Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  “Very good,” Chevenga said, grinning. She put a hand to Hotblood’s mouth; he lipped her fingers, making her glad she was wearing gloves. “Tell me, how far apart can the two of you be, and still ... think to each other?”

  “About two ... kylickz ... kilometers, you say. Fades out to general feelings beyond that, then thins to nothing. We can tell each other’s direction from much further away; say a hundred, two hundred kilometers. And whether the other is getting closer or farther.”

  “That could be useful ... he smells like a meat-eater. Does he eat anything else?”

  “Milk, cheese, grain, grass and leaves, if he can’t get struggling meat. It makes him moody, though.”

  “Arkans?”

  “Two-legs are his favorite after horses; and though he’s not normally picky about nationalities, I’ve told him to be, in this case. Ri are like weasels: kill-crazy. I can keep him under control unless he’s attacked. And I’ve told him that if I bite it, the yellow-haired red-armored ones are to blame, and he should rip up only them.” That had been difficult; Hotblood didn’t think in words, what-if a concept at the bare limit of his comprehension. On top of that he’d greeted the thought of her death with a monumental sulk.

  Without warning, the Ri padded up to the desk, stretched his neck to lean his wedge-shaped face within a handspan of Chevenga’s. Scareyouhehehehe. Oh, shit ... HERDSTALLION, Shkai’ra thought frantically. Now, Hotblood chose to blithely ignore her, baring his fangs instead.

  You’re in trouble, Gold-bottom, if there’s any fear in you now, whether you show it or not ... The Ri could smell it. Whether the semanakraseye sensed this or not, she couldn’t tell; but he didn’t move, his dark gaze, not so much hard as open, like a cat’s hunting-stare, faintly smiling, if anything, back into the Ri’s. They stared at each other frozen for a time. The only two around here who aren’t a little tense, Shkai’ra thought. Some Yeolis had their hands on their sword-hilts, or knuckles white on spears. Chevenga raised a hand, signing them to do nothing. With a shrug of his mane, Hotblood turned away. Noscare boring.

  “I’m telling him that you’re herd stallion around here,” said Shkai’ra, sending the thought as she spoke. “And a greater killer than I am, even. He believes me.”

  Chevenga shrugged and smiled. “Maybe it isn’t true.” He gave out some order, stripped off his shirt and took up a shield and a pair of wooden practice-swords that had been leaning on his desk. “Come.”

  Oh, good, Shkai’ra thought. How good is he, his own self? He offered and she chose, picking out the sword of white oak, and swung it to get the balance while they brought up a horse for him. Not bad: a big black Lakan gelding, about seventeen hands, definitely a destrier, not too showy but looking very strong and reasonably fast. Brave too; it just rolled the white of its eye at Hotblood, though they were upwind. The crowd around the ground suddenly thickened, munching on pieces of cold roast pork from last night; war-camps were as bad as cities for people with nothing to do but watch.

  DO NOT BITE OR CLAW THIS HORSE, she thought to Hotblood. Herdstallion and I are going to play.

  Gripinpushpushpush? he hoped.

  Bastard peeping tom keeps listening in when I fuck. Of Hotblood’s bad habits, that was the worst, at least in Shkai’ra’s opinion. No. Playfight.

  Oh. He looked at the horse speculatively. Fight horse?

  DO NOT BITE OR CLAW THIS HORSE, she thought again.

  Sigh. Sheep?

  “He’s being real good; do you have any spare sheep?”

  “Oh, I think we could find one somewhere,” Chevenga said, with a musing smile. He mounted, and the Lakan black stamped and sidled, not happy. He gentled it down but it sweated anyway, as he wheeled away to take position. Shkai’ra mounted, did likewise at the opposite ends of the field.

  They saluted, then charged, Shkai’ra giving the Kommanza war-cry.

  The semanakraseye was a little slower off the mark, his Lakan destrier needing greater time to build up speed. Careful, it outweighs Hotblood by a third. She leaned forward along his neck, blade out and wrist locked; Chevenga was sitting straight with his butt against the high cantle, sword back for a chopping stroke. Closer—but his horse swerved, and they passed just out of sword’s reach.

  “Shit!” Shkai’ra cursed.

  Hehe, Hotblood commented.

  Shut up!

  They wheeled; he was speaking to his horse, patting its neck. The whites of its eyes showed; foam blew off its neck on muscles standing out like iron. She could see the strain in his forearms, from reining. “Is that a war-horse, kras, or a racer?” she called, grinning.

  “Warhorse!” he called back. “Steady as stone, unfailing as a Haian’s oath. Except today, when he’s decided to be a racer ...” She saw the flash of gold teeth, as he grinned. “As many an Arkan destrier will, too.”

