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

Flogging to falling was what I had planned for you after that last piece of ignorance, and it's
what you're going to get, she thought, as she filled Zoltanova's canteen with the mixture of pure white
wadiki and water from her own. It was pleasant not to have to do this to an undeserving soldier… drunk
and asleep, while the commander went into the woods to take a dump and never came back. Notquite
enough for execution… maybe. Now the plan: off into the woods a little, put her armor down a well,
quick-change into the Imperial set she had packed on one of the mounts;they were both of the Arkan
breed as well, runners, not destriers. Cut her arm a little, blood on Hotblood's saddle along with the point
and broken-off shaft of a barbed Arkan javelin…
NO, Hotblood thought. Shkai'ra groaned mentally.
YES
NO
YES!
NONONONONONONONONONOIsmallsharpsnippy-disagreeable—the Ri's thought-concept for
Megan, colored with a mixture of dislike, respect and apprehension—
golook/search/smellcoltredmaneherdmarestaywithMEME MEMEMEMEMEl
YES! Shkai'ra threw her greatest overtone of dominance into the thought, along with images of
dismembered bleeding Arkans in Megan's company.
Sulk.
She hesitated for a moment, looking at the banner. "Sheepshit," she muttered to herself. The biggest war
she'd ever been involved in, a brigade command coming up, and she had toleave , on a clandestine
mission. That was irony for you, sneaking around was Megan's special skill… totally useless now, simply
because of her size and the color of her hair and eyes.
"Only for you, my love," she muttered, turning Hot-blood's head into the woods. "Only for you." The
Slaughterers would search energetically, of course, but evading a search and running mounted ahead of a
cavalry screen were skills she had learned as soon as she could walk. And the Alliance army had moved
into the Empire like a spear into flesh, a long narrow thrust down its eastern highway; she would not have
far to go to reach territory more or less under Arkan control.
XV
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The sunlight deepened from golden to orange, the slanting shadow of each rider growing longer; soon
they'd halt and camp. Not soon enough; despite the leather riding-sling giving it support, Megan's leg hurt
like Halya.
"Zhymata?" Sova had been deep in thought all day as she rode, the hazel eyes seeming full to bursting,
but the lips tightly closed. Buckled to her saddle, in the place of honor, was Shkai'ra's saber. "I had a talk
withkhyd-hird . She said… she wants me to decide whether I wanted to train to be a great warrior and a