Carnifex

4/7/467 AC, St. Ekaterina Caserne, Fuerte Cameron, Balboa

The stiffly marching Volgans sang in voices designed to knock birds dead at a mile.

"Pust' yarost' blagorodnaya

Vskipaet, kak volna

Idyot voyna narodnaya,

Svyaschennaya voyna!"

"Catchy," Carrera complimented. "What's it mean?"

Samsonov, the Volgan colonel of paratroopers Kuralski had contacted and hired—along with the bulk of his regiment—some years back, puzzled over the translation for a moment before answering, "Comes from Great Global War . . . but maybe older than that. Not sure. Means . . . mmm . . . something like, 'Let waves of righteous fury . . . Swell up as never before . . . And spur us to the victory of . . . Our sacred people's war.' You like?"

"It's excellent. Can you have one of your men make a translation and send it on to Professor Ruiz. Maybe send him a small chorus to demonstrate, too."

Samsonov, old, stout and blond where he wasn't balding, answered, "Easy . . . not those men singing now, though." He gestured at the company marching by. "Those men aren't bad but . . . regimental chorus much better."

"As you prefer."

The Volgans, roughly thirteen hundred of them, weren't on the Legion's official strength. Rather, they were employees of Abogado's Foreign Military Training Group, a subsidiary of Chatham, Hennessey and Schmied, that had provided training expertise to the Legion since the beginning. Most of FMTG now was, in fact, Volgan since the Balboans and other Latins were long since capable of conducting Initial Entry Training and most specialty training, along with the Cazador School and other leadership courses. With the bulk of the aircraft being Volgan and a fair number of the ships of the classis likewise, those departments were staffed almost entirely with Samsonov's countrymen, as well. Even for the aircraft bought from the FSC, the instructors were a mix of qualified Volgans and Balboans.

Samsonov's regiment, and it was a reinforced Volgan parachute regiment in organization, provided both the Controller-Evaluators and the opposing forces at the Legion's Centro de Entrenamiento para el Ejercito Expedicionario, or CENTIPEDE. The CENTIPEDE had served to put the finishing touches on cohorts just before they deployed to the war. Even without a contract, for the nonce, training continued. Being elite soldiers from an Army with an impressive tradition, this suited the Volgans just fine. It suited them even better that they weren't in Volga, anymore.

It was possible that there was a more anti-Tsarist-Marxism leaning group in the world than Samsonov's paratroopers, indeed someone had once suggested as much. No one had ever proven it, though. Samsonov's men loathed Marxism as only those who'd lived under it could. They likewise didn't much care for the corrupt rump of the Volgan Empire that still lived.

One reason they were pretty content to be in Balboa was that they earned standard legionary wages—for the enlisted men about fifteen times more than Volga paid its army—and lived and ate, oh, much better.

Many had married into the locals and some had even transferred over to the Legion. In turn, there were now to be found the odd Garcia and Gomez, seconded from their home tercios and standing among the Gureviches and Gregoriis of Samsonov's regiment. In time, Carrera expected something like complete assimilation. The notion that FMTG was anything but an arm of the Legion was rather fictive, anyway.

"These dirty rotten Fascist pigs

We'll shoot between the eyes.

The garbage of humanity

Is headed for demise."

"What's the title?" Carrera asked.

This time the translation came more easily. "We call it . . . 'Holy War' or . . . maybe better, 'Sacred War.'"

"Oh, yeah" Carrera smiled. "I want that in the Legion's song books."

By the time the marching company of Volgans had passed out of earshot, Samsonov was leading Carrera into the regimental headquarters. They passed by banners more or less dripping with battle honors from the Great Global War, the Volga-Pashtia War, and everything in between. Carrera stopped to finger the streamers, respectfully.

"An honorable regiment," he whispered.

Samsonov answered the whisper. "Was my father's regiment . . . uncle's before him. Eventually . . . fell to me but in worst of times. When your man, Kuralski, found us we were reduced to raising corn and pigs to eat. That would be fine for some non-entity motorized rifle regiment but we . . . paratroopers. Even at that, government going to close us out. They begrudged us . . . cost of our uniforms . . . and of heating oil for winter."

The Volgan colonel spat.

Reluctantly, Carrera released the battle streamers. "How many of your men are veterans of the war in Pashtia?" he asked.

"About three in ten, or perhaps bit more," the Volgan answered. "Why?"

"I'm not just operating off faith, here," Carrera said, "and I am reasonably certain that we'll be rehired soon to go to Pashtia. It's a different environment from Sumer, one my men aren't used to. We're capable of doing the mountain training and such ourselves—"

"And better than we could," Samsonov interjected.

"—but I don't know how the Pashtun act and think and neither do my men."

"We can help there. Quite lot; truth. But have you considered Pashtun? They're . . . first class . . . mercenaries and, if well treated, loyal to salt."

Carrera nodded. "I've got someone over there looking to do just that. But it's hard, he told me, to sort out the worthwhile ones from the infiltrators. Actually, he said it's impossible and I told him to forget it and concentrate on buying up land and pack animals, while collecting intelligence."

Samsonov rubbed his nose. "I can help with that. Some tribes trustworthy; some not. And I know mullah, name Hassim, who is very learned, very scholarly, and—fortunately— utterly corrupt atheist."

"Can you send a recruiting team over to help my man and to round up this Mullah Hassim?"

"Sure . . . what else you want?"

"I want you to restructure to prepare us for Pashtia. Abogado knows."