Storm Bride

by J. S. Bangs

  Tuulo cried out, pitched forward onto her hands and knees, and let out a piercing sob. Uya waited with her hands on the woman’s waist, feeling her muscles tighten and spasm.

  It passed. Tuulo breathed more easily.

  Dhuja entered, letting in a narrow sliver of sunlight. Uya heard her muttering and scraping around the edges of the yurt, then the scrape of the ember box and hiss of a newly lit butter lamp. The soft light showed Tuulo on the ground, sweat-soaked gown hanging off her, and Dhuja cradling her head and muttering instructions. At the entrance to the yurt, she had left the pot of water, still steaming, and a lacquered tray filled with hot stones taken from the fire pit. Dhuja’s hands stroked Tuulo’s head, and she slowly lifted the flimsy gown up Tuulo’s back and over her shoulders. Dhuja snapped at Uya and gestured that they were to help the unclothed Tuulo onto the birthing stool.

  The stool was a simple reed platform braced a few feet off the floor, covered with a red-dyed blanket. One end was built up and padded with a horsehair cushion to support the mother’s back. Uya put her shoulder under Tuulo’s arm, clasping her sweat-slicked wrist, and with Dhuja’s help, lifted the woman. Tuulo collapsed back against the cushion. Dhuja spread her legs and arranged them on either side of the seat.

  Tuulo lay there a minute, head thrown back. Her breasts and belly heaved. Sweat glistened in lamplight. The lines that Dhuja had drawn that morning were smeared and streaked from perspiration. Yet she lifted her head and briefly smiled at Uya and Dhuja.

  She moaned again, bending forward and squeezing the sides of the seat. The moan became a growl, then a swallowed scream. Dhuja was at her side, holding her hand, wiping away the sweat and tears that streamed down her face. Glaring at Uya, she shouted a brief command.

  Uya winced and backed against the wall of the yurt. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  Dhuja spat a single word that could only be a curse. Tuulo’s scream petered out into a whimper, and she straightened back again into the cushions, her hands falling limp at her sides. Dhuja scuttled away, pulled a bundle of loose white woolen cloth from one of her packs at the edge of the yurt, and plunged it into the pot of hot water. Then, with impatient jabbers and much pointing, she indicated to Uya that they should each take one end of the cloth.

  The cloth scalded Uya’s hands when she touched it. She almost dropped it. Dhuja glared contemptuously then pointed her to Tuulo. They took the hot, heavy, waterlogged cloth over, then wound it tightly around her belly. Uya winced at the thought of the scalding fabric binding her skin, but Tuulo seemed not even to notice, as another labor pang had taken her, and she seized Uya’s hand. She gritted her teeth and let out a tiny groan, squeezing until Uya wanted to cry out in pain.

  It passed. Dhuja waved Uya back to the water pot and handed her a ladle. She pantomimed dipping the ladle into the water and pouring it out.

  “You want me to pour out the water?” Uya asked. “I’m sorry—”

  Dhuja grabbed the ladle from her hand, filled it from the pot, and poured it gently over the tray of hot stones. A cloud of steam hissed up into the yurt. She threw the ladle back to Uya and returned to Tuulo’s side.

  Uya waited for the stones to stop popping and hissing then poured another ladle of water across them. The yurt began to fill with steam. When the stones were wet and cold, she left the yurt to refill the tray from the fire. She took the stones from the hottest part of the fire, where the embers were white and shuddering with rosy heat, and laid a few new branches across the coals so the fire would be replenished by the time she returned again.

  She returned to the yurt and resumed ladling water across the stones. The yurt became a muggy, smoky pit. The heat and the steam clung to Uya’s flesh, running rivulets down her back. Blood and mucus trickled out of Tuulo to the ever-present accompaniment of her moans. Dhuja called Uya over, and they helped Tuulo to stand, holding her up between them while she shook like a speared fish. They helped her from position to position as the hours passed. Her cries never stopped now. Her howls rose and fell in intensity and pitch, like a coyote’s keening. And whenever Dhuja did not need Uya, she returned to stir the fire and steam the yurt.

