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

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"Better brush up, then; a great shame it would be if you failed. I'll give you a hint, whom. One to whom
you are not particularly attached. One to whom you are close enough to do it. One who trusts you."I bet
he enjoyed pulling the wings off flies when he was a boy , thought Megan.Who trusts me? They all
do. I don't know that many… ohhhhhh shit .
"… and who absolutelymust die ."
As she breathed the name, she thought absurdly,I'm pronouncing it right . "Chevenga."
"Shefen-kas," he repeated. "Of course. Who else?" With the same amiable superior smoothness he'd
affected all through, he added, "I'm not bothered about the difficulty of it. That'syour problem. And one I
have faith in your competence to solve. But I am not without patience, of course not. Consider it. I will
get back to you."
I'm too old for this shit, Matthas thought. A good half-bead later, safe in his tent, in the section set
apart for sellers, his hands were still shaking.
Once hehad carried a poison tooth, in his early days in the field.When I was young, fearless and
expendable . Now he had only a cavity filled with porcelain, de-venomed and fixed when he'd acquired
too much experience to easily be thrown away, and a desk job. He remembered the first day without, the
weight lifted of his shoulders bigger than he'd known, getting drunk, chewing nuts onboth sides of his
mouth…
But Megan Whitlock need not know he was no longer young, fearless and expendable.Well, I am
expendable, again. At least to Eforas . That was all that counted.Forget the humiliation , he told
himself, hard.Forget that you don't deserve this, that you're only here through someone else's
idiocy, against your own better judgment. Forget that it shouldn't be happening; that doesn't
matter now. It is.
As she had suspected, he wasn't sure he would be brave enough to use a poison tooth anymore.Twenty
years ago, it seemed so simple; I didn't fake my conviction, I didn't have to. Twenty years ago,
before I knew all I know now . Or was it just that as one got older, one got more attached to life since
one had less of it left? He felt a certain relief that the matter was moot; all that was needful was that
Whitlock believe him for long enough.
Which only means, he thought, watching his fingers tremble, and feeling the wet stickiness of his own
armpit-sweat,meeting in a place where she won't smell my fear, keeping my voice steady and my
laugh light, never missing a comeback . He laughed sickly.Easy .
"An Arkan looking to grow his hair down to his butt," Shkai'ra said drily. "Well, do you think he really
does have a poison tooth? Or would use it?"
"Dammit, Shkai'ra, how the hell can I know? You think I wouldn't have told you if I had any
inkling? Maybe he doesn't, I can't fish-gutted tell!" Megan bit back tears, took a deep breath, forced
her voice down. "Love, I'm sorry." Shkai'ra squeezed her hand in wordless understanding. "He might not,
but if he does… it's too much to risk."If after everything I find out somehow he doesn't,I'll pull his
testicles out through his mouth… over ten days …