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

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Eight tens and five, all had horses and the horses were all alive; that was as much as you could say. They
didn't seem to be impressed with her.Tough shit . But some of them showed promise.If that one over
there gives the Arkans as much trouble as I think he's going to give me, the war's won… well, that
much pay, I should have to earn it .
She was in full kit, on her destrier, armored head to toe in black steel forged in F'talezon. Fantastically
expensive: but that depended on how much you valued your life. All they could see of her was the mouth
and her eyes on either side of the nasal bar. She could feel Hotblood sulking because she'd left him out.
Sova was behind her on her pony.
"All right—dress ranks!" she shouted in Enchian.
They jostled around, horses shouldering and nipping.
Some of the weirder-looking ones were asking their neighbors what she'd said.
Fucking joy. They managed to get into something resembling a line, and she cantered down in front of
them. The horses were all bigger than ponies. Everyone seemed to have a sword or axe, at least, lances,
too, from manheight to twice that. All of them had metal helmets, leather shields. Nobody was without a
boiled-leather breastplate, minimum; most with bone or horn scales on the leather, a few with iron or
bronze; a few with chain-mail shirts. About a third had saddle-bows, mostly Aenir horn-backed types.
Better than nothing . The tall skinny black one had a bucket of javelins on either side of his saddle.
About six-in-ten were men, four women, the usual for this part of the Mitvald lands.
"Who doesn't speak Enchian?" she yelled. There was a moment of running translation, and about a
dozen hands went up. "You beside them—you, you, you—teach them the command-words."
"First—dismount!" One fell on his backside.Shit . Shkai'ra vaulted to the ground, waiting till they sorted
themselves out.
It's best to get things started by showing who's the toughest, meanest and craziest of all. That dark
one in the long chain shirt, a Lakan, looked like a good candidate to her. He had a good enough sneer,
some missing teeth, an earring showing under his peaked helmet; standing tall, thumbs in his belt,
shoulders back. He was taller than she was, heavy shoulders and slightly bowed muscular legs with a
sword-callus around the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
"You, your name and rank," she said, pointing.
"Bukangkt," he answered, after an insultingly long pause. She didn't know much about Lakans, except
that their country was south and west of Yeola-e, and they were in the war. This one must be an exile to
be here and not with his king. He didn't add "kras"or any other word of respect. Probably top-chicken
with this bunch so far, and he'd push it.
She stepped closer, stuck her face toward his.He smells like stale wine; too early. Younger than I
thought, not more than twenty-two .
"You call mekras , Bukangkt," she said, slow and just loud enough for the others to hear. "I call you
whatever I want. Right now I call you stupid. What were you exiled for, raping pigs?"
She turned her back on him, walked away.How stupid is he ? Very stupid; she heard steel rasping free
of leather and the jingle of mail-rings as he lunged after her, and Sova's warning cry, "Khya-hird!"