Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  “No.” Her voice was hoarse, almost a growl. “Never. You’re her daughter, and my daughter. If she ever raised so much as a finger that way, I would divorce her so fast she wouldn’t have time to grab her bowcase.”

  “You vould? I didn’t think you’d leave her for anything.”

  Megan’s voice was dead calm, deadly even. “There are some things I will not forgive, and that is one of them. Adopted or blood-kin, it doesn’t matter.”

  “You don’t mind her beating me.”

  “I’ve never seen her raise more than bruises on your butt, and for good reason.”

  “There’s things you don’t see. The day she took us, we didn’t do anything bad except not run faster than we could to where we didn’t vant to go!”

  “Well, there she was wrong.”

  “Vat about all dose times when I really vass trying as hard as I could in war-training and she’d hit me anyway? Zhymata, that all made me into a different person and I didn’t want it and I’m not sure I like who it made me into!”

  “Made you into a different person? Hardly.” Megan faced Sova in the dark, fists on her knees. “In war-training, you found the steel in you. It was already there.”

  “I’m not talking about the steel. I’m talking about the hate.”

  “You mean her trying to teach you to hate everyone and everything, or just her?”

  “Myself!”

  “Do you? Hate yourself?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s right, either. If you feel that way, why don’t you talk to me about it more?”

  “I know you don’t think that’s right. But she does. She thinks you have to, to be a warrior. She thinks I was mean and cruel before, it just needed polishing. But I ... well, maybe I was mean to Piatr, I know I was. But ... well, no one taught me it was wrong then, everyone else was doing it, he was just a nasty witch my Pa gave me to torment, that’s all I knew, and I ... I didn’t know what was bothering me, so I took it out on him. I didn’t know it was cruel; I didn’t know what cruel was, den. I vass chust a stupid girl!” Suddenly tears muddied the clear young voice. “I vasn’t mean! I was chust ignorant! I didn’t know how much it hurt! She vould haf done vorse!” Cautiously, ready in case the girl recoiled, Megan touched her trembling shoulder, then pulled her into her arms. “Khyd-hird is mean! She’s really mean! She knows vat she’s doing!”

  “Ah, Sovee, Sovee. She does as she was taught and does not know better either, though she’s so much older than you are. She says crude and cruel things and doesn’t see how she hurts Shyll or Rilla with her ignorance, even me sometimes. She doesn’t think there’s a problem, though she tries—stumbling, bruising souls, stepping on hearts.” Megan hugged the girl, smoothing hair back off her face. “It helps if you think of her like the pups, all big feet and not knowing their own strength. Take what good she can give you and leave her hard-headed idiocies to me. I’ll handle them as best I can.”

  “The pups are just dumb animals, they can’t help it. They aren’t my teachers, claiming to know everything. And she can’t do anything to you, so you don’t know how it feels!”

  “Look,” said Megan, taking Sova by the shoulders. “Talking to me isn’t helping, that’s clear enough. If she—when she—comes back, you are going to have to take it up with her. You are a warrior; you can speak up.”

  Even in the darkness, Megan could see the girl’s lips thin and eyes widen. “But I’m not really a warrior, at least she doesn’t think so, because she hasn’t said I am and I’m only a warrior if she says I am, right? Besides I couldn’t ...” Her voice thinned and trailed off.

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “Couldn’t take her. She doesn’t listen to anyone she doesn’t think could ... at least make a good account of demself. She doesn’t think anyone who can’t fight is any good, deserve anything but pissing on, or being made a slave of one who can.”

  This might crack my family right in half. My family that isn’t yet complete. Maybe it never will be; if Shkai’ra doesn’t come back, if Lixand dies. Megan controlled the shudders, so Sova wouldn’t feel them. “Then tell her,” she said hoarsely, “tell her I’m behind you on this and she’d better listen. She may surprise you and listen anyway because you’re family.”

  “You’re behind me? Against her?”

  Megan felt as if a clawed hand had wrapped around one side of her heart, another clawed hand around the other, and they were pulling, tearing it in two. “For her listening. And paying some damned good attention.”

  She heard Sova’s hands fidgeting, nails scratching the bedroll. “If,” the girl said quietly. “If she comes back.”

  Do you like doing it? Sova heard the voice of Azaila in her ears.

