Another Raid in the Steppe
Another Raid in the Steppe
In-universe date: Era Nova, June--July, Year 2
Real-world date: 17 August 2026
Author: Sienna Ùshriredëm
Four years before our time, in the peripheries of what would become Arkemorth…
Damp straw turns ash within moments.
Men in metal skins brandish knives meters tall.
Sienna’s siblings scream from under a collapsed log, embers living freely in this house tonight.
Her parents still gone, her youngest brother’s screams have ceased.
She goes to run and fight and scream but her leg is stuck.
So the middle brother yells and begs for life, wood and fire pressing into him.
Her leg twisting in two she pulls away and jumps on one foot.
Straw’s final sacrament, it buckles under its own weight.
Molting burning molten hay on her skin under the clear stars.
Locking eyes for the last time with one of her own blood,
Sienna stumbles and runs out on her one leg, blind run to the great forests…