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

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scattered shards. Glass everywhere, not enough left to tell what it was, jagged shelled pieces sparkling in
the flames. Another bronze, a winged lion rampant, holding a sun-disk, too big to shift…
There—the head of the street lay in line with the great Eagle. The buildings marked as the University
seemed to huddle behind the statues and chestnut trees on either side. Avoiding the fighting, dancing,
fucking crowd in the middle of the street, Megan slipped around a hedge and across a trampled lawn.
Almost in its middle, an Arkan scholar lay face-down as if to pray to the Eagle, a book under one hand,
shattered spectacles lying in a puddle of blood.
At the head of the avenue, a building on the left set back from the street, in a garden, seemed untouched,
grey columns rising to where the glass dome reflected the fire across the street. On the right a colonnade
ran to a small round bell-tower; a tall bearded Aenir beat the oak door in with an axe. The bell-tower
blazed, dark sooty limestone starting to glow and crack, flames biting out of the windows, mortar flung
out like ballista shot as stones shifted and cracked.
Megan had time to scan the square and the steps to the Marble Palace, as the tower started to lean as if
bowing to the opposite building. No sign of Shkai'ra, or anyone who could be Lixand. The tower
screamed as it teetered, like a person dying. She dived for shelter against the bronze lion, crouched and
heard what seemed like the sky falling.
The impact jolted her up, dropped her again, like an earthquake; she raised her ringing head out of her
arms and blinked at the mound of rubble, smashed burning trees, the dust almost burning too, across the
meeting-place.
Second, her mind thought dully.Also, the place he'd go if he got free from the kidnappers in the
confusion. The Temonen manor . Megan kneeled behind the statue, wiped soot and dust out of her
eyes, read the map again.Left from the square, left again onto Faith street, right onto Fidelity …
Left. A row of pines blazed; one cracked in half with a noise like Shkai'ra's shot-pistol, spraying burning
tar and needles across the street, boiling oily turpentine strong enough to make her eyes water.Faith
Street. A crowd in the way, someone still able to fight back; three or four ancientsolas , helmetless, their
beautifully-kept antique weapons unsteady in liver-spotted hands, trying to defend what their sons
couldn't.
Fidelity Street. Awhite marble wall with painted scenes of domestic tranquility, the paint bubbling and
peeling in the heat.The Temonen family seal; her agent had included it in his letter. It hung from broken
open gates, banging against the wall. A lace-gloved hand trailed out of the fountain. A closed carriage lay
on its side. Formal gardens, perfectly manicured, now trampled, the geraniums broken, a sprawled body
by the carriage.Koru… how can so much destruction be done in so little time ?
The manor house wasn't burning, yet.
"Shkai'ra! Lixand!"
From one of the thick-grown flowerbeds came the sound of someone making love or raping, cries of
pain or pleasure, she couldn't tell. The heat was enough to dry the tears on her face.Tears.
Koru-forsaken, Goddess-damned tears . One of the walls of a manor down the street started to fall
outward, stately-slow. Her ears were too full to hear. Bricks didn't bum but it smelled as if they did,
fire-wind blowing the smell across her face.
She stepped through the manor's huge fancy-carven door, hearing things smash upstairs. She ducked