Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  Tomorrow. Little do you know. Zaik and Jaiwun, I’m not looking forward to sneaking into Arko. Give me a stand-up fight any day.

  Her face settled and went a little distant. “Sova, I don’t know how you feel about your birth-parents. It’s ... private, eh?”

  The girl’s pale eyes peered up at her from under her brows. “My birth-parents?” Shkai’ra didn’t make a habit of mentioning them, had never spoken of Sova’s feelings about them. “With all due respect, khyd-hird,” she answered, after a time of thought, “what I feel about my birth-parents is none of your fucking business.”

  Shkai’ra gave a short bark of laughter. “Megan will scorch my ears for teaching you bad speech.” Grimly. “Now, as my daughter—”

  “I’m not your daughter.”

  “By adoption, legalist!”

  “It’s not the same.”

  Shkai’ra blinked. “Didn’t say it was. Doesn’t make a difference to my obligations; when you come of age in two years, you can tell us to fuck off.”

  “You said ‘as my daughter.’ But I’m not. And never will be.”

  Shkai’ra sighed. “You’re my daughter under the law. And Megan’s, Rilla’s, and Shyll’s. You’ll inherit our property equally with any other child, we have to see to your education, we’re responsible to the authorities for you. Savvy?”

  “So say ‘my daughter under the law.’ It’s not by blood.” Sova lifted the dipper, took a long draught.

  “Consider it understood,” Shkai’ra said drily. “What I wanted to talk about was your further education. You’re getting old enough to start thinking about what you want to spend effort on, and what you have talent for. We’ve been giving you a general training—you’re going to be rich, after all, you don’t need to know how to weave or hoe turnips—and we’ve had enough time to know your aptitudes, a little. Megan says you’re doing well on the books, very well for a late start. I’d say, and I should know, that you’ve got exceptional promise as a warrior; as good as me, potentially—”

  “As good as you?” The girl’s ash-blond eyebrows flew up. “You’re joking.”

  “Potentially, I said. You’ve got the physical side, senses, stamina, reflexes, balance—which are important, no use in trying if they’re lacking—it’s the motivation, the drive I’m not certain about. You’d have to train long and hard, and there’s no point in doing that unless you want it; and there’s the training in command, as well. But I’ve been instructing you for a year, now; trust my judgment, why don’t you? It’s my skill, after all.”

  “I don’t not trust your judgment,” the girl said, blinking. “You’ve just never ... said anything like that before. I mean ... as good as you? I didn’t think you thought anyone could be as good as you.”

  Shkai’ra shrugged. “It’s dangerous to praise too soon in training. I’d have waited until I got back, except for this war. Don’t get complacent—you can still die, it’s another four years or so till you reach your full growth.” A wry smile. “Then a decade till you start losing the physical edge; I’ve got another couple of years at my best, no more. Though spirit can make up for a good deal of youthful pep.”

  “You always think people are being cocky,” Sova said. “I’m not cocky, I’m just amazed.”

  “I was your age once, and thought I could whip my weight in tigers. Cockiness is a hazard of youth, especially in the genuinely talented. The problem is that in this business, it doesn’t lead to learning, it mostly gets you dead. And I want you to live. Of course, sheer luck counts for a good deal, too.”

  A wink. “I’ll let you in on a secret. Up at the top of the profession, who’s the ‘greatest warrior’ as often as not depends on things like who slept better the night before, or who has a head-cold.” Steadily: “Look, Sova, we’ll teach you the basics anyway; everyone needs to know how to defend themselves. If you want, I can teach you to the point where you’ll never have to back down from someone simply because they’re better with a blade. It’s a useful set of skills. The question is, what do you want?”

  The girl thought for a moment, her nail scratching the edge of the handle of the dipper. “But ... to never have to back down from someone because they’re better means I’d have to be the greatest warrior in the world.”

  Shkai’ra made a weighing gesture. “Not really. If you’re in the very top rank, the odds against running into someone much better are small; particularly if you don’t make a career of following the drum—you weren’t planning on being a mercenary, I hope? It’s an overrated career.”

  “Well, I didn’t think so. But what’s the point of doing all the training to be that good if I’m not going to do it for a living?”

