Storm Bride

by J. S. Bangs

  They emerged into the inside ring where Keshlik and the chiefs of his party were waiting. At the opposite end of the ring, Juyut crouched, five chiefs standing near him. The warriors who fenced the bounds of the arena with their spears were subdued and somber.

  Keshlik greeted Saotse with a few words, and he bowed briefly to Uya. She nodded in response. He said something to Saotse.

  She turned to Uya. “He asks if you are well, and he thanks you for coming.”

  Uya nodded. “I am well.” What else could she say? Nothing seemed to fit the weight of the morning.

  Juyut stripped to the waist and took a few strides toward the center of the ring. He carried a bronze spear in his right hand and an obsidian knife on his belt. A moment later, Keshlik took off his tunic and moved forward, similarly armed. He called out to the chiefs across the field from him in a long, sonorous speech.

  “He asks whether they’ll abide by the terms of the duel and follow whoever wins, whether to peace or to war,” Saotse translated. She paused to listen. “They agree. Now he repeats the question to the rest of the Yakhat warriors.”

  A dreary thunder of agreement sounded from all around them. Tuulik began to cry.

  Clucking her tongue, Uya released the child from his binding, unlaced her blouse, and tucked him close to nurse.

  “The battle is starting,” Saotse said.

  Uya looked up. Keshlik was watching Tuulik nurse, and she caught his gaze. His face was stricken and bereaved, like a man who knew he was about to die. For a moment, Uya pitied him.

  He looked away from her. He raised his spear to the ready, and advanced toward his brother. Uya turned her back to the duel and cast her gaze down at the nursing child.

  “Won’t you watch the battle?” Saotse asked.

  “No,” Uya answered. “This is more important.”

  Behind her, wood met wood. Bronze tore flesh. The watching warriors gasped and flinched. The sounds of fighting went on. But in front of her, lovely Tuulik suckled happily at her breast, his eyes closed. A drop of milk glistened on his cheek like a pearl. Uya wiped the milk away, then brushed the tips of her fingers through his wispy hair, as fine and gauzy as a spiderweb.

  “Don’t be afraid, little one,” she whispered. “Your father is fighting for you.”

  But why would he be afraid? He knew nothing other than his mother’s voice and the taste of her breast. She cooed and rocked him gently, and he continued to nurse.

  She looked over her shoulder. If Tuulik was not afraid, she had no reason to be, either.

  The two men still stood in the center of the arena. Both were bloodied. One of them—at first glance, she couldn’t tell which it was—had suffered a major gash along his thigh, and his blood ran down his leg and soaked the ground. She had to look twice to recognize Keshlik. Both of their expressions were twisted by pain, and their faces were marred by sweat and blood.

  Keshlik was limping, his movements with the injured leg hesitant and feeble, while Juyut danced outside of his reach. Keshlik prodded forward with the point of his spear, but Juyut darted aside. Juyut circled, looking for the place to strike.

  She switched Tuulik to her other breast.

  A gasp and a roar passed through the Yakhat horde.

  Uya looked up. Keshlik was on his back, with Juyut sprawled atop him. Juyut’s hand was curled around the haft of his knife, and the tip of the blade had entered Keshlik’s side. Neither of them moved.

  Perhaps she was going to die today, after all. She hoped that Tuulik got enough to nurse, first.

  One of the warriors stirred. At first it seemed to be Juyut, rising from atop his elder brother. But then Keshlik’s arm flexed. He put his hand over Juyut’s on the haft of the knife. An agonized groan rent the silence as Keshlik pulled the knife from his side. Only a finger’s width of the blade had entered, Uya saw with relief. He cast the knife aside and clapped his hand over the trickle of blood from his side.

  Then he pushed Juyut from atop him, and Uya could see at last how the warriors had fallen: Juyut had leapt forward to plant his knife, but he had fallen onto the point of Keshlik’s spear. The spear was broken in two, the spearhead buried in Juyut’s ribs. The beam of the spear was still in Keshlik’s hand.

  Keshlik rose to his knees, visibly shaking with the effort. He looked down at his brother, then at the broken spear in his hand. He hurled the haft aside with a throat-rending curse. Then he lay his head on Juyut’s chest and wept.

