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

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It's chain-of-command policy, I haveto pass the buck, ohhhh well .
Shaking off their hands she staggered back to her tent, headache pounding from the base of her skull all
the way up over the top of her head and around behind her eyes, and vaguely heard Sova's voice. "
Zhymata, you've got blood on you, are you all right?Zhymata , lie down. You'remanrauqed out, I can
tell." She just let the Thane-girl tend her.
I've got stronger again, she thought. Themanrauq- pain this morning was no worse than a medium
hangover.
He'll count it strange—and suspicious—if I don't visit him, after that. Megan grunted, pushed up
from her bedroll, paused, and tucked her seers' card case into her pouch.
As she and Sova ate breakfast, she waved down a passing Yeoli officer. "Are we still fighting today?"
"As far as I know," she answered, puzzled. "Why wouldn't we be?"
"Oh, rumors, you know." The woman shrugged and went. I guesshe's going to hill-top it , Megan
thought. The gong-signal to set ranks came just as she was heading to thesemanakraseye's tent; he was
long gone when she got there. From camp, alone, she watched the battle as best she could, seeing mostly
a dustcloud.
It was over before noon, and word came back that the rest of the day was leisure time, but they'd march
tomorrow.We won , Megan translated inwardly,but bed down early .
It took a good half-hour to talk and elbow her way through the scribes, messengers, officials, squires
and hangers-on who always surrounded thesemanakraseye's tent after a battle. Inside she heard the
same Haian voice she remembered from last night, speaking in both Yeoli and Enchian, actually
somewhat raised. "He's wounded, he nids quiet, can't this ellwait ? Chivinga, liedown !" But someone
obviously said something to someone, for suddenly people were actually being civil, even respectful, and
ushered her in.
They'd set up a bed in the office portion of the tent, next to the desk; as soon as everyone else had left
he sat up, folding back the covers at his waist, smiling. The wounded arm was in a sling; on the outside of
the good one, that he extended to her, bruises showed purple-blue, from blocking spears. His cheeks
were a little pale, and his eyes looked slightly groggy; now the battle was over they'd gotten a sedative
into him, it seemed, though he was fighting it. She had a sudden memory-flash of his face in flickering
flamelight, an upside-down death's head shrouded in blood, and could barely reconcile the two images.
"I don't know if I thanked you well enough last night," he said, reaching for her hand. "You saved my
life." He kissed the backs of her fingers, and pressed them to his brow, for long enough to make her shift
uneasily. Formal gratitude, Yeoli-style; the longer it lasted, the greater the degree.
His brow was warm on her knuckles. It gave her chicken-skin inside.Don't thank me , she wanted to
say. Imight have to kill you . Finally, after long enough that he'd take it for shyness, she pulled her hand
away.
"You're welcome. It could just as easily have been the other way around. And I missed the most
important knife cast. So forget it. I hope you don't think I meant half the things I said on the way back;