  “You don’t have to follow war for it to come to you. Stay in F’talezon and you’ll see a good deal of fighting, will you nil you; anywhere else on the Brezhan, the same. And out on the Mitvald, once Arko’s gone, there’s going to be bloody chaos a generation, at least. I’d like to see you able to handle it wherever you go; there’s more than one way—Megan knows others—but I can teach you only mine.”

  The girl sat thinking, the expression unreadable, but filled with some point she wasn’t making aloud.

  She will speak when she will, Shkai’ra thought. “You think on this, girl. Such a choice should not be left to whim or default. You’re done here now, go.”

  “Yes, khyd-hird,” the girl said curtly.

  The sound of the first morning gong rang out over the camp, mellow and too lovely for the business of war. Shkai’ra looked down at the dark head with its white streak in the crook of her arm.

  “Goodbye for now,” she whispered.

  “Some part of me desperately wants to keep you here,” Megan whispered back. “All the Gods be with you, love.” She buried her head in Shkai’ra’s neck, clinging. “I need you. I love you.”

  “The day we met was the luckiest of all my life,” Shkai’ra said, “and will be if I live fourscore.” She kissed the other on the top of the head. “Smile for good fortune, my heart: I love you, too.”

  “Come back to me.”

  “First, this army; second, Marble Palace steps; third, Temonen manor, at noon,” the Kommanza said.

  Almost shyly Megan reached into the clothing hanging from the tentpole and pulled out a long lock of hair knotted at one end, mingled black and silver. “You’ll be cutting yours for me, and my son.”

  “I will always come back to you, even if mountains and seas lie between,” Shkai’ra said. She pulled her boot-knife from the footwear, and clipped a lock of her own. “Huh. This’ll be the longest it gets for a while.”

  They lay for a moment, holding each other wordlessly, and then crawled out into the pale predawn light. It was important not to alter their routine, with enemy eyes possibly watching, friendly eyes, certainly. Shkai’ra went into her stretches as Megan shook out her kinks and braided her hair; Sova yawned out of her pup-tent, stoking up the fire and putting on water before helping Shkai’ra on with her armor. They’d told the girl nothing; the fewer knew the better.

  “Sova,” Shkai’ra said, “you’re off with that Yeoli staff type today, aren’t you?” To broaden her experience, they arranged such things.

  “Yes, khyd-hird,” the girl said sleepily.

  “I’m trying out that Arkan sword,” she said, buckling it on. It was loot, a plain straight longsword except for the silver wire on the pommel, and the best layer-forged blade she had seen on this side of the Lannic. “Look after this for me until this evening, wouldn’t you?” She handed the girl her Minztan-made Kommanz saber. “By the way, in the unlikely event I’m ever killed,” Shkai’ra added, with a wry grin, “don’t put it on the pyre with me. Use it. You’re the only one in the family who’s going to have the heft and the training both.”

  Sova’s pale eyes flicked up from the sword into Shkai’ra’s, wide. The saber was legend even in steel-making F’talezon, as great as an ancient-made or perfect Yeoli blade. “Yes, khyd-hird,” she said, as Shkai’ra swung
into Hotblood’s saddle.

  “Take care, love,” Megan called, as she always did.

  Sadsadmoanwhimper? the Ri thought; images of dead colts and snowstorms ran through his mind.

  Sadsaddon’tshownowhimpersneak, Shkai’ra thought back. Aloud: “I will, my heart. You also. Go well, both of you.”

  “This I don’t like, kras,” Bukangkt said, as the column halted in the shade of the great trees. It had probably been some Arkan Aitzas’s hunting preserve until recently, looked too manicured for wild wood.

  “I think I can take care of myself for an hour or so, centurion,” she said. Promotions had come thick and fast among Shkai’ra’s Slaughterers, this past month; five hundred lances were under her command now, and doing well enough some regulars from allied contingents had tried slipping in as mercenaries. She waved to indicate their surroundings. “I want that ravine about two klicks west checked thoroughly, though.”

