Tortall Read Online Free Page B

pain. I bounced up and came down with my knee in the middle of his spine. He straightened up with a strangled cry, letting me go. Then I wrapped my arm around his neck from behind, gripping that fist with my free one. I pulled back, resting my knee against his spine for leverage. He clawed at my arm, ripping my flesh with his nails.
    “Confess,” I told him. “Tell the truth. Swear it on your mother’s name, or I will cripple you.” I did not think I could do it, but it sounded like the right thing to say to a bully who shamed my family before all the trade fair.
    He tried to speak and could not. I eased my grip just a little.
    “The gods have humbled me!” he shrieked. “They sent a demon into this girl child to shame me! Iyaka al Jmaa is an honorable girl!”
    “Mention the magic,” I whispered. If he wanted to believe a demon had beaten him, I did not care. I only wanted my sister to get what was owed.
    “I won’t,” he began. I tightened my hold, briefly. When he could breathe again, he confessed to everything and begged his father for the fifteen cattle for my sister. We did not trust them to arrange things honorably. Instead my chief made Awochu and his father sign new words on the old marriage contract, saying that it was ended and the right price paid for the slight to my sister. Then the men of my village went with Awochu and his father to collect the cattle.
    This I was told of later. As soon as I let Awochu up, mysisters swept me up, wrapped me in my dress, and took me back to our tents so I could vomit, clean up, and sleep.
    When I woke, only a small lamp burned in our tent. From the light that flickered through the cracks around the door flap, I knew it was night, and the campfires were lit. I could hear the low murmur of voices outside.
    I could also smell food. I got up, every muscle of my body aching. In my rage I had done even more than I was used to, and my body was unhappy. Slowly, like an old woman, I walked outside.
    Val-lah-nee, the Falcon, sat at our fire with my parents, Iyaka, and Ogin, eating from the pot with one hand as if he had eaten that way all of his life. He nodded to me and said, “I have been talking with your parents about your future,” as if he continued a conversation we had already begun.
    “I have no future,” I told him as I accepted a round of bread from Iyaka. I scooped food onto it and crouched between my parents. “Boys won’t want a girl who gets possessed by demons.”
    “You were no more possessed than I am,” said the Falcon. “Ogin told us about the way you watched animals and the way you tried to fight as they did.”
    I glared at Ogin, who grinned and shrugged. “I am a hunter as well as a herder,” he said cheerfully. “If I cannot be quiet, I catch only grubs.”
    The Falcon grinned. I could hardly see his teeth in the shadows, his skin was so pale. “And so I was saying to your parents, while the Shang school for warriors normally does not take a new student of your age—”
    “My age!” I protested.
    “Their students begin between their fourth and sixth year,” Papa said. “Let the man say what he must. Stop interrupting.”
    “I believe they will take an old woman with your unusual skills,” the Falcon said to me. “In fact, I am so sure of it that I am willing to pay a proper bride price for you to your parents. But you would not be my bride on our journey to Shang; you would be my student. You would be as safe with me as you would with your father.”
    I scowled at him. “Are you buying me? I am no slave.”
    He chuckled. “No,” he said, laughter still in his eyes. “This is an offering of thanks I give to your family, for the honor of being allowed to teach so inventive a young lady.”
    “We believe him,” Mama said quietly. “We trust him. But you must choose.”
    “He says you may visit, when you have finished the studies.” Iyaka smiled at me, but tears rolled down her cheeks.
    Papa took up my hand and kissed it. “I