Ali Mukhtab had come to the fore of the watching people; she snapped at him, “He was doing a Gate of Idramm!”
The Voice turned white. “Are you mad?” he demanded of Akhnan Ibn Nazzir. “How dare you use sorcery you do not understand?”
“She is corrupting our people,” the shaman whined. “She has corrupted you, Ali Mukhtab. I wished only to rid the desert of her evil—”
“You would have rid the desert of us all!” hissed Mukhtab furiously. “Go to your tent, shaman! Remain there until I have chosen a fitting punishment for you!” As the old man fled, he turned to Alanna. “You have saved us all,” he told her.
Alanna pointed to Faithful, who blinked sleepily. “Thank my cat,” she said. “He woke me up.”
When she left her bed the next morning, Ishak, Kara, and Kourrem awaited her, vying for Faithful’s purrs. “You’ll spoil him,” Alanna said gruffly as she dressed. “And I’m the one who’ll have to live with a spoiled cat.”
“The men of the tribe do not believe he is a cat,” Ishak told her. “Some think he is a god. Some think he is a demon.”
“He’s neither,” Alanna informed him. She picked up Lightning. “Why doesn’t one of you show me where the blacksmith is?”
The blacksmith was Gammal, her large friend from Persopolis. He grinned at the chance to do her a service, scowled at the girls until they backed out of the way, and handed a bellows to Ishak. “Use it well, boy,” he advised as he turned to find his tongs.
Ishak looked at Alanna, terrified. “I’ve never done this,” he whispered.
When Gammal returned, Alanna was busily pumping the bellows, bringing the fire to a white heat. The large Bazhir shook his head and picked up the long portion of Lightning’s blade with his tongs, thrusting the metal into the fire until he judged it hot enough. Alanna thought she heard an ugly hum, but Gammal distracted her, booming, “Where did you learn to use the bellows, Woman Who Rides Like a Man?”
“From the King’s weapons-masters,” she shouted over the roar of the fire and the wheezing bellows. “We were at war with Tusaine. I was crippled with a wound, so I went to them to keep busy.”
“Could you mend the sword yourself?” the smith wanted to know. Even he had to raise his voice to be heard over the noise from the forge.
Alanna shook her head. “I could mend an ordinary sword,” she called, “but not one so well made.”
Gammal pulled the length of metal from the forge and she put up the bellows. Without the wheezing, she could clearly hear the humming sound from Lightning’s sheared-off blade. “Gammal, don’t—” she began, but the smith was striking. His hammer met the glowing metal; everyone was knocked down by the resulting explosion. When Alanna struggled to her feet, the fire was out, the anvil was cracked down the center, and Gammal was unconscious. She brought him around quickly with water fetched by Kourrem, and the Bazhir grinned.
That was a mistake, Faithful commented from a safe distance away. Look at the blade.
Lightning still lay on the anvil. After a moment Alanna touched it; the broken piece was as cold as the forge. “It was not meant to be struck by a hammer,” Ali Mukhtab’s voice said unexpectedly. Alanna spun, startled because she had not heard the Voice come up behind her. “You must find some other way to repair it, Alanna of Trebond.” He smiled suddenly, his white teeth flashing. “The people of this tribe lived very quietly before you came,” he commented, before turning and walking away.
Alanna scowled at the Voice’s retreating back, before she realized that Kara, Ishak, and Kourrem were giggling. “He is right,” Kara said. “But we are glad you came.”
With a sigh Alanna slid the broken length of sword back into its sheath, strapping the hilt into place once more. She would have to find some other way to repair it. Her lessons in sorcery had not included sword-smithing. And what was she to do for a sword until then? She felt unprepared without Lightning in her hand.
“Those three should be glad that you have come among us,” Gammal commented softly. Alanna looked sharply around for her attendants: they were some distance away, trying to interest Faithful in a brightly colored ball. “Before they had little status. Come into my tent, and my woman will give you something cool to drink,” he added. “The young ones can look after your cat, and each other, for now.”
Alanna followed the smith into his living quarters, gnawing thoughtfully at her thumb. Gammal’s wife served them, her eyes nervous over her veil. “Why?” Alanna finally asked. “They’re intelligent, alert, quick—I like them. Why would they have little status?”
Gammal lit a pipe, drawing on it thoughtfully before answering. “The boy Ishak claimed he saw pictures in the fire when he was only six,” he replied.