  The Yakhat were silent.

  “That’s enough death.” Uya tucked Tuulik into the crook of her arm and strode into the arena.

  “What are you doing?” Saotse cried after her.

  Uya ignored it. She found the beam of Keshlik’s spear in the grass, picked it up, and walked over to him.

  She touched his shoulder. He looked up, startled. His face was a ruin, splattered with blood and marred by tears, his eyes bloodshot with grief. She showed him the portion of the broken spear that she had taken, then touched the splinters bound to the bronze spearhead in Juyut’s chest.

  “I’m taking these,” she said. “As you offered them to me.”

  He showed no sign of comprehension.

  “Do you understand? I am taking your spear. We will marry, and our people will be at peace.”

  A moment passed in silence. Then he nodded.

  Saotse appeared at her shoulder, then the Yakhat chiefs came, speaking to Keshlik. Tuulik began to fuss, and Uya opened her blouse again and gave him her nipple.

  Exhaustion and relief flooded though her, and she knelt on the grass, cradling Tuulik against her belly. She would let the rest of them worry about terms and truces. She had done her part, and now she would rest.

  A wind came out of the east, blowing gently toward where the dead rested. “Chaoare, carry my words to my mother and Nei and the rest of my enna,” she prayed. “Tell them that I am a mother now, though not to the child they expected. Tell them that I miss them, but that I am not alone. I helped make peace. And when it’s time, I’ll repair the totems of our enna and raise them for their memory again.”

  Chapter 34

  Saotse

  The Yakhat women were driving cattle toward Prasa and singing the wedding hymns of Khou. Their songs were slow, majestic things, redolent with the rejoicing of the blackbirds on the marsh and the bloom of wildflowers over the prairie. Chaoare danced above them, lifting their music to the summer-bright clouds, eager to bless the union of her air-bound brother and earthbound sister.

  Saotse still could not make out the words of Chaoare’s dancing, but she didn’t mind. Dancing didn’t need words. And Khou was coming. She now did not swallow Saotse with a barrage of grief, but touched her lightly and joyfully as she prepared to rejoin her husband.

  Uya stood beside her, humming along with the passing women and gently rocking Tuulik. “I feel odd,” she said. “I shouldn’t be getting married while I’m still nursing a newborn.”

  “It is an unusual marriage,” Saotse said.

  Uya was dressed in a Yakhat bridal gown. She had described it to Saotse as a red wide-sleeved blouse and skirt that billowed behind her, and what seemed to be a thousand strands of gold, turquoise, and mother-of-pearl hung around her neck. They waited at the outskirts of the city while the Yakhat women brought in the yaks that Keshlik had promised, presented now as Uya’s bride-price. A gaggle of young Yakhat women waited around them, Uya’s attendants, treating the strange foreign woman with deferential shyness and curiosity.

  The last of the cattle lowed as they plodded down the path, and the bridal procession prepared to follow them. Saotse quickly translated the last of the inevitable questions between Uya and her attendants, then they set off toward the city.

  As they approached, Saotse heard the men singing, low sonorous chants that rumbled alongside the road like peals of thunder. They lined the path from the hill
where the procession began, guarding the route through Prasa and to the river, ending finally at the place along the shore where the wedding was to take place. Through Khou, Saotse felt their spears tapping the ground, and as Uya passed them, they laid their weapons on the ground. Khou shivered with delight, and Saotse laughed.

  The city smelled of cows and horses, of fresh-cut spruces and seawater. Behind the droning of the Yakhat warriors, Saotse picked out the chatter of Prasei and Yivrian voices, those scattered by the sacking of the city who had returned, and those who had come with the kenda’s forces and remained. Ravens cawed from the peaks of lodges.

  “Oh!” Uya said brightly. “They’ve begun repairs on the Prasada’s lodge. And that’s not the only one.” She squeezed Saotse’s hand.

