by John Holmes
U.S. Army Mage Corps:
The Sword of Islam
By
John F. Holmes
This book was originally published as “Mage Corps”. To be honest, I rushed it, and had planned on doing it as part of a two part series. As such the original book was incomplete and not really up to par with what I had intended. Here is the complete story, with an extensive rewrite, fixes of several errors pointed out to me by readers, and a complete ending. Thanks for reading!
~ The Author
“… a Mage must, at all times, maintain situational awareness. Not only of magical threats on the battlefield, but for conventional threats as well.”
~ FM 3-80 BATTLEFIELD THAUMATURGY, DEC 2011
Prologue
Gorengal Valley, Durkistan / Pakistan Border
The hot air in Durkistan felt like holding a hairdryer to his face, especially when riding up in the turret of an Uparmored HUMVEE. Sweat rolled down his neck, making little trails in the dust, and a bandana tied around his face did little to stop it from going into Specialist Smith’s mouth, into his lungs, up his nose, and in his eyes. The dust as finer than talcum powder, and from what the others had told him, was composed of equal parts lead, plastic, depleted uranium from the first Gulf War, and dried feces. It was hard to concentrate his mind on what he was supposed to be doing; even life or death can become mind numbingly boring, eventually. A week ago, he had been at the tail end of a lazy, cool Montana summer, and now he felt like he was on a different planet. Certainly the landscape, high snow-clad mountains and burnt brown desert, punctuated here and there by bright green and red field of poppies, was like nothing he had experienced before growing up in Upstate New York.
They had been on the “road” for three hours now, and every time the truck struck a pothole, the metal edge of the turret ring seemed to hit his kidneys just under his body armor. The canvas strap Smith was sitting on had long ago cut off the circulation to his legs, and he regretted not taking a towel to wrap around it like he had seen the other gunners do. He started to daydream a bit, thinking back to high school, where he had played starting cornerback. Blonde haired, blue eyed all American kid, just not good enough for a college scholarship. Or maybe not big enough. He was five ten in his combat boots, but to play college, he would have needed a few more inches in height and thirty more pounds.
Below him, in the front passenger seat, Corporal Gaines turned around and slapped him on the inside of his leg, a hard, stinging slap. “Stay awake up there, Noob!” he yelled up to Smith. “We’re coming to a chokepoint!”
Smith started to yell back down to him, realized it would do no good, then sat back up straight and spun the turret a few degrees to the left. The M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon swung with it, but Smith ignored the machine gun, concentrating on what he felt in his mind. He had an IED detection spell riding a good two hundred meters out in front of the convoy, and it had started flashing ghostlike, on the edge of his vision. He reached up to his vest, where a radio alarm hung on his armor and felt the two push buttons on the small transmitter. He slapped the lower button, sending out the signal for Roadside Bomb, and saw the amber light shine inside the HUMVEE ahead of him. All the trucks ground to an immediate halt, gunners spinning in their turrets to cover assigned sectors on each of the five trucks. Lieutenant Johansson’s voice immediately came over the radio.
“Tripwire” Smith’s call sign, “this is Smasher Six, what have you got, over?”
Smith fumbled with the microphone, trying to concentrate on what he felt in his mind. This was it, his first patrol, and he had already found an IED. His heart was racing, and his mouth had gone dry. He whispered the incantation for Detecting Roadside Bombs under his breath, trying to strengthen the spell.
“Wait one, Smasher. Trying to figure out now. Break” and he let go of the talk button.
Below him, Corporal Gaines was getting impatient. “Come on, you overpaid little twit. It’s getting fucking hot in here.”
Smith tuned him out, focusing on the spell he was working. There, about two hundred meters. A big one. He could sense the energy left behind by the men emplacing it, an echo of their thoughts, a sensation of weight, as if he were trying to lift the bomb himself.
