Page 2 of Fate’s Bane

T HE T ALE G OES LIKE T HIS

Once, we were all one clan, led by mighty warriors.

Once, we were all one clan, living as peacefully as we could within the Fens.

Once, we were all one clan, plagued by the witch of the Fens.

The witch—who may not have been a witch but a demon—who may not have been a demon but a god—who may not have been any of these things at all—was the guardian of the Fens and claimed our ancestors as trespassers.

Many mighty warriors attempted to kill this creature to free us from the black eye of its attention, which drew ill-luck: children, drowned in a handspan of tepid water; legs of men and legs of beasts, sucked into the muck to break; disease, passed from family to family to family.

They called it trickster, they called it the luck-hound, they called it fates-bane.

Warrior after warrior bent their shoulders to the task, but always something went wrong.

The hilt of a sturdy blade came apart right before the killing blow.

A twig cracked or a waterbird splashed, giving away the creeping warrior’s position.

The string of a bow snapped and took out the archer’s eye.

No one succeeded until one man, Bannos the Clever, Bannos the Bold, strong and cunning, turned his ill-luck against the fates-bane. For his victory, Bannos became the clan’s leader and led it into prosperity, following the cycle of the land.

In this prosperity, he had many children, and in the way of siblings born to power, they did not agree who should succeed their great father.

When Bannos died, the clan split and split and split along the lines of his children and their most loyal.

The seat of Bannos’s power—the heart of the Fens, where the earth is richest, the peat plentiful—has passed between the splintered clans several times since then, ever at the point of the sword.

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.