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 man with a wide bandage that was turning freshly red on one leg, rear up lifting a cot, and fling it at an Arkan, unhorsing him. But soon he was run down. She saw another Arkan scan all around, javelin cocked in his hand, find a fleeing Haian, aim and throw…They're going after them. They're going after Haians . "Echerry!" Get in front of him. He was still fighting her, the closest Arkan within two horse-lengths. That one twisted in the saddle, while his horse's legs knocked over the bed two beds down with a crash, tearing a saline drip loose from an arm. The weight of armor that had bowed Sova's shoulders a moment before seemed weightless. She drew her sword; it caught in the tent-rigging over her head. The plated arm, scarlet-lacquered, whipped forward; she began to move, no time, the edge of the spear banged off the shoulder of her hauberk and stunned her shield-arm—Echerry—she couldn't look backward, just struck at the Arkan's thigh. He was moving too fast past her along the row, gone. I'll cut through the tent-wall, she thought, dragging Echera-e by the wrist. He staggered, fell to kneeling, retching.I'll carry him … An Arkantoo close ! jumped his horse over a bedstruck at Echerry with a sword blood-spurtstriking at me she parried the blowgo for his legs but he parriedSunborn Elite oh Gotthummi then was past and gone. "Echerry! Echerry!" He was lying across a bed, trying feebly to pull himself up, his right foot from the upper calf down…gone. Just gone . Blood spurted out in rhythm. She grabbed him around the waist, clasping the wrist of her sword-hand with her shield-hand, dragged him back towards the tent-wall; he went rigid in her arms and yelped, then bit it back, bloodying his lips.The cutoff part of his leg, on the ground … She heaved him up higher.I'm stronger than usual . She knew it with a strange calm. "Sova." It was a weeping whisper. "Sova, I love you."Smoke —at the other end the roof of the tent and beds were in flames. No Arkans came at her,thank you, Gotthummi , she was at the tent-wall. "Hold on, I haf to put you down, I haf to put you down, love." She struck a long slit through the canvas, bent to take him over her bade. He swore in Yeoli. "Kyash, kyash, kyash, I hahve to…" Outside Alliance warriors were running in, faces full of rage and naked weapons shining in firelight, pushing past her, towards a roiling fight outside.Get him away from here . Darkness between two tents. I need light . First aid lessons crowded back into her mind.Get his feet high. Tourniquet . Then someone was helping her, telling her in some strange accent to bring him in here, hands guiding her shoulders, leading her into a tent with a soft glow of lamplight. "He's got dysentery," she breathed, and heard how quivery and tearful her own voice was. "I sorrhy, I sorrr-rny," he was moaning, "Need bed pahn, sorrhy, please…" They had to clean him with cloths, then they tightened a strap around his leg-stump just under the knee until the blood slowed to a trickle, propped his legs high and covered him with blankets. She slid close to him, took his head in her arms. "You'll be all right," she whispered. "You'll be well, you'll be fine…"Maybe he knows I'm just reassuring him because that's what you're supposed to do to keep someone from going into shock , she thought,and he won't believe me . She kept reassuring. Outside the battlecries were fading. She watched Echera-e's face contort as the pain hit him. He set his teeth, but grunting moans forced their way out of him; it made no difference how hard she held him, how much she said, "I love you." There was no painkiller here, only in the infirmary. His foot's gone, she thought then.His foot's gone. He'll be on crutches, or a peg-leg, the rest of his life. He can't be a warrior anymore. And he just became one. Azaila… I don't like it. I hate it. I hate it .
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html In the morning, the army was called to post-battle assembly, on the field where it had fought. The host was far too big for anyone's voice to carry to its furthest edges; hearlds and interpreters were positioned among the host to relay the announcements outwards. But Megan, being in the special forces, and Sova, with her, were close to the front. Chevenga usually spoke with a herald right beside him bellowing his words, so he didn't have to raise his voice; now, though, he stood alone on the dais.No surprise , thought Megan.He wants to yell today . First came the usual commendation for yesterday's victory, the decorations, the armor-clashing applause. She had almost forgotten. There was less joy in it than usual, though, as the army waited to see which rumors of raids were true. "We will celebrate," Chevenga said, "when we feel like it; if that isn't until after the next time we thrash them, or the next five times, so be it." Then he raised his arms for silence, and spoke of the night before. Not only the one infirmary, it seemed, but all eight in the camp, had been attacked. A desperation move, he called it, aimed to undermine morale. "Cheap," he spat, "as desperation moves are, and…" He laughed, a laugh with a knife-edge. "Of course when they saw me, they came after me.That part of the plan, as you can see, was futile."Infirmaries , Megan thought.He always visits one —they knew that. An old assassin's rule: use the target's habits. "Whether their bid to undermine morale was futile,"—he reached his arms out to the army—"that, my warriors, is up toyou ." It was a while before the answering shout subsided enough for him to go on. Some seven hundred Arkan cavalry had attacked; two or three hundred had got away, the rest killed or captured. The Alliance deaths were worse than a thousand. "Easy to kill," that rasping voice said, rising, building, "being already weak from wounds"; a good fifteen-hundred more were newly wounded. Counting Sova's love , Megan thought. And the Haians… Megan had seen thesemanakraseye flushed with anger before, his cheeks bearing two bright points of red, though as often as not he seemed to be forcing it in his speeches; she'd never seen him livid, nor the anger so sincere.He owes them much , she thought,and was pulled closer by saving them from Arko once . Twenty-nine Haians had been struck down, fifteen of them dead, being armorless against heavy cavalry swords or lances. She felt sick. It grew worse, as Chevenga told his army what he had never told her, nor many others, clearly, since she had never heard it: when Arko had seized Haiu Menshir, they'd taken the Haians who'd healed him back to Kurkas. Not to ransom—no demand had been made—but to punish, for the crime of giving succor to one who needed it, as Haians would for all. The army answered his rage, with howls and death-chants and weapons thrust into the air; beside her, Sova screamed in Thanish, waving a fist. When it subsided, he ended it by saying those Arkans who'd been taken alive would be impaled, then drawn and quartered, then beheaded, and what remained sent back to the Arkan camp. "Let them get a good long look," he said, "and remember that when they consider such a mission again. Andwe will save our anger, dedicate it to them, turn it on them next time. So we have suffered; only in dreams is even a winning war nothing but easy charges and triumphs and victory parties. It's the wrong Arko did that brought us all together in the first place; let it go on binding us as one now, to make us not weaker but stronger, so they bring on themselves the fate they deserve!" She couldn't hear her own voice for the roar, like the great breakers of the Lannic, going on and on. Beside Her Sova jumped up and down, sword in the air, cheeks soaked with tears.
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people around for camouflage, and t
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Und now I vind dose two—Celestial
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