[b]Holhol, 40km West of Djibouti[/b] Ras Hassan was being boiled alive in a rubber undersuit, and that did not make him happy. He made his headquarters on the flat roof of an abandoned mudbrick home, where he could see the village and its every approach. Ethiopian soldiers filled the plain in temporary camps, while the Islamic Afar who lived here tried to go about their lives in their small village of Holhol. The eastern horizon was blotted out by a shadowy mountain of thick black smoke, leaving behind a grey haze that filled the air with a nasty stench, like that of a burning trash heap. The village lay at the meeting place of two dry river beds which only carried water when the rains came. Across a scrubby desert were the hills that surrounded Djibouti, and it was there that the Ethiopian army made its stand. From Holhol, all that Hassan could hear were the muffled claps of artillery shells, and the occasional report of a machine gun carried by the wind. "The Spanish will break through here." an officer argued, pointing to a place on the map. "The line has fallen back twenty miles. The enemy will try and use the main road to move their armored battalions to the front, and they will do it quick." "I agree." another officer said. "We need to bolster the left flank if we are going to hold them back long enough to effect a retreat." "A retreat." Hassan spat the word. He had planned this battle knowing that he would be falling back almost as soon as it started. Still, the concept of retreat was bitter, and it made him feel almost as sour as the rubber suit did. "We will plan this as we go. They are moving quick." He sighed and leaned into the table. "These Spaniards, they are like locusts. You can watch a cloud of them come at you and plan for how horrible they will be, but when they arrive you find you're still unprepared." "We must start the evacuation to Dire Dawa soon." an officer urged. Before he was finished speaking, a commotion in the dust-filled street below drew their attention. A small crowd of villagers were shouting insults at soldiers deconstructing a train trellis. The trellis was a steel structure that crossed a dry riverbed and connected with a station just on the other side. As far as train stations went, this one was modest, but it was the only advanced job available to the locals. These people - the ink-skinned Afar of the low desert - would be forced to carve a living out of the rock now that the Ethiopians were taking away the train. "Ras." a soldier reported. "What do we do with them?" "The locals?" The soldier nodded. "Offer the men a chance to fight. Remind them of those shiftas who came in to conduct raids on the enemy. If they want to be men like those men are men, they should fight with us." The whine of steel echoed through the valley like the moans of an abandoned warehouse, temporarily cloaking the distant sound of guns. "What plans do we have in place for the dash back to the highlands?" a tank officer inquired. "I need to know, so I can prepare my boys for what's to come." Hassan felt like snapping at the man for asking probing questions, but he did not. It was not an unreasonable thing to ask, but there was a primal anger throbbing in the Ras's core. The sense of defeat, the slimy puckered feeling his gas-suit gave his skin, and the murderous temperatures of the Afar triangle were affecting his mind. "I... we will." he took a breath and composed himself. "We will call on the air force to help. It's not my plan to hold the Danakil any longer than needed. Don't expect a drawn out fight with the Spanish armor." "It would be suicidal." the tank officer agreed. "On open ground, their contraptions would make paste of ours. We'll save our strength for the inland. There, we will have the advantage." There was more shouting now, this time coming from the Ethiopian soldiers. They were scampering from the site of the trellis; from Hassan's point of view they looked like ants fleeing from a damaged ant hill. The trellis was leaning precariously to one side now, held up by a few rusty beams. Something had went wrong. "Get them out of there before they kill themselves." Hassan said to nobody in particular, though it was not like they had needed his orders to scramble. "That is good steel." an officer said wistfully. "It is a shame to damage it." "This entire day is enough of a mess as it is." Hassan replied. "I don't want to add getting defeated by a fucking bridge to my list of problems." A soldier rushed up the stairs and onto the roof as if Hassan had called him telepathically. "Ras..." "Tell them to dynamite the shit-heap if they need to, just get it out of here cleanly." Hassan ordered. The soldier flitted back down the stairs just as quick as he had appeared. "This desert is no good for us." Hassan grumbled loudly, patting the sweat on his brow. "It's too fucking hot." "We've struggled to keep water flowing..." "I know." Hassan snapped. He looked out to the east now, watching the mountain of smoke on the horizon. The inferno [i]he[/i] had ordered. History might hate him in the future, but he felt vindicated that he had done the right thing. The thought of Spaniards struggling in the corpse-choked ashes was enough for him to be satisfied with