  Dhuja re-wet the fabric around Tuulo’s belly, and Uya went out again for more stones. The first breath of the air outside felt cold and dry as winter. To her shock, she saw the sun slipping behind the mountains. In the east, the horizon was black. Had the day already passed?

  When she returned to the yurt, she saw it as if for the first time. Tuulo sobbed, leaning into Dhuja’s shoulder. Her hands were limp with exhaustion. Dhuja cradled her and massaged her lower back. Tuulo gasped and doubled forward, her knees came up, and her fingers bit into Dhuja’s flesh. Her whole body tensed. She pushed.

  Her breath ebbed away, and she fell back again into Dhuja’s arms.

  Dhuja reached up between Tuulo’s thighs. Her hand emerged bloody, and she wiped it clean on the blanket without making any indication to Tuulo or Uya what she had found. But she grimaced.

  Uya steamed the room, then put the ladle down and came to Tuulo’s side. Dhuja didn’t scold her, so perhaps she had done well. She held Tuulo’s hand when the next push came, though Tuulo’s grip seemed ready to break Uya’s fingers. When it had passed, she wiped the sweat-matted hair of out Tuulo’s eyes.

  For a moment, she let herself feel the warmth of pity for Tuulo. A long, difficult labor had been her own dread, back when—but that was why she had killed her compassion. In the pain of Tuulo’s struggle, she had almost forgotten.

  Tuulo rested her head against Uya’s shoulder, and Uya patted her cheek. A little while longer, and we’ll all share the same pain.

  Chapter 26

  Saotse

  Tliqyali wiped Saotse’s forehead with a rag dipped in cool water. “Is Sorrow still near to you?”

  Saotse’s feet rested on a woven mat, and beneath the crackling reeds, the earth trembled. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Tliqyali hesitated. “Because something may be different.”

  After the battle had dispersed around noon, Saotse had rested with the kenda’s entourage, and she listened to Sorrow in the soil and attempted to feel the movements of the Yakhat in her skin. But to her surprise, Tliqyali was right. Saotse wasn’t sure what the Hiksilipsi woman could sense, but something had changed. Sorrow was present, but she was not wholly with Saotse. Her attention was divided. “How do you know?”

  “I don’t have any direct touch with Sorrow, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Tliqyali said, amusement edging her voice. “But I can touch you, and your spirit has changed its tone. Your heart is beating differently. Something has shifted.”

  Saotse held her tongue for a while. This Hiksilipsi woman was the best aid she was likely to get, but would she immediately go tell the kenda if she admitted her uncertainty? But did she have a choice? If she were to charge into battle and find that Sorrow no longer answered…

  Saotse swallowed her pride. “I don’t know what’s happening. Something else, or someone else, has begged for Sorrow’s presence. She is here, but she’s not all here. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “A little,” Tliqyali said.

  “Do you know why? Does your training give you a way to ask Sorrow what has happened?”

  Tliqyali laughed. “You should know better than me that the Powers don’t speak as we do. Their language is the twisting of the wind, the color of leaves, and the pattern of lichen on a rock. You can ask them a question, but rarely will you get an answer expressible in words.”

  “But I’ve communed with Sorrow so many times. If she shared this—whatever it is—with me, then I could speak the words.”

  “Have you tried to commune with her now?”

  Saotse paused. She hadn’t, mostly because it would require her to go deeper into the Power than was safe when she was alone and with friends.

  But she wasn’t alone. She clenched T
liqyali’s hand. “If I immerse myself in Sorrow now, it would be like when I knocked down the kenda’s pavilion. But worse. I’m not sure that this is wise.” I already lost one friend today to Sorrow’s recklessness.

  “I’ll help you,” Tliqyali said. “Give me a moment to prepare.”

  The woman began to sing in Hiksilipsi, a light, pattering rhythm like rain falling on still water. Saotse heard her move around the little tent, open satchels, and scrape something into a bowl. The smell of burning sage suffused the tent. A bell rang nine times, then the rustling of her skirt settled in front of Saotse. She folded the mat back with a crunch of bending reeds then took both of Saotse’s hands.

  “I haven’t done this before with one of the Kept,” she said with a nervous laugh. “But the principles are the same. When you’re ready, step off the mat and onto the bare earth.”

