Alanna: The First Adventure Read Free Page A

“Let’s ride on. If you feel the same in the morning, we can turn back.” She crossed her fingers as she lied. She had no intention of returning to Trebond. “Just don’t rush. Father won’t know till it’s too late.”
    Coram swigged again from the skin, getting up shakily. He mounted, watching the girl. They rode silently while Coram thought, and drank.
    The threat about making him see things didn’t worry him much. Instead he thought of Thom’s performance in archery—it was enough to make a soldier cry. Alanna was much quicker than her brother. She rarely tired, even hiking over rough country. She had a feel for the fighting arts, and that was something that never could be learned. She was also as stubborn as a mule.
    Because he was absorbed in his thoughts, Coram never saw the wood snake glide across the road.Alanna—and Coram’s horse—spotted the slithery creature in the same second. The big gelding reared, almost throwing his master. Chubby stopped dead in the road, surprised by these antics. Coram yelled and fought to hold on as his mount bucked frantically, terrified by the snake. Alanna never stopped to think. She threw herself from Chubby’s saddle and grabbed for Coram’s reins with both hands. Dodging the gelding’s flying hooves frantically, she used all her strength and weight to pull the horse down before Coram fell and broke his neck.
    The gelding, more surprised than anything else by the new weight on his reins, dropped to all fours. He trembled as Alanna stroked his nose, whispering comforting words. She dug in a pocket and produced an apple for the horse, continuing to pet him until his shaking stopped.
    When Alanna looked up, Coram was watching her oddly. She had no way of knowing that he was imagining what Thom would have done in similar circumstances: Her twin would have left Coram to fend for himself. Coram knew the kind of courage it took to calm a large, bucking horse. It was the kind of courage a knight needed in plenty. Even so, Alanna was a girl. . . .
    By the time they arrived at the wayhouse, Coramwas very drunk. The innkeeper helped him to bed while his wife fussed over “the poor wee lad.” In her bed that night, Alanna listened to Coram’s snores with a wide grin on her lips. Maude had managed to fill the wineskin with Lord Alan’s best brandy, hoping her old friend might be more open to reason if his joints were well oiled.
    Coram woke the next morning with the worst hangover he had ever had. He moaned as Alanna entered his room.
    â€œDon’t walk so loud,” he begged.
    Alanna handed him a steaming mug. “Drink. Maude says this makes you feel better every time.”
    The man drank deeply, gasping as the hot liquid burned down his throat. But in the end, he did feel better. He swung his feet to the floor, gently rubbing his tender skull. “I need a bath.”
    Alanna pointed to the bath already waiting in the corner.
    Coram glared at her from beneath his eyebrows. “Go order breakfast. I take it I’m to call ye ‘Alan’ now?”
    She yelped with joy and skipped from the room.

    Four days later they rode into Corus just after dawn. They were part of the stream of people entering thecapital for the market day. Coram guided his horse through the crowds, while Alanna tried to keep Chubby close behind him and still see everything. Never in her life had she encountered so many people! She saw merchants, slaves, priests, nobles. She could tell the Bazhir—desert tribesmen—by their heavy white burnooses, just as she spotted seamen by their braided pigtails. She was lucky that Chubby was inclined to stay near Coram’s gelding, or she would have been lost in a second.
    The marketplace itself was almost more than a girl from a mountain castle could take. Alanna blinked her eyes at the bright colors—piles of orange and yellow fruits, hangings of bright blue