his decision. "They are in my hills. God damn them all, these are not their hills, but I cannot chase them out." he turned around to the other men. "If we're going to pull out of here, we'll need a counter attack." "Where..." one officer started, but he was interrupted by a second. "The left flank. Pin them to the road." "Yes." Hassan agreed. "Exactly that! If we can stop their armor from advancing, they won't be able to push us. Not for a time, at least." "I'll assemble some divisions from the reserves." "I will take them them to the front." Hassan stated. "You..." "I will." The officer nodded and left the roof. Hassan looked east toward the smoke and wondered. Where exactly was the fighting now? How quick were the Spaniards moving? He couldn't tell from here, not by sight. All he saw was smoke and rock. He wanted to be on the battlefield, fighting in the same blood-soaked pits that his men were dying in. He wanted to [i]kill[/i] something, and feel the satisfaction of watching it bleed. "I will update air command." the second officer excused himself. Behind him, the tank officer followed, leaving Hassan alone. He watched where a makeshift field hospital had been set up. It was inside another abandoned home. People had fled Holhol along with the refugees from Djibouti, leaving many of the old stone houses derelict. Sometimes, he could hear the wounded crying above the battle sounds. They would not get much help in that hospital; they would have to wait to be sent back to Ethiopia before they could expect proper treatment. Out here, they had alcohol for killing pain and knives to do the rest. He watched a woman carrying a bucket of water from a well just out of town. She wore a floral patterned hijab over a dusty red dress. Hassan noticed how she avoided places where soldiers were lingering. When she passed the field hospital, she stared at it as if it were haunted. The sudden whining hum of an speeding vehicle put everyone on edge. Hassan gripped the parapet and watched the dirt road to the south, where the sound seemed to be coming from. It seemed as if at any moment it would appear on the horizon, the echo teasing them with the impression that the vehicle was approaching perpetually from the southern road. When it did finally appear from behind a hill, Hassan's heart skipped a beat. It was a Spanish armored truck, and it was throttling into camp at top speed. Some soldiers fired their rifles at it in a panicked frenzy, but the enemy did not shoot back. Instead, they cried out in celebratory shouts that did not sound European. Who were these drivers? Where had they came from? He rushed downstairs and outside to meet them. "They are ours." a Palestinian guardsman said near the bottom of the step, pointing to the truck. Hassan squinted and tried to see. "They are the shiftas." the Palestinian added. It all clicked into place in Hassan's mind right then. They had went out to raid, and somehow they had stolen an armored truck. The same recognition was slowly setting in for the other Ethiopians, and their apprehension soon turned to hoots and laughter when they realized what had happened. As the truck came to a stop in the center of the village, the shiftas hopped out like giddy children who had just taken their first ride in a car. Shiftas were outlaws in the official record - the vigilantes and gunslingers of rural East Africa, and the heirs of a time when village warlords ruled the highlands. They stood as monuments to a fading history of swashbuckling banditry and cattle raids, when shiftas could rise to be Emperor and the Emperor's were little more than powerful shiftas. In the modern world, they were the unofficial police of the countryside, prevailing in the rural places where Yaqob's city-based government was absent. These were rough men, with big wooly afros and wild facial hair. They wore an inconsistent mix of clothing, some with traditional robes and tunics as common as surplus military clothes. For weapons, they carried whatever they could get a hold of - rifles, shotguns, swords. Many carried the knock-off Chinese assault rifles the Ethiopian government manufactured to keep the people of Africa armed. "Brothers!" Hassan greeted the men. He shook their leader's hand and patted him on the back. "You bring me this?" The shifta looked back at his prize with glowing pride. It was decidedly Spanish - a new, sleek type of vehicle that looked almost like a small tank. Blood was smeared along the inside of the driver's side door so thick that Hassan could see gel-like clots dripping from the bottom. The shiftas were greedily pulling stolen equipment out of its seats. "How did you take it?" Hassan asked. For a moment, he forgot about his bad mood. With a smile, the lead shifta tapped the side of his head as if he was pointing to his brain. "I do not think they knew what to expect. They expected to see an army, but we came from the dust." "Where did you take it?" "Loyada." Hassan's eyes went wide for a moment, like those of a lion watching his pride-mates make a kill. "Loyada is on the coast. You brought this from that far away?" "We did not take the roads. We drove in the riverbeds, and on the old paths where the ferengi don't go. It is true, we were shot at, but