The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (24 page)

Alanna freed both hands and reached for the clear azure sky. "Goddess!" she cried to her patron. "Give me rain!"

For a moment all of time froze. Then the ember-stone began to pulse in a slow, majestic rhythm as great thunderheads blotted out the sun. There was a deafening crack of thunder, and the rain flooded down, dousing the fire at the stake.

"Thank you, Great Lady," Alanna whispered, feeling the first niggling touches of exhaustion from her use of magic.

The priest, armed with a dagger, launched himself at her: Faithful jumped to meet him and landed on the man's face. The fanatic screamed, trying to dislodge the cat, until Coram ended his cries with a sword thrust.

"Don't waste yerself on the likes of yon," he advised Faithful as the cat disentangled himself from the body.

Reaching the stake, Alanna cut free the woman they had tried to burn. The victim slumped to her knees among the still-smouldering logs, oblivious to her hurts and to the rain.

Coram joined them, pulling the injured woman into his saddle, cushioning her gently, "We've got to move," he yelled over the thunder. "They'll be back, better armed, I don't doubt."

"You killed the priest!" A young man, armed with a long axe, was advancing on them. "His god will hold us to blame!"

Alanna dismounted and drew the crystal blade. "Get her out of here!" she ordered Coram, settling her shield on her arm once more. The ex-soldier hesitated, and she yelled, "Do what I say! Before the villagers come!"

Frowning, he obeyed. Alanna faced the armed villager. "Don't be a fool," she told him. "I'm a full knight; you won't stand a chance!"

"You lie!" The man charged, holding his axe in a clearly practiced manner. Alanna caught the down-swinging axe on her shield, knocking it aside. In the same motion she sliced up from under her shield with the crystal blade. The man jumped back, skidding in the mud, and Alanna hacked the axe blade from its handle. The crystal blade hummed, filling her with the sick killing joy she thought she had wiped from its make-up. Alanna staggered, her vision clouding.

The young man yelled with delight, swinging the axe haft in a blow that connected solidly with Alanna's unprotected right side. She dropped to her knees, just getting the shield up in time as he swung on her head. The crystal sword screamed in her mind, demanding the life of the man who was attacking her. Alanna's hand was sweating, making the hilt slippery in her grasp.
Was this how Akhnan Ibn Nazzir felt when he used his life-force trying to kill me?
she wondered. She threw the sword aside and hurled herself off the ground, ramming the shield at the villager.

He yelled and dropped back, letting the axe haft fall. Alanna swooped and grabbed it. She put herself between the crystal sword and the villager, watching him intently.

"The sword's magic," she panted as he stared at her. "If you take it, it'll kill you. Why would I throw it away, otherwise?"

"I don't believe you," he gasped.

"Then try to get it."

He darted to the side and forward, thinking she would not be fast enough. Alanna brought the axe haft down on his head, knocking him unconscious to the ground.

For a moment she swayed, gathering the strength to kneel and see if she had killed him. His pulse was steady and strong; he had a lump on his head, but she judged he would survive.

"Maybe now you won't go attacking strange knights," she whispered, wiping the sweat from her face. She picked up the crystal sword and re-sheathed it, feeling no trace of its magic.

"Maybe that was its last try to turn me to breaking and killing," she told Faithful, who had stayed well out of the battle.

Are you willing to bet on that?
the cat wanted to know.

Alanna gathered Moonlight's reins and mounted. "Not in the least."

Faithful jumped onto the saddle, and Alanna turned the mare away from the village. She stopped once at the square's edge to look back; the tall post still stood, lit by flickering lightning. Alanna pointed at it and spoke a single powerful word. The stake blasted from the ground as if shot from a bow, shattering into fragments no larger than toothpicks.

Alanna and Coram halted by the marker they had seen that morning. Hurriedly the knight spread a groundcover on the wet grass; Coram gently placed the sorceress on it. The woman they had saved was in her forties, dark-haired, her eyes a deep brown. Old and new bruises covered her; a trickle of fresh blood accented the corner of her mouth. She was badly burned.

Taking her hand, Alanna reached with her Gift, already knowing what she would find.

"Don't spend your strength, child." The woman's voice was hoarse. "I know I am dying."

Alanna withdrew, sick at heart. "How did you get such deep injuries?"

"They stoned me yesterday," was the answer. "My poor children, who will look after them now?"

"Ye're sorry for
them?"
Coram asked, astounded.

"It has been a terrible winter," she whispered. "The food was running out. Yahzed's priest told them it was because of me: that the food-stores would renew themselves if they had me killed. They were hungry."

"Fools!" Coram muttered.

The sorceress took Alanna's hand. "You two have given me the death I did not hope to have, lying at peace among friends. Halef Seif sent you?" Alanna nodded. "I prayed he could help. Never think you came too late. My life was over when they laid hands on me a week ago. How could I live knowing the ones I had brought into the world and cared for wanted me dead?" Squeezing Alanna's hand, she said, "Open your heart to me."

Alanna felt the sorceress in her mind as a kind, gentle presence easing her bitterness over the woman's impending death. A second later the older female released Alanna's hand, sweating and trembling from her efforts.

