Carnifex Page 15

  * * *

  The guerilla band entered the village in the dead of night, silent as a plague. In two to three man teams, they kicked in the doors and burst into each house on a prearranged signal, a shrill blast of a whistle. Men and women, boys and girls, were herded out into the dusty central square at bayonet point. The women were only just given the chance to cover themselves with whatever was to hand. Stumbling in the darkness, men cursed and the women and children either wept or stood in shocked silence as the mood took them.

  Only one of the villagers had had his rifle near to hand. That one was shot as soon as he appeared.

  Noorzad left them alone, but guarded, as the bulk of his band went through the village with a fine tooth comb looking for anything that might be of use. They found little; a couple of donkeys to add to the train, some food, a little ammunition. They also found some kerosene and wood.

  The guerilla leader left the villagers alone, that is, until the sun had arisen. He wanted them to see clearly what was about to transpire.

  "Who is the headman of this village," he demanded, his one eye glaring in the sun.

  Hesitantly, an older man, his beard long and half-gray, raised a hand.

  "Where is your family?"

  Several other hands were raised, two of them from women with small children clustered around. At a nod from the chief, a half dozen guerillas prodded the rest of the populace away from the headman's family until they stood alone in a distinct cluster.

  At another nod, four guerillas seized the village head and dragged him to a wall. He was certain he was going to be shot and begged for the intervention of Allah. He would have been happier had his God intervened and caused the guerillas to shoot him.

  First they beat the headman, but only enough to break his will so he would not resist. Still, the guerilla's hardened fists and booted feet bruised him, broke small bones, cut the skin over his skull.

  When they were sure enough he would not resist even what was coming, one of them raised the headman's left arm to the wall. A second took a long iron spike with a broad head and held it, point first, to the villager's wrist. A third drove the spike through the wrist and into the wall.

  The headman screamed like a lost soul when the cold iron tip drove through the nexus of nerves in his wrist. Unimaginable agony shot through that entire side of his body. The second nail elicited even greater screams.

  Unmanned, ashamed, the village headman hung his head and wept.

  Then, with the headman quietly weeping and his people in shock, Noorzad began to speak.

  "You call yourselves Moslems. Yet I see a school built by the infidels to educate your youth away from the faith of your fathers. You call yourselves Moslem, yet I see that rather than trusting to Allah you have let the infidels dig a well for you." He glanced at the small clinic. "I see you have more faith in infidel medicine than in your God."

  "You may keep none of this. Before we take them from you though, see what the price is that your headman will pay for his impiety."

  "Bring out the headman's women."

  Roughly, the guerillas parted the mothers from their children and forced them to the center of the group. Then they uncovered and took those of the girls who looked to be past the age of nine, forcing these too, into the circle. The first two of the brothers to object, one eleven and one thirteen, were beaten, stunned, dragged to the wall and—shrieking in agony—nailed up beside their father. The others stayed quiet or, like the women, wept as the mood and their age took them.

  There were about one hundred guerillas and seven women and girls. The rape went on for a very long time, guerillas taking turns guarding and violating. When they were done, and even had seconds, the guerillas forced the men and boys of the village old enough to sprout a beard to likewise violate the headman's females. By the time they were done, even the youngest girl, a nine-year-old, had ceased to weep.

  The nine-year-old didn't weep either, when two of Noorzad's band began to beat her with iron bars, smashing the little bones and pulping her skin, finally spilling out her brain in a shower of splintered bone and blood. She did scream, though. After all, they'd started at her feet.

  When they were done with the nine-year-old, the other women were likewise beaten to death. In the end there were just seven piles of blood and bone and ragged scraps of skin.

  After that, Noorzad had the villagers tear down their school and their clinic. He also made them pile the firewood at the feet of the headman and his two nailed-up sons.

  Then he poured a measure of kerosene and lit the wood. The screams of personal agony which had lessened under the shock of watching their mothers and sisters, wives and daughters, raped and bludgeoned began anew and rose to a crescendo as the flames ate away skin and set subcutaneous fat alight.

  As the chief and his sons burned down to greasy ash, Noorzad went around the circle of villagers, choosing from each family group one son to be trained as a fighter and to serve as a hostage. Lastly, he blew up the well.

  Noorzad's parting words were, "Now you see the price of cooperating with the infidel. Now you see the price of forsaking your faith. Do not forget. Also do not forget that there are those among you who are also with us."

  With that, Noorzad's band trekked into the night.

  Interlude

  Yasukuni-Jinja, Tokyo, Japan, 14 August 2080

  At night, the scene would have been lit well enough to read a book by the garish neon of the city. In the day things were better. One might even imagine oneself back in a purer, truer time. One could, that is, if not for the large groups on immigrants, many of them recent and few of them much assimilated, who came to the shrine to, in all too many cases, gawk and sneer.

  The immigrants were not the only ones capable of sneering. Watanabe Ishihara, for example, sneered at two groups in alternation. The first was Chinese, immigrants from the mainland. The second was Korean, and conversed in Korean, by the simple and elegant torii, or Shinto gate, that led to the shrine.

