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

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anything ? She swallowed back nervousness as thesemanakraseye spotted her, and handed off the blue
and green standard, smiling.
In the cart, a few words of small talk, then he came to the point. "However much one might deserve the
army's accolades," he said, "there's an award one is always presented in privacy." His stern scarred face
cracked into a grin like a boy's, waiting to see the look on the receiver's face when he gave a present. In
his hand lay an award-pendant, a white one: Megan recognized the Nephrite Serpent. Not quite the
Incarnadine, which required very spectacular results, but still, the second highest award there was, for
actions of stealth.
She felt her face go burning hot.Don't think it. Don't remember, I've forsworn my strength-oath.
Don't think it, now. "I was just doing what you were already paying me for," she sputtered.I'm
blushing; Koru, don't let him see it's more than I would for just modesty . "You didn't decorate me
the other times."
"Look," he said, his dark eyes fixing hers, in emphasis. "If you had fallen out of that tree when the arrow
hit, if you had given up, they'd have truth-drugged you, and taken all youhave done away from us. Then
they'd have killed you, and taken all youwill do. That's what you're getting it for. Now stop wasting my
time arguing."
"You'll win, Shkai'ra," she whispered to herself, as she limped back to the wounded-cart, fingering the
prize in her belt-pouch. "Not for three of us—for four."
Shkai'ra backed carefully, taking the blows of the practice sword alternately on shield and the wood of
her own blade. The brown-gold dust of the impromptu field scuffed up around their feet, mixed with bits
of dry grass. Or a crop, before? Possibly; it was unrecognizable now. The harsh sound of their breathing
sounded under the clack-feang of the field, shouts, clatter from half a hundred sparring pairs, lost in a
universe of concentration that narrowed down to the bright slit bisected by the nasal of her helmet.
Now, she thought, and began to back more quickly. The man followed, hard and fast,
cut-thrust-backhand cut-thrust-thrust-thrust, shield up and point keeping line with his rear foot, stamping
into each blow. Shkai'ra let him fall into the rhythm of parry and stop-thrust, thensquatted under the next,
releasing the outer grip of her shield with her left hand, letting her knees relax and gravity carry her down.
Instinctively he slashed, dropping is shield to cover the exposed thigh; her legs shot out, one hooking
behind his knee and the other around his ankle. Curling erect, braced on the man's leg, she chopped
two-handed at his exposed shoulder. The heavy curved oak of theboka thudded flat and heavy on the
steel and leather of his armor, and the shield-arm went limp.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! she shrieked, a sound like a file on stone, and attacked with a berserker flurry that
banged off shield, blade, helmet, shoulder, midriff, finishing him with a footsweep and a precisely
controlled overhead cut that would have sliced halfway down from his shoulder.
"You Enchians get too fucking academic," she rasped, to him and the other defeated sparring partners
who sat nursing their bruises along the edge of the trampled ground. "A battle's more like a bar brawl
than fencing in thesalle d'armes , remember it. Dismissed from foot drill: report to your centurion for
formation riding." She turned her head. "Sova! Water!"
The girl brought the wooden bucket to the edge of the commander's tent. The sides were rolled up along
the guy ropes, leaving an awning from the bright morning sun. Shkai'ra unlaced her armor and the