Storm Bride by J. S. Bangs

for mercy. The Power was torn from her husband. She was torn from her family. This hour of destruction bestrode time like a mountain over the plains. It did not pass. She was raped every dawn; her husband was killed every evening. The horror and the sorrow bloomed like the grass, renewed every day in perpetual memory.
    Saotse added the sound of hooves, the screams of the enna , and the smoke of Prasa. Wails of despair went up from both of them.
    “Did you hear that?”
    Saotse woke as if from a dream. She was a woman again. She was alone, beneath a shrub, hidden in a stand of spruce. The Power had left her. No, not again. I can’t bear it! —but in the moment that she thought she was alone, she smelled again the humid breath of the broken-hearted earth. Saotse relaxed. The Power, whatever her name, did not seem eager to abandon her.
    And now, present in herself, feeling only the dirt beneath her hands, she heard a second voice reply, “Be quiet, or they’ll hear you.”
    There were two of them, both men. They were Prasei, not invaders, judging by their voices and the furtive way they shuffled through the wood. The invaders did not speak Praseo. And if these were Prasei, then they might be able to help her.
    Saotse raised her voice just above a whisper. “Hello?”
    Their movement stopped. “Who’s there?” someone replied, with a suspicious edge to their voice.
    “I’m from Prasa,” she said. “Of Nei’s enna . I hid here, but I can’t see you—”
    “Quiet,” he scolded. “There are still riders in the city. Where are you?”
    “Beneath a bush of some kind. Here, let me come.” She began to crawl toward the sound of their talking.
    “Can you see me waving?”
    “I’m blind.”
    “Blind?” The man grunted in annoyance. The other muttered something just below her hearing, but she could guess what it was.
    “Don’t leave me,” she said. “My enna is gone. I’ve been hiding here all day. Please, I’ll just—”
    “Quiet! I think I can hear you moving.” Their steps rustled closer to her. “Can you wave? Are you standing up?”
    “I can stand.” Her knees creaked with cold stiffness as she bent them to rise. A little gasp of pain escaped her mouth.
    “I see her,” said the second man, the one who had muttered. “Just behind that spruce.”
    “Stay there. We’ll come to you.”
    Footsteps crunched through the thicket. A heavy hand touched her shoulder. “Over here, auntie. Quiet.”
    She turned toward the voice, and the man’s hand took hers. His skin was rough and callused, a worker’s hand.
    “We have a canoe at the water’s edge, but we have to stick to the woods. Can you follow?”
    “You might need to carry her,” the other said.
    “No, I can walk,” she insisted. “I’m not a cripple.”
    “Good. What’s your name, auntie?”
    “Saotse.”
    “Really? I’ve never heard that name before.”
    “I’m not from here.” A twinge of shame tightened her belly. “I am a swift woman.”
    “What?” asked the other man. His voice was rougher, thicker, suggesting he was much older than the one holding her hand. “She’s not even Prasei?”
    “I’ve lived here for many years,” she said. “In Nei’s enna , as I said.”
    “Never mind,” said the younger one beside her. “I am Tagoa, and my brother is Bera.”
    “May the Powers remember your names.”
    Bera snorted. “Better than they remembered the names of Prasa. Now, let’s go.”
    Tagoa pulled her forward, and she kept up, feeling ahead with her toes to find the roots and the stones that she had to step over, ducking wherever the man warned her of spruce branches. The lapping of the seashore grew closer. The scent of the wood mingled with the cool smell of the water, and the ground under her feet changed from moss and fallen needles into bristly shore grass.
    “So what now,” Bera said. “Do we leave her here and go back?”
    “We can’t leave her here,” Tagoa replied. “Anyone who rode by the shore