The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (9 page)

"Because Ishak could have burned up all four of us without any control," Alanna replied. "Because if couldn't rein in your magic, the village would have been destroyed by winds or rain. And Kourrem could have blown me apart with what she did just now."

"Then why do you take such chances teaching us?" Kourrem demanded. "You didn't
know
I wouldn't hurt you, did you?"

Alanna grinned. "I may not be able to raise the weather or see the future, but I know something about protecting myself; and each of you, if I must." She scratched her head. "I think we'd better practice the focusing exercise I taught you. Then you're going to get the tents I asked for and set them up by mine."

"Why do you want us to set up tents?" Kara asked as they sat on the ground obediently.

Alanna settled beside them, crossing her legs beneath her. "As my apprentices, you should properly live with me," she replied. "But since there are three of you, I had the tentmaker give me one larger tent for the girls and one smaller one for Ishak. Oh, stop that!" she cried as they threw themselves on her, hugging her frantically.

*

After the evening meal, the apprentices went to furbish up their new homes, and Halef Seif came for Alanna. "The night is cool," he told her. "Will you go riding with me?" She didn't need to be asked twice.

It took them a few moments to saddle their horses and tell the sentries which direction they planned to take. Once free of the village, Alanna drew a deep breath of relief. She could smell desert plants, dust, and horses—a dry, reassuring scent that told her more than anything else her life was very different these days.

"I want them to sit with me at the campfire," she said abruptly, keeping her voice low in case predators, animal or human, were near. "That's their right as my apprentices, isn't it?"

"Two of them are girls." There was little light with which to read his face, and his voice was bland.

"I'm a girl, too."

"I have noticed."

Alanna suspected him of teasing her. "I don't care if they're three-headed toads," she whispered tartly. "They're all going to be shamans, and the tribe must learn to—"

The Bazhir hissed for silence. Faithful was erect in his cup on Moonlight's saddle, his fur standing up, his tail lashing. Alanna tuned her ears to the night sounds and heard it—rock falling against rock as men made their way through the small gorge just below. Soundlessly she and Halef Seif dismounted; with a touch, she made Faithful stay put. She followed the man to the edge of the gorge where they flattened themselves on the ground, peering over.

Her eyes had adjusted to the moonless night, and now she could see the shadowy forms of five hillmen stealing along the ground below her. One tripped on a rock and cursed softly while his companions hushed him; Alanna sneered, knowing she would have received months of punishment duty if she had made such a mistake even as a page.

"Raiders looking for our herds." Halef's breath stirred the hair by her ear; had she been a few inches further away she could not have heard him. "I think we will not disturb the guards." He made as if to rise, then flattened himself beside her once more. "Some light would be useful—shaman." He was smiling.

Swiftly Alanna reached inside herself, finding that small bit of fire that always burned deep where only she could find it. She drew the fire out, feeling a rush of excitement as it grew swiftly to meet her need. Violet-colored light burst from her palm, making everything brighter. The hillmen yelped, shielding their eyes. Halef Seif scrambled down into the gorge, screaming war cries. Pressed for time and needing both hands, Alanna looked around frantically. Spotting a stone, she pointed at it and gave her magic the command. She didn't know if it could be done, but there was no time to think. The violet fire streamed into the big rock, filling it as it had filled her. For a moment it seemed to flicker and die—then it became part of the stone, a huge beacon shining on the battleground below.

"Tortall and the King!" Alanna cried, following Halef Seif. She drew the crystal sword, feeling its ominous humming in her hand. Once more its magic reached out, seeking ways to take over her purpose, but Alanna was concentrating only on the hillmen attacking Halef Seif. She set her jaw and held on, mentally telling the sword,
Stop
that.

Two of them saw her and attacked, one with an axe, the other with a broadsword. She ducked under the swing of the axe-man and came up inside, running him through. For an instant sick, black triumph roared up into her mind. She froze, knowing the sword's magic was turning her fierce pride in being the better fighter into an ugly joy at killing. She trembled, fighting the desire to run the man through again and again, until Halef Seif yelled her name. She whirled in time to catch a descending broadsword on the crystal sword's hilt. The other sword was bigger and heavier, its owner larger and stronger than Alanna, but the strange gray blade held. It flickered with a ghostly light that caught the hillman's eyes. Alanna broke away and came back, cutting up and under. The hillman was still staring at her sword; he tried to block, but he was sluggish. The crystal sword flicked up and inside his guard, cutting deeply into his neck. This time she was ready for the rush of power from the sword; this time she struck back at it with her mind, tearing at its source. Had she been forced to describe it, she would have said that it felt like a knot in the threads of power that made up the sword's magic. Now her mind cut through the knot, pulling it out of the sword's make-up, hurling it into the night. The last of the would-be raiders had decided to run from the victorious Halef Seif; the evil Alanna had thrown away struck his back, turning him instantly into a pile of ashes.

"I didn't mean for that to happen," she whispered tiredly, wiping the blade on a fallen man's cloak. The sword's humming was less now, and the ugly triumph she had felt at killing was only a shadow on her memory.

"It is foolish to let such a one escape, to take reports to his tribe," the headman told her sternly. "And what
did
happen? You were not fighting with all of you." His sharp eyes took in the crystal sword as she resheathed it. "The sword is evil. It will turn on you."

She shook her head. "Very little that is real is evil, Halef Seif," she replied. "Magic itself isn't evil, but it can be turned to evil purposes. If you can straighten the magic out somehow—"

"And what if this sword's magic has been turned to evil for ages beyond count?" she was asked. "What if you are not strong enough to defeat it?"