that is what happens in war. But come." the shifta smiled wider now. "We have another gift for the Ras." They led him around back, to where another shifta held tightly to the handle of a closed rear door. "There was a slaughter in Loyada, did you know? The ferengi murdered everyone in that town, even the old ladies in their sick beds. And the children. They murdered everyone." the tone of the conversation grew somber then. Nearby, an Ethiopian soldier spat. "So we did not have mercy. No, there was no mercy for the ferengi who did that thing." The lead shifta waved his hand and, with a sudden jerk, his cohort opened the back of the truck. A man poured out onto the ground. He was white - a Spanish soldier. He was not conscious, and with his deathly pallor and shrunken appearance, Hassan thought he was dead at first. It was the layer of sweat dripping from his skin that indicated he was alive. The shiftas had tied a rope around his torso, and they dragged him along the ground like a log as both soldiers and shiftas spat on him. His face was battered and bruised so badly that it looked like a rotten pomegranate, and his breathing seemed labored and broken. His clothing was disheveled and torn, and his pants were caked in blood. The blood on his pants, and on his bare stomach, told Hassan everything that the shiftas failed to say themselves. They had captured this man and beat him. And then they had emasculated him. In the old world of tribal warfare, castration made sense. It had been a way for warring tribes to cause lasting damage to each other. It meant that an enemy warrior couldn't have children, and when so many wars were little more than village versus village, every warrior was important. There was a symbolry to it as well. It meant that, when you defeated a man, you could deprive him of his manhood entirely, showing your own dominance. It was said that many Italian prisoners has been castrated at Adwa, though nobody had eve proven that claim, and Hassan had once heard Emperor Yohannes claim that Menelik 'Asked his soldiers to give him the men, not their testicles'. The Ras knew he was dealing with something precarious here. The man - this Spaniard - was already defeated, so Hassan did not see any point in abusing him now. There was something to say about scaring the Spaniards with this sort of treatment, making them fear for their genitals any time they were sent on patrol, but there was another detail that Hassan understood. In bombing Djibouti, he had enacted an old custom. When the innocent died on a battlefield, it was considered a tragedy, but an understandable one. But mutilation of prisoners... that was something that foreigners did not approve of. It was true, he had used mutilation as a weapon in the past. He had ordered the arms of children chopped off in order to dissolve the rebellion of the Rouge General, but that had been different. That had been a civil war, but this conflict was larger. In this war, the opinions of foreign powers mattered. Hassan knew he needed to quash this quietly. "This is revenge, brothers!" the Shifta leader shouted, kicking the Spaniard in the side. Aside from the force of the kick, he did not move. He was dying, and Hassan knew it. He leaned to one of his Palestinians and whispered. "When this is over with, take this man out to the desert and give him mercy. Burn his body and bury it afterwards." The Palestinian nodded and Hassan eased up. "You have won a great victory!" Hassan proclaimed to the shiftas, "But tell me, where is the fighting?" "The ferengi push along the south-east road, and along the west road." the shifta leader explain. "Your men still hold the south road very near to the city. I think they are trying to trap you." "I agree." Hassan said. "Are your men tired, or do they want to help me fight this war?" "We are not done for today." Hassan nodded. "I am going to the front myself to reinforce the north. I would like you and this armored car to join me." "We will follow." Hassan turned to another one of his Palestinians and barked an order that everyone around him could hear. "Get me a sniper team. I'm going to go kill some ferengi!" The air filled with war-cries as Hassan climbed into the passenger's seat of the armored truck. -- "My girl is not a tall girl." the Afar tribesman sung. Two of them, young men from Holhol, had taken up Hassan's offer and joined the fight. "My girl is not a short girl. "My girl is perfect, my girl is medium." They sang these lines from time to time, intermixed with other old caravan songs. They sat in the back of the armored truck, invited by Hassan to ride along with them as a reward for their bravery. Some of the shiftas, including their leader, rode inside the truck as well, while their comrades clung to its roof. These two groups - the shiftas of Ethiopia and the Afar goatherds - did not look the same. Where the shiftas wore dusty tunics and robes, the Afar wore sarongs and waistcoats. The shiftas had unkempt bushy hair and beards, but the Afar wore no facial hair, and used butter to tightly curl the hair on their heads in a way that made them look like Ancient Egyptians. Hassan watched through the shrunken window of the armored truck and inspected the surrounding land