  Not right now, she answered to herself.

  The fight, with both armies full-pitched, had gone from before noon to sundown. After a while the dust had hid most of the foot-combat, a yellow-brown cloud twice a tall man’s height; now and then an arrow would flick up out of it, or the head of a pike, and the continuous huge noise. The cavalry fight had been whirling chaos; after a while she’d been too bewildered to be afraid, she’d just concentrated and hoped she didn’t make a mistake. After a while her whole body had screamed in protest at the thought of another jarring blow on her shield, another wrist-hurting swordstroke, every one of the enemy bigger and stronger than her. In a pause, sucking at the canteen so hard the water had come out of her nose, colored with the dust that choked her, she had said something to the trooper beside her, a Nellan, a stocky hook-nosed woman with a faint mustache. When she looked back, the Nellan was slumping sideways with a shocked look and an arrow through her gorget, spitting blood.

  She hadn’t thought it at the time, but now, visiting Echera-e in the infirmary, she did. That could have been me. Just a puff of wind or a hand twitch ...

  “Iss shaming,” said Echera-e, from his cot in the infirmary tent. He gestured to the other patients, mostly Yeolis, in the infirmary, the beds in neat long white rows; here and there Haians leaned, peered closely, felt. There were a good ten just in her sight. “All wounded in fighting, form Yeola-e, forrh Beloved, brave ... me, get sick ... flowing sick, stink sick ...”

  “Dysentery,” Sova said.

  “Yes, dysentyere.”

  He was pale, like leeched-out soil. It had started two days before. The Haian had said he probably wasn’t in danger of death, but it would be another five days before he was up, and perhaps a half-moon before he could fight. Khyd-hird had said the Alliance army was lucky,

  Shadow’s Son with so many Haians and strong latrine-discipline. She’d been in wars where dysentery killed five times more than battle and wounds together. Only about a quarter of the patients in the huge rectangular tent were in with fevers of all kinds, which was almost miraculously good. Some of the soldiers said it showed the Gods fought for Chevenga.

  “Hate dirrht,” he said weakly. “Ahn’ naht fight when should.”

  “‘Who’s to know what would have happened, in a battle you missed,’” Sova quoted, and went on with her account of it. “So, finally, they stopped standing-retreating and really broke ranks. We chased them down for a while, sticking them in the back, little fights with the cavalry trying to cover the retreat. Their cavalry was really thin today, actually, maybe they all had hoof-rot or something. I’m so tired I hurt all over just from tiredness.”

  She was still in her dusty armor, the quilted gambeson underneath sodden with sweat; the chain sleeves were sewn to the undergarment, and the one on her right arm was clotted with blood. Guilt pricked at her, a little; the manrauq-forged meshmail was fantastically expensive—the more so as she would outgrow it soon. I can only visit him for an hour or two; I’ll clean it after that.

  “Now,” she said, “time to party. No, no, don’t move, livling. I’ll raise both our cups, my wine and your water ...”

  This was a horrible place, full of moaning, sometimes screaming, unnatural chemical odors mixed w
ith incense and the worse bodily smells it was all trying to defeat, and the sheer weight of pain in the air. How can Hakins stand it all the time? But I’d still rather be here with him than anywhere else, she thought. He needs me. If I were here, I’d want him to come. Every now and then he would ask her to call the healer’s apprentice for a bed pan. Though he didn’t ask her to, she’d look the other way; the Yeoli incense burning by his bed did little to hide the smell, then. But she stayed; feeling healthy and strong, even if tired. She held his cold hand, and tried to send her strength through it into him.

  Last night, when she’d told zhymata about it, she’d answered, “That’s love, Sovee.” And for a moment she’d looked so sad it made her face twenty years older: thinking of Shkai’ra.

  “I wish Chevenga hyere,” Echera-e said now. After a battle, the semanakraseye always visited one of the infirmaries—the army was too big now, to have only one—to comfort the wounded. “Tsey say, he touch you, heal faster. Don’t know if I believe tsaht ... But nice if true. Arrrgh.”

  Just then, the noise started.

  Hoofbeats, alarm cries, Arkan war-yells: “Kellin! Aras! Imperium!” But it’s over, her mind thought vaguely, lazily. Here? Here? From then on, things happened so fast she had no time to think.

