Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  The clerk looked down, blinking in bewilderment, then his eyes narrowed. When in doubt, act decisively, she thought, and elbowed him aside with a grunted, slurred Arkan curse.

  Fucked up again, you stupid mare, she thought; the clerk shouted to the porter, who grabbed her around the chest from behind. He was clumsy but had strength that would have done credit to a bear, as well as outweighing her by half again; and even an okas slughead knew what tits were when he had his hands on them. The mealy body-odor of someone who lived on cornbread and onions enveloped her.

  Reaction was automatic. Bend the knees, hunch the shoulders to slip out of the clumsy hug, stamp one foot down on his instep and sway the hips aside as she snapped a fist backward into his groin. Use the momentum of that to spin, facing him. He was left in a half-crouch, hands halfway between the memory of his grip and the pain in his crotch that was bulging his eyes.

  Kick, Straight up, to the chin. The heel of her boot punched into the man’s jaw like a fist on the uppercut. There was a crackling sound; the bone shattered, and his head snapped back between his shoulders with convincing finality as he took a pace backward and fell. A mixture of shrieks came from the crowd waiting for service; they surged back from around her. Shkai’ra helped them along, drawing the long Imperial sword and whirling it in a series of smooth figure-eight cuts, trotting for the exit.

  A solas shouted something; foreigner, she thought. Or spy? She cursed to herself, remembering; the Arkan unarmed-combat mode used kicks below the waist only, and handblows above; you can tell it wasn’t developed with women in mind, she thought bitterly. In one move she had just identified herself as an outlander to any war-trained Arkan present.

  Solas men were pushing toward her, faster than the frantic scramble of the others out of her way; heads were turning toward them from the street. She felt her heart speed, and pumped her breath deep, using the stomach muscles to draw air into the bottom of her lungs. Her eyes skittered, taking in the surroundings in flickering jumps, combat-detail leaping out diamond sharp against the blur of movement.

  “Eeeeeeeeiiiiiii!” With the steel-edge on steel-edge Kommanza war-scream, she cut ruthlessly at the figures ahead of her, drawing her dagger with her left hand. X-cut, a fessas flew backward with a half-severed arm. The sword jarred in her hand out scarcely slowed, good steel. Her shoulder blades crawled, conscious of the vulnerability of cloth, bitterly remembering the fine suit of Arkan war-harness in her room at the inn; with that she could have plunged straight into the mass. Blood-stink filled the air.

  Bull through: cut, stab into a belly, sudden shit-smell, cave in a ribcage with another kick. The crowd-screaming was loud now, and the bubble of space around her larger; she’d nearly reached the raised sidewalk beyond the courtyard. A shifty-looking okas drew a highly illegal fighting knife from under the back hem of his tunic and lunged; she swayed aside, clamped the knife arm under his with her forearm beneath the elbow, broke it with a sharp lift, used the broken arm to push his face down into her knee-strike. There was a brittle sensation, like striking a padded board that crumpled. Then she felt pain.

  Shit. The back of her thigh: the man’s dying reflex had stabbed the knife into it. I’m dead. The leg began to buckle; for an instant an invisible hand reached into her chest and squeezed with iron-rod fingers, as she thought the hamstring had been severed.

  I’m dead—ead—ead—ead ...

  Megan, half-drowsing in the saddle, jolted up. The burst of feeling, too faint to be her own, flavored through and through with Shkai’ra-ness, like on the ice two winters ago ... The mind-link, it’s her, SHKAI’RAAAAAHHH ... But the thought was Hotblood-toned too, as if it had come from him, through him. She thought, he caught it, somehow sent it to me. SHKAI’RAAAHHH! The pony half reared, crow-hopped and bucked her off, trotting off to one side, shaking its head, reins flapping; surprised at itself for bucking and surprised at her. The feeling wavered like a flame, then faded and winked out.

  Someone smothered a laugh. Behind her one of the Demarchic Guard called, “You all right, Zak?” The column was hesitating behind her, then squeezing by, flowing around. With a wheeze, her breath came back, her lungs un-sticking. She clambered to her feet, nodding, limped out of the way. Just shut up and let me listen for—

  “Form up when you can, then.” She clenched her teeth, waved acknowledgement. Shkai’ra! Her leg hurt; her good leg, with a ghost-pain in the back of the thigh. Is she wounded? She strained, reached out, reached deeper in, to hear, to feel. Hotblood! Nothing from him.

