Surrender to the will of the night

22. The Chosen: The Wounded God

From the nethermost orient to the eastern shore of the Shallow Sea a grand migration was under way, though the families, clans, and decimated tribes braved the heart of winter. The Windwalker was hurt and distracted, somewhere far away. There might never be another chance to escape.

Few were welcomed. Resources were strained everywhere. Often there was fighting more bitter than when the Chosen were war slaves of the winter lord.

The empire of Tsistimed the Golden was an exception. Refugees were welcomed where willing to become subjects, so great had been the Empire’s losses fighting the Windwalker.

Tsistimed seethed continuously. Those near him feared he would suffer some final outrage and succumb to fatal apoplexy. The Ghargarliceans were pushing back. They had recaptured several cities where the nomads had demolished the walls. The kaifate of Qasr al-Zed remained defiant, scorning all ambassadors and executing merchants and traders caught scouting.

Never had Tsistimed known such difficulties. He railed against his commanders like a spoiled child, till the more thoughtful began to wonder if it was not time to decide which son ought to succeed.

Winter, though, was time to rest and recover. Tsistimed himself had to wait out the season. He came to terms with reality.

He had been through this before, early on, on a smaller scale. Time and patience were the remedies. He could await a new generation of warriors. Meantime, former enemies could fill the holes in the ranks. Most of his warriors had ancestors who had been his enemies.

The refugees were willing. They were too hungry to scruple.

A mountain of ice calved off the south shore of eastern Andoray, knocked loose by savage tidal bores roaring back and forth through the Ormo Strait. Sliding away, the berg exposed acres of stony beach. The monster toad crawled onto that, now more a two-legged transition between tadpole and adult. The withered god lay motionless, most all strength gone. And did so more than a month.

Kharoulke had escaped the sea. Continued existence remained problematic. He drew power out of the ether at about the rate he consumed it to remain viable.

Darts of silver-tainted iron remained at work throughout the Windwalker, blessing him with their poison.

Kharoulke’s great advantage was his bulk. It would take him an age to perish, even in his current dire circumstance.

Smaller Instrumentalities-those quick and clever enough-streaked in and carved off bits of foul god flesh. The small eating the great, rather than the reverse. Familiar in the middle world but unseen before in the Night.

Vigorously engaged in resisting the embrace of the ultimate, the Windwalker became ever more intimate with the time-point where he was engaged in the awful struggle. Being thus tied and preoccupied, a fragment of his consciousness opened to happenings in that one present and one particular world.

He sensed the movements of his enemies. He could follow those. But he did not have the power to act. His emotions were like those of a man who had been buried alive.

He made no headway recovering. And, because time participated in an inevitable progress, summer would come.

Warmth, even just to the point of surface thawing, was no friend of a winter god.