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

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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.