  “You need help catching the pony?” One of the outriders. “Shut up, damn you! ‘Nyata! ... I mean no. I’ll be fine.” She couldn’t shout at them to go away, leave her to listen; it was like straining to understand a voice talking two floors down; she might miss something if she said anything. But there was no more. She had to get moving, form up, there was no time to concentrate, no silence.

  No. Not over. You don’t have me Zaik-damned yet, sheep-fuckers—Two solas barred Shkai’ra’s way. Fear vanished as combat-mind took over; the leg bore her weight, the blood was only a trickle, a muscle wound. She could force strength out of it, tearing the sliced fibers wider, maybe—worry about that later.

  Neither of them was armored; one was an older man, white-haired, holding a head-high staff as if he knew how to use it. The other was two meters of bad news; in his thirties and tanned brown, eyes slitted and cool, sapphires against the skin. There was a paler band across his forehead, from the inner padding rim of a helmet, worn for years. Some sort of light dress sword in his hand, not what he used normally, but it was steel and sharp and had a point. The two Arkans looked at each other, at her, then spread out on either side, old man to her left, young to her right. It had been about a full minute since she killed the porter, enough time for most of the spectators to flee, not quite enough for help to arrive.

  Fast or nothing, she thought, her mind moving with crystalline speed. Feint left, toward the old solas. No fear in his face, only concentration; his shoulders looked thick enough to crack bones with the long oak staff. It hummed toward her, waist-high, as the younger man closed in on her right. She leaped; not straight up, that would have left her open to him when she landed. Forward, diving over it and to the old man’s left. Jackknifing in mid-air, shoulder-high, landing on crossed, forearms, tucking her head and curving her spine. Nothing for it but sheer speed, pulling her feet in to hasten the spin, coming up out of it and letting the point of the longsword draw her around in a blurring curve. The straight sword was less suited to the drawing slash than her saber, and she felt her hand adjust as at a distance, abstract.

  Soft drag of muscle against the steel, the brief hard pop of taut tendons. The old solas toppled backward with a cry of shock. Shkai’ra surged forward, ramming the dagger in her left hand under his ribs through the kidney, expelling her breath in a hunnhhh of effort as she tossed him off the blade and into the other man’s arms.

  “Pah!” he screamed, face contorting. Father!

  Shkai’ra lunged longline, right foot advanced behind her point, left back. Long limbs and a long sword, the young man would have been spitted through the neck if he had not dropped the dying man and whipped his blade around in a cross-parry. The longsword went skringgg along the length of it and the hilts locked; she stabbed up with the dagger, felt his hand slap down on her wrist, blocking. Their feet stamped as they strained chest-to-chest, open mouths snarling. There was a glazed ferocity to his, a hint of madness. More than that in the unnatural strength that squeezed her weapons in towards her body. Her knees tensed, preparing to leap back, wrestling a strong man gone berserk with rage was a bad idea. Then something locked around her thighs, iron-strong.

  The old man. Dying, but she would have to hammer in his skull or sever the limbs that gripped her. Instead she threw herself backward. The younger solas came with her; she twisted as she fell on her back, but dodging the knee that would have driven the breath out of her body. His weight fell on her, pinning her arms, a
nd she could feel him shift as their bodies grappled for advantage. Ready to shift his pinning grip to an elbow, freeing steel to kill her. There was a peculiar intimacy to the embrace, bodies seeking to make death rather than life.

  Only one thing to do, she thought, working her lips; the bandages were thin there. She turned her head and thrust her mouth up onto his throat.