“Smasher Six, I have an IED about two hundred meters down the trail, right side, probably in that ditch under the side of the road. Big, as far as I can tell, more than a hundred pounds. It’s a two man lift, over.” He looked over at where one of the infantry guys from the truck ahead of him was laying on the ground, pulling security, just in time to see the guy make the Sign of the Cross, and twist his fingers back at him, a ward to avert magic. Smiths’ spirits sank back down. Superstitious assholes.
“Roger, Tripwire, thanks for the heads up. Good job, Smasher Six, out.”
Lt. Johansson stepped out of his truck, walking back to meet his Platoon Sergeant. He kept his eyes on the ridgeline above him, and wished again for a UAV overhead. They were on their way to a Shura, or gathering, with the village elders in the Gorengal Valley, the first time they had asked for a visit from the Americans. Hopefully it meant they were making progress with the stubborn tribesmen who lived there. If they did, it meant that it would be that much harder for foreign fighters, mostly exiled Durkistanis, Chechens, Saudis, and other various jihadi Muslims, to slip across the border to Pakistan. The Gorengal was a main conduit for Anti-NATO forces to slip into the more settled flat lands.
His senior NCO, Sergeant First Class Ward, a huge redneck with his ever-present dip in his mouth, spat a long stream of tobacco juice onto the dusty ground. A veteran of two tours in Iraq and on his second tour in Durkistan, Ward kept his eyes jumping around, from the ridgeline to his men to the road ahead, down the road, and back to the ridge.
“What do you think?” asked the officer. Ward looked around one more time, and then gave his LT his usual thousand meter, “seen it all before” look.
“Gonna have to get EOD in here. Or we can try and detonate it ourselves. You know it’s gonna take them hours to get here, and I don’t like sitting in this valley.” He turned and roared at one of the gunners, who had stuck his head back down in the turret to say something to someone in his truck. “KOWALSKI, GET YOUR GODDAMNED HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND WATCH YOUR SECTOR!”
Specialist Smith leaned on the SAW, looking around at the terraces carved into the sides of the valley. This was his first patrol, straight out of more than six months Advanced Individual Training at the Defense Magic Institute in Billings, Montana. First patrol, and he had struck pay dirt. Maybe that annoying jackass, Corporal Gaines, would leave him alone now, or at least show him some more respect.
The bullet smashed into his shoulder, a high velocity round that powered its way through the protective spell that he had cast around himself earlier in the morning. The heavy caliber slug was slowed enough that it didn’t puncture the kevlar of his vest, but it seemed like hammer had hit the back of his shoulder, and he felt the bones shatter. He fell down onto the SAW, crushing his nose and sending a shower of blood down onto the floor of the truck.
Hands reached up and pulled hard on his legs, dragging Smith out of the turret. His vision started to go gray from around the edges inward, and a bolt of pain shot out of his shoulder as it struck the radio mount.
“CONTACT, CONTACT, TRIPWIRE IS DOWN!” screamed CPL Gaines into the radio, just as the truck in front of them exploded in a fireball. In the HUMVEE behind, an MK-19 automatic grenade launcher opened up, sending 40mm grenades into the hillside, KA-THUNK, KA-THUNK. It was cut off quickly as a heavy, Russian made DhsK machine gun sent rounds lashing through the truck, shattering the fiberglass hood and walking their way through the gunner.
A voice was screaming
inside Smith’s head, over and over, the words for a smoke screen, a fog spell, anything to hide the slaughter that was taking place in front of him. They couldn’t form properly with the blood running out of his nose and the stars running around in his vision. His thoughts were scrambled by Corporal Gaines firing off a long burst from his M-4 rifle, the gunshots deafening everyone as he fired through the slightly open window.
At the lead vehicle, Lt. Johansson was down on the ground, firing at the figures that were shooting at them from on top of the ridge. The driver of his truck panicked and stepped on the gas, trying to get out of the ambush, running over the officers’ legs. His scream of pain was cut short as the rear wheels thumped over his back, blood spreading in a pool beneath him The gun truck, struck by more heavy machine gun fire, hit a ditch on the side of the road, rolled over, and the engine started to race as smoke rose from it. SFC Ward stood and started motioning for everyone to rally around him, but he vanished in a burst of spell fire, burning bright as the sun.
