Extraordinary Rendition
Hakim Hazik
The armies of Trans-Ravius approached the ancient capital of Rome in a classic pincer movement.
In the arduous task that the emperor, Nawazius Lundius Bazarius, had undertaken, that of restoring the empire to its ancient splendour, it was first necessary to revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience. He impressed upon them that a people ruined by oppression and indolent from despair, could no longer supply a numerous army with the means of luxury or an extension in tenure of service or sixty percent of the GDP.
The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless caprice, which the soldiers could only gratify at the expense of their own blood, as their seditious elections had so frequently been followed by civil wars, which consumed the flowers of the legions either in the field of battle, or in the dungeons of Adyala or in the cruel abuse of victory.
He painted in the most lively colours, the exhausted state of treasury, the desolation of the provinces, the disgrace of the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of the rapacious barbarians.
Qaimalius Imperius may rule in Indus for a while and Pervezius Cactus in the province of Gandhara. These usurpers were his personal adversaries. He could not think of indulging any private resentment till he had saved an empire, whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely prevented, crush both the army and the people.
We still possess the original letter addressed by Nawazius Lundius Bazarius to the senate and the people. ‘Conscript fathers, says the Emperor, ‘know that three hundred and twenty thousand Goths have invaded the Roman territory. If I vanquish them, your gratitude will reward my services. We shall fight after Rana Mashood, after Pervez Rashid, after Ahasan Iqbal’
‘The stregnth of the empire, Indus and Gandhara are usurped by pretenders and we blush to acknowledge that the archers of the South serve under the banners of Qaimalius Imperius; their time will come.
The melancholy firmness of this epistle announces a hero, careless of his fate, conscious of his danger, but still deriving a well grounded hope from the resources of his mind and a wholesome nihari breakfast.
A large detachment, rising out of the secret and difficult passes of Margalla, which by order had been occupied, suddenly assailed the rear of the victorious rebels. Several large bodies of barbarians, covering their retreat with a movable fortification of wagons and Hi-Aces, retired, or rather escaped, from the field of slaughter.
A select body of the Barbarian youhtias were received among the Imperial Troops; the remainder were sold into servitude. There was a considerable number of female captives, from which we may conclude that the invaders entertained some designs of settlement as well as of plunder.
During the course of the rigorous winter, in which they were besieged by the Emperor’s troops, famine and pestilence, desertion and the sword, continually diminished the sit-in multitude.
Some of the stragglers who were caught were subjected to a speech by
Shujaat Gujraticus. A few such examples impressed a salutary consternation upon the guilty wretches, till they begged for forgiveness and were given the freedom of Jati Umra and Bazaricus Lundicus, at the order of the Emperor who sired numerous progeny to ruled in peace and with justice in the Roman Empire.