  Horses—Arkan horses, in the infirmary, ripping through the tent-walls all over—white horses, the Sunborn Elite. Her mind tried to refuse what her eyes saw, Arkan horsemen joyfully whooping. Why no warning? An Imperial in light cavalry armor, breastplate and helmet and chainmail leggings all blackened, two buckets of javelins at his saddlebow, all of them with javelins, barbed heads cocked back over their shoulders or naming torches in their hands, grins on their faces, blue eyes slitted. The cavalry. The cavalry, who weren’t there in the day ... An officer in a plumed helmet scanned, eyes snake-cold, shouted, “Shefen-kas! Shefen-kas! Kellin!” More Arkan, then Enchian with a thick, clipped Arkan accent: “Ten thousand gold chains and Aitzas rank for his head—whichever side you’re on!”

  Gotthumml. Gotthumml. Echerry. Everyone was screaming, it seemed, him, the healers, the wounded. Get him out of here. I’ve got to get him out of here. He can’t fight. Haian healers were fearless, she’d heard; because of the World’s Compact, because no one would ever hurt them.

  A Haian tried to stand between an Arkan horseman and a patient, his arms upraised, begging; the Imperial’s arm went back smoothly, his body trending with the curve and the movement of his horse, the whetted edges flashing, then the barbed point sticking out of the back of the healer’s robe as he crashed down. Gotthwnml. A Haian. He killed a Haian. An Arkan slashed at a lantern, and it spewed burning alcohol across half a dozen beds; a patient covered in bandages from neck to knees ran flaming into the night, screaming. Another Haian, not having seen the first, perhaps, tried to stand between a patient and an Arkan, and was struck down.

  She grabbed Echerae’s arm, as he shouted something in Yeoli. He pulled himself up on her arm as she’d wanted, but then turned to the Arkans, advancing, stark naked. “You’ll chust get cut down, you hafno armor!” she shrieked, grabbed him, spun him by the shoulder; weak, he staggered. She seized his wrist to pull him away. A javelin whistled by her ear. The Arkans were slashing through the wounded, whether they stayed lying down, flung themselves off their beds, or rose to fight. She saw one Yeoli, a giant of a man with a wide bandage that was turning freshly red on one leg, rear up lifting a cot, and fling it at an Arkan, unhorsing him. But soon he was run down. She saw another Arkan scan all around, javelin cocked in his hand, find a fleeing Haian, aim and throw ... They’re going after them. They’re going after Haians.

  “Echerry!” Get in front of him. He was still fighting her, the closest Arkan within two horse-lengths. That one twisted in the saddle, while his horse’s legs knocked over the bed two beds down with a crash, tearing a saline drip loose from an arm. The weight of armor that had bowed Sova’s shoulders a moment before seemed weightless. She drew her sword; it caught in the tent-rigging over her head. The plated arm, scarlet-lacquered, whipped forward; she began to move, no time, the edge of the spear banged off the shoulder of her hauberk and stunned her shield-arm—Echerry—she couldn’t look backward, just struck at the Arkan’s thigh. He was moving too fast past her along the row, gone.

  I’ll cut through the tent-wall, she thought, dragging Echera-e by the wrist. He staggered, fell to kneeling, retching. I’ll carry him ... An Arkan too close! jumped his horse over a bed struck at Echerry with a sword blood-spurt striking at me she parried the blow go for his legs but he parried Sunborn Elite oh Gotthummi then was past and gone.

  “Echerry! Echerry!” He was lying across a bed, trying feebly to pull himself up, his right foot from the upper calf down ... gone. Just gone. Blood spurted out in rhythm. She grabbed him around the waist, clasping the wrist of her sword-hand with her shield-hand, dragged him back towards the tent-wall; he went rigid in her arms and yelped, then bit it back, bloodying his lips. The cutoff part of his leg, on the ground ... She heaved him up higher. I’m stronger than usual. She knew it with a strange calm. “Sova.” It was a weeping whisper. “Sova, I love you.” Smoke—at the other end the roof of the tent and beds were in flames. No Arkans came at her, thank you, Gotthummi, she was at the tent-wall. “Hold on, I haf to put you down, I haf to put you down, love.” She struck a long slit through the canvas, bent to take him over her bade. He swore in Yeoli. “Kyash, kyash, kyash, I hahve to ...”

