Baen Books Free Stories 2017
Page 47
"She's right," he said, more loudly. "I don't hurt . . . "
"Well, who could hurt," Luzeal said practically, "with one of them good sweet things inside you? Now, you just come on over here and have a sit-down, Roe Yingling . . . "
In the back corner of the tent, someone said something, and someone else laughed. Don Eyr felt a small hand slide into his, and looked down into Elaytha's smile.
"Will that last?" he asked her.
She frowned slightly.
"Maybe?" she said, and moved her shoulders. "Kai zabastra, kai?"
A sound, then, of quiet engines, and someone near the entrance called out that the Bosses were here.
Most people moved further into the tent, finding chairs and tables. Luzeal and Algaina were heading for the entrance—the hosts, Don Eyr understood, coming to greet the Bosses.
He stepped back to let them pass, and Algaina reached out to catch his free hand.
"You, too!" she said; so he and Elaytha joined the reception line, just as a dark haired man—Boss Conrad himself, he heard someone whisper, loudly—stepped into the tent, shaking the snow from his hat. He paused, turning back to the entrance, one hand extended to the woman who followed, leaning heavily on a crutch, snow dusting her cropped red hair like sugar.
She paused, just short of the Boss's hand, and threw out the arm unencumbered by the crutch, but Don Eyr was already moving.
He caught her in an embrace perhaps too fierce. She was thin, so thin, and the crutch . . .
"I said I would come back to you," she whispered roughly into his ear.
"Even a cat comes to her last life," he answered. "Cisco, Fireyn, Ail Den—they lost you in the fighting; the mercs had no records."
"All true. But not dead. Quite."
"I'm a fool," he answered, and, even softer, "What happened?"
"I will tell you everything, my small. But, for tonight—you must introduce me to our neighbors."