Storm Bride (16 page)

The pain went on. The valleys and respites from the labor disappeared, smearing the thrashing of her womb together into an unending, unbearable agony.

It changed, becoming, if such a thing were possible,
worse
. The bones of her hips felt as if they were being torn apart, inch by inch, but they wouldn’t just
break
and give her some relief. And in the middle of the torment came an urgency. A need to push. To expel. To
end
it.

She pushed. Dhuja and Tuulo were both murmuring at her, though she understood nothing that they said. Her teeth ground together as she grunted and groaned. She had a few breaths’ respite, then again. Then again. Then again.

Her strength was flagging. Tuulo was all that kept her upright, and when the next urge to push seized her, she pressed only a moment, then relented. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t. I’m done.”

A vicious stream of language erupted from Dhuja’s mouth. She stuck her fingers into the birth canal, then held up a single bloody finger, pointing at the highest knuckle. Uya understood: That was all the further she had left.

She pushed. She pushed again. On the third time she felt something slip. Dhuja was pulling. Tuulo was shouting. Then once more, and it was over.

She collapsed against Tuulo. She breathed, feeling the absence of pain as if it were the most blessed thing in the world.

Only after a moment of rest was she aware of the silence.

No.

She had known. She had known when the horse fell atop her, from the time she felt the blow to her belly, from Dhuja’s face as the labor began too quickly.
But still, no, please, no. Not here. Not alone, not after this.
Not when everything else she loved had also died, too.

“Let me see!” She shook herself free of Tuulo’s grasp. Tuulo tried to take hold of her again, but Dhuja reached out and stopped Tuulo’s wrist. With her other hand she offered something tiny and blue to Uya.

It was a boy. He was beautiful.

He had been dead for hours.

She cupped her hands around her son, and she pressed his limp, motionless body against her breasts. Silently cooing, she rocked him back and forth, and she washed the blood off him with her tears.

Chapter 17

Saotse

N
ight fell, and the party
collapsed onto the ground as if they had been dropped. Saotse fell out of the Tagoa’s arms onto all fours. Pain cascaded down her arm, and she cried and collapsed to the ground. The smell of grass and wet earth filled her mouth, and the mournful, vicious buzz of Sorrow welled up. She thrust it firmly aside. Another minute in the fullness of the Power, and she might die.

“Help her,” Tagoa said. “Someone.”

Hands and muttering voices descended over her and rolled her onto her back.

“I’m fine,” she tried to say. “I’ll be all right.” But the words were feathery and choked with dust, and they knew better. And perhaps she wasn’t fine. She felt her limbs shaking as she lay on the ground, and her heart warbled in her chest. The nearness of the earth made her breath unsteady. Sorrow rose up from the ground like water from a spring, and though Saotse pushed the Power away, it threatened to drown her.

Someone said, “It’s still bleeding.” Voices clattered together like rocks in the surf above her.

“Do we have any rags?”

“The wall that she raised…”

“No, we—”

“I don’t care, tear your shirt.”

“Oarsa help us, it terrifies me.”

“… have to keep her alive.”

She cleared her throat and gathered enough voice to say, “Lift me up.”

“What was that?”

“Raise me up. Put something under me. Don’t let me touch the ground.”

So they did, and the sweet, smothering nimbus of the Power receded a little. Saotse’s heart calmed, and she began to breathe air rather than earth.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered so only Sorrow could hear. “This old mortal cannot hold so much of you.”

She was aware, now, of the pain in her shoulder, like a hot, bright shard of pottery against the grinding ache in all her bones and muscles. They were dabbing her with water, cleaning the wound, binding it with rags.

“It’s not bad,” the voice nearest her said. “He only got the tip of his knife into your shoulder. You’ll be fine, Grandmother.”

The next voice was Tagoa’s. “A little closer, a little further down, and she would be dead. And then we all would be dead.”

Palam’s voice broke the awkward silence. “So we would be. What’s your point?”

“This was a bad idea.”

“I don’t see why you think that. I’d say that the attack was a great success. We killed a tremendous number of them, and we got all the way to their camp itself. And we escaped with our lives.”

“Not all of us did,” said someone else, whose name Saotse could not recall.

Palam grumbled. “No battle is without losses. Their totems will get the highest honor on your ancestor totem.”

Tagoa raised his voice. “You’d care a little more if it had been you. And what would the
kenda
have said if we lost one of his
enna
?”

Another awkward silence followed.

“I’m sorry,” Palam said. “I spoke rashly.”

The man standing over Saotse finished dressing her wound. “There. You’ll be good at least until we make it back to Ruhasu.”

“Thank you,” Saotse said. She lifted her voice just enough to make it heard by Tagoa and the messenger. “I agree with Palam. We brought the battle to the Yakhat and made them know fear. And we did this untrained and unprepared. If any of us knew much about the art of war, the man who came from behind would never have reached me.”

“The fact that none of us know anything about war isn’t a reason to consider this a victory,” Tagoa said. “We should be mourning.”

“The
kenda
’s forces know how to carry weapons,” Palam said with a puff of pride. “When we add the Kept to their number, the Yakhat will be no match for us. Especially if you can repeat the miracle you performed today of raising a wall of stone behind us.”