  Tough, was her first thought. Thick neck, muscles like woven cable. She bit, trying to drive the teeth in, and felt the windpipe slide outward a bit. A gasping grunt from the man above her, and she screamed through the mouthful of tough rubbery flesh, pouring every ounce of herself into her clamping jaws. Both came up off the ground as her back curved, convulsing, the cords standing out in her neck; she jerked her head from side to side. Pain in her jaw, as if the big muscles that ran from the hinge to the temple were about to rip loose from the bone. Skin tore under her teeth, and her mouth was full of the salt and iron of blood. Suddenly he was trying to pull away, there was a shifting and turning of weights, then she was lying across him. The windpipe collapsed like a cylinder made of stiff paper, and one of the big veins beside it split open between her teeth.

  The solas writhed, and the blood gushed fast enough that she breathed some, had to spit and gag; more poured warm and stinging down over her face and neck and chest, soaking the cotton drill fabric of her tunic. With a grunt of disgust she reached down and hammered the pommel of her sword on the back of the old man’s head, a thock-thock-thock sound until the leather-thong arms relaxed. Her lungs felt tight as she forced herself not to pant, and there was a ringing in her ears. It was almost enough to cover the pounding sound of hobnailed sandals and blowing whistles, as the Watch ran into the courtyard.

  There were two of them, armed; barbed javelins, short swords, truncheons, and they had openface helmets and mail shirts enameled with the usual Imperial scarlet. Not as bright as the blood that coated Shkai’ra from sodden bandages to knees, nor as vivid red as the slick pool they skidded in as they braked to a stop, eyes blinking as they took in the carnage that littered the courtyard pavement. Some of the bodies were still thrashing and moaning as Shkai’ra rose, the sword dripping in her hand, the white snarl of her teeth the only thing not red. One of them jabbed with his spear, as much to fend her off as to strike. She uncoiled from the ground with the hilt in both hands, cut sideways, and the barbed spearhead fell in one direction, backswing and took him across the side of the neck. The man collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and she lunged across him at the other. The strike missed: he was running as fast as he could, away. Shkai’ra turned and almost fell as the pain in her leg struck again, then limped quickly across the courtyard! There was a nest of tenements and alleys over there; she’d cased the place before coming to the Edifice. She spared a glance down at herself; the blood was beginning to clot, sticky on the hilt of the longsword. I’d better get off the streets and get some new clothes, she thought. Even in a big city, this was a little much for a main avenue.

  * * *

  XX

  Just because she thought “I’m dead” doesn’t mean she is. It happened all the time in fights; then one would find oneself-saved by something that seemed miraculous at the time, but commonplace later. But the ghost-pain in Megan’s leg could not have come from a fearful thought. She must be wounded. How badly?

  She leaned back against her elbows, passing on the flask of beer, and stared into the fire. Even in the more regimented parts of camp, evening campfires evolved out of some unspoken group decision; some cook-fires would be doused and others brightened for people to gather around, without a word about whose turn it was to host. Her fire, in the secure section, seemed to be the one tonight.

  Sova was with the Slaughterers, under oath to return at midnight sentry-change. This crowd was mostly Yeolis, with others, specializing in who knew what aspect of war, sprinkled throughout. A Yeoli woman had a harp, war-strung with expensive steel strings, and a dark, heavyset Brahvnikian with a mustache—what was his name?—had brought ... a fahlut, he called it, an instrument like a fife or a pipe but with bellows that he pumped under his arm.

  Megan burped from the warmish beer, and fought down a sudden absurd craving for kompot, the sweet, mixed dried-fruit stew made with brandy, only in F’talezon. She hadn’t had any for years; her mother had made it, just for name-days, in her childhood. There was a lull in the music and someone re-started the perpetual political argument. Megan listened half-heartedly, busy with her own thoughts.

  Wounded ... or worse, and I’m refusing to face the truth. Lixand-mi ... It’s been twenty-one days.

  “Well, it’s all very good, this power-to-the-people idealism,” the Brahvnikian was saying—Wiktor, that was his name. “But you Yeolis have to admit, it has its problems. We’ve seen, passing through your country, everything publicly built is decrepit—bridges, roads, city walls, you name it, either falling to pieces—or there isn’t one where there should be, and people still have to make herds ford rivers. All because there is no high authority to force what’s good on the people when they’re too blind or narrow-minded to see it.”

