“Fiend!” the priest cried, holding up a large black star-shaped pendant. A jewel at its middle twinkled in the sun and caught Alanna’s eye, but that trick had been played on her once before: Duke Roger had been far cleverer at it than this man. She reached out, putting her lioness shield between her and the priest as she whispered spellwords. The priest shrieked as first his jewel, then the pendant, shuddered and cracked into a thousand pieces in his grip.
Grim-faced, Alanna rode forward, Coram at her back. Faithful stood erect on the saddle before her, back arched, fur erect, hissing with fury. A villager ran yelling at Alanna, swinging a hoe. Coram swung between them on his bay, knocking the man aside with the flat of his broadsword. Several rocks flew by; one struck Alanna on the head. For a moment she reeled sickly. Sheer fury rose up in her, spilling from the crystal sword in a bolt of magic and hurling three of the rock throwers in the air. The villagers broke and ran.
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-smoldering 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 downswinging 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 makeup. 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 resheathed 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.”