"01 - The Cutting Edge 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

more generations than Ylo had teeth.
Like all of the Praetorian barracks, the guardroom was lofty and ancient. The
mosaic floor illustrated dramatic scenes of legionaries battling dragons, but
there was one spot where thousands of military sandals had worn the colors right
away, and that bare white patch was directly before the officer's table. Ylo
marched forward, placed his feet on the marker, and saluted. He was
surprised-and very gratified-to realize that his knees were not knocking, or his
teeth chattering. True, his palms were sweaty and there was an unpleasant
tightness in his lower abdomen, but those effects did not show. He waited to
hear his fate with proper military impassivity.
In the Guard, even centurions were gentlemen. Hithi seemed genuinely regretful
as he explained how a reassessment had revealed that Ylo fell just short of the
Guard's height requirement.
He laid down one paper and lifted another. "Seems there is an opening in the
XXth. A transfer might be arranged."
It could be worse, much worse. Blisters and calluses were better than
thumbscrews and the rack. A barracks was better than an unmarked grave. The XXth
Legion was not one of the scum outfits-and no alternative was being offered.
Ylo said, "Thank you, sir!"
"There's a tesserary from the XXth here at the moment, as it happens. He and his
men could escort you."
"Sir!" Ylo said.
The centurion smiled.
The smile very nearly broke Ylo's self-control. He wanted to weep, for it was a
brutal reminder that there was no one to appeal to; the feud between the
Hathinos and the Yllipos was now over.
Thus was Guardsman Ylo toppled from the giddy peaks of the aristocracy to the
rat-eat-rat world of the common foot soldier. From all-night dancing to all-day
marching. From fine wine to sour beer, and silk sheets to bedbugs. From
sweetskinned debutantes in rose gardens to toothless harridans who took all his
money and kept telling him to hurry up.
With thanks to the Gods for each new dawn, he accepted his fall from grace and
set to work to survive the brutish, penniless, mind-crippling life of a
legionary.
The standard tour of duty was twenty-five years.
Always at Winterfest the Imperial Archivist named the year just ending. No one
was very surprised when he proclaimed 2995 to have been the Year of his
Majesty's Ninetieth Birthday. By then the Yllipos were all dead and forgotten.
And 2996 turned out to be the Year of the Great-grandchild. The superstitious
and those who knew some history were already starting to worry about the coming
millennium, but 2997 was destined to be known as the Year of Seven Victories.
The troubles began in Zark. A few days after Winterfest, the emir of Garpoon
received an ultimatum from the caliph and appealed to the imperor for help.
The emir had very little choice in the matter, as the Imperial ambassador was
holding a sword under his chin at the time, but such fine points of diplomacy
were of no concern to a common foot soldier. Five thousand strong, the XXth
Legion marched south to Malfin and embarked. Ylo learned then that he was just
as prone to seasickness as any other imp and that there were worse experiences
than a forced march in winter.
After four weeks at sea, he disembarked at a large city, which might possibly be