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 "I have this bad habit of spilling it." Shkai'ra snorted. "I wish I didn't feel this shitty." Outside it was false dawn. Megan closed her eyes against even that, thankful for the pain-killers that soothed not only the wound, but her head. Shkai'ra leaned close and whispered in her ear, switching to Fehinnan. "Fishhook brought you a present that'll make you feel better." "Oh, a dead mouse," Megan said sarcastically, in the same language. "It's as if Ten-knife were back. Just what I need now to keep my strength up." Grinning, the Kommanza held out a tiny rectangle of heavy-bond Arkan paper, written over in a minuscule hand. "Not a mouse… a pigeon." Megan blinked, puzzled. "Amessenger pigeon." "Oh,great ," she groaned. "I bet this time Gold-Bottom finally decides the stupid beast should be strangled. We'll catch it fish-gutted good from whoever owned it…" Fishhook's passion for pigeon-meat was an ongoing problem, in an army whose command used messenger-pigeons all the time. Several times they'd had to sheepishly return a bloodied feathery corpse, minus head or part of breast but with leg-band and sealed paper left carefully intact, to the Yeoli command council scribe, at the cost of a chewing-out and a stiff fine. "Hah!" Shkai'ra laughed. "Not unless he wants to blow his cover. Whatever piss that Haian put in your veinshas got your wits, hasn't it?" The Zak struggled up to her elbows, ignoring the pain and fuzziness. "You mean… not from ourrokatzk ! What does it say? What does itsay ?" "My heart, I can barely read Zak!" "Shit. Sorry. You bring my magnifying glass?" Shkai'ra pulled it out of her pants pocket, out from among the half-eaten figs, bits or jerky, dirty sweat-rags. "You wouldn't have brought the cloth, too?" Shkai ra handed it over with a smirk and Megan awkwardly polished the lens. She propped herself on one elbow, nausea rising. "Here, don't be an idiot, lie down." The Haian's apprentice's protest echoed Shkai'ra's. She pushed a pillow behind Megan's back. "Sssa, love." The Zak fought down irritation: it was the Kommanza's horse-soothing voice.My son. This might be the key to freeing Lixana and I can't focus my Koru-forsaken eyes on it ! She shook her head and peered through the glass at the scrap of paper, refusing to let the remnants of the headache distract her. "It's in Arkan, sure enough," she whispered, and translated into Fehinnan. " 'Box 596… Commercial enterprise… proceeding as planned. Do not liquidate investments…" Fish-guts, Shkai'ra, this is it, the stop action message! Oh Koru… Lixand-mi…" "Easy, love. He can't be relying on just one pigeon to carry that message; he'll have it double or triple-covered, in case the pigeon happens into storms or predators. Like wing-cats." "Of course, of course he would, all right." She read on. " 'Food greasy, wish you were here.' " She put the glass down and laid her head back. "Dah, by Koru, I know that style, that'shim . Dark Lord, I feel awful." She closed her eyes and rubbed them with her hands and thought. "But so what? This could only do us good if we had someone in Arko who could do something about it and the only one of us who
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html could masquerade as an Arkan would be you." "Shit," Shkai'ra said, wrinkling her nose. "Just when this war was getting interesting.And I was in line for a cavalry brigade ," she added to herself.My last chance at command. Oh, well . "Love—you aren't taking meseriously , are you?" Shkai'ra held out one, red-blond braid. "Ia, I am. Unless you think we could pull off a rescue through letters in wartime?" "Shkai'ra… you don't know the language well enough. You don't move like an Arkan woman and never will. Arrgh—oww. I know you think Arkans are blind, but…" "No, Megan," said the Kommanza, smiling. "Remember that time we were in one of those Thanish trade-towns… Vyksa, wasn't it? And it took that idiot Thanish chandlerten minutes to realize we were female.Zoweit-zum , I had my shirt unlaced almost to the bottom of my breastbone and he didn't notice! People see what they expect; Arkans are even more trained to see 'men' in pants and 'women' in skirts than Thanes, and city ones don't meet outsiders, like those Thanes would." "As a man! You'retall enough… But you'd have to go as asolas if you wanted to be armed, and they're fish-guttedliterate , let alone fluent in their mother-tongue, in a certain accent, and knowing who to talk up and down to—not to mention the low voice! There'd' be no reason for you to be in the City Itself unless you were wounded…" Her voice trailed off, thoughtfully. "Wounded on thehead . The right sort, and you wouldn't be able to write much, or talk straight…" She shook herself mentally. "No. Koru, what am I thinking? This isn't enough information for you to go haring off ahead of the army to chase Lixand—one scrap of paper with a box number on it. Besides, you can hardly walk up to You Know Who and say 'I need to leave your army for a few weeks to get my wife's son, or she'll have to kill you.' " She put a hand on Shkai'ra's knee. "Thank you anyway, love, for the thought." "No," Shkai'ra said. "We were planning to think of a way to get you out of the choice, Lixand or Gold-bottom; this is it. Think about it when you're a little less wretched, after you've slept some. There's notearing hurry, because you have a good excuse for delay to give therokatzk now—you're wounded! And think about that message; Lixand's obviouslynot being held by Irefas proper,nia ? If he were, that would be going to the Marble Palace, not a drop-off box." "Maybe. Maybe not." "Yourrokatzk never said 'we have him in the Marble Palace dungeon'—just 'I have him.' He's freelancing, with a few other people, probably not more than half a dozen—easy work for me. Worth the attempt, at any rate." Her eyes closed for a second. "Rest now. We're going to win." Megan chewed on her Arkan pen, looking at the neat columns of positives and negatives on the paper before her. She was propped up on pillows, the lap-desk on her lap; her bad leg hurt like a rotten tooth but bigger, the pain made worse by the lurching of the un-sprung wounded-cart, even on roads this smooth. It was stuffy in there, and people kept groaning.Never thought I'd wish I were riding . But the Haians weren't going to let her up yet; when she did try standing, just to see what would happen, she instantly felt why they didn't—her head going light, and her whole body insisting on lying down again.
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Und now I vind dose two—Celestial
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