Carnifex

15/9/467 AC, Sanda, Pashtia

The town ahead wasn't much, perhaps two hundred houses, a mosque and a few stores. Even so, it promised resupply and some refuge from the eyes in the sky.

The plane, blotted out by the sun, wasn't even a dot to Noorzad when it began its dive. His first warning was when a horse screamed—always more horrible than the scream of a man—as large-caliber bullets pierced its torso, flinging it in blood to the ground.

The column, which had been trudging wearily to the mountains to the north, and safety, suddenly erupted in bedlam. Men shouted; animals squealed. Then came the sound of the enemy's machine guns—a brrrrp of explosions so close together they sounded like cloth ripping—and the whine of its engines as it pulled up and around for another pass.

Soon, much sooner than could be accounted for by a single plane, a salvo of rockets erupted overhead in the glare of the sun. Flechettes, they had to have been, as pockets of men, horses, mules and donkey's were scythed down along the line of march. Some of the horses were felled with as many as a dozen of the finned nails entering their bodies and then tumbling to slice out inch-wide routes through their flesh. Men, small targets as they were, might take half as many. To the targets it made little difference.

Many of the riflemen and machine gunners returned fire as Noorzad had trained them to. Unfortunately, he had trained them to engage helicopters and relatively high performance jets. These new infidel planes made a hash of their training as they fired and turned without ever entering the curtain of fire thrown up by those on the ground.

Should I have stayed and fought where I was? Noorzad wondered amidst the confusion. He shook his head. No, that would have just gotten my entire group isolated, surrounded, and destroyed. It is more important to preserve a seed, a kernel, from which more mujahadin can grow.

Noorzad lifted his eyes heavenward and saw both of the enemy aircraft twisting in the sky. He thought, but could not be sure, that they had their canopies pointing downward. The aircraft separated, one moving to the north of Noorzad's band the other to the east. He thought the one that flew to the north was further out than the eastern one.

This, too, was different from what he was used to. Normally he'd have expected the aircraft to make a pass or two, drop some bombs, fire some rockets, and then move on. To have the infernal machines . . . linger . . . well, that was disturbing.

As he'd thought, the eastern plane was closer. It came in, low and menacing. It fired its machine guns in bursts, veering slightly southward with each ripped cloth roar.

"Cut the lead! Cut the lead!" Noorzad tried to shout over the din. No matter; his men, such as were firing, were too intent on their hoped-for target, or seeking cover from its guns, to listen.

In the confusion, Noorzad lost track for a moment of the plane that had gone to the north. Suddenly remembering, he turned his eyes in that direction and saw that that enemy bird, too, was diving in. He saw a glint of dull light; from the undercarriage, so he thought.

The thought brought absolute terror. Noorzad had seen silvery canisters under aircraft before.

"Naaapppaaalllmmm!"

Some of his followers heard his shout, saw the aircraft bearing in, and followed Noorzad in running out of its line of flight. Even the heavy bullets of the other plane held small terror in comparison to being burned alive. Still, many did not hear or, if hearing, did not understand. These kept their positions and either hid or fired as the mood and their degree of manhood took them.

Noorzad looked behind himself as he ran. He'd guessed right, he saw, and took no satisfaction in it. From underneath the second aircraft, the one from the north, two cylinders tumbled end over end until reaching the ground. There they broke apart, spilling their incendiary contents along two parallel straight lines with almost no dispersion. The burning stuff moved like a mini-tsunami, passing around the boulders and covering such of his men who'd remained behind in fire. Their common howl of utter agony sounded even over the roar of flame, engine and machine gun.

We've got to split up, Noorzad thought, breathlessly. Together we're simply too inviting a target.

Noorzad took a hiding position between two boulders and pulled out his map. Yes, there were enough small towns like Sanda that he could hope to hide the bulk of his force while he escaped with the small, hard core that had been with him for years.