Someplace new? Faithful wanted to know. His tail was twitching with excitement.
Alanna crawled into her bedroll, feeling exhausted but satisfied. “Well, we need to take the sorceress’s envelope to Halef Seif.” She yawned. “It must be pretty important, or she wouldn’t have tried to burn it rather than let anyone she didn’t trust have it.”
“Very well. And then?”
“I think we’ll ride south,” Alanna told her companions. “King Barnesh of Maren is holding a great tournament in April. I want to start acting like a knight again. And maybe we’ll find some adventures along the way. Sound good?”
It’s about time, Faithful grumbled as he curled up beside her nose.
From his own bedroll, Coram said, “It sounds beautiful. Now get some rest, Lioness.”
Alanna reached beside her and found Lightning’s hilt. She gripped her restored blade as she moved toward sleep, a weary smile on her lips. Her first year as a knight was over. She had survived. And if there was trouble ahead, well, she was ready for it.
TAMORA PIERCE has nineteen fantasy novels for teenagers in print worldwide in English, German, Swedish, and Danish; and audio books in Danish and English, with two more— Shatterglass and the untitled first book in a new Tortallan series—to appear in 2003. Alanna: The First Adventure is her first published book and the foundation of the Tortallan quartets: the Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and The Protector of the Small. Alanna received an Author’s Citation by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Seventeenth Annual New Jersey Writers Conference and was on the Recommended Fantasy list of the Preconference on Genres of the Young Adult Services Division of the American Library Association, June 1991. Her other publications include short stories, articles, and her two Circle of Magic quartets. She was also an actor and writer for a radio drama and comedy production company in the 1980s and recently resumed her voice actor’s motley for Bruce Coville’s Full Cast Audio book company. Tammy has been a housemother, a social worker, a secretary, and an agent’s assistant. She lives in New York with her Spouse-Creature, technoweenie Tim Liebe, three cats, two parakeets, and wildlife rescued.