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 He said what they'd do to the Arkans who were left, Sova thought,but he didn't say where . She'd toldzhymata she was going to see Echera-e, which was true; she would, after she d watchedthis for a while. Until she'd seen enough to be satisfied, she decided. She found the place by the sound of male screams. There was a crowd there already, Alliance-motley, laughing, jeering, making the sign of asses' ears that mocked the cupped hands at the temples, the Arkan prayer gesture, whenever one of the victims used it. The pole and the ground between the four draft horses were already blood-soaked; ringed in with spears on one side stood the shrinking clutch of naked men, their blond hair shorn; to the other lay the growing red and white heap, here and there blond, or innard-colors as she'd seen before, of torn-apart corpses, now and then settling of its own accord, as if something in it were still alive. She stayed upwind. "Tsey're taking tseir time," said a Yeoli beside her. "Wouldn't want to wind tsose horses, no!" He burst out laughing. "Wahtchtsis child-raper try to take tseh pain silently… each one thinkshe's gong to be the first one to mahnage it, ha ha ha! Shit-eaters, tsey don't know whaht painis ." Hurt, you stinking bastard, she thought.Hurt for Echera-e . The Arkan did, and she watched, and enjoyed, for her lover, lying in the infirmary one-footed. The sound of the man being ripped apart reminded her of when she tore the legs and wings off a chicken carcass for the stew, but so much bigger, the shoulder-bone poping out of the socket making a crack like a thick rotten banch breaking, but a little wetter. And he, unlike the chicken, was fighting it, the muscles in death-throes as they tore, the mouth screaming, sometimes screaming words… When they untied the ropes, lopped off the head, threw the body in parts onto the heap and turned to the next, she suddenly knew one was enough to see. She walked away, feeling satisfied and sick, both at once. They'd refused to let her in this morning when she'd come to see Echera-e, saying he wasn't well enough, and things were too much a mess anyway, the infirmary being cleaned up and repaired. This time, though, they said "Tai." The healer's apprentice led her deep in.This is where they keep the worst cases , she thought, fear growing. None of the patients here spoke to each other or shifted, or even looked bored; they just lay utterly still, staring upwards, or with eyes closed like corpses already. Some softly moaned. "Echera-e, bahd," the apprentice, who was Yeoli, whispered in thick Enchian. "Flux. Foot cut off also. Probably naht die. He naht know where is, now. We let in you, 'cause he call you' name." The youth lay as still as the others—the patient in the bed next to him, a Haian—his face yellow-pale. As she knelt next to him, she remembered something she'd heard, that people who'd lost a limb felt its ghost, hurting as if the flesh were still there, so they sometimes refused to believe they'd lost it.Does he know? I better not say anything . His lips moved, whispering in Yeoli. She leaned close to make it out. "Boru. No. Meparae….Don't take me to the slaughterhouse, not yet, not yet !" She slipped her hand under the Haian-pristine sheets, found his lying cold and limp, squeezed it.He's delirious; maybe he won't hear me . "Echerry. It'sme . Shh, you're safe, no one's going to hurt you. I love you."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html His nead turned, eyes blinking slowly. "Sovee?" "Ya. Hi." She leaned, kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips. "I love you." She looked, saw a weak smile on his face. "I love you too. Miss you." She kissed him for a while, holding his shoulders through the sheets, ignoring the tang of medicines on him. "A bunch of them got captured," she said. "Chevenga said 'draw and quarter them, for an example.' I saw them do it to the one who…"Cut your foot off , she stopped herself from saying just in time. Not true, but, she figured, a good lie. '… got you. They made it last nice and long, like putting him on the rack, and he hurt like the Fehuund, yelling and screaming his fool head off… so to speak…" The youth turned his head away, the knot of his throat shifting as he swallowed.Maybe this isn't what he needs to hear right now , she thought suddenly. "Well, you're avenged, anyway. Are the healers being good to you?" "Ya'," he whispered. "Tsere's a Haian next to me, see tsaht? He keep giving healer's orders, forrh how tsey should look ahfterhim ." His whisper got even quieter; Sova leaned close. "He dying anyway. Tsey take him to tseh…baityo … How you say?" "Slaughterhouse?" "Soon." It came to her: that was their word for the part of the infirmary where the hopeless cases were put, to wait for death. "AHaian . How tsey could…"They killed fifteen of them, soon to be sixteen , Sova thought, but this time kept her mouth shut. The youth lay silent. She wasn't sure what to say; so she stroked his forehead, and now and then kissed him and said, "I love you," or "Heal,livling ." So it went, with apprentices coming to check him or refill his water or help him use the bed pan, until darkness fell and one came to walk her to the door. The next evening he looked better, even though he'd been in a wounded-cart all day, on the march. "Flux less," he said. "Look, Sovee." He pulled up the leather thong that held his crystal, showed the other jewel on it. "Chevenga gave me tsis." It was like Saint Mother's Bloodstone, with the same setting, steel-wrought as on all Yeoli decorations, of two enwrapping arms. But it was bigger, and the drop-shaped stone, polished smooth, was dark purple. "Anchena dmahachao ayana," he said.Saint Mother's Amethyst , she thought.The award they give to the ones whose wounds are crippling. He knows . Their eyes met. "I go home," he said. Sova's stomach and chest suddenly went hollow and tight; then the feeling turned to pain, as if she were sick. She hadn't thought of this. He tightened his big hands around hers and said, "Warrh over, you go bahck through Yeola-e, we see again?" Goodbye, she thought numbly.This is goodbye . "Wait— Echerry! When… when are you going home?" "Nex' big caravahn going bahck. Tomorrow morning, army go fowarrd, me bahck." He smiled; it was
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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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