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

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Didn't I get tired when I was fourteen? Megan thought, watching Sova's ash-blond braid bounce as
she tossed bits of hardtack to a swooping Fishhook.
"Here kitty kitty kitty!" she chirped. "You actuallylike this stuff, so here you go!" The girl's set of
manrauq-fused meshmail made a rustling chink as she moved, weapons and the helmet hooked to her
belt clanked with each hop. She swung up onto her pony easily. Megan wiped sweat from her brow and
cursed, kicking her feet free of her mount's stirrups and bringing her Knees up to spare the calves.I'm
one of the only people I know who could be over-horsed on a fish-gutted pony. Still, she'd got
enough used to riding now that she could concentrate on other things. Especially on this old beast, that
was like a living chaise longue—the most mild, sedate, half-asleep horse she'd ever dreamed could exist.
She wondered where Shkai'ra had found it.
The Thane-girl's mood seemed to change as afternoon wore on; she stopped starting conversations, and
her round face, flushed with heat, turned pensive and closed.
When Megan saw it, that was; more and more she found herself facing the braid.After I made Shkai'ra
give her a day off squiring so I could get re-acquainted , she thought.
"Ha-a-a-a-alt!" The command came from the head herald, in tuneful Yeoli, and traveled away down the
line behind them, relayed in mutiple languages until it faded away in the distance. Rest-break. They sat in
the shade of an olive tree and passed the canteen of unfermented apple cider between them. Though all
shade tended to get filled immediately with people, it was a small tree and they were alone. Megan
propped her chin in a cupped hand, bracing her elbow on her knee.
"You prefer riding with Shkai'ra, Sovee? Or are you just tired?"
The girl blinked in surprise. "No, I'm not tired. And I don't… I mean, riding's easier than walking, but…
I like being with you."
Megan leaned back against the tree, closing her eyes for a bit. "I always preferred walking, myself. I…"
She hesitated, then opened her eyes, looking down from the bright stabs of sun.I find myself looking
into a face I've told myself I should know, then realizing that I've been assuming a Halya of a lot. I
keep falling over those assumptions when we've been less than close . "Something on your mind,
then?"
The girl looked as if she were deciding how to answer, then said, "Ya." Education had smoothed Sova's
Zak, but never rooted out the back-of-the-throat Thanish accent, something which had never stood her
in good stead in F'talezon.
"I was just thinking about… the old place, that's all."
Home, she had once called Schotter's house in Brahvniki, where she'd been born and raised by her
natural parents until twelve, in the very rare times she'd mentioned it. She no longer did.
"I went riding then. I mean, nothing like how much I ridenow , but that's where I first learned." The girl's
hand fidgeted at her sword-hilt, one nail scratching one of the quillons, a nervous habit she'd acquired
after the first fight she'd been in on the river. The hand looked awkward, a little too large for its arm, like