Legion by Dan Abnett Read Free Book Online

auto-turret controls, impelling the sense-net to target the stern guns at passing rocks and crumbling slopes of sand rock.
    ‘Set it on auto-serve and get some kip, Dimi,’ Bronzi suggested.
    Shiban yawned, and promptly fell asleep, rocking in his leather cradle.
    Bronzi envied him. It had been years since he’d been able to manage the old geno trick of crash-sleep, the hypno-suggestive shut-down that allowed a man to catch a wink under any circumstances. Bronzi had been trained that way, but the knack had left him.
    He kept his hand closed around the bucking stick and watched the ghost-green world outside flash by.
    T HE SUN CAME up, a slow, terrible firestorm rising from the south. All of the landscape’s shadows stretched out, long and painful, and Bronzi took off the viewer. White light filtered in through the cabin’s chipped and crazed windows, and he decided to rely on auspex alone. Twenty kilometres now. The cursor on the cab’s lightmap display moved slowly towards its destination.
    S ONEKA WOKE WITH a start. Nothing special there. The dull, afterglow of pain in his hand had woken him that way every morning since he’d arrived at Visages.
    He sat up on his bunk. Dawn light, already hot and bright, speared in through the gaps around his rattan blind. He’d been having the strangest dream. He’d been playing the head game with Dimi, and Lon had brought him a good piece. He’d taken the diorite head out of Lon’s calloused hands, and looked down at it to judge it.
    The carved face had been Hurtado’s. It had grinned up at him.
    ‘Tell me this, Peto,’ the head had said, ‘all these broken heads, are any two faces alike, or are they all different?’
    ‘I don’t know, Hurt. Get out of my dream.’
    ‘It’s important. Do they all look the same? Are they all different? Doesn’t that matter? Doesn’t it?’
    Soneka had lobbed the head away into the wide scree field of broken heads. He’d done it with his left hand. His left hand had had fingers and a thumb.
    ‘Fug,’ Soneka said, coughing. He had dust in his throat. That was par for the course at Visages.
    He looked down at his incomplete hand and felt the missing fingers waggle.
    He had slept naked. He pulled on his breeches, socks and boots, and went out into the early light bare-chested. A hard rind of sun was cresting the edge of the crags. The sky was off-white, like old ivory, and the landscape was a pink wash, broken by hard black shadows bending to evade the sun. It was going to be a hot one. He could already feel the air baking. The local livestock, some of them still saddled from the previous day’s racing, wandered free, grazing the patchy grasses. Soneka walked towards the well, rubbing his face with his good hand. He needed a shave; a shave and a grapefruit.
    The livestock all looked up at the same time. They stared in the same direction, some of them still chewing, and then broke and scattered.
    Geno instinct pulled Soneka back into the cold shadows of one of the terracotta huts. He looked around, suddenly very alert. Where were the sentries, the perimeter guard, the overnight patrols?
    The pink wash of the landscape moved. Semi-visible figures scurried forwards out of the desert rim.
    Soneka swallowed hard. He turned and ran back through the shaded maze of dwellings towards the post commander’s habitent. He wanted to raise the alarm, but he didn’t want the enemy to know he’d raised the alarm. Koslov had a silent signal device that trembled every post resident’s wrist cuff.
    Soneka slipped into the hot darkness of the habitent. Koslov sat at his camp desk, staring at Soneka in surprise.
    ‘Commander!’ Soneka whispered. ‘Emergency alert now!’
    Koslov didn’t move. He continued to stare back at Soneka with the same look of mild surprise. ‘Commander Koslov?’
    Koslov’s eyes did not follow Soneka as he moved forwards. They continued to stare at the tent flap where Soneka had entered. Koslov didn’t move at all.
    Soneka