Caliphate

Al Harv Barracks, Province of Affrankon, 10 Rajab,

1531 AH (1 July, 2107)

They started the boys off with light rifles, .22 caliber repeaters. Nazrani were barred from owning or holding arms by law. Yet the boys were no longer Nazrani and so they all—being, after all, boys— were simply thrilled. Here was power. Here was delight in destruction.

The paper targets being destroyed would not have been thrilled, had they been anything other than paper targets. The one hare who bumbled onto the rifle range was definitely not thrilled. That hare had had too many close calls with death already in the last few years.

Fortunately for the hare, the boys had not learned yet to be nearly as proficient with the rifles as falcons are born to be with their talons. Though little devils of dust burst all around the hare wherever the bullets struck, none of them struck the hare. A few hops and it was lost in the grass, trembling.

The tent shuddered as its flap billowed in the midsummer's evening breeze. Within the tent, by the flaring light of a gas lantern, the instructors for the new recruits gathered to discuss their charges over coffee and tea. The senior drill instructor of the company, Abdul Rahman, held forth a number of names, Hans' among them, of recruits for whom it might be well to give advanced training in marksmanship, in time, and perhaps even in leadership.

The boys slept out in the open under the stars.

"Minden missed the hare, just like all the rest of them did," objected Abdul Rahman's senior assistant, Rustam. Where Abdul Rahman was tall and beefy, Rustam was shorter and much more slender. Both had the blue eyes that were typical among the janissaries of the Caliphate.

"Buck fever," Abdul Rahman answered. "He still is proving a better shot than all but a few of the others."

"He was among the very last to accept the faith."

"That's true," Abdul Rahman conceded, "and it speaks well of the boy. He doesn't give up easily." He raised one sardonic eyebrow. "And I seem to recall another ex-Nazrani revert who likewise didn't give up his religion lightly or easily."

"I was just stupid, mule headed," answered Rustam. "It signifies nothing."

Abdul Rahman, who had been a junior drill instructor when Rustam had first been gathered to the janissaries, barely suppressed a snort. "You were the most mule headed, if not the most stupid. As you are among the most faithful now, if not the most clever. I think we'll give this boy the same chance I gave you."

Rocking his head from side to side, making the crescent decoration on his neck swing, Rustam reluctantly and doubtfully agreed. "Oh, all right. Have it your own way. And I suppose it isn't as if we had a better candidate."

"No, and with the American Empire almost done tidying up their perimeter, I have no doubt it will be our turn soon enough, certainly within the lifetime of the boys."

"Is the ordu scheduled to move to the Atlantic Wall when the boys are ready in six years?"

"I don't know," Abdul Rahman answered. "And who really plans anyway? Who even can plan. We'll go wherever the will of the Almighty sends us, east or west or south."

"South? Greeks? Serbs? I hate the Greeks and Serbs," Rustam said with a noticeable shudder. He'd been on the Balkans Front for some years and found too many comrades staked out, castrated and with their eyes gouged out. War was endemic around the borders of the Dar al Islam and the Dar al Harb, the House of Submission and the House of War. But in the Balkans it wasn't just endemic, it was virulent.

"Not a lot of quarter given or received with either of them," Abdul Rahman agreed, a little sadly. "Not a lot of quarter given or received by anybody anymore."