Phoenix Rising Read Online Free PDF

no sense of self-preservation. He is released from the Hole, has no idea of his fate, and yet he is happy to argue with his superiors .
    Conlan sat back in his chair. “But you still gave the order.”
    “Had no choice, boy,” Turbis grumbled. “He couldn’t disobey the Emperor. No one can.”
    “But…”
    “Conlan.” Martius put his drink aside, and fixed Conlan with a stare. “I had no choice. I did not agree with the decision. I argued as much as I dared with him, but he would not be moved. Believe me, no one wanted to save the Twelfth more than I did.”
    “Why would you care about the Twelfth?” Conlan shook his head. “Why would you care about any of us?”
    Martius dropped his gaze. He cursed himself for showing weakness but he would not take the blame for the destruction of the Twelfth. “I cared about them because they were mine.”
    Conlan frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    For Martius the pain was too fresh. Villius broke the silence. “General Martius began his career with the Twelfth,” he said. “He was legion father to them in the end.”
    Conlan appeared to deflate. The fire extinguished from his eyes, his ire with it. He raised his right hand to his ear and tugged absently at the lobe. “The Emperor made you decimate your own legion? He made you destroy their standard? They will never march again!” Conlan’s voice trembled. “For the gods’ sake, why would he do that?”
    He is reckless and seems to be set on suicide through lack of self-awareness, but he has a strong will. Perhaps strong enough to question anything he felt was wrong. If he could learn some discipline, Conlan might become a useful ally.
    “We live in a complicated world,” replied Martius. “We are only human, and as such we are ruled by our own emotions, fickle and thoughtless just like the gods in whose image we are made.”
    “Martius is a threat and the Emperor wants to hurt him,” Turbis interjected. “The Emperor doesn’t like him.”
    Martius stifled a smile. “Well, that is another way of putting it my friend, yes.”
    Conlan reached forward, grasped the jug in the centre of the table and slowly poured himself a drink. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
    He seemed to have found his nerve. Either that or he did not care about his fate.
    “I thought you’d brought me here to sentence me, or demote me, or have me flogged or... shamed out of the service. What am I doing here?”
    “Well,” Martius said. “I always like to get acquainted with a new legion father.”

CHAPTER FOUR
Conlan

    CONLAN REELED. LEGION FATHER? The words echoed through his mind, and he doubted the events of the last few weeks, doubted his very sanity. Am I still in the Hole? Or have I been driven mad by the isolation? He looked at Martius, sitting calm and relaxed across the table. The man had a thin-lipped smile on his face, his eyes glinting onyx in the sunlight, aloof and unreadable.  
    “Well,” said Martius. “Are you going to say anything?”
    “Legion father?” Conlan croaked, his throat resisting reality as much as his mind.
    Martius’s smile broadened and he raised an eyebrow. “You were voted in by the men three days ago. It was a landslide victory.”
    “How?” Conlan replied. The words slowly sank in. Voted in? He had not long been centre branch leader, never mind his promotion to cohort commander, a post that he had undertaken, for the most part, in the Hole.  
    Turbis snorted loudly. “It’s a vote boy, eh?” He reached over and patted Conlan’s shoulder.
    Conlan had expected, at the very least, to be dishonourably discharged, to face the prospect of seeking civilian work, or worse, joining a mercenary band in some far flung state, the Farisian Empire, perhaps. But this? Surely it was a joke. He did not know what to think of Felix Martius. He wondered if the general was truly an honourable man, or if this was just an elaborate game, such as he had heard the nobility were wont to play