Hope Renewed by David Drake, S.M. Stirling Read Free Book Online

they paid for their folly.”
    “Yes,” Heldeyz said, his eyes remote. “They paid.”
    observe, Center said.

    The scimitar flashed in the sun. A heavy thack sounded, with the harsher wet popping of fresh bone underneath. The alcalle ’s head rolled free; his body collapsed from its kneeling position, heavy jets of arterial blood splashing into the reddish mud that stained the ground. Clouds of flies lifted, then settled again. The executioner flourished his heavy two-handed curved sword ritually.
    The smoke from the burning buildings covered the smell, even from the pyramid of heads the Settler’s mamluks were building beside the outer gate. Few of the chained coffles of Gurnycians marching out paid much attention to it; their faces were mostly blank, eyes to the ground. Mounted Colonial guards urged them on with snaps of the kourbash , the long sauroid-hide whip. They were the lucky ones: pretty women, strong young men, craftsmen, and children old enough to survive the trip south to the markets of Al Kebir.
    Ali pointed. “No, cut that one’s throat,” he said, indicating a Star priest with a thin white beard. The executioner lowered his sword.
    The old man’s eyes were closed; he was praying quietly as the black-robed mamluk stepped up behind him and drew the curved dagger. Ali giggled when the body toppled thrashing to the ground.
    “The halall ,” he said, sputtering laughter. The ritual throat-cutting that made meat clean for Muslims to eat. “Is it not fitting, for these beasts?”
    Raj noted a mullah’s lips tightening at the blasphemy. Nobody spoke.
    The good humor on Ali’s face turned gelid as he gripped Heldeyz’s face in his hand and turned it to the heaps of severed heads.
    “Do you see , infidel?” he screamed. “Do you see ?”
    A portly man in a green turban shoved his way through the crowd. A string of prisoners followed him, mostly girls in their early teens, with a few younger boys. He prostrated himself.
    “Oh guardian of the sacred ka’ba, you wished—” he began in a falsetto voice.
    Ali released the Civil Government courier. “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. His hand flicked to a girl and a boy. “Those two, and don’t bother me again before the evening meal.” He jerked his head at his guards. “Come. Bring the pig-eating kaphar. ”
    Wagons took up most of the roadway, oxen lowing under the load. Inside, in the cleared space within the walls that Civil Government law commanded, were huge heaps of spoils; officers were directing the troopers as they piled it in neatly classified heaps. Cloth, metalware, tools, coin, precious vessels from the Star churches and temples . . . Beyond, only a few buildings still stood. As Heldeyz watched, a merchant’s townhouse collapsed inward about the burning rafters, the thick adobe walls crumbling like mud. A ground-shaking thump, and the great dome of the Star temple followed; Raj recognized the sound of blasting charges.
    “See, unbeliever,” Ali went on. “The pig and son of pigs Barholm—it was not enough that he cheated me of the blood-price of my father’s death, he expected me— me —Ali ibn’Jamal, to sit among the women and do nothing while he conquered all the world. Conquered all the world, then turned on me! Turned on the Faithful! No, kaphar , Ali ibn’Jamal, Guardian of Sinar, Settler of the House of Islam, is not such a fool as that.
    “Tell Barholm I am coming for him.” Ali’s mouth was jerking, and his voice rose to a shrill scream. “Tell him I have something for him!”
    Colonial soldiers were setting a sharpened stake in the ground. They dragged out the Arch-Sysup Hierarch of the Diocese of Gurnyca. He was a portly man, flabby in middle age, stripped to his silk underdrawers. The black giants holding his arms scarcely lost a step when he collapsed at the sight of the waiting impaling stake . . .

    Silence fell around the table. At last, General Klosterman cleared his throat.
    “Well, I don’t think