Page 16 of Fate's Bane
Then some of the howling resolved itself into words, human speech as raucous as any animal call, and I understood Aradoc-Father’s words to me.
“For Clan Fein! For Clan Fein!”
It was like falling through ice. My hands trembled. This was not right. I was made Clan Aradoc’s ward so that thiscould not happen. And since it had happened—what would happen to me, now?
Hadhnri looked at me with wide eyes, thinking the same.
Before we could think of a plan, before I could sayThis is not my fault, a man I did not know, who stood as tall and broad as Pedhri Clan Aradoc, marched up to us. Hadhnri placed herself in front of me again. I recalled the oath she made to me in the spring, to protect me, to protect her clan. The bracers. I gripped tight her shoulder, her tunic rough beneath my fingers, so unlike the skin beneath that I had finally traced with my tongue.
“Slave!” The man’s face was hidden in shadow and beard, the heaviness of his brow and cheekbone only emphasized by the fire of the torches. Clan Fein’s black triangle was tattooed below his right eye. “What is your clan?”
“She is the ward of Pedhri Clan Aradoc, and you will not have her!”
Brave Hadhnri, foolish Hadhnri. She could have been the spit of Bannos the Bold as she wedged herself farther between me and the stranger. His sword gleamed dully in the firelight, though, and it would part her flesh, so butter-soft. I tightened my hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.
“I am Agnir Clan Fein, First-Born Garadin Clan Fein.”
The stranger bowed, hand over eye—a salute. “You will come with me, First-Born Garadin Clan Fein.”
I did not go. I did not move, legs mired in the bog of my own shock and confusion. I barely breathed.
“You will not have her!” This time, Hadhnri stepped in front of me with her blade ready.
The man slammed his own weapon down on Hadhnri’s, and it rang out clear as a cock’s call at morning, as clear as Hadhnri’s cry as her hand stung and her seax dropped to the earth. With his other hand, he shoved her to the ground. Then he stepped over her, and before I could bring my fists to bear, he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.
“Hadhnri!” I screamed and kicked as the man turned away with me against his back. He held fast. It was like being held against a tree, deep-rooted and immovable, and I was not an axe. I was not even a dagger.
“Agnir!” Hadhnri was on her hands and knees, struggling to her feet but growing farther and farther away.
“Hadhnri!” I punched and fought and reached for her as she ran after me. I screamed until my captor flung me to the ground. His fist came, hook-curled, and darkness followed.
THECOLLAR
I woke gasping for breath, throbbing pressure in my head, a grip around my throat. I thrashed and flailed with fish-gaped mouth. No second blow sent me back into darkness. Instead, theshh-shh-shhin my ear as chains wrapped around my chest and pulled me flat. The more I fought, the tighter the chains gripped, and the less I could breathe—
I stopped fighting.
The chains released me, slowly, and I realized that they were not chains but arms. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness of a roundhouse and the center fire, I recognized the man. The one who had carried me away from Hadhnri as I screamed.
At first, I thought I was in the great Aradoc roundhouse. The same pelts hung from the walls, the same firepit burned in the middle with a pot raised over it, the smoke lingering just enough to scent the room; the same benches, well-worn, the same pallets scattered on the floor with a rack of weapons near to hand. But thechieftain’s chair was different, and the people surrounding me were too.
Another man knelt over me, his thousand braids a curtain around us. He gripped my collar tight, held me like I was a rabid-bite hound, the knife in his other hand hovering at my pulse. My throat rolled against his fingers as I swallowed, and my eyes followed the star-keen edge of the blade.
“Agnir, First-Born Garadin Clan Fein?” The man’s voice was rough, smoky as burning peat and harsh as spirits. His eyes were deep brown and hooded warily, and a scar curled through his short beard and his thin mustache. His clan tattoo was a faded blue-black triangle pointed down. Fate’s Dagger.
“I am Agnir Clan Fein,” I said.
The man’s face softened and he brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles. The knife was still in his hands.
“I am Garadin Clan Fein. You are home again. Be welcome.”
I held rigid, and a furrow creased deeper the lines of his brow. A strong brow. A proud, crooked nose. A spatter of dark freckles, as if someone had splashed him in the mud flats. He tightened his grip on my collar, and I pulled away automatically.
“It is well,” he said, gentle, gentle. “You are not a slave. I will take this off you, my own dear one.”
I shivered at the endearment. It felt strange. Pedhri Clan Aradoc had certainly never called me such. How was I to accept it from this stranger claiming to be my father?
And why not? I asked myself. Why could he not be my father? I had seen my face in burnished silver, and perhaps it was not so different.