for signs of battle. Here, closer to the front line, the haze was thicker. They were get closer to the wreckage of Djibouti, who's black-smoke cloud filled the sky with a grey smog. He could see the sun moving into the western sky. It was a pale circle, so weak that he could stare into it without any discomfort. There was something other-wordly about this landscape, and the sight of the military caravan following Hassan to reinforce the front line. They looked like the last survivors of an apocalyptic war. The hillscape surrounding Djibouti was as series of webbing bluffs, most crowned with sandstone caps. Flat-topped acacia trees grew interspersed in parched wadi's and thin valleys. It was a difficult land, where the only places to hide were behind rocks or in the shadows of cliff faces. This did not mean the Ethiopians lacked any advantage at all. Most roads here were goat paths, save for the one paved highway that meandered west from Djibouti into the Danakil desert. This was also one of the hottest places in the world, and the further you went from the sea the hotter it got. Temperatures in Djibouti hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer - which would be considered a cool day in the Danakil, where temperatures typically reached 120. The evidence of battle slowly appeared as they drove along. They saw where a stray Spanish rocket had overshot its target and struck the ground near an Acacia tree, impaling a camel with a splinter of wood. The beast lay dying, simmering in its own blood. Soldiers were appearing on the roadside more frequently now. After they passed an Ethiopian encampment in the flats, groups of soldiers became a common sight. They were leaving the front bloodied, or approaching it with the distant stare of battle-hardened men already in their eyes. There were more rocket craters now - blackened patches of land where the foliage still burned. One they passed had a smear of blood covering the rocks around it, as if the force of the impact had completely obliterated an unlucky man. The road was approaching a bend now, where it entered a narrow pass between the hills. That is where they were confronted by an Ethiopian soldier standing and waving his rifle in their path and holding his palm out to stop them. The Palestinian driver stopped the vehicle and climbed out of the car. Hassan followed. As he opened the door, the echo of distant rifle reports washed over him all at once. "What is up here, soldier?" "Ras." he said surprised, bending his arm in an informal salute. "I did not know you were coming." "I wanted to get some fighting in before you men finish this thing." Hassan replied. "But tell me, what is up there?" The soldier pointed to a thin plume of grey smoke climbing from the mountain. "That is a Spanish tank that is burning. One of our mortars got it, and now it is blocking the road." "How far?" "About a mile. The enemy is trying to clear the hills all around here so they can get through." "How far have they pushed into the hills?" "Not far." the soldier tapped the butt of his rifle against the ground. "We fell back after the rockets came, but we have learned how to hide from them. They only come from one direction, and there are many rocks to hide behind here." Hassan was satisfied with this information. They climbed back into the truck and heading up a ravine. The armored truck had not been made for driving off-road like this, but the Palestinian managed to pilot it up a cracked stream-bed. They were seeing corpses now, all Ethiopians with their bodies twisted in uncomfortable ways. Some had been stripped of their equipment, ammo, and boots, leaving them in their bare uniforms. He could see the wisps of new smoke coming from the top of a nearby hill. Those were Ethiopian mortars, he knew. They were firing on the distant road where the Spaniards were trying to push forward. When they reached the point where the truck no longer could move, they climbed out and walked the rest of the way. Another soldier met them and agreed to lead them to the front line. The reserve unit arrived behind them in off-road troop trucks, where they unloaded and were shown where to go by the officers on the ground. That left Hassan with his Palestinians, the sniper team, the shiftas, and the two Afar tribesmen. There was several steep climbs and treacherous descents across rocky terrain before they reached the true front line. It was not an obvious thing - only a handful of men hiding behind rocks and in shallow foxholes dug in the difficult soil, surrounded by the bloodied figures of the wounded and the dead. They were exchanging fire with a Spanish platoon in the valley below. Even though the Ethiopians had the advantage in terrain, the Spanish had better supplies, and the Ethiopians were running low on ammunition. "Ras." the Ethiopian battalion leader greeted with a cackling smile. Hassan found cover behind a thick slab of granite. "It is good to see you up here with us." "I was bored back there." Hassan replied. "This is too ripe of a fight to miss." "We have them pinned." the battalion leader peaked around a corner long enough to aim before taking a shot. "But not for long. I have been told there will be another rocket strike in an hour. When