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| ===Chapter 10 - ===
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| "I never thought it would be this bad, Hakim."
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| Standing at the crest of a shallow, grassy knoll, the commander of the Cataliyan Caliphate's western front army looked down the aisles of his field hospital. Rows upon rows of white tents bore the red crescent -- the crystal light red of Samaran 'Fluid of Life' that all healers shared in common. Thousands of sick, quarantined troops overflowed even their capacity, overwhelming the amply prepared medical battalions attached to the army.
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| Baha ad-Din Salim ibn Ziyad pulled at the hairs beneath his thickly-bearded chin. It was a bad habit he regressed to every time he felt frustrated, and he doubted any general worth his salt could feel more helpless than he did right now.
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| "Flu, typhus, and now even dysentery? Could how this happen? So quickly?" Salim turned about to face Hakim, his marid vizier.
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| "The problems have been present since the start, Salim," Hakim answered plainly, his countenance returning no display of emotion. "We walk among a land and climate alien to our kinds. Whereas they grew up on the arid savanna and scorching deserts and tropical coasts, they now trek beneath the gloom of a northwestern winter and its freezing rains."
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| "The human body is frail and slow to adapt," he added. "How could they not fall sick?"
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| "But why now? Why the sudden surge?" Salim countered. "We've entered Rhin-Lotharingie for a month already. Our soldiers have been falling sick since week one, yet the healers have always managed to keep the illnesses contained. I've even moderated our pace of advance to make sure the troops aren't burdened by excessive fatigue."
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| "All resources have limitations, Salim," replied the advisor. "The heavy casualties incurred in our last battle exhausted our healers' ether and drained Samaran blood supplies low. How could they cope with another disease outbreak immediately afterwards?"
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| To most people, Hakim seemed merely a beautiful, scholarly young man clad in white robes. He was too tall to be inconspicuous, too pale to be a descendant of the desert tribes. But advisors of exotic origins were nothing new in the Caliphate. In fact, those of affluence often sought to claim wives or servants of distant origins, for it was widely considered a fashionable display of wealth... or in Salim's eyes, ''decadence''.
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| But appearances were also deceiving. Hakim... wasn't even human.
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| Anyone who examined him closely would notice faded blue hues that seemed to billow across his very skin. The supple but solid tissues that contained the human form did not apply to him. Instead, his 'flesh' was almost an illusion, forged from layers of condensed embers to take on a tangible profile that could effortlessly blend in amongst humanity.
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| The reason? Because to the human commoners of the Caliphate, Hakim represented a race veiled in mystery. The two societies shared a God, a Prophet, and even an empire -- yet they remain segregated to this day.
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| Hakim was a jinni, a creature of smokeless flames. More precisely, he was one of the marid caste, a 'intellectual' among his people's rigidly structured society.
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| The Caliphate's western front army had only twenty marids in total, plus several hundred ifrits -- jinni of the warrior caste. But the numeric racial imbalance did not stop the Caliphate's military traditions: every commander of the brigade level and above was paired with his or her own vizier, a marid who served as their second-in-command.
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| The other nations of Hyperion might have equated this role with the 'chief-of-staff' position. But in truth, it was far more complicated than that. The bond between a general and a vizier was forged for life -- usually the shorter, human life. But until death breaks them apart, the two shared all assignments, promotions, and punishments equally.
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| In other words, it was a relationship as sacrosanct as the institution of marriage.
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| "Battalions! Full stop!" came a distant yell from behind the two leaders.
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| The order was echoed down the road by one officer after another as wheels creaked and hooves stamped against hardened ground. The supply convoy of several thousand carts soon halted at the encampment's outer security perimeter, as the captain on watch confirmed the newcomers' identity before letting them through.
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| It had been the first time in weeks since Salim witnessed such an unmolested column.
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| Normally, the arriving wagons would roll in with Lotharin arrows sticking out of their sides, with men in bloody bandages and half-burnt carts carrying those too injured to walk. Most supply columns had to run a gauntlet of ambushes on their journey to the front, if they arrived at all.
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| Salim's army of 80,000 soldiers consumed over 500,000 kilostones of bread, 400,000 kilostones of meat, and 600,000 kilostones of forage ''per week''. To ferry such immense quantities from the Caliphate and transport them safely across several hundred kilopaces of wooded Lotharin hills required a monumental effort from logistical and reserve corps.
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| Without adequate supplies, his frontline corps would be forced into 'foraging' -- which in military terms meant seizing grains and livestock from the local populace. Such behavior often encountered resistance, which soon escalated to murder and rape once the soldiers draw blood. Furthermore, even foraging couldn't supply an army of such bulk for long; within days the troops would begin to starve, made only worse as vengeful peasants take up arms as partisans and tighten the noose yet further on logistical lines.
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| In other words, atrocities against the innocent civilian populace was more than just a sin. It created a negative feedback loop that quickly spun out of control.
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| Thankfully, Salim had managed to avoid such a scenario thus far. Several battalions of reinforcements from the rear had ensured that this latest delivery of food and medicine came through. Meanwhile, the four rotting men hanging by their necks neared the entrance served as a potent reminder of his command's "zero tolerance policy" towards all acts of barbarism -- pillage and rape included.
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| "General!"
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| The yell came as a squad of light cavalrymen detached themselves from the supply column and galloped towards the hill.
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| "General!"
