Page 37 of Fate's Bane

And they say Hadhnri Clan Aradoc wept blood over his body in those brackish fields of Bannos until Pedhri Clan Aradoc came, not with knuckles but with axes bared to kill the kin of Garadin Fein—that girl who had once been his ward.

And that Hadhnri raised her brother’s sword—lighter in her hands than a willow leaf—to her own father’s throat, saying, “Let it be done, Father. Let it end.”

And that chief of all chiefs laid his cold weapons down in the bloody red fens of Bannos.

THETALEWETELL

They called it the trickster, they called it the luck-hound, they called it the fates-bane, but none now can say what is true.

Was it Hadhnri Clan Aradoc who fell, her own brother who delivered the blow? Or did Garadin Fein perish when his own daughter held back his hate?

Was it Agnir the Clever and Hadhnri the Bold who turned the clans’ fates with their Makings? Or did fate make a Making of them?

Why did the fates-bane reach out its hand to tangle the threads of its conqueror’s heirs?

Are these the questions that matter as you wend your way through these woods?

In the seat of Bannos’s power, over the bloodied bodies and the sharpened steel, where the earth is richest and the peat plentiful, two women swore an oath by the fates-bane and united the clans with their love.

This is the tale as we heard it from our fathers and our father-sisters.

This is the tale as we heard it from our mothers and our mother-brothers.

This is the tale, say the lore-makers and the tale-tellers of Clan Bannos.

This is the tale, say the song-singers of Clan Bannos.

This is the tale of the Fens.