"You are the one I need," she gasped. "Listen, Alanna of Trebond! I can give you a gift. Will you accept it?"

Alanna touched the ember-stone. It was warm, but not hot, and she realized what the sorceress had to say was important. "Go on."

The woman's battered lips parted in a smile. "Listen well! You have the knowledge to restore your broken sword: it was in the spell that made you one with the Bloody Hawk and one with your foster-father. It lies in the spell that made the Prince the Voice of the Tribes. Take the crystal sword and make it one with the sword that is your own. You will need it: a dark time is coming for Tortall."

Alanna nodded, biting a trembling lip.

The sorceress reached inside her tattered dress and produced a scorched silk envelope that bulged with its contents. "I would have let this burn, but now you may take it to Halef Seif. He will know what to do." She shuddered, her limbs twitching. When the convulsion passed, she said, "Let nothing stop you from giving that envelope to Halef Seif!"

"I'll do it," Alanna told her. "Don't fret."

The woman nodded. "I'm so tired," she whispered. "Thank you." She smiled at Faithful. "All three of you." Her breathing was suddenly shallow. "Tell Halef I will be waiting when he makes the journey . . ."

Her voice trailed off. Within moments her breath had stopped, and Alanna gently closed her eyes. Tear-blinded, she stood.

Coram buried the sorceress. "Did ye even know her name?"

Alanna shook her head, watching her companion shovel the last bit of dirt onto the grave. "Halef Seif never mentioned it, and neither did she."

"A pity to leave her without a marker," Coram admitted somberly. "But it's our lives to go to the village and find out."

"She'll have a marker," Alanna whispered.

You don't have the strength,
Faithful cautioned.
When will you learn when to stop?

"I'm going to do this one last thing," she retorted. "Stand back, both of you."

As Coram and Faithful obeyed, she clenched her fists. There was no spell for what she wanted to do, but she was determined not to let that stop her. If the will to accomplish was the greatest part of any magic, she had only to tell the earth what she required, and that was what she did. The ground beyond the head of the grave shook as she pulled at it. When she opened her tightly closed eyes, a granite pillar stood to mark the burying place. Deeply graven letters proclaimed, "Here lies the sorceress of Alois, who loved the people who killed her."

*

Coram took over, getting her as far away from the village as possible. She was barely conscious when he chose a campsite. She collapsed exhausted onto the ground, barely waking when Coram tucked her into her bedroll. He couldn't wake her the next morning. Since Faithful showed no signs of alarm, he settled down for a day of relaxation, keeping a watchful eye on his knight-mistress as he whittled.

It was sunset when she awoke, getting away from a dream:

The throne room was filled: the King and Queen on their thrones, Duke Gareth beside the King, Jon with the Queen. Although she could see clearly, she heard no sounds coming from people's mouths. Her friends watched with mingled awe and horror as Thom introduced a bowing man to his sovereigns. That man looked around into Alanna's eyes: he was Roger of Conté. She could hear him clearly as he remarked, "I don't kill easily, do I, Lioness? But thank your brother for this. And mind you bring back my sword."

She sat bolt upright, her clothing damp with sweat.

"Nightmares again?" Coram asked, stirring a pot of stew. It was nearly dark. "They're never real, lass. Have some food."

She told him the dream as they ate. The sight of their fire and of Faithful playing with wood-shavings finally reassured her.

"Sometimes I wonder if I don't
want
him to come back," she sighed, putting down her bowl. "But that doesn't make sense, does it?"

Coram blew an experimental note on the flute he had carved. "Well, the two of ye had some unfinished business," he commented. "And think. It's not granted to all of us to have one great enemy. The Duke was yers. The problem is that once ye've vanquished such an enemy, life might be a little empty. Ye've spent so much time thinking about him, and now he's not there to worry ye any more."

"You don't think I'm having—well, prophetic dreams?"

"Have ye had them before?"

"No. Visions, sometimes, but not dreams."

"It doesn't seem likely ye'd start having them at such a late date. Yer dreams are still just dreams." He watched with misgiving as she put the crystal blade and the two parts of Lightning on the ground before her.
"Now
what're ye up to?"

"She told me how to mend Lightning, and that's what I'm going to do."

Faithful came to sit beside her as Coram backed away. For a moment Alanna stared resentfully at the two long scars on her right forearm. Gritting her teeth, she drew a third wound beside them with her dagger, letting her blood drip onto both swords. A harsh wind sprang up; their fire burned purple.

"One," Alanna whispered, closing her eyes and fumbling for the best words. "Crystal and whole, unbreakable, strong. One—crystal in the hilt, straight steel, sheared in two." Dust whipped against her face. "Two—" She moved the three pieces closer to each other. "Separate, yet together. Being. Becoming." Power shuddered through her body. "One!" she yelled over the shrieking wind. "One blade, unbreakable and whole!"

A last flare of power blasted through her, unbearable in its strength: Alanna fainted.

"Of all the crazy, stupid stunts." Coram's familiar grumble soaked through the darkness around her. "Ye'd think ye'd wait till ye recovered from the fireworks yesterday, but not ye." Alanna swam up out of the dark, toward his voice. "No, ye must prove ye're Lord Thom and can do anything."