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| The newcomer leaped off his horse and scampered up the hill. Two dozen bodyguards squeezed the handles of their scimitars; after all, they were on the edge of the Cataliyan encampment and well outside the inner wards. But the officer paid them no mind as he rushed up and took a deep bow.
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| "Major Hashim," Salim addressed the youthful commander of the 86th Light Cavalry Battalion. "What brings you in such haste?"
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| "General Salim, I bring dire news," he began immediately. "Per your orders, my scouts have been patrolling the surrounding regions to ward off saboteurs and other partisan activity. Early this morning, we caught a squad of Lotharins poisoning a natural spring two kilopaces upstream through the disposal of animal carcasses."
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| Salim's eyes bulged as he turned to his vizier Hakim:
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| "They're poisoning the land..."
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| "Yes Sir," the Major confirmed. "I've sent my men to double check other water sources in our locale. They have already discovered three other springs, eleven wells, and one stream nearby to also be contaminated by the enemy. In three cases, the contagions were well camouflaged, and may have been left there as long as five days ago."
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| "It certainly helps explain our sudden influx of diseases," the marid Hakim nodded in contemplation. "The abundance of running water in these lands have made our officers lax in cleansing what they consume. Perhaps even more importantly -- this shows that our opponent has a new commander."
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| Squeezing his bearded chin, the astonished General Salim went quiet as he considered it briefly.
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| "You're right. Lady Estelle may be a nonbeliever, but she is also a courageous and honorable woman," he admitted in earnest. "Such treachery is beneath her dignity and conduct. To poison the water supply would not only harm us, but also their own civilians for many months to come."
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| ''Not that there remained many of them,'' Salim thought to himself. ''Most had already fled across the river to take shelter in the Avorican Capital.''
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| "Do we have any information on the status of their command?"
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| "None," answered Hakim. "We killed and 'captured' several of our own spies during the last battle, two of whom being signal officers that we relied upon to pass information from our agents within their camp. Intelligence has already taken efforts to re-infiltrate them into the Lotharin ranks, but we have yet to hear back from either."
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| It really spoke for just how savagely Caliphate forces had mauled the Lotharin army -- that they ended up severing even their own agents' communication lines from inside.
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| "What of the Lotharin saboteurs you encountered?" Salim addressed Major Hashim once more.
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| "We had captured their leader alive, but..."
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| "But--?"
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| "He refused to give us any information and kept evoking God's name in cowardice, therefore I executed him per the Articles of War as he had been captured in civilian clothing."
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| "What did he say?"
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| The cavalry major's expression tensed, having realized that he had already said too much.
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| "...''There is no deity but God,''" he then uttered as his eyes bowed to the ground.
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| It was a phrase sacred to the Tauheed religion; words spoken not only as a prayer, but as an official declaration of one's conversion -- a transformation for which all prior sins might be forgiven.
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| "Then why did you kill him?" Salim demanded, his calm but chilling voice penetrating all resistance in a true display of his twenty years spent as a military judge.
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| "B-but he spoke them in cowardice!" the Major stammered under the oppressive pressure that loomed in the atmosphere. "Out of fear of our arms!"
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| "How do you know? Did you split his heart open and see?"
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| "Sir, I..."
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| "Answer me, how do you know? How could you be sure of his insincerity?"
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| Kneeling down to the earth, Major Hashim could only bow in regret as the General repeated the question again and again.
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| "I do not... I cannot!"
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| With a softening sigh, Salim looked down upon the subordinate who failed to remember one of the fundamental teachings of the Prophet.
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| "It is not our role to pass judgment upon his faith and piety. If he lies in the name of God, then it is God who shall judge and punish him. Whom are you to take such decisions into your own hands in arrogance?"
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| No words came back as the Major could only stare into the dirt in silence.
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| Another half minute passed before Salim reached down and pulled Hashim back up standing by the shoulder.
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| "Major Hashim," the stern-faced General returned to business. "Hasten your search and identify any fresh water sources remaining. Focus on our rear where there is less chance of sabotage and guard them. Pull two infantry battalions to assist you as needed."
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| "Yes Sir! It shall be done!"
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| "In the meantime," Salim added as he patted the young man's shoulder. "Fast, pray, and repent for your sin. May God forgive you -- for you have broken not our laws, but his."
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| "Yes Sir! ...and thank you," the Major saluted and bowed once more before departing.
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| As the cavalry commander descended the hill, his gaze grew almost entranced by the figure of a new arrival walking up the slope. The woman's face was obscured by a full veil that revealed only her large, onyx eyes. But in spite of her armor and the long robes she wore underneath, it was obvious that she was slender of build and carried herself with grace in every step.
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| Salim couldn't help but shake his head as he watched the encounter. ''Boys.''
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| It wasn't rare to see a woman in the army. The two genders were strictly segregated by both unit organization and camp arrangements, but the few female battalions they had did fight side-by-side with the men in battle.
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| However, it was unusual to see a woman wearing the red-striped lamellar armor of the Mubarizun, the champions of the Caliphate armies.
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| ''But then...'' Salim twisted his lips into a light smirk. ''She and her 3rd Mubarizun squadron are probably the reason why my supplies arrived unmolested.''
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| Not only were these women famous for their keen awareness of the surroundings, but few men could challenge a dervish of ascetic traditions to a sword fight and live.
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| <nowiki>----- * * * -----</nowiki>
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