  His companion, Shintaro Soichi, caught the sneers and corrected, "Despise the Chinese if you want, Ish. After all, they despise us as much as we despise them, and perhaps more. But the Koreans are a different story. There are almost twenty-two thousand of them here, our illustrious fallen eirei, our heroic spirits, as much as theirs. They have an arguable right to be here. Maybe they have an inarguable right to be here."

  Watanabe looked down, shamefacedly. Of course Soichi was right. It was just that, "I resent that we have lost, that we are dying out, that everything for which our ancestors strove will belong to those who come to replace us. But, the Koreans, at least, are welcome. Mostly."

  "And the Taiwanese?"

  "Oh, all right. Them, too."

  * * *

  Like the rest of the industrialized world, and, to a lesser degree, even much of the non-industrialized world, Japan had seen a precipitous drop in population coupled with a frightening increase in the age of that population and a terrifying decrease in the percentage of that population still working.

  Things were never as bad as the doom mongers had predicted, of course. Things never could become as bad as they predicted. Even so, they were bad enough. What helped Japan out more than anything was that their old folks were, generally speaking, willing to work until they were carried feet first out of their offices and factories.

  This, however, only delayed the inevitable. There came a time when, despite the best will in the world, the older ones simply couldn't work anymore and had to be supported. And with so few young being born, the burden became too great. Japan, like Europe, had had no choice but to permit large-scale immigration. Too, like Europe, Japan couldn't assimilate them.

  * * *

  "We must take it all with us, when we leave," Soichi said, his gaze sweeping across the expanse of the shrine. "There will be none left behind to pray to the spirits of our eirei."

  "In principle, I agree, Watanabe shrugged. 'But we can fit five thousand colonists? Ten thousand? Maybe twenty
thousand, for all this weight of wood and stone and bronze."

  "We must take . . . "

  "All," Watanabe supplied. "I suppose you're right there, too. And the sakura?"

  "Cuttings, and perhaps a few trees. And then there are the living national treasures . . . "

  "A fair sampling will come," Watanabe said, "As will a prospective Son of Heaven."

  "Who?" Soichi asked,

  "Higashikuni . . . "

  "Oh, damn. Not that branch."

  "Best I could do. Besides, what difference that his multi-great grandfather was screwing some French whore?"

  Chapter Five

  "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

  —Emperor Manual II

  Palaiologos

  6/3/467 AC, Village of Jameer, Pashtia

  The bodies, or what was left of the bodies, were still there when the Tauran, specifically the Tuscan, column arrived, about midday. Flies clustered on those of the women and girls in thick, black, buzzing clouds. Even the nine-year-old, legs splayed, appeared to have grown pubes, so thick were the blood-lapping flies.

  Tuscan Brigadier General Claudio Marciano stepped from his vehicle, took one look, and promptly threw up.

  "Animals," he muttered as he wiped traces of vomit from his lips and face. "Only animals could do something like this."

  Marciano's aide de camp, Capitano Stefano del Collea, didn't answer. Instead, standing next to the vehicle, he simply went pale and shook with hate.

  The two were mountain troopers, Ligurini, members of an elite corps. They were the best infantry Tuscany on Terra Nova produced and some of the best in the world. Other mountain troopers from Marciano's command, the Brigada Julio Caesare, worked their way cautiously through the town.

  There was no firing as the Ligurini swept through, only sullen glares from the villagers. You promised what you could not deliver. You failed us. So the villager's eyes seemed to accuse.

  "What the fuck can we do, Stefano? With three battalions of infantry here in our sector I don't have enough to put even half a squad in every little village. I don't have enough even to put in a single man."

  "We could go hunting," del Collea suggested. "We're better men than they are. They may know these mountains but we know mountains."

  "It's the only way," Marciano agreed, "The only way and I am forbidden to do it." The general smashed a fist into his palm in sheer frustration. "Forbidden to so much as fire a shot except in point self-defense. 'No offensive operations,' the government says, Stefano. 'Don't risk casualties.' Tell me, Stefano, what the fuck is the purpose of even having soldiers if it isn't to risk casualties?"

  The captain just shrugged. He was as helplessly frustrated in this as his commander.

  Marciano took off his green, feathered hat and wiped his brow. This was just a demonstration of frightfulness. But the word will get out. By this time tomorrow, day after at the latest, every school and clinic we've built, every well my sappers have dug, will be torn down or filled in. No one will risk this kind of obscenity just to have a nicer building to be sick in or a western style school desk. All the good we've thought we'd accomplished will be undone.

  "If I could transfer my commission," del Collea said, "I'd join the FS Army. They, at least, are allowed to fight."

  "If I could transfer my commission," Marciano rejoined, "I might join the Balboan mercenaries and take the entire brigade with me. They go out of their way to fight."

  "They do have mountain troops, you know, General."

  "I know . . . but they're not our mountain troops. I would miss the Ligurini, Stefano."

  To that the captain had nothing to add. He left his general to his own thoughts for some minutes. When Marciano spoke again it was to say, "Fuck 'em."

