Page 2 of Fate's Bane
That is the tale as we heard it from our fathers and our father-sisters in Clan Fein.
That is the tale as we heard it from our mothers and our mother-brothers in Clan Aradoc.
That is the tale, say the tale-tellers of Clan Elyin and the song-singers of Clan Hanarin.
That is the tale, say the lore-makers of Clan Pall.
That is the tale of the Fens.
THESPRING
We became fast friends, Hadhnri and I. We took our chores together, hauling bricks of peat and replacing the rushes on the floor of the roundhouse; we practiced the different trades of the clan, rotating from leatherwork and fishing to smithing and weaving; we trained daily with seax and axe and sometimes even the sword, trailing along behind Gunni First-Born Pedhri Clan Aradoc.
Gunni had a few years and a handspan’s height over us, with handsome features that the clan gossiped about; some blushed and giggled behind their hands. Like Hadhnri, he was generous with me, teaching me weapon-work as they learned it in Clan Aradoc. Their way was not so different from Clan Fein, but I was eager to learn.
Though they were both kind to me, the tension between the siblings was blood-thick, and never more so than in the little patch of grass that served as our training grounds. I said that Gunni was kind; he was kindest when it was the three of us alone. With his age-mates around, or PedhriClan Aradoc watching, he would sacrifice us—especially Hadhnri—on the altar of their approval. It was after one such time, perhaps a year after my capture, that Hadhnri and I fled the Aradoc roundhouse.
“Wait!” he called after us as we ran, our wooden seaxes pumping back and forth at our sides. “Come back, or you’ll get the hide!”
We didn’t go back. We ran rabbit-fleet and deer-sure over the wet pockets of the earth. Already, with Hadhnri as my guide, I knew the land as if it were my own.
My hair had only grown back to a short cap of dense curls, but Hadhnri’s flew behind her, a cloud of red. Though we’d fled in indignation and frustration, the more we ran, the less helpless we felt. The crease in Hadhnri’s forehead, the jut of her lower lip—they both gave way to grin, her eyes squinting as we rushed against the wind.
Even a river must slow, though, and so did we, legs jangling from a gallop to a canter to a walk. With wind-chapped cheeks and cold-split lips, we stared at each other, chests heaving with this newfound might.
We had saidno.
Behind us, far, far, far away, I saw a smudge of what might have been the roundhouse and the smoke of the fire rising like a streak of cloud. Before us stretched a carr, the sedge meadow that we’d run through, turning into a forest of skinny birch, reaching naked-branched to the sky. Fog shrouded the ground up to our knees.
The Baneswood.
Hadhnri’s thoughtful pout returned.
“Should we go back?” I asked. Already, I would have followed her anywhere, even there.
Hadhnri’s frown deepened, and she rubbed her backside—without realizing it, I think—where Gunni had smacked her needlessly hard that morning, humiliating her in front of the clan after she’d let him get around her guard. He’d paddled her bottom like a child.
“No.”
Together, we entered the luck-hound’s wood.
As many trunks that stood tall, there were those that had fallen sideways—some dead and some growing twisted and determined. We clambered over and under the ancient yews and, once, rode one like a horse. We whiled away the hours, roaming deeper into the woods, pretending to battle each other across the rough terrain.
Deeper and deeper we went until we could no longer see the hill from which we’d come. Moss muffled our footsteps. We crouched like hunters through hanging willow fronds, holding our wooden seaxes up like spears.
“Agnir. I’m hungry,” Hadhnri confessed.
“Shh.” I pressed a finger to my lips. I stopped and hunkered lower at the burble of water.
“What is it?” Hadhnri bent close beside me, our shoulders knocking. Her breath tickled my ear.
“A creek, I think? Or a spring.”
“There are no fresh springs on Aradoc land.”
But we crept closer and lo, sheltered beneath the trailing fronds of a willow—as a lover is sheltered by the curtain of their love’s hair—a spring. Just stepping near to it gave me a chill; that is how cold it was. I could see down to the gray-brown stone beneath; that is how clear it was. The water rushed from its source and down some path of root and tangle. I considered following it to see where this spring-that-was-not-Aradoc’s would take me.
Hadhnri knelt beside the spring and fanned her fingers into it. She closed her eyes and sighed. It looked wonderful. I followed her, instead.
