Age of Heroes Read Online Free PDF Page A

before he heard the crack of gunfire.
    Suddenly he was flat on his back, shoulder numb, gaze fixed on the overcast sky.
    Shot.
    Somebody had shot him.
    Some dumbass son of a bitch had shot him .
    Pain roared, like a bellows-stoked fire. At the same time a whole volley of bullets came his way. They ricocheted off the rock he had been perched on, which was now shielding him. They kicked up whiffs of snow by his head and feet.
    Anthony rolled up tight, making the most of the shelter he had. His shoulder was a mass of flaring agony. There was an in-out wound, the exit point fringed with synthetic fibres from the puffer jacket’s stuffing, like a miniature white crown. Now blood, leaking from both holes.
    Survivable. He had had worse. In fact, for Anthony, as for all his kind, there was no injury that was not survivable. They healed at the same rate mortals did, but they always healed. Always.
    Still the bullets whipped and whizzed towards him. At least three shooters, he estimated. They were situated on the far side of the stream. They had been lying there, concealed, waiting.
    Waiting for him?
    Or perhaps for Roy Young. Yes, that was more likely. Anthony Peregrine didn’t have any enemies that he knew of. None that weren’t so long dead that their bones were topsoil. Whereas Young, a former soldier – maybe there was some unfinished business there, some ghost from the past.
    Or maybe Argentinians, locals out for payback for the Falklands War. That stood to reason. They had tailed the Englishman all the way from Ushuaia, having singled him out for retribution. Never mind that Young was barely even born when conflict broke out in 1982. To these rifle-toting firebrands, his nationality was enough to make him a legitimate target.
    Too bad that they had mistaken Anthony for him.
    Too bad for them, that was.
    Because Anthony Peregrine did not care for being shot. He was not going to take an insult like that lying down.
    Literally.
    He sprang to his feet, forbidding his shoulder from hurting. It would not hamper him. He refused.
    And he ran.
    Not away from the gunfire; towards it.
    He ran faster than any mortal could. He ran with god-given speed and agility, jinking, zigzagging, left, right, left, right. To his assailants he would be a blur – moving too swiftly for them to train their sights on him.
    They fired nonetheless, but not one of their shots came close.
    Anthony hurdled the stream in a single bound, a four-metre leap. He had already noted the position of the nearest gunman: lurking in a stand of evergreens. He dived straight through the foliage, headlong, colliding with the would-be assassin. Together, the two of them rolled and tumbled. A rifle went flying. The gunman let out a grunt of distress. Anthony ended up on top, straddling him. He raised a fist.
    The gunman was dressed in fatigues with snow disruption pattern camouflage. He wore goggles and a flak vest, matching colours, white and dark green. He had a holstered sidearm and grenades clipped to a bandolier.
    It was all standard military-issue tactical gear, apart from his helmet. That had been modified, sporting a solid crest across the crown from front to back.
    Anthony had never seen a contemporary soldier’s helmet in such a design before. Nor had he seen a patch of the kind that was sewn onto the man’s sleeves: a circle, inset with what looked like the letter M.
    He was momentarily taken aback. Things did not compute. This was no Argentinian civilian, no chancer with a hunting rifle and a grudge. This was something else altogether. Something more serious. More dangerous.
    Anthony’s puzzlement cost him. He took a bullet square in the chest. The impact sent him flying.
    He struggled onto all fours. A lung had been perforated. Blood bubbled at the back of his throat. Every breath was a wet wheeze. He could feel nothing between his collarbone and the base of his sternum, just a sense of absence.
    But he was a warrior. A Myrmidon, no less.
    The man he had