Ted Bell - Warlord

Praying.

"Just the dust cloud," Stoke said. "Big damn dust cloud, though, and moving fast in this direction."

"As soon as you acquire a target, start shooting. Pick off as many of the obvious commanders as you can. As soon as the main body is in range of our weapons, I'll give the order to fire at will."

Hawke saw Abdul at the breastworks, speaking quietly with Sahira. Earlier that morning he'd asked his reliable new friend to stick by her during the battle, no matter what, afford her all the protection he could. Dakkon had proven his bravery and loyalty beyond question. Hawke knew the man would lay down his life for any of them.

Harry Brock, at his station to Hawke's left, had pulled a battered harmonica from his vest pocket and was playing it softly. Hawke recognized the plaintive American Civil War tune, even recalled some of the lyrics, sung to him as a child long ago by his American mother. "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…"

"What's that song called, Harry?" Hawke asked.

"'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'"

"It's lovely. Don't stop."

Harry played on as the massive twister of swirling dust and sand drew nearer and nearer.

Faces appeared out of the dust, hard faces with hooded black eyes and tangled black beards, tattered robes flapping wildly behind them in the wind. Glittering belts of ammo criss-crossed their chests. Their mouths were torn black holes in their fierce faces; but their murderous war cries went unheard, obliterated by the pounding hooves and the sudden explosion of gunfire.

At the forefront of the charge was a big bearded man in flowing black robes that were wildly whipping and snapping behind him. The commander was beating his horse, urging his steed to gallop even faster. He had his rifle raised above his head, exhorting his troops onward with fierce battle cries.

"Who is that man leading the charge, Patoo?" Hawke asked.

"That is the legendary Colonel Abu Zazi, sir. He is Sheik al-Rashad's brilliant and brutal second in command. He was born in the United Kingdom and graduated with honors from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is now responsible for the worst of the suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He leads an alliance of Taliban, Punjabi militants, al Qaeda, and the former Mehsud fighters."

"He looks fearsome enough, I'd say."

Dakkon said, "Colonel Zazi has a price on his head of US$5 million, sir. He was among the assassins who murdered Pakistan's beloved premier Benazir Bhutto."

Looking through his binoculars, Hawke clearly saw the face of his enemy. And knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was in for the fight of his life. Outwardly he awaited the battle with composure and confidence. This was one of those times that called for stern tranquillity.

"NOW I KNOW HOW GENERAL George Armstrong Custer must have felt," Harry Brock said, firing as rapidly as he could. The mad horde of wildly galloping Taliban fighters, shouting and screaming their war cries, had completely encircled them. There had to be at least a hundred of them, riding around and around at full gallop, directing the fire of their AK-47s at the vastly outnumbered men inside the pathetic and hastily built fortification.

It may have been pathetic, but it seemed to be working, Hawke thought, as he slammed another mag into his weapon, welded the stock to his cheek, and rapidly killed as many men as he could before pausing to reload. Bullets filled the air, whistling overhead, thudding into the berm, and sometimes finding his men. He already had two of his fearless militiamen dead, and four badly wounded.

But Patoo's gravely wounded Pakistani militiamen stood their ground and kept fighting. They were not fighting for their lives, Hawke knew. They were fighting for the very soul of their country. And they were fighting in the memory of their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers, all victims of the vicious Taliban jihadists.

Hawke believed he could ask for no finer men than those who fought at his side.

Stokely had taken to firing RPGs into the ground in the midst of the charging Taliban horses. His objective, Hawke saw, was not only to take out the horses, but to create large craters with the exploding grenades. This caused a great many of the horses to stumble when the unexpected hole appeared suddenly, and they went down, throwing their riders to the ground and making them much easier targets.

"Where the hell'd you learn that, Stoke?" Hawke shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire.

"I didn't," Stoke said. "I just made it up."

Hawke laughed and took out a large number of fighters who were stumbling around looking for their AKs after being thrown from their mounts. Some of the militia fighters had seen what Stokely was doing and began doing the same thing. One man fired RPGs, the two men to either side of him concentrating their fire on the thrown fighters as they scrambled to their feet.

The firefight raged on for ninety blistering minutes.

The now-diminished enemy forces showed little sign of retreat, continuing to pour it on. Brock thought he was in one of those battles where the bad guys just kept turning the volume up, and it was getting louder and louder. They had at least three or four KIAs inside the redoubt now, and many more wounded still standing at their stations. Brock began to wonder how much longer they could withstand this withering assault.

And then the brave little man to his left, Patoo, was killed, the incoming round tearing away most of his throat, blood spouting out in gouts as he lay sprawled on his back on the ground, no chance. The militiamen had lost their brother and leader.

Brock saw Hawke register Patoo's death, saw the devastated look on his face. And then Hawke was going about inside the circle, walking right through the hail of bullets whistling across the compound at head height, encouraging Patoo's men to stand up to their duty and not let the bastards whip them. He never once sheltered his own person, and Harry could not see how he escaped being killed.

Hawke was one of the bravest men he'd ever seen in a fight and he'd seen one hell of a lot of brave men.

"Harry!" Stoke shouted. "Above you!"

Brock whirled around to see a Talib fighter standing atop the berm with a sword in his hand, a demonic look on his face, and clearly ready to relieve Harry of his head. Guy must have crawled on his belly up to the berm when Brock was kneeling and reloading, trying to comfort the dying Patoo at the same time. No time to get his rifle up, so he whipped his sidearm out of the holster on his thigh and brought it to bear on the man just as the sword blade started its deadly arc toward him.

He shot the guy in the face, causing him to drop his sword and pitch backward onto the blood-soaked sand.

When Harry got back to his feet, he saw an amazing thing.

The enemy seemed to be withdrawing. They had taken severe casualties, had probably lost more than half their original force, and it looked like the bad guys didn't like the heat and were getting out of the kitchen. At least, temporarily.

"Keep firing until they're out of range," Hawke said to Stokely, before expending an entire mag at full auto on the retreating foe. "Then use sniper sights and see what you can do to the rear guard."

Brock said, between bursts of automatic fire, "A good victory, I'd say, chief. How the hell did we survive that?"

Hawke, reloading, said grimly, "Right. Another victory like that one and we'll all be dirt-napping throughout eternity, Harry. We are now officially in what we used to call in the Royal Navy, 'the Deep Severe.'"

"What do you think, boss?" Stoke said, pausing to reload. Then he saw Hawke had his radio out and was desperately trying to raise somebody, anybody, to come to their aid. "Bloody thing doesn't work! We're in a dead zone," he said, and he threw the radio to the ground in frustration, before regaining his composure.