Page 18 of Fate's Bane
I knew I was not much to look at. I was not soft—no one in the Fens was soft—but I’d known from young that I would not be a warrior. Even if Pedhri ClanAradoc had been stricter in my training, as strict as he was with Gunni and Hadhnri. I found my skill with the leather and awl a better use for my hands.
Garadin Clan Fein grunted. “Onsgar. Face her. Biudir, give your sister your seax.”
At the word “sister,” my heart sped. A tall, rangy boy with the same clean brown skin as Garadin Clan Fein walked stork-legged over to me, skinny legs bare beneath his knee-length wrap. He bit both his lips together, but I could see the excitement trying to escape. The twitch at the corners of his eyes gave away his solemnity as he handed me the hilt of his sword.
“Welcome, sister,” Biudir said.
I smiled, hesitantly, and Biudir’s grin was radiant. He bounded back to our father’s side as a second boy approached. Onsgar.
Boy was not… quite right. As rangy as Biudir and as dark, Onsgar had a careful furrow to his brow. He couldn’t have been older than me; he had no clan mark beneath his eye. He wore his thick black hair in a single large braid plaited close to his scalp.
Onsgar took me by the shoulders, kissed me once on each cheek, and then he also said, “Welcome, sister.”
I glanced to Garadin Clan Fein in surprise.
“My children, all together.” He gestured wide, first to three women, two in tucked skirts like Biudir’s and Garadin Clan Fein’s, and one in trousers, all with armscrossed in some degree of distrust or curiosity. “Meet your father-sisters, Agnir. Laudir, Modin, and Hal. We wish to see what you can do.”
Onsgar stepped back and drew his own seax. I held Biudir’s ready. I tried to ignore the skeptical gaze of my family. I tried to forget my lack of practice, to remember Lughir’s chiding in the Aradoc yard. I simply let my body move.
But my bodywasout of practice, and my mind was too loud. I could notnotremember where I was. I could notnotlook for the thrust Gunni would have made, or anticipate Hadhnri’s parry. I could notnotfeel Garadin Clan Fein’s gaze, a bore-weevil in my spine.
In the first exchange, Onsgar tripped me, brought the seax jabbing down to linger like a hoverfly over my neck; in the next, he disarmed me, Biudir’s blade bouncing to the grass; another and he nudged me gently beneath the arm, between the ribs; again, and he worked into my guard and angled upward to pierce beneath my chin.
“Enough,” Garadin Clan Fein called.
Onsgar pulled away immediately. I kept my gaze low as we walked back to the adults. I did not need to see them to feel the disappointment in their silence.
“Raise your eyes, Agnir Clan Fein!” Garadin Fein snapped. “Did I not tell you? You are not a slave.”
“Yes, Garadin Clan Fein.” I straightened, rigid as a reed switch.
Two of my father-sisters shared a grim look. The shortest one, perhaps a finger’s width shorter than me, said, “She’s been too long with the farmers. They till and they play and they eat too much. Is she worth the justification we’ve hand-fed Aradoc by raiding on Ha’night?”
“Peace, Laudir,” said Garadin Clan Fein.
My cheeks burned and I stood taller. Set my chin. It was true that Clan Aradoc claimed a substantial part of the richest soil in the fens, and the dry hill the hamlet was built on was large enough for a sizable flock of sheep. No one in Clan Aradoc went hungry, and there was enough to trade away for cowhides and pelts from other clans. Clan Aradoc was not soft, and neither was I. But the reflex of loyalty bit like a blade in my fist and I didn’t know what to do with it.
I said, “They didn’t soften me beyond use.”
Garadin Fein considered the words and considered me. His eyes were dark and probing and this time, I met them, like for like.
“Again, Onsgar, Agnir. Again.”
Onsgar saluted his father. I did not. We fought again. This time, Garadin Clan Fein did not stop us until I had disarmed Onsgar and wrestled him to the ground, my own weapon discarded in favor of my fingers, swiping falcon-clawed at his eyes.
Garadin Fein came, unhurried, to stand above us. I looked up, chest heaving. Blood trickled from Onsgar’s lip down his chin.
“You yet have Clan Fein’s iron in you. Good.” The chieftain offered me his hand.
That night Garadin Clan Fein and my father-sisters welcomed me with a feast so that the clan would know me. Instead of lamb turning over the fires, we ate beef from one of the precious cattle that Clan Fein raised in the damp lowlands. It was hot and smoky and dripping with grease. There was song, with more drumming and stamping than Aradoc’s whistling bird-melody, but it thrummed its way into the rhythm of my own heart’s beat, sliding into the gaps where something had been missing all my life. Something I’d been near enough to feel the heat of, but never close enough to grow warm in.
Well into the night, I was called to the chieftain’s seat. As I marched up to Garadin Clan Fein—and all through the night, besides—I imagined the clan’s eyes on me, suspicious and wary, perhaps not so convinced of me as this man with his proud eagle stare.
Garadin Fein gave no sign that he shared their fears. Though it was not Sunstead, he bade me kneel before him. I gave him my oath to Clan Fein before one and all, and I was tattooed at his feet with a triangle beneath my right eye. Clan Aradoc could not claim me now, even if they wanted, and in that way, I was safe. It was a binding, as sure and tight as my collar.
That night, as I lay on my pallet in the greatroundhouse—inhaling the heavy leather-and-oil scent of my bracers, the smell that reminded me of home, of Hadhnri—my mind settled on the one small thing it could contain: I was an adult before Hadhnri. I was older than her and oh, how angry she would be. It made me smile. It made me weep, and my new mark stung.
THETALEGOES LIKETHIS