  Outside Alliance warriors were running in, faces full of rage and naked weapons shining in firelight, pushing past her, towards a roiling fight outside. Get him away from here. Darkness between two tents. I need light. First aid lessons crowded back into her mind. Get his feet high. Tourniquet. Then someone was helping her, telling her in some strange accent to bring him in here, hands guiding her shoulders, leading her into a tent with a soft glow of lamplight.

  “He’s got dysentery,” she breathed, and heard how quivery and tearful her own voice was. “I sorrhy, I sorrr-rny,” he was moaning, “Need bed pahn, sorrhy, please ...”

  They had to clean him with cloths, then they tightened a strap around his leg-stump just under the knee until the blood slowed to a trickle, propped his legs high and covered him with blankets.

  She slid close to him, took his head in her arms. “You’ll be all right,” she whispered. “You’ll be well, you’ll be fine ...” Maybe he knows I’m just reassuring him because that’s what you’re supposed to do to keep someone from going into shock, she thought, and he won’t believe me. She kept reassuring. Outside the battlecries were fading. She watched Echera-e’s face contort as the pain hit him. He set his teeth, but grunting moans forced their way out of him; it made no difference how hard she held him, how much she said, “I love you.” There was no painkiller here, only in the infirmary.

  His foot’s gone, she thought then. His foot’s gone. He’ll be on crutches, or a peg-leg, the rest of his life. He can’t be a warrior anymore. And he just became one. Azaila ... I don’t like it. I hate it. I hate it.

  In the morning, the army was called to post-battle assembly, on the field where it had fought. The host was far too big for anyone’s voice to carry to its furthest edges; hearlds and interpreters were positioned among the host to relay the announcements outwards. But Megan, being in the special forces, and Sova, with her, were close to the front.

  Chevenga usually spoke with a herald right beside him bellowing his words, so he didn’t have to raise his voice; now, though, he stood alone on the dais. No surprise, thought Megan. He wants to yell today.

  First came the usual commendation for yesterday’s victory, the decorations, the armor-clashing applause. She had almost forgotten. There was less joy in it than usual, though, as the army waited to see which rumors of raids were true. “We will celebrate,” Chevenga said, “when we feel like it; if that isn’t until after the next time we thrash them, or the next five times, so be it.” Then he raised his arms for silence, and spoke of the night before.

>   Not only the one infirmary, it seemed, but all eight in the camp, had been attacked. A desperation move, he called it, aimed to undermine morale. “Cheap,” he spat, “as desperation moves are, and ...” He laughed, a laugh with a knife-edge. “Of course when they saw me, they came after me. That part of the plan, as you can see, was futile.” Infirmaries, Megan thought. He always visits one—they knew that. An old assassin’s rule: use the target’s habits. “Whether their bid to undermine morale was futile,”—he reached his arms out to the army—“that, my warriors, is up to you.” It was a while before the answering shout subsided enough for him to go on.

  Some seven hundred Arkan cavalry had attacked; two or three hundred had got away, the rest killed or captured. The Alliance deaths were worse than a thousand. “Easy to kill,” that rasping voice said, rising, building, “being already weak from wounds”; a good fifteen-hundred more were newly wounded. Counting Sova’s love, Megan thought.

  And the Haians ... Megan had seen the semanakraseye flushed with anger before, his cheeks bearing two bright points of red, though as often as not he seemed to be forcing it in his speeches; she’d never seen him livid, nor the anger so sincere. He owes them much, she thought, and was pulled closer by saving them from Arko once. Twenty-nine Haians had been struck down, fifteen of them dead, being armorless against heavy cavalry swords or lances. She felt sick. It grew worse, as Chevenga told his army what he had never told her, nor many others, clearly, since she had never heard it: when Arko had seized Haiu Menshir, they’d taken the Haians who’d healed him back to Kurkas. Not to ransom—no demand had been made—but to punish, for the crime of giving succor to one who needed it, as Haians would for all.

  The army answered his rage, with howls and death-chants and weapons thrust into the air; beside her, Sova screamed in Thanish, waving a fist. When it subsided, he ended it by saying those Arkans who’d been taken alive would be impaled, then drawn and quartered, then beheaded, and what remained sent back to the Arkan camp.