Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
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His nead turned, eyes blinking slowly. "Sovee?"<br />
"Ya. Hi." She leaned, kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips. "I love you." She looked, saw a weak smile<br />
on his face.<br />
"I love you too. Miss you." She kissed him for a while, holding his shoulders through the sheets, ignoring<br />
the tang of medicines on him. "A bunch of them got captured," she said. "Chevenga said 'draw <strong>and</strong><br />
quarter them, for an example.' I saw them do it to the one who…"Cut your foot off , she stopped<br />
herself from saying just in time. Not true, but, she figured, a good lie. '… got you. They made it last nice<br />
<strong>and</strong> long, like putting him on the rack, <strong>and</strong> he hurt like the Fehuund, yelling <strong>and</strong> screaming his fool head<br />
off… so to speak…"<br />
The youth turned his head away, the knot of his throat shifting as he swallowed.Maybe this isn't what<br />
he needs to hear right now , she thought suddenly. "Well, you're avenged, anyway. Are the healers<br />
being good to you?"<br />
"Ya'," he whispered. "Tsere's a Haian next to me, see tsaht? He keep giving healer's orders, forrh how<br />
tsey should look ahfterhim ." His whisper got even quieter; Sova leaned close. "He dying anyway. Tsey<br />
take him to tseh…baityo … How you say?"<br />
"Slaughterhouse?"<br />
"Soon." It came to her: that was their word for the part of the infirmary where the hopeless cases were<br />
put, to wait for death. "AHaian . How tsey could…"They killed fifteen of them, soon to be sixteen ,<br />
Sova thought, but this time kept her mouth shut.<br />
The youth lay silent. She wasn't sure what to say; so she stroked his forehead, <strong>and</strong> now <strong>and</strong> then kissed<br />
him <strong>and</strong> said, "I love you," or "Heal,livling ." So it went, with apprentices coming to check him or refill<br />
his water or help him use the bed pan, until darkness fell <strong>and</strong> one came to walk her to the door.<br />
The next evening he looked better, even though he'd been in a wounded-cart all day, on the march.<br />
"Flux less," he said. "Look, Sovee." He pulled up the leather thong that held his crystal, showed the other<br />
jewel on it. "Chevenga gave me tsis." It was like Saint Mother's Bloodstone, with the same setting,<br />
steel-wrought as on all Yeoli decorations, of two enwrapping arms. But it was bigger, <strong>and</strong> the<br />
drop-shaped stone, polished smooth, was dark purple. "Anchena dmahachao ayana," he said.Saint<br />
Mother's Amethyst , she thought.The award they give to the ones whose wounds are crippling. He<br />
knows .<br />
Their eyes met. "I go home," he said.<br />
Sova's stomach <strong>and</strong> chest suddenly went hollow <strong>and</strong> tight; then the feeling turned to pain, as if she were<br />
sick. She hadn't thought of this. He tightened his big h<strong>and</strong>s around hers <strong>and</strong> said, "Warrh over, you go<br />
bahck through Yeola-e, we see again?"<br />
Good<strong>by</strong>e, she thought numbly.This is good<strong>by</strong>e . "Wait— Echerry! When… when are you going<br />
home?"<br />
"Nex' big caravahn going bahck. Tomorrow morning, army go fowarrd, me bahck." He smiled; it was