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 the city. Duff crunched under her feet, and there was little undergrowth beneath that shade; she crouched and examined the wound in her thigh. The swelling had not gone down; the edges of the deep narrow puncture were more puffy than ever, reddish-purple, and it leaked clear puss. Shkai'ra swallowed experimentally and assessed herself; there was the slightest hint of fever-hum in her ears.Not light-headed , she thought grimly.Yet . There was still some brandy in the flask; she lay on her back and hauled the knee back to her ear so that she could pour liquor into the cut and let it stand for a moment. The pain was much worse than the initial wound, enough to make her swear softly under her breath. Have to do, she thought, as she re-bandaged it and tested her weight. But it would slow her, and if there was going to be a fight it had better come in the next little while. She pulled the rear of the skirt up between her legs and tucked it into the belt at the front, and unwrapped her weapons with an unconscious sigh of relief. Having them out of reach made her feel considerably more naked than walking unclothed would have. She took the sheathed sword in her left hand, the one that held the buckler by its single central grip, and tucked the dagger into the folds of skirt that circled her waist. Fifteen minutes, she estimated, squinting up at the flickers of morning sun that shone through the bird-clamorous branches of the pines. That would let thefessas get enough of a lead on her, and he was city-bred if she had ever seen such, used to pavement under his sandals. Shkai'ra had been a hunter from the time she could walk, mostly on horseback and on the steppe, but often enough in woods. Her bare feet made little sound on the needles. She ran stooping until she found the scuff-marks of her quarry's passage, then upright at a steady walk. The pinewoods gave way to terraced fields planted with grapevines and fruit trees, and she followed cautiously through the fields as the man took to a secondary road, graveled and graded and good enough for a main highway outside the Empire. Cautiously around a village, and then past the hedges ofAitzas country-seats, a nerve-wracking half hour creeping through ditches while watchdogs barked and the fessas stopped and looked, suspicious. Into oak woods at last, in a district even more rocky and tumbled than most of the land to the west of the great crater of Arko; slabs of porous volcanic rock reared up through the forest. The huge trees were shaggy with moss and laced with wild grapevines thicker than her thigh, tangled with masses of lilac bush and wild rhododendron. That forced her back onto the road, as it shrank to a rutted and overgrown carriage-track, one that had not seen wheeled traffic in years, from the look of it. Horses much more recently, or mules—hoofprints and dung both. Shod, but not too large, probably riding hackneys. Shkai'ra slowed to let the man get well ahead of her, and because her leg was bad enough that she could not do more than a hobbling limp. The sun was declining; a day's quick march, but they had covered only about twenty kilometers. She was sweating heavily; her ears buzzed, and her breath came far more quickly than it should. She almost walked into the yard of the stone house at the end of the lane. Only the whisper of movement in the air as the forest opened out warned her, and she sank to the ground behind a topiary bush gone wild with neglect, shivering as the sweat turned cold on her skin. She could smell chimney-smoke, and a light gleamed through the gathering dusk ahead. Rasas gripped his five cards tighter and thrust a full copper chain into an already heavy pot, with a poorly repressed smirk. "Look, boy of gold," Glikasonas scolded, taking a swig of the harder gold-colored liquor he preferred
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html over wine. "Yeh keep your face still. Yeh don't showanything . That's the first thing we told you. You're a pleasure-boy, yeh must be able to stone up your face." "Sorry, sirs," he said somberly, making the grin fall off like a mask, blank underneath. "Fold," said Moras. "Same," said Akobas. Glikasonas and Patappas were already out. "Whatcha got, kid?" Rasas turned over his cards, giggling. "Pair o' threes!" "Auggh!" they all cried at once. "Yeh little imp! Yeh bluffed usall !" —"Hayel, what do we need Frenandias for, we've got us a five!" —"Well, yeh beat us fair and square, boy, go on, collect." Triumphantly he swept all the money into his pile. A footstep sounded on the front porch. Moras jumped up to peek through the eye-slot, while Akobas gripped the boy's arm, ready to rush him into the basement if it was a stranger. "It's Fren," said the first, and everyone relaxed. "Transaction to be continued,'" Frenandias quoted, as he closed the door behind him. This happened about every eight-day, Rasas had learned; some kind of message from some other conspirator in this, that meant some kind of all clear. " 'Service lousy, natives smelly, wish you were here.' " Milisas snickered, clammed up when no one else did. "Him and hisfikken humor ," Patappas grated. Shkai'ra crouched behind the bush; nausea seized her, and she bent over, struggling to keep her retching quiet. When the fit passed she sat back, spitting to clear the taste of bile from her mouth and waiting for the shimmering before her eyes to clear. It did, mostly, and she sat breathing deeply with her injured leg before her. There were dusky-purple streaks extending up from the wound toward her groin, and she hissed softly when she touched it.Shit . The house looked like the sort a moderately prosperous merchant might have built for a refuge during the hottest of the summer months; the surrounding forest made it noticeably cooler, although the fits of shivering that were making her teeth rattle occassionaly made it hard to judge. Two stories, with a central chimney, everything of sawn blocks of grayish volcanic tufa. Windows shuttered, with light leaking around the edges; the second story extended to form a roof over the front veranda, resting on pillars. One oak door with a shuttered peephole. I can't wait, Shkai'ra thought.It doesn't matter how many of them there are. Much longer and I won't be able to walk well, much less fight . She drew the sword and laid it on the ground before her and her hands on her thighs, palm up and fingers slightly curled. A breath, and then another, counting the time. Sense heartbeat, air on skin, the minor tickle and itch of bugs. Shut down hearing, the awareness at the boundary of her own skin. Pull the mind in… The sword. The Warmaster's voice echoed through her memory, so long ago.Every other weapon has another use. An axe can cut wood, a knife skin a sheep. Spears and bows are took of the hunt. The sword is made for one thing alone: killing. Take up the sword, take up death .
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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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Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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