The Woman Who Rides Like a Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the laughter of children and the cackle of chickens. Few men were visible; either riding or sleeping off last night, Alanna thought grumpily. Most of the women abroad hurried out of her path. Puzzled, she stopped to see if anyone would meet her eyes. Only the youngest children did, and they were snatched from her sight by their mothers.
    "They really do think I'm some kind of demon," she whispered, shocked.
    "They're just ignorant," Kourrem replied stubbornly. "We know—Kara and Ishak and I—that you're an ordinary woman."
    "Not an ordinary woman," Kara demurred. "But you're real."
    Alanna halted. "What makes you three so ready to believe I'm really human?" she asked. The girls exchanged looks.
    "Akhnan Ibn Nazzir says the three of us are easily distracted from the right path, and that we are the growing-ground for evil," Kara explained. Her face had darkened. "Perhaps I am a growing-ground for evil!" she cried. "But I am not a mean old man who cannot countenance anything new! I don't make people outcasts because they don't bow down to me!"
    Kourrem nodded solemnly. "It's true," she assured Alanna. "Halef Seif will not let him cast us out into the desert, but if Akhnan Ibn Nazzir is still here when Halef Seif dies—"
    "Demon!"
    The shriek of rage came from behind them. Alanna spun, her hand instantly going to Lightning's hilt. For a moment her heart twisted with pain as she remembered that her sword was useless.
    Ibn Nazzir, the shaman, stood behind them, flanked by women and a few men. "Demon!" he screamed again, pointing a trembling finger at Alanna. "Not content with the soul of Halef Seif, you try to steal our young ones!" He grabbed Kara's arm and yanked, almost making her fall.
    Halef Seif came out of a nearby tent, going to stand beside Alanna and Kourrem. He raised polite brows. "I believe I retain my soul, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir," he said quietly. "Surely I would know if it was gone."
    Alanna stared wide-eyed at the sword which Ibn Nazzir had not been wearing the day before. It was the crystal sword that had so neatly sheared Lightning's blade, the sword she thought was left in the desert. So that's what he was doing, sneaking off last night! she thought. The sword's hilt design was distinctive; where had she seen it before?
    "She has bewitched you!" the shaman cried, his eyes bulging with fury. "As she has bewitched these others—" The wave of his hand took in the girls. He gasped as Faithful suddenly leaped out, seemingly from nowhere, to land spitting in the sand before the shaman. "Away, demon!" he cried. Frantically he drew shimmering yellow magical symbols in the air.
    Alanna reacted. "Stop!" A wall of purple magic streaked from her fingers to surround Faithful, just as yellow fire left the shaman's hands. It shattered against the wall protecting Faithful; Ibn Nazzir swore. For a moment there was silence as the violet wall faded from sight.
    "Perhaps now you will give more courtesy to the companions of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir," Halef Seif commented, his voice a quiet warning. "Tell me now where you obtained the sword you wear."
    "It lay in the desert for anyone to take it who could," the older man spat. "I knew the spells to assuage its hunger and to give it greater life—"
    "Let me see it," Halef Seif ordered, stretching out his hand. When the shaman hesitated, the younger man's face grew stern. "I am headman here, and headman I stay until the Voice of the Tribes takes my right from me. The request is reasonable. Do not defy me."
    Trembling with fury, the shaman unclipped the sword's sheath and held it out. The headman reached for it.
    Stop him! Faithful warned.
    "Don't touch it!" Alanna cried.
    Everyone looked at her. Ibn Nazzir glared pure hate. Fingering Lightning's hilt, Alanna continued.
    "Such swords bite, Halef Seif. I imagine Akhnan Ibn Nazzir knows it, too." She gripped the silver hilt of the crystal blade and drew it.
    The sword's magic screeched through her. Alanna bit