The Cutting Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

so? I want two of the maniple signifers here soonest. If any other legion's standard outshines the XIIth's at the council, I will personally roast their balls on a stick. I need a shave, a wash, and clean kit-right now!"
    Hardgraa grinned, showing a ragged assortment of amber teeth. "Yessir! " he said, and took off at the double.
    An hour-later Ylo found himself still awake, attending the council of war. At least, he thought he was still awake. Who would ever suggest that a man wear a wolfskin cape-with a hood, yet-over full armor in a tropical desert? But to attend a council of war, standing on shaking legs in back of the prince imperial, facing a proconsul ... No, he had to be awake; no dream could ever be this unlikely. If the Gods weren't insane then he was.
    Under the furnace glare of the sun, the circle of legates huddled within the circle of their signifers. Ylo was not close enough to hear what was said, but he had already heard Shandie tell his advisors what he expected to be said, and what ought to be said, and the conversation would not veer much from that path.
    Technically Shandie was Iggipolo's subordinate, but everyone knew that state of affairs might terminate at any minute with a courier on a steaming horse bringing word of the imperor's death. Furthermore, it had been Shandie who had brought up the XIIth in time to turn Karthin from utter disaster to slim victory. Thus the proconsul would be very considerate of that particular legate's opinion. Shandie's opinion was that the caliph had been taught a lesson, but the Impire would need to field more resources before it could apply any further education. There had been no formal declaration of war, there would be no formal treaty. The status quo had been restored and the issues must wait for another day.
    No one was very happy about that. There were too many dead imps being dug out of the mud. Even a battle-shattered tyro like Ylo could yearn for the caliph's head on a pole at short noticepreferably after someone else had collected it-but to argue with reality was crazy. The Impire had held the field and could do nothing with it, a useless victory.
    When everyone agreed to that, the council dispersed, and the army turned to its own affairs: tending the wounded, burying the dead, thanking the Gods ... prisoners and fodder and victuals and transport and sanitation and replacements and all the concerns of a mobile city. The cowards were strung up and flogged before the assembled legion-four died, and the rest were crippled. Shandie had confirmed the sentences; he watched impassively as they were carried out. His signifer stood at his back and watched also and remembered the hours he had lain in the swamp, playing dead.
    Rumor said that the VIIth Cohort of the XXXth had run from the field and was going to be formally decimated.
    In the Imperial Army, a tribune might command a cohort or a troop of cavalry or an administrative department or even the legion itself at times-or nothing at all. The distinctions were subtle and deathly important. The legate of the XIIth had about a score of assorted tribunes at his call. Being a prince as well as commander of the crack XIIth, he also maintained a civilian staff, a court in waiting, and it comprised a dozen or so advisors and flunkies. Ylo was now expected to coordinate all these people and oversee every matter, military or civil, large or small.
    Lists and reports, dozens of reports-reports above all. Every one of them involved the legate and his signifer. Signifers had duties of their own, also. Standards did not, without assistance, signal commands or carry themselves at parades or honor the Gods. The legionary signifer had command of all the lesser signifers; Shandie's signifer had charge of the coding sticks and all his secret correspondence.
    Ylo should have gone stark raving crazy during the next few hours, but he just did not have the time. What had he gotten himself into? Looking beautiful while holding up a stupid