  They neared the shore. Oarsa’s crashing bellow pulsed in Saotse’s chest, and she suppressed the urge to run to meet the sea. At the edge of the water, his feet moistened by Oarsa’s foam, stood the storm Power. He was a maelstrom barely restrained, a gale rejoicing, thrumming with thunder and smelling of spring rain on dry leaves.

  “Do you hear it?” Saotse asked. “Do you hear him? The air crackles with lightning—”

  Uya laughed. “Lightning? The sky is clear. It’s just Keshlik and the shrieking of gulls.”

  The ground underfoot changed from dirt to wave-worn pebbles. They stopped about halfway down the shore. Uya’s attendants ceased singing, and the chanting warriors quieted. Saotse heard Keshlik’s footsteps booming with thunder as he approached them from up the shore. He stopped just in front of them.

  The gravel crunched before them. Through Khou, Saotse felt Keshlik’s knees press the earth, and she felt him present the halves of his broken spear to Uya. As instructed, Uya took the spear and thrust the point of the spearhead into the ground with a solid grunt.

  “Blessed be the lord of thunder, who rains and makes fertile the earth,” Saotse intoned, first in Yakhat, then in Praseo.

  Saotse heard Uya fumbling for the pouch of salt held around her neck and presenting it to Keshlik. As expected, Saotse heard him take a little salt from the pouch and sprinkle it over the spear, then touch some to his own lips and to Uya’s lips.

  “Blessed be the mother of the people, whose breasts delight her children,” Saotse said.

  Then Keshlik and Saotse together took the pouch of salt and hurled it into the sea. That action was not traditionally included in the ritual, but both Saotse and the Yakhat elders had agreed that it was needed.

  “Blessed be the father of the waters,” Saotse said, “whose tides wash away our tears.”

  Uya and Keshlik turned to face each other.

  “Keshlik, son of Golgoyat, do you give your spear to this woman for marriage?” Saotse asked.

  “Yes,” he thundered.

  She said the next line in Praseo. “Uya, daughter of Khou, do you take this man’s spear for marriage?”

  “Yes,” she said, and the earth quivered and went silent.

  “Then let the wedding begin.”

  Casks of wine filled the central square of Prasa. They were shared alongside bowls of kumis and sweet fresh curds. The smells of smoked salmon and roast veal perfumed the whole city, which spurred the Yakhat, Yivrian, and Prasei leaders to quickly formalize the final conditions of the truce, so they could get to the eating. The Prasei beat drums and the Yakhat sang, and gifts of turquoise and rubies changed hands. There was still distrust—Saotse could hear it in many voices, and a few drunk men had to be kept from fighting as the afternoon wore on. But those were the exceptions.

  When the sun fell into the west, the feast was unabated. A dance began in the square, the Yakhat cow-maidens teaching the young women of Prasa a salacious dance that prompted guffaws and whistles from the watching Yakhat and Prasei alike. Saotse found a moment when no one was asking her to eat or translate, and she slipped quietly away.

  Her feet found again the paths that ran down to the sea. The ways through the city had not changed much, and though most of the lodges were still empty, she remembered the crossings and wound her way down toward the pebbly beach. The grass rustled against her skirt as she wound down the paths, until the chanting of the waves and the grumble of stones on the shore met her ears.

  The air was full of the sound of gulls. A rich, salted breeze blew in off the sea. She stepped onto the gravel of the shore, feeling the smooth pebbles beneath her feet, and walked until the cold water rushed up over her toes. The foam of the waves kissed her ankles, and she felt the old, familiar call of the ocean.

  She stopped when the waves reached her calves. Oarsa was present in the current swirling around her, and his joy and gratitude churned around her. She heard the singing of the orcas waiting beneath the waves, eager to bear her on their backs once more.

  The churning of the waves contained an offer, rising up like an ancient current from the depths of the sea. There were no words, but the intent was clear. She considered it.

  “No,” she said at last. “My home is here now. And I don’t know if this old body would even survive the journey back across the sea.”

  The waves kissed her again.

  She was suddenly exhausted. “It may be a while before I return to the sea. Uya needs me, and Keshlik, and probably the new Prasada and the kenda, eventually. And after all, I’m an old woman, and I shouldn’t spend my time chilling my ankles in the seawater. I would like to rest.”