  The battalion Shkai’ra was commanding were on outrider screen today; the Arkans were backing again, through an area that was mostly rolling plain. The wheat had been reaped and carted but there were big cornfields just tasseling out, and occasional copses of oak and beech like this, many hectares in extent. Deceptive country, you thought you could see as far as on a steppe, but there was enough cover to hide substantial bodies of troops. They had just passed a village; the locals were mostly slaves and eager enough to help—the Alliance army was trailing an enormous rabble of them now, armed with whatever and making up for lack of training in bloodthirsty enthusiasm—but here they’d known nothing useful except that a column of Imperial cavalry had passed through a day before, burning or stealing the grain harvest. The local landowners had left a month ago.

  “You command,” Bukangkt said, saluting in Yeoli style. His company fell in to the trumpet and formed column of fours, trotting off into the waves of yellow stubble.

  That left Shkai’ra with her standardbearer and a few messengers; she spent the next several hours finding tasks for them. Afternoon in high summer was no joke here in the southlands, and the woman with the Slaughterer’s banner—a fanged skull impaled on a sword; Shkai’ra thought it rather fetching, and had been surprised at the odd looks—was an Aenir from the Brezhan, unaccustomed to such weather. Also unaccustomed to Arkan steel sheet-armor, such as the whole unit was wearing now; her round pink face shone and sweat dripped out of the sodden sponge lining of her helmet, falling on the breastplate with a plink ... plink sound.

  “Here,” Shkai’ra said, offering one of the canteens at her saddlebow; experienced troops always carried extra. “Don’t want you passing out from the heat.”

  “Tenk you, kras,” the trooper replied, surprised. She had gotten the coveted position of standardbearer for conspicuous bravery. Her nickname of “Mad Cow” had been earned more recently, for a studied indifference to discipline remarkable even in one of her race, and she had been expecting to be broken to the ranks for weeks now.

  Another half hour, and the Aenir woman was yawning and nodding, bringing her head up with a jerk every time the chin-guard went clink on the gorget.

  “Unsaddle and sack out for a while,” Shkai’ra said.

  Mad Cow Zoltanova was probably the only soldier in the Slaughterers who would have obeyed that order with quite so much unthinking eagerness. Her commander took the banner, waiting until Zoltanova was snoring before kissing the victory ribbons and leaning the staff reverently against a tree. Then she took the leading reins of her two spare horses and cut the trooper’s beast loose, half-grinning down at the sleeping form.

  Flogging to falling was what I had planned for you after that last piece of ignorance, and it’s what you’re going to get, she thought, as she filled Zoltanova’s canteen with the mixture of pure white wadiki and water from her own. It was pleasant not to have to do this to an undeserving soldier ... drunk and asleep, while the commander went into the woods to take a dump and never came back. Not quite enough for execution ... maybe. Now the plan: off into the woods a little, put her armor down a well, quick-change into the Imperial set she had packed on one of the mounts; they were both of the Arkan breed as well, runners, not destriers. Cut her arm a little, blood on Hotblood’s saddle along with the point and broken-off shaft of a barbed Arkan javelin ...

  NO, Hotblood thought. Shkai’ra groaned mentally.

  YES

  NO

  YES!

  NONONONONONONONONONOIsmallsharpsnippy-disagreeable—the Ri’s thought-concept for Megan, colored with a mixture of dislike, respect and apprehension—golook/search/smellcoltredmaneherdmarestaywithMEMEMEMEMEMEME!

  YES! Shkai’ra threw her greatest overtone of dominance into the thought, along with images of dismembered bleeding Arkans in Megan’s company.

  Sulk.

  She hesitated for a moment, looking at the banner. “Sheepshit,” she muttered to herself. The biggest war she’d ever been involved in, a brigade command coming up, and she had to leave, on a clandestine mission. That was irony for you, sneaking around was Megan’s special skill ... totally useless now, simply because of her size and the color of her hair and eyes.

  “Only for you, my love,” she muttered, turning Hot-blood’s head into the woods. “Only for you.”

  The Slaughterers would search energetically, of course, but evading a search and running mounted ahead of a cavalry screen were skills she had learned as soon as she could walk. And the Alliance army had moved into the Empire like a spear into flesh, a long narrow thrust down its eastern highway; she would not have far to go to reach territory more or less under Arkan control.

  * * *

  XV

  The sunlight deepened from golden to orange, the slanting shadow of each rider growing longer; soon they’d halt and camp. Not soon enough; despite the leather riding-sling giving it support, Megan’s leg hurt like Halya.