  Hotblood darted forward before Shkai’ra could stop him; thought-giggling hehehe, he stretched his neck and hissed in the Lakan black’s face, making it jump, all four feet in the air. I wish he hadn’t been eating so much horsemeat. Chevenga barely managed to stay in the saddle and kept gentling. Between its urge to be elsewhere and his direction, the Lakan turned in a U, circling. The watchers laughed, shouting Yeoli, making chicken-clucks. He yelled something in Yeoli back to them, turning his head away from her. In the moment’s relaxation she allowed herself then, a dark shadow with wooden sword was blurring above her.

  Shit. She rolled out of the saddle, crouching down. I should have expected it: horse being a hindrance, not a help—leave it. And off one leg while looking the other way, perfectly misleading clues, beautiful. He twisted midair and landed on her leg, pinning her to the saddle, now giving his war-cry, hoarse and deafening. Shield down, stop him chopping at the leg; Baiwun he’s fast. Block, shield, sword, shield ...

  Whump. Hotblood’s head came around and back; she heard and felt the thump against Chevenga’s back. He flew over her head, his scarred face passing by hers with an expression almost casual, eyes fixed carefully on the ground where he was headed, to land rolling fluidly onto his feet. She cantered off, flicking herself back upright in the saddle. His horse was long gone; she could see a gap in the spectators, and a bobbing black thing trailing a tent.

  “Nice try!” she yelled from ten yards. Sheepshit, that was close. He just beckoned her to him with his sword, standing upright in a natural stance.

  This says something. At least three hundred people were watching, enough to make whatever happened here common knowledge in camp in a day. A shrugging matter if he beat her—but if she beat him, the Invincible, on whom all their hopes rested ... He’s smart enough not to underestimate me, and to know I’m not going to hold back in one sinew for one instant. Yet he was doing this, and with a grin. So confident in your own skill, Gold-bottom? She remembered Ivahn’s words: “He takes great risks.”

  “Eeeeeeiiiiiii!” Hotblood sprang into charge. Saber back and up for a forward-sweep cut, mount’s shoulder into the footman and the blade chops with all the weight behind it but pull it, we’re sparring ...

  As if he was going to stay there—damn. In the last instant Chevenga spun out of line somehow, jumped, this one’s a fucking jackrabbit he’s over the line of my cut. She flipped the saber into the overhand guard down her spine, but he kicked in midair, sandalled foot whipping out flicker-fast. The heel rapped her shoulder, just hard enough to make her reel in the saddle.

  He should have gone for my head or neck; a miss, or intentional? She’d seen his face at the apex of the jump, measuring carefully like before. Give him the benefit of the doubt, at least half of it. She rolled out of the saddle on the other side, landing on her feet. Hotblood circled, then lay down and sulked when she told him to stay out. This was not a scream and leap situation.

  Ex-gladiator, she thought. Used to duels, in front of crowds. She stood, shield up under her eyes, saber laid flat along her spine. Now he was rushing her, the hoarse cry again, cut low straight from the run, blurring fast. She leaped over
it, milked the hilt as she slashed down, onto his shield. Thud. The shock jarred her arm.

  Blocked his sight, hah!—she punched out the wood sabre in a lunge at his midriff, to be turned perfectly by his, almost delicately, just enough motion to send it offline ... Shit, can the steer-raper see through leather? Then he attacked, high cut, low cut, thrust at eyes, elbow ... She remembered: manrauq. He has weapon-manrauq. She kept the shield in front of her, on the defensive, the blows rocking back into her shoulders, Baiwun, he’s strong for his size, slightly shorter than her. She yielded ground, stop-thrust to make him guard, bounded backward. Thrust again while I’m outside his fighting range; keep him there and I can peck at him.

  No, he understood how to fight like one smaller, getting inside and moving quick; besides he had long arms for his height, deceptive. The brown eyes were even more wide-open now, concentrating, pupils big. She and he moved together, like dancing, like sex, each of hands and feet and bodies in concert, in amber honey. Once their gaze caught, and his lips parted in a small quiet smile.

  His wooden sword quartered down from the left, neck-cut. Shield up like the wing of a soaring gull, around to stop the blow, her sword stabbing low. His shield locked against the guard of her sword, and they stood locked corps-a-corps for an instant, no open flesh to kick; he pushed, and his sword-hand and shield-hand were like the halves of a giant vise.

  She waited till her arms must give way, part of a second, used his strength to throw herself back. She could hear the crowd behind, distant, half yelling for him, half good-naturedly, to her amazement, for her. They’re so fucking confident, too, that they want to make it harder for him. She’d moved twenty yards back in three passages; that had to stop. The sun, out fully now, shone in his eyes but didn’t slow his responses. If there were sand I might try to kick some into his face; but they were on thick sod. And it might do no good anyway.

