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

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Fiercely, she shook off the feeling.It's the famous Chevenga charm working on me. I'll make friends
with him, in time. Or I won't. If he looks down on me, his friendship isn't worth a green copper
anyway. Either way, Gold-bottom, is fine by me .
Megan rubbed her hands together, blowing on the fingers. That was one problem with having steel
claws; if it got cold the steel drew it into her fingertips, even just the difference between night and day. At
home she had to be careful of frost-bite in the winter, something she hadn't thought of when she'd got
them.
She swung her leg over the branch and climbed down the hemlock.One of the trees I know the name
for. I prefer doing this sort of thing in a nice orderly city where the streets don't rustle, squish
maybe, but not rustle , and began crawling through the brush into the Arkan camp. It wasn't the full
trench and palisade of a more permanent camp, but the sort of camp that they threw up every night when
they marched, with a dug trench of only four feet and a fence-wall of about the same—Arkansolas were
all required to carry three stakes with their kit for that wall.
She crouched in the shadow of the wall, looking down so her eyes wouldn't shine, fishing for the pebbles
in her pouch, smiling to herself, careful not to let her teeth flash in her blackened face. She'd spent a
whole day's march in a half-trance concentrating on the six small pebbles to sensitize them to her mind, till
she knew the feel of each stone inside and out; then an entire evening building up an image, a Chevenga
for each of them to carry. She'd found herself dwelling on the feel of his skin, fine hairs and all, had to
snap herself back to the image with a jolt.First thing I do is set it up so I have to lay hands on him ,
she thought.It was so forward — though Shkai'ra would laugh at that idea—he probably thinks I'm
after him, like every other woman in this army with heart and loins.
Six pebbles. The first one rolled along the walkway and clicked against the palisade. A sentry wheeled,
leveling his javelin at the dark. "Friend or foe?" No surprise, after everything else in this war, the Arkans
were jumpy.
Megan crept away from the pebble to the limit her mind could reach.Warm yellow line from my mind
to the stone, glowing with the residue of my thought. The memory of his face under my hands,
planes and angles under my palms. Chevenga. The semanakraseyeleaning nonchalantly against the
palisade, smiling, his gold teeth flashing in the light of the sentry's torch … Down the line came a
hoarse yell and the thud of the javelin driving itself into the wood. The image frowned at the spear
vibrating through it, then up at the sentry who stood there for an instant and turned and ran, as Chevenga
seemed to step toward him. She let the spell fade, carefully in control, grinning. Even if it broke, she'd set
it up so the snapping of the spell wouldn't lash back straight through her head.
The pounding of feet as the sentry's backup came running…He'll have to explain what he saw .
Further along the wall she climbed over and drifted along the outer row of tents. It was just as the map
had described. There was a camp dog sniffing around a midden pit that she avoided. Near the command
tents she rolled a second pebble into the light; it rolled to a stop, clicking against the armored boot of a
deputy-generals guard. She'd forgotten the name; he was a high mucky-muck, that was all that mattered.
The guard looked down, then out, stepped forward, glancing around.
His partner covered his back. Megan concentrated; there was Chevenga, strolling between them. They
froze, shouted and lunged, narrowly missing skewering each other; the image grinned and ambled into the
tent. A portly man—the deputy-general, it had to be—plunged out, sword in hand, almost into his