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

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outgrow it soon.I can only visit him for an hour or two; I'll clean it after that .
"Now," she said, "time to party. No, no, don't move,livling . I'll raise both our cups, my wine and your
water…"
This was a horrible place, full of moaning, sometimes screaming, unnatural chemical odors mixed with
incense and the worse bodily smells it was all trying to defeat, and the sheer weight of pain in the air.How
can Hakins stand it all the time? But I'd still rather be here with him than anywhere else , she
thought.He needs me. If I were here, I'd want him to come . Every now and then he would ask her to
call the healer's apprentice for a bed pan. Though he didn't ask her to, she'd look the other way; the
Yeoli incense burning by his bed did little to hide the smell, then. But she stayed; feeling healthy and
strong, even if tired. She held his cold hand, and tried to send her strength through it into him.
Last night, when she'd toldzhymata about it, she'd answered, "That's love, Sovee." And for a moment
she'd looked so sad it made her face twenty years older: thinking of Shkai'ra.
"I wish Chevenga hyere," Echera-e said now. After a battle, thesemanakraseye always visited one of
the infirmaries—the army was too big now, to have only one—to comfort the wounded. "Tsey say, he
touch you, heal faster. Don't know if I believe tsaht… But nice if true. Arrrgh."
Just then, the noise started.
Hoofbeats, alarm cries, Arkan war-yells: "Kellin! Aras! Imperium!" But it's over, her mind thought
vaguely, lazily.Here? Here ? From then on, things happened so fast she had no time to think.
Horses—Arkan horses, in the infirmary, ripping through the tent-walls all over—white horses,the
Sunborn Elite . Her mind tried to refuse what her eyes saw, Arkan horsemen joyfully whooping.Why no
warning ? An Imperial in light cavalry armor, breastplate and helmet and chainmail leggings all
blackened, two buckets of javelins at his saddlebow, all of them with javelins, barbed heads cocked
back over their shoulders or naming torches in their hands, grins on their faces, blue eyes slitted.The
cavalry. The cavalry, who weren't there in the day … An officer in a plumed helmet scanned, eyes
snake-cold, shouted, "Shefen-kas! Shefen-kas!Kellin !" More Arkan, then Enchian with a thick, clipped
Arkan accent: "Ten thousand gold chains andAitzasrank for his head —whichever side you're on!"
Gotthumml. Gotthumml. Echerry. Everyone was screaming, it seemed, him, the healers, the
wounded.Get him out of here. I've got to get him out of here. He can't fight . Haian healers were
fearless, she'd heard; because of the World's Compact, because no one would ever hurt them.
A Haian tried to stand between an Arkan horseman and a patient, his arms upraised, begging; the
Imperial's arm went back smoothly, his body trending with the curve and the movement of his horse, the
whetted edges flashing, then the barbed point sticking out of the back of the healer's robe as he crashed
down.Gotthwnml. A Haian. He killed a Haian . An Arkan slashed at a lantern, and it spewed burning
alcohol across half a dozen beds; a patient covered in bandages from neck to knees ran flaming into the
night, screaming. Another Haian, not having seen the first, perhaps, tried to stand between a patient and
an Arkan, and was struck down.
She grabbed Echerae's arm, as he shouted something in Yeoli. He pulled himself up on her arm as she'd
wanted, but then turned to the Arkans, advancing, stark naked. "You'll chust get cut down, you hafno
armor!" she shrieked, grabbed him, spun him by the shoulder; weak, he staggered. She seized his wrist
to pull him away. A javelin whistled by her ear. The Arkans were slashing through the wounded, whether
they stayed lying down, flung themselves off their beds, or rose to fight. She saw one Yeoli, a giant of a