Legion

Начало книги

I was watching my friend die.

He was slumped back against a slab of rock smeared red with his blood. Right hand held against the torn chain mail and flesh of his stomach, left arm hanging useless by his side. When he pressed against the spear-wound, dark liquid seeped between his weathered fingers.

I wanted to make him laugh before he left us. ‘You’re doing a shit job of dying, Brutus.’

‘Piss off,’ he tried to snarl, but his grey eyes were smiling.

Alone, we sheltered between rocks in an arid canyon between scorched mountainsides. The stink of smoke, blood and shit teased our nostrils – nearby a small village burned. From the sound of drawn-out screams, my friend was not the only one whose flesh had become a home for iron.

‘Haven’t you done this before?’ I tried to joke, desperate to show indifference to the desolation and his wretched state. Desperate to be the warrior that he had taught me to be.

Читать дальше →