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 wasn't developed with women in mind , she thought bitterly. In one move she had just identified herself as an outlander to any war-trained Arkan present. Solasmen were pushing toward her, faster than the frantic scramble of the others out of her way; heads were turning toward them from the street. She felt her heart speed, and pumped her breath deep, using the stomach muscles to draw air into the bottom of her lungs. Her eyes skittered, taking in the surroundings in flickering jumps, combat-detail leaping out diamond sharp against the blur of movement. "Eeeeeeeeiiiiiii!" With the steel-edge on steel-edge Kommanza war-scream, she cut ruthlessly at the figures ahead of her, drawing her dagger with her left hand. X-cut, afessas flew backward with a half-severed arm. The sword jarred in her hand out scarcely slowed, good steel. Her shoulder blades crawled, conscious of the vulnerability of cloth, bitterly remembering the fine suit of Arkan war-harness in her room at the inn; with that she could have plunged straight into the mass. Blood-stink filled the air. Bull through: cut, stab into a belly, sudden shit-smell, cave in a ribcage with another kick. The crowd-screaming was loud now, and the bubble of space around her larger; she'd nearly reached the raised sidewalk beyond the courtyard. A shifty-lookingokas drew a highly illegal fighting knife from under the back hem of his tunic and lunged; she swayed aside, clamped the knife arm under his with her forearm beneath the elbow, broke it with a sharp lift, used the broken arm to push his face down into her knee-strike. There was a brittle sensation, like striking a padded board that crumpled. Then she felt pain. Shit. The back of her thigh: the man's dying reflex had stabbed the knife into it.I'm dead . The leg began to buckle; for an instant an invisible hand reached into her chest and squeezed with iron-rod fingers, as she thought the hamstring had been severed. I'm dead -ead -ead -ead… Megan, half-drowsing in the saddle, jolted up. The burst of feeling, too faint to be her own, flavored through and through with Shkai'ra-ness, like on the ice two winters ago…The mind-link, it's her, SHKAI'RAAAAAHHH … But the thought was Hotblood-toned too, as if it had come from him,through him.She thought, he caught it, somehow sent it to me. SHKAI'RAAAHHH ! The pony half reared, crow-hopped and bucked her off, trotting off to one side, shaking its head, reins flapping; surprised at itself for bucking and surprised at her. The feeling wavered like a flame, then faded and winked out. Someone smothered a laugh. Behind her one of the Demarchic Guard called, "You all right, Zak?" The column was hesitating behind her, then squeezing by, flowing around. With a wheeze, her breath came back, her lungs un-sticking. She clambered to her feet, nodding, limped out of the way.Just shut up and let me listen for— "Form up when you can, then." She clenched her teeth, waved acknowledgement.Shkai'ra ! Her leg hurt; hergood leg, with a ghost-pain in the back of the thigh.Is she wounded ? She strained, reached out, reached deeper in, to hear, to feel.Hotblood! Nothing from him. "You need help catching the pony?" One of the outriders."Shut up, damn you! 'Nyata ! … I mean no. I'll be fine." She couldn't shout at them to go away, leave her to listen; it was like straining to understand a voice talking two floors down; she might miss something ifshe said anything. But there was no more. She had to get moving, form up, there was no time to concentrate, no silence.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html No. Notover. You don't have me Zaik-damned yet,sheep-fuckers — Twosolas barred Shkai'ra's way. Fear vanished as combat-mind took over; the leg bore her weight, the blood was only a trickle, a muscle wound. She could force strength out of it, tearing the sliced fibers wider, maybe—worry about that later. Neither of them was armored; one was an older man, white-haired, holding a head-high staff as if he knew how to use it. The other was two meters of bad news; in his thirties and tanned brown, eyes slitted and cool, sapphires against the skin. There was a paler band across his forehead, from the inner padding rim of a helmet, worn for years. Some sort of light dress sword in his hand,not what he used normally, but it was steel and sharp and had a point. The two Arkans looked at each other, at her, then spread out on either side, old man to her left, young to her right. It had been about a full minute since she killed the porter, enough time for most of the spectators to flee, notquite enough for help to arrive. Fast or nothing, she thought, her mind moving with crystalline speed. Feint left, toward the oldsolas . No fear in his face, only concentration; his shoulders looked thick enough to crack bones with the long oak staff. It hummed toward her, waist-high, as the younger man closed in on her right. She leaped; not straight up, that would have left her open to him when she landed. Forward, divingover it and to the old man's left. Jackknifing in mid-air, shoulder-high, landing on crossed, forearms, tucking her head and curving her spine. Nothing for it but sheer speed, pulling her feet in to hasten the spin, coming up out of it and letting the point of the longsword draw her around in a blurring curve. The straight sword was less suited to the drawing slash than her saber, and she felt her hand adjust as at a distance, abstract. Soft drag of muscle against the steel, the brief hard pop of taut tendons. The oldsolas toppled backward with a cry of shock. Shkai'ra surged forward, ramming the dagger in her left hand under his ribs through the kidney, expelling her breath in ahunnhhh of effort as she tossed him off the blade and into the other man's arms. "Pah!" he screamed, face contorting.Father ! Shkai'ra lunged longline, right foot advanced behind her point, left back. Long limbs and a long sword, the young man would have been spitted through the neck if he had not dropped the dying man and whipped his blade around in a cross-parry. The longsword wentskringgg along the length of it and the hilts locked; she stabbed up with the dagger, felt his hand slap down on her wrist, blocking. Their feet stamped as they strained chest-to-chest, open mouths snarling. There was a glazed ferocity to his, a hint of madness. More than that in the unnatural strength that squeezed her weapons in towards her body. Her knees tensed, preparing to leap back, wrestling a strong man gone berserk with rage was abad idea. Then something locked around her thighs, iron-strong. The old man. Dying, but she would have to hammer in his skull or sever the limbs that gripped her. Instead she threw herself backward. The youngersolas came with her; she twisted as she fell on her back, but dodging the knee that would have driven the breath out of her body. His weight fell on her, pinning her arms, and she could feel him shift as their bodies grappled for advantage. Ready to shift his pinning grip to an elbow, freeing steel to kill her. There was a peculiar intimacy to the embrace, bodies seeking to make death rather than life. Only one thing to do, she thought, working her lips; the bandages were thin there. She turned her head and thrust her mouth up onto his throat. Tough, was her first thought. Thick neck, muscles like woven cable. She bit, trying to drive the teeth in, and felt the windpipe slide outward a bit. A gasping grunt from the man above her, and she screamed
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Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M.
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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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wounded only in the carts on march,
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