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

smoke when I first tried. All right, Kourrem."
    Kourrem scowled at the twigs; her eyebrows knitted together. At last she shook her head. "I don't think I want it badly enough." She sighed.
    "You want to be a shaman, don't you?' Alanna asked her.
    Kourrem's face lit up. "Yes!"
    "You can't be a shaman if you can't do this. Even Akhnan Ibn Nazzir could light a fire."
    Kourrem's eyes widened with alarm. In the next moment sparks flew from the pile of twigs.
    Alanna grinned. "See?" She waited for the flurry of sparks to die out, then pointed to Ishak. "You next."
    Grinning smugly, the youth pointed at the wood. It flared up in a spout of flame, instantly consumed. Alanna looked at him for a long moment, itching to slap the cocky look off his face. She knew the emotion was unworthy of her; Ishak had simply wanted to show off a little. Getting her temper under control, she nodded. "I forgot you already knew some fire-magic. Before we go any further, I'd better find out exactly what each of you can do."
    "I can do fire and light," Ishak announced. "I can find things. Sometimes I can see things that are going to be."
    "He dreamed that you would make our lives good," Kara put in eagerly. "We laughed at him because he said a woman who was a warrior would be the one. That was the day before Halef Seif brought you to our tribe."
    Alanna nodded. "What about you, Kara? Have you seen things become different because you wanted them to? Do you see pictures in the fire?"
    "Things move when I am angry," Kara whispered, blushing. "Sometimes they fly through the air. Then I am beaten."
    "She makes the wind blow," Ishak volunteered. "And it rains when she cries. Not always, but sometimes."
    "Weather magic," Alanna said. "As a shaman you'll find it useful. Kourrem?"
    "I don't know," the youngest of them admitted. "Sometimes I see balls of colored fire, and I play with them. The old people like me to come when they're sick; they say I make them feel better. I thought it was because I tell them stories, but—" Her eyes were hopeful as she looked at Alanna.
    Remembering how Duke Baird had tested her on the day Jonathan took the Sweating Sickness, Alanna held out her hand. "I slept badly last night," she told Kourrem. "I still feel tired. Take my hand and make me feel better."
    Kourrem reached out, then pulled her hand back. "I don't know how."
    "Find your own strength, and then shove some of it through your hand into me," Alanna instructed. "Go on."
    Kourrem obeyed. The next moment Alanna felt a tingling energy flooding into her body, making the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. She yanked her hand away, and shook the tingling out of it. "I was only a little tired," she told the girl, who looked as if she was about to cry. "You didn't need to give me so much!" She looked at them, bracing her hands on her hips. "We need to think about what you should learn," she admitted. "You each already know something, or you couldn't control your magic as well as you do."
    "How do you know that?" Kara asked.
    "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