepting Islam or having his throat cut—Ashraf sat.

"You're learning your duties well, Ashraf," the guerilla chief said. "All your fellow mujahadin say so."

The former Haarlemer breathed a small sigh of relief. Apparently this little meeting was not to announce that leaving his throat unslashed had been a fixable mistake.

"Thank you, Noorzad. I've tried."

"Yes, yes," Noorzad agreed. "You've tried very hard and succeeded rather well. Soon you will be a fine crewman for the mortars. It's not enough though."

Ashraf almost felt the bite of a razor's keen blade drawing across his throat. He stiffened. "Not enough?"

Noorzad effected not to notice the nervousness in Ashraf's body's stiffening and in the convert's wavering voice.

"We are simple fighting men. To fight we can teach you. But the reason why we fight, the advancement of God's way? This we are not really quite up to."

"No?" The Haarlemer had never met such a bunch of religious fanatics in his life. He'd never even imagined such. They weren't up to his religious instruction?

"No," Noorzad said. "I am sending you and your other Haarlemer reverts"—"reverts" because one did not convert to the natural faith of Islam; one reverted to it—"on to a madrassa, a school, in Kashmir. It is safe there and there you will receive more and better instruction in the faith."

Ashraf felt a small surge of relief. They weren't going to cut his throat. And he was going to get out of action for a while. It would feel odd though, leaving the first home in which he'd felt comfortable, for certain values of comfortable, in years.