that happens, we will have to stop shooting and they will move up the valley." "Allahu ackbar!" the Afar were shouting now, firing in the direction of the enemy. When they stood up to shoot, the gile knifes hanging from their belts slapped them in the hip. A gile knife is a twenty inch blade that is curved at the end. They are all purpose, designed with slaughtering goats in mind, but it said that they also use them to emasculate enemies. Hassan's mind drifted back to the dying Spaniard back in Holhol. Had that inspired them to fight? It was a morbid thought. Hassan looked back at the shiftas and gave them a nod. Their leader understood, and led his men away. "We will have to put pressure on them then." Hassan said. The sniper team was in position now; two men, one a spotter and the other a sniper. They were slow in finding targets. The Spaniards had been at this for long enough to know where to hide. "Look there." Hassan pointed to the side of a nearby hill. It was difficult to see if you did not know what you were looking for. Movement. The shiftas covered themselves in dust so that their clothes blended in with the shade of brown that surrounded them. They moved like wild dogs - men peeling away from the main group as they looked for decent hiding places to shoot from. The end result would be such a varied number of angles that the enemy would struggle to find a place to hide. The tension was thick now. It would take only one Spaniard to notice the approaching shiftas and their game would be up. There would be casualties that Hassan couldn't pull out of the valley. How would the Spanish treat prisoners when they discovered them to be insurgents rather than enemy soldiers? There was a whistle, and then a pop, followed by a yelp. One of the Afar had been struck by a bullet, and he was holding his belly and screaming like a man being murdered. His friend was trying to comfort him until he could be carried away, but he did not stop screaming. That only made the tension thicker. The sniper took a shot, but Hassan did not see where it hit. "Miss" the spotter announced. The echo of the sniper shot had not yet faded when the valley below erupted in a storm of rifle fire. Hassan did not know who pounced first; the shiftas, or the Spaniards. Whoever had started it, the fight was now on. The Africans were firing at the flank of the hiding Spanish, who were being forced to find new dens. In the chaos, some of them were left exposed to fire from the hill. The Ethiopians fired as quick as they could aim, except for the sniper. To Hassan, it seemed as if the sniper was making all of the kills. "Sniper!" Hassan called. "Let me have a go!" Both men, the sniper and his spotter, stared at Hassan with surprise. "The enemy is very close. This is an easy shot to make." the sniper replied. He offered Hassan his spot. "Here, try it then." Hassan slid into place, the rubber undersuit squeaking as wrinkled and rubbed against itself. When Hassan put his eye to the scope, the whole world seemed to be a blur. He brought the ground into focus until he could see the Spanish soldiers hiding in the rocks below. He realized this was his first true view of the enemy. There they were, in crisp khaki battle dress with combat helmets strapped to their heads in nervous haste. Hassan could even see the yellow and red patches on their sleeves. Before he could take a shot, they moved, and he swung wildly to compensate. "Nudge to the left." the spotter said, simplifying his language. Hassan was fine with that. He followed suit. There was a body in his sights now, and he pulled the trigger. "Miss." As Hassan reloaded, he looked to see where the shiftas were. The battle had settled now. From here, he could not see if there were any African casualties. He steadied himself, aimed, and sought another target. This time, he saw the top of a man's head bob above a rock. He took a shot. The recoil spat dust in his eye. "Miss." He reloaded and took another shot. This time he held his breath when he found a target. He pulled the trigger. "Miss." "Captain." As he reloaded, Hassan shouted to the officer who had been in charge before he arrived. "You said the rockets are support to be here soon?" "It will be about forty minutes now." the officer shouted. "I'll get your men off this rock before then. We're replacing units here with fresh troops. How would you like to rest in Dire Dawa?" "I would like that." the officer grinned. "Are we retreating?" That word. Hassan tensed at the sound of it. "We have done all we need to do here. Our advantages are wearing out, now we're just guarding a damnable desert." "I will follow you." the officer replied. Hassan leveled for another shot. He slowed his breath and waited. Another opportunity presented itself. "Miss." Hassan realized he wasn't much of a sniper, but he was determined to get a kill. He wondered if the true sniper was irritated with him. It did not matter. Hassan was in command. He reloaded, aimed, and waited again. And when an opportunity presented itself... ...the man was aiming at disappeared behind a rock, but another shifted behind him as sudden as Hassan pulled the trigger. Hassan saw a spray of red, and then nothing. "Hit!" the spotter said. "That was a hit!"