The Caucasus winter came down from the craggy tops, bearing with it snow and biting wind, holding frostbite and exposure between its teeth, with starvation and disease and cabin fever following in his footsteps.

It smashed across the huddled settlements that were set up against its roots and obliterated them, either by burying them in two meters of icy-white death, or by forcing its people within the confines of their homes, where the howling and the hunger drove them mad and picked them off.

Hungering for more, it swept across Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan’s highways and open fields, it howled its shrill battle-cry as it squeezed through the narrow spaces between mountains and swallowed the exposed, killed the meager crops and sank into the earth, drawing away its warmth.

But when it came to Saryozek, it crashed feebly against its walls, its nights (until now unbroken, terrible and blacker than the pits of wells, long since dried) were infested with specks of light/ The biting wind was abated by the artificial summer in the confines of the homes of Saryozek and his endless ululations went unheard or mocked.

He raged and clawed and screamed at Saryozek, Old Man Winter for 60 days, until finally his fury was abated. His fury turned into patient malice, the kind that only cruel, old things know. And so he descended on the world, enveloping it in frost and waited, reveling in those who perished or hid or struggled and then finally abandoned themselves to his mercy (of which he had nary an inkling).

But Saryozek stood strong, lit up against the night and warm and the deaths that took place within its walls were not achieved by Old Man Winter’s hand. Finally broken by the futility of his struggle (of the kind that man’s cities had subjected him to, if only for a blink of an eye by his recount), he relented and rushed back to the mountaintops, to plot against his sibling seasons, to wait for his time to strike and kill the world once again as had once done for millennia.

Baraat Buriyat’s legs had mended by the time the snows melted, discarding his crutch. He found himself surrounded by men who revered him that he did not know. But he took care to learn their names and their places and did his best not to lunge at Gansukh Kiryat, who took him from his place among his supporters and trapped him in his quarters, under his ever-watchful eye. He found revenge then, spiced with the longing for his enemy’s wife.

Heng, who had by that time become more than an Ogtbish to the myangan-lord, endured Baraat’s attentions and his longing stares. She grinned and bore it, like her mother had told her and she slept fitfully at nights, fearing for her life.

Nergui watched as the little gods’ numbers thinned, the ones deprived of the attentions of man shriveling as the lucky few grew bloated and already manipulated the people of Saryozek into the teachings of their gospel. He felt something growing once again, beneath the mountain and knew that one of them had taken root. But he dreamt of his deathbed, in a desolate, lonely place and that kept him going.

When spring burst through the ground, the blossoms of the maple trees heralding her arrival, the guard that was to maintain Saryozek was chosen. They were two arbat’s worth of men, with widows at their side, heavy with children. They were clothed in the red leather jackets that signified them as lords of Saryozek and addressed the Kazakhs as such:

“Provide for us a tenth of your harvest and a fifth of your wealth and you will be left to live according to your desires, free from harassment. Defy us and you will be wiped from the face of the earth.”

And the Saryozeki agreed, because now there was some electricity and they no longer feared for white gods and monsters. They hailed the myangan as it left their town, some relieved but most driven by the longing that the abused develop for their abusers, enamored with the grinding of steel-toed boots against the throat.

Baraat was escorted to Gansukh Kiryat’s RV, hailed by the men he passed by, taking his place behind the steering wheel. Heng went pale at the sight of him, now haggard but fiercer than before. 

“To Volgograd, across the A353, across the M32.” Gansukh said, patting Baraat on the shoulder. “The Batu-Khan and the world beyond.”

To vengeance, Baraat thought, as he turned the key on the ignition.

To freedom, Nergui thought, as Saryozek grew distant until it was little more than a speck in the horizon.

To madness, Heng thought, as she was soothed to sleep by the rocking of Kiryat’s RV.