Free Storm Bride by J. S. Bangs

stretched as taut as a thread before it snapped. Chrasu gasped.
    “There are horses,” he said. “Horses, hundreds of them coming up from the south, and men with bloody spears and—”
    The lodge erupted into a cacophony of shouting voices. The sound hit Saotse like a fist. The room seemed to spin, words leaping in every direction through the air, giving her nothing to seize for direction or meaning. Uya pulled her to her feet, shouting something incomprehensible.
    Nei’s voice split the chaos like a knife, hard and sharp with authority. “Stop! Chrasu, they come from the south?”
    “Yes, Eldest, and quickly!”
    “On horses?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then bar the door. Don’t let them in. Bring the knives from the chest. If anyone tries to come in, we’ll fight.”
    The room shifted into nervous action. The hasty prodding of their aunts shuffled Saotse and Uya toward the center of the room and tucked them onto a bench with Nei. Around them pattered tense footsteps underlined by whispers.
    Something pounded at the door.
    The lodge was silent. The pounding sounded again, and brutish male voices shouted incomprehensible words. The cedar planks of the door held, and the leather hinges barely budged. The voices outside said a few more words then seemed to fade.
    A few moments of audible movement followed, then the sounds of their horses retreated. The sound outside died down, except for the continuing, far-off thunder of hooves. No one moved in the lodge.
    “Did they leave?” Uya whispered.
    Saotse tasted the air. “Worse.”
    The others sensed it a moment after her. Smoke.
    The enna burst into movement. Shouts crossed the lodge as the women searched for the source of the fire. Saotse drew closer to Uya. If the fire could not be smothered, they would need to run, and soon. She wrapped her hand around Uya’s.
    “Quiet,” Nei shouted. The smoke was beginning to choke the air. “Saotse, is there anyone still outside? Lying in wait at the door?”
    She rose to her feet and felt forward with her toe.
    “Let me help you.” Uya laid her hand on Saotse’s shoulder and gently steered her through the crowded bodies of the rest of the enna .
    She smelled the old cedar of the door beneath the smoke, and she pressed her ear against the soft, worn-down grain of the wood. Silence. Hoofbeats, but far away, and no voices nearby. Her breath hissed out between her teeth. “No. They lit the fire and left.”
    “Then we flee. To the north, across the bridge. Now listen, children! If you see an unmolested lodge, take refuge in it. Otherwise, we’ll try to reach the earthworks. Powers have mercy on us.”
    “But Eldest,” one of the aunts said. “That’s where the battle is.”
    “The battle is also here, it seems. And we would be better off closer to the men with arms. Now drop everything and follow.”
    Uya pulled Saotse into her chest, her belly bumping against Saotse’s hip. “Stay close to me. Hold my hand.”
    The lodge was like a tumbled basket as Uya pulled Saotse through it. All the aunts and cousins jostled around them, Nei’s voice slashing through the chaos. Saotse’s feet didn’t find any of their familiar places. Wasn’t the bench supposed to be three steps further to the left? But her shin knocked against it anyway. The voices of the panicked women bounced off the walls in weird and impossible ways.
    How long could it possibly take them to get out? Yet it seemed as if Saotse followed Uya for hours while the enna pressed its way through the door, until at last she tripped over the threshold. Someone caught her—she felt Oire’s broad, firm hands.
    “Thank you, Oire,” she said. “Where is Uya?”
    “I’m right here, Saotse,” Uya said from just to her right, and she seized Saotse’s wrists again. “Follow me.”
    She pulled Saotse over paths that should have been familiar but seemed as twisted and warped as the lodge had been. The Powers all around her were strange, their movements drunken, and they