  If you can’t win, cheat. A trick she’d learned from a Senlaw street-bravo, impossible to block. She attacked hard, faster than she could maintain, pushing herself past the reserve against extremity; he defended, waiting for her last strength to wear out. Beautiful, beautiful, nothing wasted. All her strikes were high-line, advancing a series of running fleches to the throat, long-lunge. He parried against the tip of the sword, stopping her movement with the threat of running herself onto his point. Once she tried to hit his wrist, but the steel band of his wristlet glanced her point. Bad luck—but the exchange distracted him from her shield.

  She’d been working her arm out of the grips. One last high-line, the point stabbing down with the hilt above her head, and she snapped it at his shins, like a giant discus, threw herself forward on one hand, body level with the ground and sword extended.

  Impossible to block—but he quartered, out of the way, switching stance so fast she didn’t see his feet move. The shield flew by him, and his came down to pin her blade. On the back of her neck, she felt a light tap, barely a touch, of wood.

  “Shit,” she said. “That usually works.”

  “I can see it would,” Chevenga answered breathlessly, grinning, reaching out a hand to help her up. She could barely hear him for cheers and a rush of metal clankings, those wrist-sheaths being banged together, the Yeoli way of applauding. “I’m honored to spar you, thank you,” he said, too sincerely to be a pure formality. “I may again soon, I hope? And all my Elite? And everyone else you’ve got time for? You have tricks I’ve never seen—from across the water, I guess?”

  “Ia, kras, what’s mine is yours,” she said. She felt her face flushed, with exhilaration as well as effort; his was the same. “It’s been a long time since I met someone better than me with a sword. I needed to be stretched again, if I’m going to keep learning.”

  “Well, I’m hardly going to pretend you didn’t stretch me,” he answered. “Or teach me.”

  No harm in praise, either to swell a head or be taken as flattery, she thought, if it’s spoken true. Besides he wouldn’t take it wrong; by the harmony sparring could bring between two souls, she knew that. “The warrior’s philosophy—skill uses least effort for greatest effect—I’ve rarely seen applied so well,” she said. “I see why they call you Invincible.”

  “Eh. Philosophy, shmilosophy,” he answered. Somehow it was suddenly strange, almost unimaginable, that he spoke Enchian, not Kommanzanu like a child of the same kin-fast, and in fact didn’t even know it, to think in it. Things of the body are deeper than language. “I just plain can’t.” He gestured to his scars. “Too much of this. Last summer I keeled over from exhaustion, and ever since then I’m sworn off using more strength than I have to—healer’s orders.” A squire who looked like his little sister brought a flask of water. Shkai’ra took a sip; it was ice-cold. “I don’t call myself Invincible. Though I hardly need say that to you.”

  “The Warmasters who taught me always said you had to start replacing the physical with the mental if you wanted to live much past thirty,” she said. He made the palm-up sign for yes, chuckling at something he did not say. Their eyes caught, understanding sparking between them again. If I could tell you my joke, his said clearly, I know you’d get it.

  “Agh, my poor Akaznakir ...” A Lakan name; the destrier. “I hope he’ll forgive me. Well, what say we slake our thirst with something stronger?” She clapped him on the back.

  Hah. She got beaten, thought Sova. My unbeatable khyd-hird got beaten. Of course she’d probably say that it would all be different if it were real ... still. Coming all this way would almost be worth it just for that.

  The journey had been uneventful; she’d made sure not to swagger down streets or through bars, worn her sword discreetly, strapped her money to several different places on her body. The ship’s crew had known whose daughter she was, and so—once she’d convinced them she was supposed to be there simply by making no excuses for it, along with an effective combination of superiority and cheery willingness to help—they’d asked no questions. The caravaneer she’d hired on with as able hand—for bed and board, all she wanted—had seemed a little crooked and furtive, but no more so than most; if anything, he’d avoided her.

  Now, as she lay in her little pup-tent beside Shkai’ra’s, face-down, buttocks sore, she wondered why she’d done this. The obvious reasons didn’t seem enough, for the compulsion she had felt, to be near, to see, Megan and Shkai’ra. So I was mad because they wouldn’t let me; so what? That’s happened before. Prove myself as a warrior? Sounds like the dumb things boys do. You’d think couldn’t bear them being away, she thought. They’ll probably think that themselves.

  Why did I do this? Stunned, she realized that she’d disobeyed her parents, borne the hardships of travel all the way down the Brezhan, risked, at least to some degree, her freedom and her life, all without truly knowing the reason. I just itched, that’s all. I got all restless, I wanted something that I could only get here. I had to come. So I did.

  In time, she shrugged it off. Who cares why, now; I’m here. It would work itself out, she felt, vaguely. Besides, she couldn’t exactly turn around and go back. They wouldn’t let her, for one thing, but more importantly, she’d look like a complete idiot.

  * * *

  VIII

  Shkai’ra looked over the bunch of scruffy hired killers she’d been assigned to whip into shape, a half-kylick away from the road, so that no one else could watch this mess of shambolic quasi-soldiery, yet.

  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.