Before he passed out from the pain, Specialist Smith felt the HUMVEE lift and start to spin, rolling over and over. The three soldiers inside were thrown around, smashing off sharp edges and getting covered in shattered glass. As it flipped, the door next to Smith popped open and he was thrown out onto the ground. Everything went black as he landed in a crumpled heap in the dirt, gunfire and explosions fading out.
He woke sometime later, the sun still high in the sky. Around him was smoke. He could smell it, burning diesel fuel and bodies, melting fiberglass. He didn’t open his eyes though. Specialist Smith lay flat on his back, with pain shooting down his arm.
“Wake up, infidel.” He felt a cold, metallic object tap his head, and opened his eyes. The barrel of an AK-47 was pointed directly at his eye. Behind it was the gap toothed grin of a Durkistani tribesman, ratty beard framing yellow stumps and broken lips.
“OK, good. Very good.” The voice came from his left, and he slowly turned his head to look at the speaker, forcing his way through his pain, trying to ignore the assault rifle aimed at his head. The man speaking to him was tall and middle aged, with dusky skin, wearing a camouflage jacket and turban. His beard reached down to his chest, shot through with grey.
“Oh hell. I thought we killed you.” the wounded soldier whispered. The man laughed softly.
“No, my young Mage. Bin Laden is quite dead, and surprisingly to him, roasting in hell. I spoke to him yesterday.”
“You’re a …” Smith worked to keep his attention on the man, but he was starting to fade out again. The pain in his shoulder mad him want to vomit.
“Sorcerer, Shaman, Mage, Wizard, whatever you want to call me. But,” and he craned his neck, listening to the sound of approaching helicopters. The man turned slightly and a jet of fire leapt from his open hand, followed quickly by another. In the distance, Smith heard a dull CRUMP and the helicopter sounds stopped short, following by a crashing BOOM. “… that will be a discussion for another day. Not that you HAVE another day.” Close by, single shots were echoing around the valley.
“Well, Specialist Smith, it is time for me and my friends to go. I think that you Americans have learned a little lesson here today. I should leave you alive as a message to your fellow soldiers, but, as they say in your country, the only good Freak is a dead Freak. ” He was interrupted by a harsh question by the man with the rifle. The wizard replied, and an argument broke out between the two. Smith closed his eyes and concentrated, far harder than he ever had back at the DMI. Through the shooting pain in his shoulder, he forced his mind to harden the air in front of his face, to make a solid barrier, trying to lace random carbon molecules floating in the air together to form an invisible, micro thin but incredibly tough matrix. One of the simplest of spells, but he was fading, blackness creeping in from around the edges of his mind.
When the shot came, it pounded into his head with the force of a sledgehammer.
Chapter 1 Forward Operating Base REIGOUX, Durkistan
A series of overhead shots filled the large screen in the Brigade Tactical Operations Center. The pictures were from a US Air Force high altitude drone, showing the ambush site. The Operations Officer pointed to various spots, highlighting possible enemy positions during the ambush. He saw the Brigade Commander, Colonel Sims, frowning, so he motioned to the PFC working the projector.
“Next slide, please.”
When the slide came up, embedded in it was a grainy, black and white film. Hot spots showed up in black, toy sized HUMVEES rolling up through the valley. The Brigade staff watched in silence as the convoy stopped, and small figures spilled out to pull security. After a minute, all hell broke loose, and the screen blanked out from the explosions until the operator could adjust the camera. At that point, vehicles were already burning and being thrown and flipped.
The Brigade Commander leaned forward. “Stop. Right there.” On the screen, from the southern end of the valley, the picture started to pixelate and lose definition.
“OK, bring it forward.” As they watched, the distortion crept across the screen, blurring out the scene of destruction. Finally, the main area was completely blocked out.
The Colonel turned to his Intelligence Officer. “Is this what you were talking about, Captain Aragonza?” The S-2, a petite Asian woman, stood up to make herself heard.
