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

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Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html "You know,shemannn-Krazh … whatever the fuck." Chevenga had joined Shkai'ra, unannounced as usual, at one of the Slaughterers' campfires. "You're pretty," she went on. "Wanna fuck?" His head turned to her; on his face, in the golden half-light of the fire, partly shadowed by his thick side-curls, she was sure she detected a little smile along with the raised brows. Sova turned away to Echera-e, feeling her face go red-hot, covering it with the coolness of her hands. "I don'tknow her." "Someone told you our custom," Chevenga said. "Custom? What custom?" Yeoli tradition, he explained, demanded that asemana-kraseye leading an army must refuse no comers at a campfire; they believed this bound the army as one. Leading an alliance, he'd extended the favor to non-Yeolis. "Oh,really ?" From the distant woods:Hehehehehe . "Hey!" She'd hardly heard him shout before, not even giving orders on the field; that was the task of the herald, or the gong. "Wait!"About as heavy as I thought , she thought.Not overly . His waist fit nicely, on her shoulder; his squirmings somehow didn't happen to overbalance him. "I don't know whether anyone else wants me!" The Slaughterers, howling with laughter so hard even some wine was spilled, made only encouragements, and the odd cry of "Me, later!" gesturing to the woods with a wide variety of suggestions and advice. "He-e-e-e-elp!" Chevenga rasped, thrashing and flailing dramatically. "Rape! Pillage! Wanton lust! I'm at the mercy of a ravishing barbarian! Wait, let me rephrase that… Ravening, I mean…" Sova just buried her head in her arms, as his mock protests faded into the trees. The sheer effrontery of it sank in further.She just carried off the Invincible , Sova thought,the Immortal, Imperturbable, Second Curlion… I mean, I know she thinks she's something, but… I Echera-e's hand touched hers. "You' shahdow-motser, he hahs—" "Shehas." "Ayo, she hahs…rav'ye , you know, naht cowarrd—" "The nerve of a lake-quarter rat?" " 'Tai, yes. I like people like tsaht." His hand feels like silk woven from threads of fire. Since that first night, the Yeoli youth had often happened to show up at whichever Slaughterer fire she was at. Like all Yeolis, he never felt he was speaking whole-heartedly to someone unless he was touching their hand or shoulder or knee (just as long as one hand was free to gesture); but that touch was unthinkingly casual, and though the first time his big
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html palm had gently laid on the back of her hand had sent a lightning-bolt through her, she'd soon got used to it, though some part of her went on thinking it was vaguely perverse of him to do it, and her to not object. Then, somehow, their hands had stayed linked, even when he was just listening. Is this love? She knew that whenever she saw his face come into the ring of firelight, she'd feel a lifting in her chest, a catch of her breath and her heart beating faster. When he didn't come, she'd feel the disappointment of denial sharper than she'd ever felt since what she counted as her childhood, the time before she'd been taken from her old home.I want him here , she thought. But she'd heard of something called infatuation too, and that it could feel no less passionate, often more, yet not be the true thing. She'd askedzhymata how she could tell: "Only time can say," was the answer. He wants us to go into the bushes, she thought now,like khyd-hirdand Chevenga just did . An old voice, her birth-mother's, grated in her ear.Men only want one thing . If I just go into the bushes to be with him, does that make me a doxy? A slut? In her new home, she'd been taught the injustice of those terms, to be applied only to women, while men who did the same were to be admired. He wants to ruin me. The old Thanish phrasing came easily. Behind those friendly light brown eyes, Fehuund lurked, too subtle to see, wrapping his evil temptation as always in hope and warmth and yearning.But , she thought,I trust him . And overlaid on the old were the ethics of her new home: go with him into the bushes, tumble, take some birth-herb, and do the same tomorrow night, untouched; it's just sex, how can it change you? Her older concerns she would never admit tokhyd-hird , for fear of laughter or a sharp "Don't you knowanything ?" But that was no answer, to the touch of Echera-e's big tender hands, to the thought, that kept pressing into her imagination, of how they would feel touching her elsewhere, and to knowing that the pleasurable itch between her legs had something to do with it all. The wineskin came around; she took a long draught.I know what khyd-hirdwould do in this situation: what she just did. But that definitely is notmy style, and besides he's probably too heavy … Maybe I'm wrong, she thought, after a while.Maybe he doesn't want to. After all, he hasn't tried anything, he hasn't carried me off or kissed me or even said anything . He'd put his arm around her shoulder; but that was something friends could do.He hasn't even looked at me thatway. Yet he can't think I'm ugly, or he wouldn't keep holding my hand, or smiling, or saying I'm beautiful. What's he going to do ? Nothing, it seemed; the night ground on, and her nervousness over what might happen in the bushes gave way for what might not. I wantto. Does that make me a doxy? I don't feellike someone bad. Francosz learned on the river, two years ago. He looked so happy after. It's not fair that girls shouldn't get to do what boys do. There's nothing wrong with sex, nothing evil about it, and I won't get pregnant as long as I take some birth-herb. I won't be ruined, no decent Thanish family would marry me to their son anyway, and there's no such thing as being ruined by sex . Knyd-hird isn't a slut —she'd take off anyone's head who called her that—and look whatshedoes … Suddenly Echera-e excused himself to go to the latrine, and one of the Slaughterers, a man of about thirty or so who had seemed to be trying to catch the youth's eye, happened to get up at the same time.I miss him , she thought,even when he's gone only a few steps. Is this normal? Is this what people mean when they say "lovesick"? And why , she thought, sometime later,have the two of them been gone so long ? Sudden terrors filled her, of traitors in disguise and knives in the dark; the thought of him dead was suddenly horrifyingly huge and unbearable. But then he was there, as if he a never been gone.
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Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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