  Saotse’s heart pounded with anxiety. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You are the Kept. Do what comes naturally, what you’ve done before. You were born hearing the language of the Powers, so speak it now with the Power that Keeps you. I will be your guardian and your guide. If you go too deep, I’ll pull you out.”

  Saotse nodded. She stepped onto the ground and fell into Sorrow.

  At first, she knew only the vastness of Sorrow’s pain, and the ground began to shudder with her sobs. But Tliqyali’s palms, pressed against hers, provided a slender reminder that she was a woman, and she was among friends. Saotse stilled her weeping. Sorrow was not consoled, but she quieted. And in their wordless union, Saotse asked, Who else is here?

  The answer: A black stormcloud thundered from horizon to horizon. Rain sliced through the sky, lightning pounded the earth, hail bruised the trees, and wind screamed. Sorrow had sadness mingled with rage, but the stormcloud had only hatred: hot, black, and boiling with cruelty. Saotse shrank back in terror, but Sorrow dissolved it. She remembered that the storm was not wicked. Once the wind had been a dance and not a fist, and the rain had been a kiss instead of a slap. Once, and maybe again.

  The earth swelled to touch the sky, soil bulging beneath sod and creaking its stony bones—and fell back again with a shudder of frustration. The pain was too great, and the labor of reunion was unfinished.

  But realization thundered through Saotse: Sorrow does not labor alone.

  It wasn’t just the storm that split Sorrow’s attention, but another person, whose struggle rippled through Sorrow like the splashing of a child in shallow water. The woman contracted; the earth contracted. The woman screamed; the stones screamed.

  And Tliqyali pulled Saotse from the depths of the Power and dropped her, sweating and quivering, onto the reed mat.

  The cool rag dabbed her forehead again, and Tliqyali pressed a skin of water to her lips. Shaking, Saotse spilled the water all down her shirt. Tliqyali caught her head, laid her gently out on the mat, then covered her quickly with a blanket.

  Saotse grabbed the woman’s hand. “What did I do? What happened when I was with Sorrow?”

  “Very little,” Tliqyali said. “There was some shaking, and you screamed. And the earth shouted. It was very loud.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Nothing I could understand. Do you not remember?”

  Saotse waited for the trembling to cease. “I remember. But I don’t understand. Someone else is in Sorrow.”

  “Someone other than you was communing with Sorrow?”

  “Yes. Another Kept?”

  Tliqyali tucked the blanket around her. “I doubt it was another Kept.”

  “Then who?”

  “It could be anyone. All flesh influences the Powers, just as the Powers speak to all flesh. Do you not know this?”

  “No. The Hiksilipsi were seldom in Prasa to teach.” And she hadn’t wanted to go to them when they were present. Admitting to anyone that Oarsa had ceased to speak to her was more pain than she had wanted to bear.

  “It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t learn more from us,” Tliqyali said. “As Kept of Sorrow, you are gifted to perceive the Powers directly, and for this reason when Sorrow joins herself to you, you can invoke and direct her power. But the Powers may join themselves to anyone. This other person, if she isn’t Kept, cannot command the earth as you can, and she may not even know what is happening. But Sorrow may bind to her nonetheless.”

  “But why would Sorrow do that?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

  Saotse groaned in frustration. Sorrow had shown her sadness, separation, and struggle. The other woman was somehow bound up in it. But the explanation that Saotse wanted was not something Sorrow could give.

  There was a noise at the entrance of the tent, and a rough male voice called out to Tliqyali in Yivrian. Tliqyali answered, then said to Saotse, “The kenda wants to see you. Can you walk?”

  “Help me to my feet,” Saotse said.

  Tliqyali took her by the hand and helped her up, and Saotse stood for a moment to see if she had the strength. She did. She shuffled forward, leaning on Tliqyali’s arm.

  The kenda’s pavilion was open on every side to let in a cool breeze, and Saotse could hear the kenda pacing. “Saotse,” he said when she was still several paces away. “What was the tremor and the great noise we all heard a little while ago?”