  “Zhymata?” Sova had been deep in thought all day as she rode, the hazel eyes seeming full to bursting, but the lips tightly closed. Buckled to her saddle, in the place of honor, was Shkai’ra’s saber. “I had a talk with khyd-hird. She said ... she wants me to decide whether I wanted to train to be a great warrior and a commander, or just good enough to defend myself. She says she thinks I could be as good as her.”

  “From what I can see, she’s right,” Megan said. “You also show promise at mathematics; you could be a good merchant, if you wanted. You are a bit old to choose what you want to be, but you don’t have to yet, because the family has money.”

  “I don’t know what I want.” The girl pursed her lips. “I used to: I wanted to marry a good Thane-man and live in a big house in Brahvniki. I know you think that’s wimpy, but that’s what I wanted. But I can’t do that now.”

  “So marry a good person of some other nationality and live in a big house in Brahvniki. If you’re happy raising children and running the household, that’s fine too.” Megan scratched the back of her neck carefully, nervous, waiting for the news she knew was coming, feeling her stomach knot, but stopping her hand from pressing under her breastbone.

  “Zhymata, do you really think anyone in Brahvniki, anyone who knows or would be warned what happened, and cares for his zight, would marry me?”

  “If the person you want to marry cares more for their zight than for you, fik ’em. Find someone who doesn’t give a shit for what your father or I did but cares only for you. Shyll is like that, and I hardly went looking for him.” Sova didn’t answer. “Does it matter to you that he’s Thanish? It hasn’t seemed to, when I think of a certain young Yeoli.” The Thane-girl smiled helplessly.

  “Megan! Megan called Whitlock!” The voice came from ahead, official sounding, but with a tinge of hidden panic.

  Oh, Halya. Here it comes.

  “Here!” Megan raised a hand, turned the pony out a step or two without stopping. The caller was a cavalrywoman, one of the Slaughterers, it looked like, breathless even though she was mounted.

  “You’ve got to come forward! We need you! It’s by authoriza
tion of Bukangkt ... uh ... Slaughterers’ acting kras.”

  “Oh, shit, Bukangkt? Where’s Shkai’ra? I’m coming.” She kicked the pony hard enough that it jumped and crow-hopped in surprise before plunging forward. Megan didn’t even notice that, clinging on. The cavalrywoman wheeled before Megan reached her and led the way.

  “She’s gone missing,” the woman, whose nationality Megan couldn’t tell, said once they were out of earshot of Sova. “The only one escorting her we found sleeping dead-drunk under a tree; and Hotblood came back ...” She glanced over her shoulder, eyes seeming to measure how Megan was taking it. “With a javelin stuck in his saddle, and blood. Bukangkt said you had some way ... of searching.”

  Megan set her face, thinning her lips, as if holding in emotion. For a moment she thought it might be real, not the faked missing in action, long enough to pale her face; she didn’t answer, only nodded. The woman said nothing, only kicked her horse into a gallop, Megan doing likewise. They passed the head of the column.

  Badfeelingaboutthis. badfeelingaboutthis. Hotblood’s thoughts, not berserk; yes, Shkai’ra was intentionally gone, according to plan. Redleadmareaway, miss, MISS! The woman led her to a field where a knot of horses stood; the Ri she saw standing off, pacing, the javelin-shaft standing up from his saddle visible even from here. Ah, akribhan, she thought. Never moderation where excess will do. Someone was on the ground, kneeling; she could hear the yelling from here.

  Words in various accents came clear as she got closer. “Buk, why can’t we scrag this fat bitch right now? Why the fuck not?”—“One fuck-up after another, and now Shkai’ra!” The female voice with the Aeniri lilt was almost screaming. “I swear, I fucking swear Second Fire come I did not put fucking wadiki in my water that was some other child of two pigs spiked it and I swear Second Fire come she said I could sleep!” A more even voice: “No, Buk, don’t, what she’s saying is possible, remember the rules: you can’t execute someone without witnessed proof, you ve got to get her truth-drugged.”—“Ya, ya!” the Aenir woman shrieked. “Get me truth-drugged! Get me truth-drugged!”