  "General?"

  "Fuck the politicians. Tell the commander of the company—Romano, isn't it?—to follow those sons of bitches and kill them."

  * * *

  The device Noorzad carried, the same one brought by the messenger from Mustafa, beeped low. He answered it.

  "Noorzad? Mustafa. Some friends inform me that there is a company of infantry on your tail."

  The device was surprisingly static-free. Though unmarked, Noorzad was pretty certain it had come from off world; that, or was an offworld technology perhaps manufactured on Terra Nova.

  "I can handle a company of infantry," the guerilla chief said.

  "Yes, I am sure you can. But you cannot handle the battalion that will descend from the air if you are found, or the air strikes that will come. They are already gathering."

  Unseen by Mustafa, Noorzad shrugged. "I understand. I will split my men up, ditch most of the weapons. We can take shelter in the villages nearby."

  "You are not concerned they will turn you in?" Mustafa asked.

  "After what we did in Jameer? No; word will have spread like the lightning. They'll be too afraid to go against us."

  8/3/467 AC, Escuela de Montañeros Bernardo O'Higgins, Boquerón, Balboa

  Jesus, this shit terrifies me.

  Ricardo Cruz had his left hand jammed into the crevice of an otherwise nearly sheer rock wall. The hand was formed into a fist, effectively locking him to that wall. His other hand searched for further purchase higher up while his booted feet rested precariously on a couple of finger-widths of ledge. A rope was coiled around his torso.

  Cruz's job was to get the bloody rope up the cliff, attach a snaplink to whatever could be found, and create a belay system so that the rest of the men could follow safely. On the way up Cruz mentally recited the very unofficial and much frowned upon version of the Cazador Creed.

  Considering how fucking stupid I am . . .

  Aha! There was a little outcropping of rock. He grabbed tight hold of it and began working his left leg to another little spit of a ledge.

  Appreciating the fact that nobody lives forever . . .

  The ledge and the outcropping held. Heart pounding, Cruz unballed his left fist, removed it from the crevice and began feeling up and along the wall for another place to anchor his hand before he risked moving his lower foot.

  Zealously will I . . .

  Cruz's foot slipped.

  * * *

  There were actually four legions now, since the last, but probably not final, reorganization. The field legions were numbered I through IV; plus the air ala and the naval classis, which retained their tercio numbers, and the training and base legion, which was not yet numbered at all. At the moment, two of those legions, I and II, were at or just over full strength. The other two were at roughly seventy percent, for III, and forty percent, for IV.

  Under the reorganization, which had been implicit from the start, the Legion del Cid would operate on a four year cycle. While one legion was fighting or ready to go, another was at full strength and training to fight, while a third was building up to full strength and training at lower level unit and individual tasks. A fourth was, practically speaking, broken up with its personnel either in school or supporting school. Since this was the year the married soldiers could actually be home nearly every night, sometimes Carrera referred to the fourth, or school, year as the Legion's "Reproduction Enhancement and Divorce Reduction Program."

  Legio IV was currently in school, hence the forty percent strength. It would be replaced by I after the terms of service of that legion's one term volunteers ran out. Arguably, during the school year, a legion was not really a legion at all, since it consisted only of cadre and those were mostly in school or supporting the training legion or other units. But, since the school year legion had an Eagle, had a chain of command, had equipment and would be filled to strength at some point, it was still considered a legion.

  What was not generally considered, outside of by Carrera and his staff, was that, since there was a reserve clause in the enlistment contract, every legion could be brought up to strength in a matter of da
ys. This presupposed that the troops would come back voluntarily as Carrera had no legal way of making them return.

  I think that's a safe bet though, Carrera thought. And besides, their business and student loans all go into default if they fail to answer the summons.

  Legio III's cadre had completed their refresher training the previous year and was in the process of building up to one hundred and five percent strength. Legio II was at roughly one hundred and five percent strength, and was working up to divisional operations.

  Legio I, recently returned from Sumer, still had seven months left on the enlistment contracts of the sixty percent of its strength that were one term volunteers. Rather than waste the time, or let the men go slowly crazy from boredom, Carrera had them training. To be more specific, he had them training to return to the war, but in Pashtia.

  * * *

  As a young officer in the Federated States Army, Carrera—then under the name Hennessey—had acquired a fine loathing for general officers. Oh, yes; he'd known a few he thought were better and more useful than sandbags. He'd even known a few he genuinely admired. But those few had been few indeed.

  One of the distinguishing marks of worthwhileness, a sine qua non of good generalship, in Carrera's view, was that the general ought not let himself become a hindrance to training. Since people became, frankly, freaky when a general—or a senior legate or a dux—showed up with all his entourage and all his pomp and circumstance, Carrera thought a general could assist training best by, in most cases, seeing while not being seen. Thus, while Cruz inched up the wall, Carrera and Soult hid in a sheltered draw and watched through binoculars. They'd parked their vehicle two miles distant and walked in guided by map and compass. Carrera loathed being dependent on the Global Locating System.