Carnifex

11/8/469 AC, Hoti, Kashmir

The town was one of the central points for the support of the insurgency in Pashtia, much as it had been during the earlier Volgan-Pashtian war. There were still refugees from that earlier war, hundreds of thousands of them, rotting in tent cities in the barren hills to the southwest. Hundreds of humanitarian workers made a fat enough living through dispensing the charity that kept those refugees rooted to the area.

To the northeast of the town was a fertile plain the produce of which, along with the retail arms trade and the fat pickings from foreign aid, made Hoti the pleasant and prosperous burg it was.

The town was also large enough, the dress similar enough, and the language common enough that something over four hundred and fifty newly arrived Pashtians made little impression on it or its people. There were always guerilla bands traipsing through Hoti or, at least, there had always been for the last thirty-three years.

The buses, four-wheel-drive sedans, and light trucks under Jimenez's and Masood's command waited by the town's outskirts. By twenties and thirties the rest of the party, those who had openly entered Kashmir across the common border as "refugees," met the vehicles. There weapons and—for vehicle leaders, radios— were issued and, in some cases, mounted.

"I almost can't believe we're getting away with this shit," Jimenez told Masood.

"The ways of Allah are inscrutable," the subadar answered, with a sardonic smile. "His mercy is infinite. What's more, sir, we're nothing unusual, not even for size. We're not even forming up in any particularly remarkable way. The mujahadin have been doing this for over three decades, and almost without pause. I, myself, joined a guerilla column to fight the Volgans not two miles from here thirty years ago. Purely routine."

Jimenez commented, "But it still seems too easy."

"Wait until we reach the Salafi base, sir. We'll pay there for any ease we've had here. Then, too, this is the last and only time we'll ever get away with this."

"How are the vehicles holding up?" Jimenez asked.

"Not bad. We should lose no more than, say . . . a third of them. Yes, about a third, over the next portion of our journey. Less if Allah is especially merciful."

Jimenez consulted his watch. "Fortes Fortuna adiuvat."

"Yes, sir," Masood agreed. "She does. Great writer, Terence."

"You understand Latin?" The legate was flabbergasted. "Latin?"

"School in Anglia, sir. Every proper gentleman there studies Latin."

Jimenez couldn't help laughing with surprise. "Load 'em up, Subadar. 'Fortune favors the bold' and the timely. We have a group of cavalry to link up with."