  Still, she waited a few more minutes while the sea rushed around her feet. Then she turned with a sigh, walked up the shore, and rejoined the celebration.

  Glossary

  The following is a listing of all of the characters (human and otherwise), places, titles, and words from fictional languages which occur in this novel. If you'd interested in learning more about the world in which Storm Bride is set, including information about the Praseo and Yakhat languages, the history of the Prasei and the Yakhat, and pictures of some of the places that inspired the setting, you can find them at http://jsbangs.conlang.org.

  akan - The chief of a village or small town, with authority only over the enna in his town.

  Azatsi's Spine - A large mountain range at the eastern edge of Yivras.

  Azatsi - A Power of the mountains, stones, and earth. The mountain range "Azatsi's Spine" is considered his home.

  bangag - A kind of tree which grew in the Bans, used to make rafts.

  Bera - Tagoa's brother.

  Bhaalit - Keshlik's second in command, and speaker for the Khaatat tribe of the Yakhat.

  Bhuuyit - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Bhuuy Ban.

  Budhut - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from But Ban.

  Chalayit - The largest tribe of the Yakhat, originally from Chalay Ban.

  Chaoare - A Power of the north wind, bringer of good omens.

  Choudhap - Speaker for the Lougok tribe of the Yakhat.

  Chrasu - A young boy from Uya's family.

  Chuuri - A young Yakhat warrior, one of Juyut's companions.

  Danut - A young Yakhat warrior, one of Juyut's companions.

  Danyak - Speaker for the Chalayit tribe of the Yakhat.

  Deika - Uya's father.

  Deikhul - One of the elders of the Khaatat tribe of the Yakhat.

  Dhalyat - A young Yakhat warrior, one of Juyut's companions.

  Dheijit - Speaker for the Tanoutut tribe of the Yakhat.

  Dhuja - An elderly Yakhat woman, midwife to Tuulo and Uya.

  enna - A family unit consisting of all people who share a living ancestor, most members of which lived together in a communal lodge. The oldest living member of the enna is known as the Eldest.

  Gaadhat - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Gaat Ban.

  Golgoyat - The Power of the storm cloud, conceived of as a fierce warrior. Venerated by the Yakhat, especially the men.

  Guza - A people who lived in the Gap and operated a way station for trade
passing over Azatsi's Spine.

  Hetsim - A captured Guza slave.

  Hiksilipsi - One of the peoples of the Yivri, often found as shamans and priests throughout Yivras.

  Jeoa - A young Praseo man who brings news of the ambush to Uya's enna.

  Juyut - Keshlik's younger brother, who is likely to inherit the leadership of the Yakhat armies when Keshlik retires.

  Kalagak - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Kalak Ban.

  Keishul - Keshlik's father, who originally heard the call of Golgoyat.

  Kenda - The ruler of the Yivriindi, who comes to the aid of the Prasei. "Kenda" is properly a title, not a name, but the given name of the Kenda does not occur in this story.

  Kendilar - The capital city of the Yivriindi, a people who lived south of Prasa and the Prasei.

  Keshlik - A Yakhat warrior, the leader of the war bands of the Yakhat at the time of the story.

  Khaatat - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Khaat Ban. The primary Yakhat characters in Storm Bride belong to the Khaatat tribe.

  Khou - The Power of the earth, protectress of women and source of fertility. Venerated by the Yakhat, especially the women.

  Kouchuk - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Kouk Ban.

  Kourak - The city-dwelling civilization which attacked the Yakhat and drove them off the Bans.

  kumis - A drink made of fermented mare's milk. (This is is not an invented word, but is rather the name of an actual drink found in Central Asia.)

  Lagayit - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Lagay Ban.

  Lashkat - Keshlik's horse.

  Lochat - An elder of the Khaatat tribe of the Yakhat, Bhaalit's father-in-law.

  Lougok - One of the tribes of the Yakhat, originally from Louk Ban.

  Lunelori - The Power of the night sky, the protector and patron of the Yivriindi.

  Mariku - One of Uya's aunts.

  Narista - The heir to the Kenda, and future Kenda-to-be.