Alanna poked her chin forward; her violet eyes glittered dangerously. "I've promised myself I will master this blade, and I
will,"
she said between gritted teeth. "No sword—not even this one—is going to beat
me."
She whistled and Moonlight trotted down to her, Halef Seif's stallion following. She mounted up, still scowling at the headman. "And that is that!"

Hiding a smile, the Bazhir mounted his own steed. "As you say—Woman Who Rides Like a Man."

*

Alanna had thought that her girl apprentices might protest their inclusion at the tribe's fire, but she had underestimated their awe of her. Once they realized Alanna would let them continue to wear face veils, they agreed. Kara looked frightened, and Kourrem set her jaw stubbornly, but both ranged themselves between Ishak and Alanna the next night, looking at the ground as silence fell. For a few moments nothing was said. Then the talk began again, slowly, as man after man shrugged his acceptance. It was the women who held back that night, and the next, and the next, serving the girls and Alanna with an abruptness that would have been rude if Halef Seif had not been watching. Alanna sighed. How could she get the tribe's women to accept her and her apprentices? She couldn't
force
them to like the changes she had brought to the Bloody Hawk.

Lessons continued, with all of them studying the scrolls on ceremonial magic that lay before the tribe's altars. Of the apprentices, Ishak did the best with these spells, which covered everything from cleansing the lamps to consecrating a new temple. Alanna watched her boy pupil's growing cockiness with apprehension. To her, used to the slightest quirks exhibited by the pages and squires she had once taught, it was plain that Ishak was getting dangerously over-confident.

"Can't you let me move ahead?" he demanded of Alanna one evening as the young shaman and her students relaxed in the common area of her tent. Kourrem was fussing over a loom she had set up, and Kara was helping to thread it; but Alanna could feel both girls listening hard. "I've already learned most of our ceremonial magic; can't you teach me something
interesting?"

Alanna stroked Faithful. The cat sprawled over her lap, listening as intently as the girls. "Precisely what did you have in mind?"

"I'd like to learn spells for divination," he replied, his eyes shining. "I'd be able to see the future. Or you could teach me how to leave my body—"

"No, Ishak." She said it gently, knowing she was disappointing him. "You aren't ready for what you're asking. I'm sorry."

"I think I
am
ready!" he retorted, his temper surfacing. He bit his lip, then went on more quietly. "Will you at least let me handle your sword? I could use its magic—"

Alanna shook her head. "No one handles it but me."

"I want something
exciting
to do!" he cried. "You won't let me handle your sword; you won't teach me advanced magic—"

"The spells you're talking about are strong and delicate. You don't have the discipline to proceed slowly. Ishak, listen to me!" she went on as he turned away. "Don't you know what happens when you attempt magic you aren't ready for? If you're lucky, the spell won't work. If you're unlucky, it will get out of hand and burn you up. If you tried to use the sword, it would consume you. You'd die, and nothing could bring you back. Learn to be patient. Stop trying to skip steps as you've been doing with the ritual spells—yes, I've seen you! With magic you
must
be careful."

"You're as bad as Akhnan Ibn Nazzir!" he burst out. "You have a cat that's supernatural, a token from the Goddess, a magic sword, the Gift—and you want to keep it all for yourself! You don't want anyone else to have fun!" He turned and ran out.

Alanna shook her head, troubled. "It's
not
'fun'," she murmured, more to herself than to Faithful or the girls. She looked at her other anxiously watching apprentices and forced a smile. Ishak would cool off and find something new to be excited about in the morning—she hoped. "Does that thing work?" she asked Kourrem.

Eager to change the subject, the girl nodded. "I'm glad you let me set it up. I don't feel right, just sitting here in the evening when I could be weaving."

"Are you any good at it?" Alanna wanted to know.

Kourrem shook her head. "No, but I want to learn." She squinted at the threads. "I know a little."

"She knows more than a little," Kara announced. "She's a good weaver. It's important for a woman to do something well, so she can bring honor and good fortune into the tent of her husband," she added wisely.

"Are you two looking for husbands?" Alanna wanted to know.

"I'm not sure," Kara admitted, sitting and wrapping her arms around her knees. "While we were outcasts in the tribe, there was still a chance that a man from another tribe might want one of us as a wife. But now that we are shamans, it's hard to say. The shaman before Akman Ibn Nazzir had a wife, but Ibn Nazzir didn't—he was too dirty. Would a man want to marry a woman who is a shaman?"

Alanna remembered that Jonathan had asked her to marry him. "As much as a man will want to marry a woman who is a warrior," she said reassuringly. "And I personally know two who wanted to marry me."

Kara's face lit up. "Kourrem, did you hear that?" she cried happily.
"Two
men wanted to marry Alanna! Perhaps we have a chance!"

"Um," Kourrem replied, checking to see that she had threaded the loom properly. "I don't want to be married yet. I have too much to learn."

Alanna laughed outright at this. "And I thought I was the only one who felt that way!"

Ishak returned before the girls left, looking contrite. "I have acted badly," he told Alanna softly. "I will try to slow down. I will listen and do as you say." Overcome with the effort of apologizing to a woman, even if she was the Woman Who Rode Like a Man, he turned and fled. Alanna frowned, wondering if his show of humility was just that—a show. She fingered the ember-stone at her throat and sighed as the clacking of Kourrem's loom began. She could only wait for Ishak's next outbreak and hope that he learned self-control soon.