Page 34 of Fate's Bane
“Ready yourselves.” Garadin Clan Fein held an arm cocked in the air, two fingers up. The shield line before us braced.
As Pedhri Clan Aradoc raised his horn to his lips, Hadhnri leapt between him and us, dragging his arm down. Pedhri shook his daughter off, but she pushed him back, shouting. Whatever she said made him pause and stare at our line, the horn in his hand forgotten.Hadhnri went to her knees, and I knew every word of her confession, though I couldn’t hear it.
Oh Hadhnri, brave Hadhnri.
Pedhri raised his horn again, and this time, Gunni held Hadhnri back, offering her his own rough words as she struggled.
Pedhri Clan Aradoc blew his war horn and no sound came out. He looked down at it, baffled, as every dog in the village began to bark and howl. Again, he blew; the dogs increased their madness. The Aradoc archers lowered their bows in confusion and looked to their leader. Hadhnri looked toward me, and I knew it for a second confession.
Or, I thought I did. It might have been the warning for what she did next.
Oh Hadhnri, foolish Hadhnri.
She broke free of Gunni’s grasp and sprinted straight for me.
“Now!” cried Garadin Clan Fein. “For Clan Fein! For the true heirs of Bannos!”
He charged, and with him my father-sisters and my youngest brother. With my stone-fruit throat, I followed, praying to reach Hadhnri first.
Pedhri threw the horn to the ground and cried to his archers, but his voice barely carried. In uncoordinated waves, they pulled and they aimed and they loosed. The shieldsmen ahead of us braced and we clammed up tight behind their wall.
An arrow flew true for Laudir-father-sister’s breast, and I cried out as I watched it hit the jerkin I’d tooled. Her face contorted with pain and that regret that comes with knowing you’ve died sooner than you wanted. But the arrow did not sink into her chest. It caromed into the arm of my father beside her. He grunted and yanked the arrow from its shallow hold in the swell of his muscle. He moved his axe to his other hand and glanced, bewildered, at Laudir. Laudir, however, looked behind my father to me.
“For luck,” I mouthed. She frowned and rubbed her chest.
By then, instead of burning away with the morning, the fog swirled densely at our hips, rising quickly. We ran again. Arrows again. Shields again. And then we were too close for arrows, and the clans mingled in a way only battle and clan moots would allow.
I had to get to Hadhnri.
I shouted for her as I had in the Baneswood, but my voice was drowned by the crash of fighting around me. I was loath to hurt anyone—I’d lived with our enemy almost my whole life. They’d taught me everything I knew, the good and the ill.
The same feeling did not stay their blades.
I ducked around an axe that came swinging out of the fog that obscured everything but the person in front of me. I recognized him. Gurdhri, who had sung the songs of Bannos to me and Hadhnri and the other Aradocchildren while he turned meat over the fire. Gurdhri, who had never tweaked my ear because I never stole meat from the spit like the other children, who would cut me off a small piece and shoo me away with a smile.
“Gurdhri, please!” I held my hands up, my seax dangling slack.
Gurdhri’s eyebrows rose. He looked older now, but the years had been kind. They’d given him a soft belly and deep lines of laughter. The laugh-lines turned as he recognized me too.
“I’ll make it quick, girl. A knock on the head and you’ll sleep until it’s over. I’m sorry.” And certain, he looked it.
He reached for me and I jumped back, but the ground beneath my feet was marsh-soft where it should have been solid. I knew the Aradoc land as well as any, but not today. Not with the fates-bane at its work. On faun-legs, I fell.
I found my nose at his boots. Boots I recognized. Boots with a raven-knot I had drawn and watched Hadhnri chase with her awl. They spun a tight little round as Gurdhri searched for me, but I was blanketed by the fog.
“Gurdhri!”
Gurdhri stopped and I grasped his boot. Gurdhri, who was too shy to dance with Theitri no matter how she winked at him, until Hadhnri and I had made him boots to wing his feet.
I held his boot and felt the warmth of the Making we had done, andcalledto it.
The boot jerked out of my hand, almost kicking me in the face. I rolled to my own feet and saw his fear-wide eyes as his legs spasmed against his will.
“By the left eye, what have you done to me, girl?”
“Please, Gurdhri. I need to find Hadhnri.” Only together could we beg our fathers to stop this.
Who would fast themselves to an enemy of Clan Fein?