“Ah.” In truth, she probably could not repeat a feat of that magnitude, at least not for a long time. That had been an act of desperation. She had not thought that the Powers could become tired, but when at last she and Sorrow had ceased to raise the wall, her weariness had reached beyond her own bones and into the roots of the earth, where for a little while, the stones stopped their creaking and the earthworms ceased to till, undone by the exhaustion of the Power that animated them. She had come closer to dying then than when the Yakhat warrior had come at her with a knife.

Bedrolls unfurled and weary bodies stretched out around them. Crickets sang in the grass. Tagoa sat on the grass next to Saotse, and Palam lay down a little further away.

“So what is our plan now?” Tagoa asked Palam. “Since your first plan was, in your eyes, a total success.”

“I would ask the Kept what she wants,” he said.

Saotse coughed and cleared her throat. “I want what we originally called for. To meet up with the
kenda
and his forces and go out against the Yakhat.”

“So we return to Ruhasu, then cross in canoes to where the
kenda
and his forces are gathered,” Tagoa said.

“Good,” Palam said, his voice honeyed with pride. “I’ll have to send word ahead of us so that the
kenda
knows who we’re bringing.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Saotse said quietly.

The conversation ebbed around them, and sleep swallowed her before she was aware of its coming.

Chapter 18

Keshlik

“S
he’s alive,” Tuulo said. “That’s
about all that I can say. She has terrible bruises from her face down to her thighs. But losing the child… That wounded her worse than the horse’s hooves.”

The silence between Keshlik and Tuulo was as palpable as a skirt of grass. The circle of burnt earth, swept and re-blessed by Dhuja, once again separated them with an impenetrable barrier, and their words seemed to acquire the weight of the earth as they spoke, as if Khou herself opposed their passing. Keshlik felt a deep and unnameable unease. The ground seemed murky and insubstantial beneath his feet, even when the Prasei witch wasn’t using it as a lash against his warriors.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I brought her here to protect her from the depredations of the other Yakhat. I didn’t bring her to be trampled by a horse and miscarry.”

Tuulo sighed and rested her hand on her belly. She, too, seemed distracted, her face clouded by unvoiced thoughts.

“Are you worried about our child?” Keshlik asked.

“No,” she said. “I mean, not any more than before. Dhuja brought Uya through labor as best as any midwife could. But still… It had been a long time since I was with a woman giving birth. Is it too girlish to say that I’m afraid?”

“I wouldn’t know. What goes on in Khou’s circle is beyond my ken.”

“Khou’s circle, feh. Dhuja says that the woman miscarried because she left Khou’s circle and delivered outside of the blessing. I say that the woman miscarried because a horse tripped over her. Nonetheless, it’s a bad sign. I don’t like it.”

“You’ll give birth inside the circle.”

“But its protection was broken. I went outside it. Whether Khou still protects me…”

He grumbled in frustration. “I can’t tell you anything about that. Isn’t Dhuja the one who knows how to invoke Khou’s blessing?”

“I’m not asking you to
know
anything, Keshlik. I’m just—oh, never mind.” Her mouth was twisted down into a half-hidden frown, and she looked away from him, toward the east. A blade of grass spun distractedly in her hand. “Juyut is coming,” she said abruptly.

Keshlik glanced over. His brother hobbled toward them from the direction of the camp. His steps were cramped by pain, but he walked with his head high, biting his tongue to avoid giving any other hint of the depths of his injury.

“Well, well,” Tuulo said, raising her voice. “Is that my brother-in-law risen from the dead, or is it another woman waddling with a baby?”

“Ah, sister-in-law,” Juyut said. “When I was hurt, I had only Dhuja and the other old ladies to comfort me. Now I remember why I was so anxious to get back onto my feet. Otherwise, where would I hear such lovely greetings?”

“I’m pleased to offer any help I can to get you out from under Dhuja’s care,” Tuulo said.

Juyut grinned. “And I’d offer help of my own, but there’s a matter of this blessed circle between us.”

“Oh, so now you respect Khou? I don’t recall Juyut being afraid of a little burnt earth before.”

“Afraid? No. But if
you’re
not afraid, you could come out here. I’ll bring a horse to help—”

“Stop,” Keshlik said.

Awkward silence. Juyut looked away, ashamed.

“That is not the thing to joke about,” Keshlik said.

“I’m not hurt,” Tuulo said in a low voice. “And Uya can’t understand anyway.”

“Well,” Juyut said, “that’s good.”

It was as close as they were going to get to an apology. “Why are you here, Juyut?” Keshlik asked.

“Emissaries from the Chalayit are here. They bring urgent news from Prasa.”

“Bring me to them.” He stood and bowed to his wife. “I have to go, Tuulo.”

She nodded at him and heaved herself to her feet. “Of course. Go. And don’t forget that I’m still waiting for you to bring me the witch’s eyes.”

“I haven’t forgotten. It’s going to be harder than I thought, but I’ll get them.” He turned away and helped Juyut limp back to the center of the encampment.

