"Dave Duncan - A Handful Of Men 1 - The Cutting Edge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

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 Ullacarn. It was very hot and had palm trees. The mountains to the
north were perhaps the Progiste Range. The XXth formed up and marched away along the coast, maybe heading for somewhere called Garpoon.


The hot, arid country was hostile and unfamiliar. The rocky hills were full of cryptic wadis that could be full of djinns.


Ylo had no illusions about heroism or glory. He knew the odds against a tyro surviving his first battle. He knew that even those odds were vastly
better than the chances of a simple legionary ever winning as much as one word of praise from his centurion, let alone recognition from the officers.
He admitted to himself that he was terrified, and would be perfectly satisfied if he could just conceal that terror from his companions.


The best he had to look forward to was another twenty-three years of this.


He survived the first day's march. And the second. On the third day he found himself in the Battle of Karthin.



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