Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html well. "Khud-hird, is he all right? Ve ve got to get him to a Haian!" Shkai'ra looked down at the Yeoli, still lying across her saddle. Bleeding from the nose, big graze across the side of his face, but probably no broken bones from the way his body moved. She peeled back an eyelid, then the other. The pupils reacted, but one was a little bigger than the other. "Concussion," she said. "Not too bad." Her voice dropped, steady and just loud enough to carry a few feet over the enormous noise of combat from the road. She fixed the girl's eyes with hers. "What did I tell you when you arrived, about discipline?" Sova's lips thinned. "I know. I'm under army law." "Correct, military apprentice. And the punishment for disobeying a clear order in the face of the enemy is flogging. In this army, flogging up to falling at the discretion of the commander." Sova blinked; no doubt she'd heard tales of what that felt like, from Yeolis. Shkai'ra waited,expression bleak. "Given your youth, the circumstances and whatever, I'll commute it to fifteen strokes. Consider yourself on report, trooper. Now take that one—" she jerked a thumb at the casualty across Sova's saddlebow, the cause of the trouble, "—and Sneeze-name doesn't-take-orders number two here back to the Haians. When he wakes up, you can decide whether you'd rather have your strokes right away or beside him when he's fit, because he's getting the same. Dismissed!" Sova found her hands shaking, as she helped lift Echera-e, who was still limp, onto a litter.He's so pale . Suddenly she wanted to throw up.Wake up, wake up, love … The cool sense in her wondered why the fear.He might die. I'm going to get flogged. He's going to get flogged if he doesn't die. I just fought —the feeling was utterly divorced from thoughts or the truth of the present, that it was over and she was safe—all of the above. Wake up , livling.If he dies I want to say I carried him , she thought, and tried to keep her arms steady on the litter-grips.No . Khyd-hirdsaid it wasn't too bad . There was always a rolling infirmary near the head of the great column now, since the harassment had increased. She scanned for the cart with the double white-striped flag. A moan came from the litter. " Mamaiyana, Tyizil…" The name of his horse. "Sovee." The litter moved as his weight shifted; she looked over her shoulder to see him lean over its edge, and throw up onto the ground. "Kyuzai, escuse me, ohhhhhhhh…" He fell back. "Keep still, Echerry," she said. "I'm here. You'll be all right and so will Ansena and we won and we're almost at the infirmary." She wondered how much he understood. The Alliance army had a good hundred Haians, unheard of for a military force.Because the Arkans broke the Compact and invaded them. This is their way of fighting for their freedom; if we take the Empire, Chenga will give Haiu Menshir back its independence . Gentle Haian hands lifted the two litters, quickly examined, touching necks, pressing wrists. Ansena would need surgery; they took him straight into the cart. Echera-e they checked as Shkai'ra had, But more tenderly. "Concussion," the healer, a woman said. "Must stay lying; we put heem in cart and look efter heem today. He ken stay een hees own bed tonight, probebly, but should have someone weeth heem to keep heem still, end quiet. Come beck when we set camp." "Their names and unit?" the Yeoli clerk with the wax-board said briskly, as the healer moved on, busy. Sova told him, and then opened her mouth, but he cut her off with a chop of his pen. "Healers and
wounded only in the carts on march," he said, as if reading her mind. "They'll be fine, you've done what you can, off with you now." She wanted to argue, the pull on her heart like a claw to stay here, but the clerk looked annoyed. She'd be in more trouble if she disobeyed here, too. I'm going to be in the infirmary next, she thought, dejectedly. At least the gut-fear of fighting was gone, faded while her mind had been on other things.Fifteen strokes. I have to choose, now or later, with him… later. I'm going to see him again before he's fit, so if I get it done now he'll know what he's in for . Now what? She'd been dismissed; no more fighting.I don't want to any more today, anyway , she thought.Though there's no way I'll admit that to anyone . She examined the feeling, turned it over in her mind. The memories came back, so fresh as to be barely memories, yet suddenly distant and changed, as if from a dream or another life: feeling through the grip of her sword the Arkan's throat muscles clamp on the blade; the wounded, clasping hands to bloody spots, knowing they were Arkans meat if they weren't carried off, calling to her or screaming incoherently; Echera-e landing wrong as his horse threw him…Does this mean I'm a coward? But I'm just fourteen. In Yeola-e people don't fight until they're sixteen. I'm not a coward, Shkai'ra said I'm sheep-fucking brave; I'm just young. I'll get tougher and it'll get easier . She wheeled away from the cart to find the Elite section, andzhymata . Well, thought Megan, as she prepared to bed down.Clear ground we march. Obstructed, we march through them . She counted off days in her head as she unpinned her braids and brushed out her calf-long hair.At the rate we're going, we'll be there in two and a half months or so . Then, remembering the frequent fate of the best-laid plans:at the rate we're going . Many things could change that. Shkai'ra was off partying with her unit; Sova was preparing her own bed. The Thane-girl had been silent and gaunt-eyed all evening as she did the chores, worrying about her Yeoli lover and being flogged. "Good night, Sovee." She crouched to slip inside her tent. The girl answered the same quietly.I hope Shkai'ra isn't too long… what in Holy a is that? A patch of white clung to the inside of the tent-flap. Careful, mindful of plots and tricks, she looked before touching. A bit of paper, pinned to the canvas: holding it only with her claws, not the pads of her fingers, she unpinned and unfolded it. The words were written in a tidy Arkan hand, superior-to-inferior inflection. Whitlock: Meet me in the copse downwind of the Enchian Elite latrine, tonight when the moon is straight above. I have your son, Lixand called Rasas, with the four moles in a square on his right shoulder-blade. His life and my cover are as twined vines, sworn upon my poison tooth. Let us chat. Book II: Venture XII Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
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people around for camouflage, and t
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Und now I vind dose two—Celestial
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