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

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that's the only reason. Look,please , give me another eight-day, and I'll do it, I give you my word. I
swear …"
"Another four days," he said, putting the usual ice into his voice. Like a strict father, then:"It had better
be." Professionally brisk: "Enough said." She limped away. He prayed.
XXI
For a city as big as Arko, it was an unusually dark night. Theokas women halted with weary
nervousness, pulling the light handcart behind her. The clerks had said the campground for refugees was
down at the end of the street, but she must have missed the turning. He had talked so fast, gabbling and
biting off the ends of his words, like a city man; she sniffled, wishing her man was with her. Thesolas had
taken him, just after they left their farm; him and her son, her only surviving child.
"Yar, 'e war too yang," she mumbled. Only fifteen summers. Taken for the war. She shuddered again,
remembering the horrible tales of what the black-haired barbarians would do, the columns of refugees
past her village. Still, she might have stayed if the soldiers had left the men. The master's bailiff had run,
but then he had all the master's beautiful things from the manor to protect; the villagers would have
stayed, and run to the woods and hills until the enemy soldiers passed. But not without her man; a woman
alone needed protection. Uncle Permas had been with them most of the way, on the Imperial highway
that such as them would never set foot on in proper times, but he had died of the spotted raving-fever
two days ago.
She shivered again, looking around at the deserted, darkened alleyways. It wasblack , the crescent
moon sending only glimmers through between the tall buildings—most or them four stories, think of
it!—and no lights showing in the windows. The cracked concrete of the pavement was nearly covered by
the layers of solidified garbage, and there was a sour stink worse than any farmyard midden. There was a
noise, a tall shape in the laneway to her right; where it ran off the street she followed.
"Who you?" a voice asked. The peasant woman cowered back against her handcart; the accent was
even less comprehensible than most she had heard in the great Dilla, "wife o' Kinnas Togas,okas ,
mayitpleaseyer," she babbled nervously.
"About fucking time," the voice said. Something struck the side of her head, and suddenly there were
stars.
"Baiwun hammer me flat,twenty muggings before I get the right one," Shkai'ra muttered, pulling the
handcart into the laneway beside theokas woman.
She had stuck carefully to refugees, looking for one whose bumpkin accent would be thick enough to
disguise her own;okas , because they were not expected to be able to read. The fiasco at the Edifice of
Post was fresh in her memory. Of course, once she had spoken to them she had to lay them out.
Nobody was going to listen to a hysterical refugeeafter the fact, but it wouldn't do to have them raising
the hue and cry immediately. Shkai'ra whistled through her teeth as she dragged the body further back
and measured it roughly; not much difference in height, which was fortunate, since Arkans considered it