The fire in the center of the encampment was lit, and the elders of the Khaatat were seated next to two young Chalayit warriors. They rose and saluted as Keshlik approached.

“Golgoyat is among us,” he said as he took his seat. Juyut settled down next to him. “You have news from Prasa?”

“We do,” the elder of the Chalayit said. “But dare I ask a question before we begin?”

“Ask.”

“What happened here? We barely found the encampment, and when we entered, we found the yurts full of wounded Khaatat and broken spears.”

“Oh, so you haven’t heard?” He scowled. “Did you notice the new stone ridge that we put up?”

They stared at him nervously. “We don’t understand, Keshlik.”

He sighed. “The city-dwellers have a witch. We lost half of a raiding party when she struck us, making the ground split open and swallow our warriors.” He omitted Juyut’s part, and he felt his brother stiffen then relax at the silent omission. “She attacked our encampment this morning and was driven off only after a grievous fight. As she and her party retreated, they raised the stone spine that you see to the west to protect their escape.”

The Chalayit went wide-eyed with shock. “The ridge of stone to your west is four miles long,” the younger said. “The witch called that out of the earth?”

“It was complete in less time than it would take a hawk to fly its length. But don’t fear. The witch will be slain. We’ve already shown that we can drive her off. When we finally get to her, I’ll pluck her eyes out and give them to my wife, and she’ll give them to our son as toys.”

The elder Chalayit cleared his throat. “I hope you’re right, Keshlik, because we bring more news to disturb you. An enormous army is coming up from the south. We left to tell you as soon as our scouts reached the city.”

He clenched his fists and swallowed a curse. “How far out?”

“The scouts were eight days’ ride from the city when they saw the army. We reached you two days after they brought word to Prasa.”

“Ten days,” Keshlik said. “Were the forces mounted?”

“The scouts saw ponies pulling carts and wheeled chariots, but not mounts. Like the ponies of Prasa, the ponies of the army are small and long-haired, suitable for pulling a load but not much use for riding.”

So they would move slowly. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he doubted that they could move with even half of the speed of his mounts, which meant that he still had time. Fortunately, the tribes had not spread out much since the sack of Prasa, so they would be quick to gather. He would be leaving Tuulo, though. A hollow feeling of frustration and disappointment soured his gut. “Juyut,” he said, “call together our fastest riders. Tell them that the warriors of all of the tribes are to gather in Prasa, just as when we took the city.”

“Yes.” Juyut rose and walked away with steps that nearly hid his limp.

Keshlik turned back to the Chalayit. “So tell me. How far have your scouts gone, and what have they seen?”

The younger looked to the elder, who answered somewhat reluctantly. “We have had scouts as many as ten days to the south of Prasa, exploring the hilly land and the farms there. But as you commanded, we have refrained from raiding south of the river and kept most of our warriors in Prasa to defend the city. We found no cities in this area, only a multitude of villages and hamlets surrounded by little fields of corn. But there is a wide road that goes south from Prasa beginning at the stone bridge, broad and hard. This is the road that the army approaches on.”

“Is it open grassland like these plains? Or is it like the mossy forest surrounding Prasa?”

“More like the forest of Prasa, though much more of it has been cleared for fields.”

“Will our riders be hemmed in by the trees, then?”

“Not if we make battle in an appropriate place.”

He smiled at them. “I wasn’t expecting such auspicious news.”

“Auspicious?” Both of the Chalayit looked at him incredulously. “But an army of that size—”

“Is like a tree waiting to be felled by the Yakhat axe. We’ve taken on armies of city-dwellers before. This is not a new challenge for the Yakhat.”
Unlike the earth witch.
“Listen, tonight you are our guests. But tomorrow, you’ll ride like the wind back to Prasa, and bring this message to the commanders of the Chalayit warriors there: Keep only the smallest possible force in Prasa to prevent the city from being taken. With every other warrior, form a vanguard and delay the approach of the army from the south. When I arrive with the rest of the Yakhat forces, we’ll discuss a plan for the actual battle.”

The messengers nodded. “As you command, Keshlik.”

He stood to his feet. “For tonight, I propose a feast. Are you tired? Are you hungry?”

They glanced at each other warily, as if afraid of a trick. “We’ve ridden hard to reach you,” the younger one offered.

“Our Khaatat warriors also deserve a feast, after the shame of our first defeat and our success in driving off the witch. So tonight we’ll slaughter two calves and gorge ourselves on fat and butter.”

“As you command,” the older one said, with more relish than before.

“Very good. One of our women will find you a place to rest until then. Tomorrow, after we’ve eaten and slept, you two can fly back to Prasa, and we will strike the camp. The Khaatat will be coming to Prasa.”

If the city-dwellers were raising armies from the south, he needed his camp at the most defensible position behind the line of battle. And also—he realized this was the most important reason, though he would not say it to any of the others—he wanted Tuulo closer to him. They would fight just a short ride from where she waited. And he could return as soon as the word reached him that she had given birth.

Perhaps Dhuja would worry about leaving Khou’s circle again. But then again, if the circle had already been breached once, then they might as well burn a new one.