Page 4 of Fate's Bane
We followed the alarmed voices until we saw the glow of torches waving through the birches. As we neared the edge of the wood, the dogs howled, but they didn’t enter the trees after us. They waited, looking from the clan members in the search party to us and whining.
They jumped on us with muddy paws when we broke from the trees, claws scratching. The world rushed back as if a gauzy film were pulled from my eyes. Though it was dark, color returned.
Pedhri Clan Aradoc loomed, sword in hand.
THEPUNISHMENT
He yelled at us both, a great belly-roaring, but most of his ire was for me. I led his child astray. I almost cost him his dearest treasure. The fens are dangerous in the darkness, even to those who know their paths, and the Baneswood—all knew the luck of the fates-bane.
“We were safe, Aradoc-Father,” I said quietly, bowing my head. “We stayed to the solid paths.”
“It was clear, Father. All the way to the spring.”
I inhaled sharply. In her dutiful honesty, Hadhnri had confessed something I knew should have stayed our heart-secret, more dangerous than the kiss we’d shared.
“There is no spring in the Baneswood,” Pedhri growled. He turned to me with his full body, and the weight of his regard sat heavily.
“I thought so, too, Father, but there was—”
“Go, Hadhnri.” Pedhri did not turn his gaze from me.
I bowed my head lower. From the corner of my eye, I saw Hadhnri’s eyes widen in understanding, then the resolute pout of her lips.
Don’t, I willed toward her, but it did not reach.
“Father, therewasa spring, I swear it on the bones of—”
“Hadhnri!” Pedhri jerked his head at one of his men, and the man looped a thick arm around her. He lifted her feet off the ground and carried her into the roundhouse.
Pedhri guided me away from the light of the fire and into the darkness. The flap of the roundhouse fell, cutting me off from the warmth, and the stirring hearth-sounds, and Hadhnri’s grunting struggle. The cold stole into me as it hadn’t before, and I immediately began to shiver. Aradoc-Father gripped my shoulder, his large thumb finding the hollow of nerves there and pressing.
“Where did you take my child?”
“To the spring, Aradoc-Father.” I gritted my teeth through the spasming pain in my shoulder. I was not a warrior, but I had puffed up my pride as much as Gunni had in our weapons practice. I tried to bear this punishment in hopes that Pedhri would see I could be trusted.
He slapped me across the face, knuckle-backs crashing like stones against my cheekbone. No inflated pride could stop my head spinning or wash the bright metal of blood from my mouth.
“You will tell me the truth, Agnir Ward-Aradoc.”
I dug the toes of my boots into the earth. They were crusted in fresh mud. If only that were proof—but the fens were full of mud. If only we had brought some ofthe water with us, honey-sweet, to share, but it would’ve trickled through our hands, quick as our joy.
I weighed silence against a lie; the lie measured safer. “Nowhere, Aradoc-Father. We wandered the fens.”
“Until after dark? When you should have returned to the roundhouse?”
“We lost track of the sun, Aradoc-Father. We were careless. I am sorry.”
“Why did you go, Agnir? What were you doing?”
“No reason, Aradoc-Father. Only to—to play. We were tired of the lessons, and Gunni, he—he slapped Hadhnri on the arse with his practice sword. We were angry.”
“What did you do with my child, when you led her away?”
I looked up then, eyes wide. “I didn’t hurt her, Aradoc-Father.”
This time, his knuckles knocked me to my knees. My fingers splurged the wet earth. Pride gone, I sniveled and reached my muddy hand up to my pain-hot cheek.
“Did you lay a finger upon Hadhnri Clan Aradoc?”
