The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online Page A

shaman," he said. "And there are always great winds and strange storms. The shaman says we should kill them at such times, but Halef Seif will not permit it. The Voice will not permit it. And so they live here, until the Balance shifts in their favor."
    Soon after this Alanna took her leave. The Bazhir were very willing simply to let things happen, which was strange in such an energetic people. Didn't they realize that the only way to change things was to act? She tried to express her confusion to Ali Mukhtab, to his amusement.
    "We believe in the Great Balance," he told her. "All will right itself in the end. The Balance shifts—it cannot be predicted. It is like the desert, you see. The sands drift always, yet the desert remains the same. Man cannot change the desert, and man cannot affect the Balance."
    Alanna shook her head with exasperation. "I don't believe in waiting for things to just happen," she growled. "If I waited for your Balance to right itself, I'd be some lord's wife right now, not knowing anything more than my home and my lands."
    "And perhaps you are an instrument of the Balance," Mukhtab suggested. "By your very presence, you cause the scales to shift."
    "Nonsense," Alanna replied, fingering the ember-stone at her throat.
    *
    Her three friends were on Alanna's mind for several days. They weren't bitter or depressed about their lot, and their endless questions spoke for a willingness to learn. She would have tried to teach them herself, just for her own peace of mind, but Bazhir custom was very strict about such things. Instruction in magic was done by the shaman: only in this tribe, where the shaman was uncertain of what little magic he did have, was no one instructed at all. Not even Ali Mukhtab would defend her if she broke all Bazhir customs.
    The wistful look in Kourrem's eyes tugged at Alanna's heart. Ishak never stopped trying to show her his magic. And Kara was Kara, anxious, ready to please, expecting a curt word or a blow rather than Alanna's gruff thanks. The knight had been something of an outcast since the day she had revealed her secret; she didn't like that life for her young shadows. Although her southern exile was voluntary, she had few illusions about the welcome that would be hers if she returned to the palace too soon.
    She fretted over it for nearly a week as she learned about her new tribe: meeting its men with Halef Seif, discussing the constant war with the hillmen and the need for new forage for their many herds of sheep and goats; meeting a few women with Kara; hunting with the young men; discovering the rich history of the Bazhir with Ali Mukhtab.
    Alanna was still considering what to do when she was summoned to the headman's tent one night. The Voice of the Tribes was there, enthroned on pillows and smoking his long pipe. Halef Seif, looking stern, was at his side. Gammal and another man stood over two bound and kneeling strangers while other men of the tribe looked on.
    Alanna hesitated in the doorway, resettling Faithful on her left shoulder. "You sent for me?" she asked Halef. Everyone but the two kneeling men had turned to stare at her.
    The headman beckoned her forward. "These two came yesterday to our brothers in the Tribe of the Sleeping Lion," he explained. "They tried to pass as desertmen, when it is plain they are northerners."
    Alanna walked forward, trying to see the captives' faces. Both looked down. "Surely the men of the Sleeping Lion are able to look after spies," she suggested, still not knowing why she had been called. "Unless they felt the Voice should see them?"
    "These men asked questions about you, Alanna of Trebond," replied Ali Mukhtab.
    Faithful leaped from Alanna's shoulder. Walking over to one of the kneeling men, the cat lazily butted against his face. Startled, the man looked up.
    "Fingers!" Alanna cried, startled. "What in the Name of the Mother are you doing here?"
    The second man—one she had known only slightly from her days in the Court of the