  “Come on, you’re exaggerating, it’s not that bad,” a Yeoli rebutted. “And at what cost, high authority? The Arkans have high as high can get authority—”

  “We can’t use their example!” an Aenir cut in—Lin, her name was—her pale blond hair swinging. That was unwritten law: it gave too much offense to compare anyone’s customs with those of the enemy.

  “All right ... no Lakans here?” The Yeoli took a quick glance around. “Good. Laka, then. The King is King, even if he’s a complete moron; they have to knife him to get rid of him. And to enforce that authority, look what measures are taken: floggings, hangings, slavery, authority so strict it’s far too easy for the evil to abuse.”

  “But you’re using an extreme example, of a single, uncontested power. Wiktor. At home we strike a balance between the Benaiat and the Pretroi ...” An exposition on Brahvnikian politics followed, which by its sheer complexity was barely decipherable. “See, it’s simple as that! None of this maundering with votes and petitions and percentages and ... ah ...” Wiktor’s face froze, his mouth a wide stone-like oval under his mustache, the whites of his eyes shining ivory in the firelight. Megan had been dimly aware of an arrival a few seats down from her just now. “Ah, uh ... greetings, Invincible.”

  Chevenga’s practice was to visit campfires randomly, never announcing where he’d be, as a precaution against assassination-attempts. Nor was it his style to make grand entrances; he’d just sit down, take the skin as it was passed around and join in the conversation, so that people sometimes didn’t even notice it was him, and those who didn’t know his face or happened not to ask his name would never be the wiser. He could never resist a debate on either strategy or politics, though, and would get ridiculously, arm-wavingly passionate, like any Yeoli, especially—like any Yeoli—when drunk. Though he’d wave only one arm tonight; his other was still in a sling.

  “Um ... er ... ah ... forgive me, Invincible,” the Brahvnikian stammered. “I meant no offense to your irreproachable Yeoli customs.”

  The semanakmseye did the classic Yeoli double-shrug, hand and shoulders, and said, “None taken; everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” Then added with a grin, “In Yeola-e, anyway.”

  “Well, it’s no less so in the Free-port of Brahvniki!” And the argument was at full boil again, as if nothing had happened.

  Megan watched the fire fall and be replenished, each chunk of wood thrown in fresh to die brightly in flame, turn to coals and then feathery ash, light as nothing. The argument swirled around her, fading out of her thoughts, sometimes making sense, sometimes not, punctuated like all arguments with irritating stupidities, and every now and then held by the one voice that no others would interrupt, no matter how quietly it spoke.

  Chiravesa. A Yeoli word; it meant playing something out, in your head, or with others; imagining, intensely, making it feel real. Shkai’ra’s wounded
, at best. If I want to save Lixand, I’ll have to kill him.

  She turned to watch his face, its sharp lines smoothed by firelight, the dark eyes one moment sincere and forceful, the next creased with laughter, flamelight catching on a gold tooth. When he laughs, his eyes dance with all the joy he was torn from before. Other people at camp-fires wore some armor often, weapons usually; she did herself. Chevenga never wore so much as an eating-knife—he didn’t need one, eating only odd-looking vegetable concoctions his Haian prepared, apparently, out of little bowls always brought by a younger brother or sister—or wristlets, usually going bare-chested. To show he trusted his warriors to protect him, she guessed, or let people see Arko’s marks on him; he was too calculating a person to be doing it just because of the heat.

  She watched his good hand, bearing the white signet, gesturing ceaselessly in the Yeoli way, shaping this or that meaning with the grace of life-long practice. I will kill him. I will touch him with a claw full of traceless poison, and he will die, as if from summer fever. One touch, and that will be the end of him, his name scattered to the wind, and my son back with me. His name scattered to the wind, so what? A year ago I’d never heard it ...

  “In an autocracy there’s no balance!” Some Yeoli woman declaimed. “No check, no give and take! So all its institutions are subject to corruption, to losing sight of their ostensible purpose of keeping order, and being abused for base urges against which there’s no recourse. I mean—please, everyone, understand I’m comparing no one’s customs to theirs, but I can’t think of a better example. Look at the Arkans, and what they do to captives, lower castes, women, children, dogs, trees, everything else that can’t either run faster or hit them with something sharp ...”