“Yes Sir. What you’re seeing is spell cast distortion that obscured the Global Hawk’s observation. We suspect that whoever did this also blocked the units’ assigned Mage from sensing the ambush itself. If you watch the rest of the surveillance video …”
On the screen, the camera zoomed out to show a flight of two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters approaching from the north. As they got closer, a shaft of light shot out of the center of the distortion, knocking one aircraft directly out of the sky. The second violently maneuvered in evasive action before another bolt struck its tail rotor and it crashed into the ground.
“If you notice, the weapon is line of sight. That precludes any shoulder fired or launcher mounted Surface to Air Missiles, which would move in an arc. It’s characteristic of a very high level directed energy spell.”
The older officer grunted, more to himself than to his staff. “That would make sense.” He turned back to the S-3.
“Continue, Major Clark.”
“Total casualties were twenty one KIA, including two crewmen from one of the Apaches. The pilot of COCHISE 72 is in critical condition; the gunner is serious but expected to survive. One soldier from the convoy survived, the Mage assigned to the convoy, Specialist Xavier Smith. He’s at the Combat Support Hospital with a shattered shoulder and a fractured skull, but he’s expected to pull through.”
“I want him fully debriefed as soon as it’s practical. I want to know what happened there. S-2, why did this happen, and who that is under that screen?” He glowered at the Captain, but she stood her ground while the Operations Officer explained the mission.
“Sir, the mission of meeting with the tribal elders of the Gorengal Valley was assigned to Second Platoon, Bravo Company, First Battalion, Twenty Sixth Cavalry Regiment under Lieutenant Johansson.” 1st of the 26th was the Brigades’ Cavalry Scouts, assigned to seek out the enemy and provide information, a mixed force of HUMVEES and OH-58 scout helicopters. With the occupation of Durkistan, however, and the shortage of manpower that the conflict in Iraq created, the Cav had been regulated to regular patrolling missions, trying to win the hearts and minds of tribesmen who had been fighting outsiders since Alexander the Great.
“What we think happened is that a decoy IED was set up to stop the convoy, leaving them in a kill zone. The Gorengal has been quiet, but we had suspected that fighters were slipping in from Pakistan through the valley. This was our first effort to reach out to the tribesmen there, and a Special Forces team had gone through there last month. They seemed to feel that, with the right incentives” meaning money “they might be swayed to our side. The Cav patrol was to meet in Al-kahut with representatives from three diffe
rent villages, and set up a Combat Outpost just outside Al-kahut. The ambush happened eleven kilometers west of the village, in the entrance to the valley.”
The Intelligence Officer took over the briefing. “Sir, there was no indication of any high level threat, either conventional or magical. It was felt that a Platoon would be well able to handle itself. Due to a low level threat to our UAV’s, there was no aerial surveillance support.”
The Colonel nodded. The local Durkistani shamans seemed to make a sport of interrupting the delicate airflow over the smaller drone’s wings, whipping up a wind that sent them plummeting to the ground.
“As far as who did this? Right now, we have no idea. Defense Intelligence Agency assets have reported no one of this power west of the Pakistani Border. Same with CIA sources. They say that things are quiet on the Paki side of things. The Mage Corps G-2 has nothing, either.”
Colonel Sims stood up and walked to the front of the room, and every eye followed him. “People, this is unacceptable. We just had the biggest loss of American Soldiers in one battle since the Vietnam War, not counting that CH-47 that crashed last year. Even RPG’s get lucky sometimes. This was not luck. We failed; I failed. Now Congress is going to come here and crawl up my ass, the Division Commander is going to crawl up my ass, the Regional Commander is going to crawl up my ass, and CENTCOM is going to crawl up my ass. In turn, I am going to stick my boot up YOUR asses if you do not find out who this Wizard is. I will NOT let this Brigade get bitch slapped again.” He paused to let that sink in.
“Find out who he is, find out why he is here, and I want that valley locked down TIGHT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
A chorus of “YESSIRS” and “HOOAHS” answered him, and he strode out of the TOC with a pissed off look on his face. He had twenty one letters to write to families.