  “I was speaking to Sorrow,” Saotse said. “We screamed. That’s all.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  Saotse hesitated. But no, Sorrow’s presence was as strong as ever, even if the Power’s attention was split. “Nothing is wrong. Tliqyali was guiding me to understand the Powers better.”

  “Very well,” the kenda said, in a tone that made it very clear he didn’t want to hear any more about what Saotse and Tliqyali had done. “The Yakhat are forming up again on the far side of the valley. I think they mean to make a second battle this afternoon. And we’ll meet them with spears forward, as many times as they want, until they either scatter or surrender. Are you prepared to join us?”

  “I am prepared.” She suffered a pang of doubt as to whether Sorrow would still respond to her and allow her to call up the soil as she had before. She reached out to the Power and felt the strong, bitter embrace of Sorrow, which assuaged her fears. Whatever the other influence of the powers, Sorrow would still come to Saotse. She could still bring them victory.

  “Very well,” the kenda said. “We’ll ride out within an hour, possibly sooner if the Yakhat move quickly. Tliqyali will accompany you in place of Tagoa. Prepare however you need to, but I expect to see you here and ready before we ride.”

  Chapter 27

  Keshlik

  The afternoon sun blazing on the valley floor was a dim glow seen through the trunks of the trees. The fern-choked forest ran down a short, gentle grade to where the spruces guarded the edges of the field, and there, just inside the shadows afforded by a moss-swaddled log, crouched the scout. The fist behind his back signalled Keshlik’s force to stay put.

  Keshlik heard, very far off, the feathery beat of hooves and the raindrop sound of spear meeting spear. Juyut had met the Yivriindi in battle. The scout’s signal would not continue much longer. Behind Keshlik, his men held their spears at the ready, their faces showing their eagerness to redeem themselves from the morning’s shame. Good. He needed every drop of ferocity he could get from them.

  The scout ducked and ran over to Keshlik in a crouch. Once he was in the shadow of Lashkat, he stood. “The battle is joined. The Yivrian line has their back to us. They’re at the far end of the valley, with their tents between us and them, but they’ve left a minimal reserve at the perimeter.”

  “And their chief?” Keshlik asked. “Has he remained in the camp or joined the battle?”

  “The chariot with the blue banners followed the Yivrian force out. He remains behind the front line. A white-haired woman accompanied him.”

&nbs
p; “Are they in the last line? Is there a force behind them?”

  The scout nodded. “He’s in the middle. There is a shorter line of spearmen that guards his rear.”

  Keshlik nodded. He turned to the men nearest him. “We ride out like the storm wind. Do not attack their encampment or engage with their perimeter. Fly past it and charge the rear guard that protects the witch and the chief. The battle will be over once we have crushed the Yivrian center and met up with our brothers on the other side.”

  The warriors murmured assent, and the order was repeated through the ranks. Keshlik rode cautiously to the edge of the forest. Ahead, in the open valley, he saw the Yivrian encampment, the battle line, and the flags of the Yivrian chief as the scout had described them. He tutted to Lashkat, and she began to run through the open. The rest of his force poured out behind him.

  They charged into the open field to the west of the Yivrian encampment, shouts in their throats and spears in their hands. The encampment sentries called out warnings and prepared for the attack, but the Yakhat rode by them like a river around a stone. The grass flew beneath Lashkat’s feet. To his left lay the furrows of the witch’s rage. The Yivrian line approached.

  Behind them, drums began to sound in the Yivrian camp, warning of Keshlik’s approach. His warriors passed through the narrow throat formed between the camp and the result of the morning’s battle and began to spread, matching the width of the rear line.

  The rear guard of Yivriindi had seen them. Their bronze spearpoints glittered as they turned. The Yivrian soldiers lowered the shafts of their spears into the soil. But the line was loose, ragged, panicked. The witch in the kenda’s chariot hadn’t yet disturbed the soil.

  Keshlik rebalanced his spear in his hand, leaned to the left, and prepared to meet the Yivrian line. His mark was an adobe-skinned man with eyes wide and teeth clenched in fear. When Keshlik was a heartbeat away from riding into the man’s spear, he threw his own, forcing the man to dodge aside. Keshlik flashed past him and through the gap.