Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...
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their blows, shouting, crying, going down on his knees. Another child ran, though no one was chasing her,<br />
screaming "Mother! Father!", her formality strange in the chaos.Its always the children who suffer<br />
most . Megan knew. For an instant she was five years old again, in the riots in F'talezon, breathing<br />
furnace-hot air. The smell was the same; what race the residents were made no difference, it seemed, to<br />
that.<br />
The smoke was thick enough now to make the streets dark as at dusk. Flames cut the old brick of a<br />
wall like knives, only a few houses <strong>and</strong> yards away; the air singed, full of sparks <strong>and</strong> burning flakes of<br />
ash. She pulled her tunic up over her head, covering her nose <strong>and</strong> mouth against the rancid smoke, <strong>and</strong><br />
ran. Someone screamed close <strong>by</strong>—long, long shrieks one after the other, high over the thunder of fire.<br />
An Arkan boy Lix<strong>and</strong>'s age with a toy sword stood in the door of a house, the picture of defiance, with<br />
a Yeoli woman in front of him; his st<strong>and</strong> was useless, the house already on fire from behind. He lunged<br />
with both h<strong>and</strong>s, trying to hold the sword straight; the Yeoli stepped aside, hit him in the back of the head<br />
with the edge of her shield, kicked him out of the way <strong>and</strong> stepped into the house.<br />
Right, then left—then a blank wall where the street should continue, a building in the way.A bloody<br />
building —in more ways than one; smears of grey mixed with the blood, the stink of bile, piss, shit <strong>and</strong><br />
blood cutting even the smoke; a body lay with blond head broken open in a splatter pattern.<br />
She hesitated, thinking she'd got turned around. The fire wasthere , she couldn't go back or get trapped<br />
<strong>by</strong> it.Up. Look from the fikken roof . She yanked out her climbing claws rather than take the gloves off,<br />
clambered up the new brick wall, over the circles carved under the eaves <strong>and</strong> over the edge.My map's<br />
out of date, dammit. This was just built, <strong>and</strong> now it's burning . The tiles were warm through her<br />
gloves <strong>and</strong> she could near them cracking in the neat, the sound like bones in a dog's teeth. She felt the<br />
hairs on the inside of her nose crinkle as she breathed. Four or five houses down a roof fell in, loosing<br />
whip-tongues of flame to roar up into the sky.<br />
No sack, you said, Chevenga. I remember your eyes, so honest. No sack.<br />
The house behind her, blazing curtains waving out of broken upper windows, bricks bulging outward,<br />
crumbling, ready to fall at any moment. She slid over the peak of the roof to the other side, snatched at<br />
the map, the roaring fire-wind trying to tug her off the roof, into the fire, or pull the breath out of her<br />
lungs.Stopping to read a map in the middle of the bottom furnace of Halya, shit, shit, shit …<br />
The street twisted the other way from what her map showed, but the one beyond looked right. Wind<br />
tore the paper almost in half; she grabbed it <strong>and</strong> flattened against the tiles. There—the Avenue of<br />
Statuary.<br />
Fishguts. Everyone's here. Of course, where else? This was where the good stuff was. Yeolis <strong>and</strong><br />
Lakans <strong>and</strong> Enchians ran back <strong>and</strong> forth carrying gold-leafed chairs, paintings, bundles of bright satin<br />
clothing, jewel boxes. They danced in the fountains with gold chains <strong>and</strong> baubles <strong>and</strong> sparkly stones<br />
dangling over their grimed oily armor, carried huge glass vases out of the houses just to smash them,<br />
made bonfires of books just to see something valuable destroyed,stupid assholes , waving their arms in<br />
the air like savages at a fire altar. A crowd of warriors laughed <strong>and</strong> danced <strong>and</strong> sang around a cart with a<br />
huge cask on it, filling cups from the casks. A dozen Arkans,Aitzas <strong>by</strong> the few waist-long str<strong>and</strong>s of their<br />
hair not hacked off, were harnessed to the cart like horses, with blinders <strong>and</strong> bits in their mouths even,<br />
their faces dead with shock. The cobbles shone red with wine <strong>and</strong> blood.<br />
Statues. A bronze horse being pulled down <strong>by</strong> a motley group of mercenaries, beating on it just to hear<br />
the hollow boom, a marble form hacked off at the ankles, leaving s<strong>and</strong>alled feet on the plinth amidst