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 A long breath, in, out. Let pain flow out, let anger flow out, let fear flow out. "No one followed you, huh, Fren?" Cards slapped on the table, as Patappas dealt, the pack laid on the table for his one hand to deal from. "Followed me? Why in Hayel would you think anyone would follow me?" "Just asking." "Maybe a stray dog. Or a werewolf." Outside it was getting dark. Take up the death of your enemies. Another breath. Let the awareness of the body return; accept the weakness, pain, torn muscle, joint-ache of fever. Accept, let them pass through. The body has its own reserves, the last horded strength for extremity. The trained will can summon it. She did, and felt her pupils flare wide. Her skin chilled and roughened as the capillaries under it squeezed, forcing her blood back toward the heart. A trickle of slaver ran down from one corner of her mouth as the lips ridged. The darkness went lighter, sharp-edged but distant. Take up your own death. She rose, almost smoothly, and stripped off the hampering skirt. Ripped the tunic down, a moment's distraction might mean the difference between killing and dying. Killing and dying are one. Kill until you die. Gravel crunched under her feet, and the feral scent of flowers gone wild, overblown summer roses. Buckler and sword went behind her back. She halted before the door. "Helloin there," she called, standing two paces back. The peephole opened, throwing light into her eyes. "Go away, bitch," an Arkan voice said, halfway between anger and alarm. "No food, no shelter. Get lost." You are the sword. Steel does nothing; it is the hardheartthat kills . "Death," she muttered, unconscious of the action. The point of the longsword slotted through the peephole, and the impact ran back up the steel to her wrist. A crunching feeling as the point punched through just above the nose, then a thud as the body hit the door when she jerked back on the sword to free it. Her good leg swung up, kicking flat-footed next to the latch; old dry-rotted wood shattered with a crack and a puff of brown dust, and the door gave. The stab of pain up her injured leg was nothing, something happening to someone else far away; she stopped it from buckling under her with brisk impatience. Through the door, shouldering it aside and stepping over the body of a man, eyes still wide in final surprise. Others around a table. One clutching the arm of ablond boy whose eyes were kh'eeredo's
— Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Shkai'ra screamed, blade arching back for a cut. Cards flew upward in a shower. Good tactics, bad strategy. She found herself a dispassionate spectator, sitting behind her own eyes. Four men. One holding the boy. Middle-aged, some of them fat, one missing an arm; old warriors, or street-fighters. Balding man holding Lixand by the arm, reaching across to drag out a long knife with the other. She'd given them no way to run and no time to be afraid. Thefessas she had followed snatched up a javelin from the wall, threw himself backward with a shriek as the tip of her sword drew a line of red across his chest. He backflipped, came to his feet and threw, screamed again as her sword blurred and the barbed head wentktang off the guard, to sink quivering into the inside of a shutter. Shkai'ra shrieked back at him; he threw up his hands as the return slash opened his belly. Everything went clear, like the air on a crisp day, rare in Arko, like cold air that Rasas knew from somewhere, his childish made-up stories of imaginary places; nowhere could air be that cold. Some nights here he'd imagined being rescued by a knight on a white charger, whose armor shone, and who would gallantly yet kindly overpower Patappas and friends, turning them over to the authorities to be thrown in the dungeons; then the knight, learning Nuninibas was no less evil, rather more so, would take Rasas away and adopt him… Butthis , this huge female-gargoyle-faced…creature with blurring sword and rotting leg, didnot fit the part. There were splashes of blood flying everywhere, everyone was screaming, and Rasas knew only one thing:I've got to get outof here . Out of sight, out of mind, he knew, with a slave's instincts. Whenit (it couldn't be ashe) had its back turned, he scurried under the card table. Next, the door—if a chance came when there weren't legs or blurring spattering weapons in the way, before it was over… he waited. Or the stairs; there were broken windows, maybe he could crawl out over the roof… he waited. The witch-demon, what else could it be, was hacking up his kidnappersfast. There goes Frenandias… Akobas… I can't wait much longer … His chance for the door never came. Shkai'ra batted the thrown chair aside with the buckler and stabbed down at the knife-arm swiping for her ankles; the point of her sword slammed between the bones of the man's forearm—his only forearm, it was the amputee—into the hardwood blocks of the floor, and stuck. A third man lunged, barbed javelin thrusting for her belly. She began to quarter, and her leg gave.Ah ! Down on one knee; the javelin-head banged off the boss of her buckler with an iron clamor and shower of sparks, and the man tripped and fell full-length over her outstretched other leg. She pulled herself up on the hilt of the sword, and the next man was on her, a knife in either hand. Turn-step-sweep-parry, her empty hand grabbing the wrist of the leading knife hand, other driving the edge of the shield into his temple. Turn-twist-hips andthrow , flowing with and speeding his motion so his weight never really fell on her bad leg; his flight ended with the top of his head thudding into the stone block wall with an ugly cracking sound. Somewhere she could feel pain alarms, more than one, sounding in the depths of her mind. A man on his knees, nose mashed flat to his face, bleeding, whites showing all around his faded blue eyes—but grabbing up a loaded crossbow, the four edges of the pyramid-shaped head of the quarrel
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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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Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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