Litany of Winter

The brush went into the cinder pitch.

The stranger worked the black paste into the seam of the nearest crate, then dragged a thick line down one corner. The stuff clung to the bristles like tar. He painted another stripe across the lid and moved to the next box.

Severin watched from the doorway, one shoulder against the brick because sitting upright had started taking more effort than it should.

”What are you doing?”

”Burning them.”

”Wait! If Pike sees this—”

”I don’t care.”

The man gave him a brief look, then returned to the crates.

From the same canvas bag he took a dented flask and pulled the stopper with his teeth. Lamp oil. Severin knew the smell before the first splash hit the wood.

The stranger poured a narrow line across the pitch.

Severin pushed himself off the door frame. ”You’re gonna burn the whole fucking warehouse.”

”Why do you think I told you to get out of here?”

Severin stopped trying to move. The warehouse had begun to tilt again, slowly enough to make him wonder whether the floor really was crooked.

The stranger worked fast. He brushed pitch over the seams and around the iron bands, then poured enough lamp oil across the wood to make it shine. He used more on the four chained boxes.

When he reached the crate with the dark red thing in the jar, his pace slowed. He put oil around the base and along the lid, then added more to two corners. His good eye stayed on it a moment longer before he moved on.

Severin looked toward the yard. The watchman still sat in his booth near the front gate, his cigarette a small orange point when he raised it. He knew what to do if the man saw smoke and came running, but he would have bet Pike had never imagined an Imperial with a sword deliberately setting the warehouse on fire.

”He’ll see it if you light that.”

The stranger set the flask down. ”If you want him alive, keep him outside.”

Severin looked back toward the watchman’s booth. ”Right.”

The stranger tore a strip from a rag in his bag and twisted one end between his fingers. He lifted the lantern chimney and held the cloth to the flame. When it caught, he stepped to the first crate.

The burning cloth touched the pitch and flame ran along the black stripe with a low rush. The oil caught next, yellow at first, then orange where it climbed the side of the crate. The stranger moved to the second and third boxes before the first had fully taken.

Heat pushed through the doorway as Severin smelled scorched pitch and something sickly sweet from inside the crates. He covered his mouth with his sleeve.

”You took your samples. Why burn the rest?”

The stranger moved down the row until all twelve crates were burning. ”Someone paid good coin to hide these and bring them into Blackhaven. I’m making sure they don’t get them back.”

”Who?”

The hooded man said nothing. His good eye stayed on the flames.

Fire reached the painted symbols on the first crate, and Severin stared as the brownish-red circle darkened under the heat. Around it, thin lines appeared through the wood.

He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. More lines surfaced, shining violet.

Severin forgot the pain in his knee for a moment. The new marks ran beneath the ones he had seen during unloading, finer and much more crowded. Curved strokes passed under the freight number. Small hooked shapes joined at points that had looked like scratches before. The whole pattern spread across one side of the crate as the fire climbed.

A second crate answered with violet light, then a third.

”What the bloody hell is that?”

The stranger stopped with the burning rag in his hand, and for the first time since Severin had found him inside the warehouse, he looked surprised.

”Shit. Stay where you are.”

The violet marks brightened as the paint blackened around them. Flame rolled over the lines, leaving them sharp beneath it, clear enough that Severin could follow them through the smoke.

Something struck the outer wall, and both men turned. A boot scraped on the stones beside the doorway.

Severin reached for the folding knife before remembering the stranger had kicked it somewhere outside.

A man came around the corner of the warehouse, and Severin recognized him as one of the temporary hands from the evening shift. He had carried freight with the others and done nothing worth remembering. He still wore the same dark cap and brown work coat. He should have been halfway home or drinking away his pay by now.

He stopped when he saw the fire, stared at it for a second, then said, ”You.”

The word was for the stranger, who dropped the burning rag and drew his short sword.

The worker looked past the blade to the crates. His mouth fell open as the violet lines spread across the burning wood.

”What did you do?”

”Back away,” the stranger said.

The worker took a step forward.

The stranger shifted between him and the fire. ”I said back away.”

The man began speaking, but Severin caught none of it.

The words came fast and rough, with sounds that seemed to catch against the man’s teeth. Severin had heard Vhaldrik shouted across loading platforms and cursed by foreign sailors at the canal. This sounded nothing like the little of it he recognized.

The worker raised both hands as he spoke. His right index finger bent sideways.

Severin frowned, but the man kept talking. Another finger moved. The joint lifted beneath the skin until the knuckle stood too high. His middle finger straightened so hard the tip trembled.

A dry crack came from his hand, and the stranger’s sword lowered a fraction.

”Stop.”

The worker spoke louder, then his wrist jerked.

Severin heard two quick snaps inside the sleeve. The cloth twitched, then something hard shoved its way down the worker’s forearm from the elbow, stretching the fabric as it went. He staggered but kept speaking through clenched teeth, blood spotting his cuff.

”What the hell is happening to him?” Severin asked.

The stranger did not answer as the worker tore his sleeve open with his left hand.

A pale ridge stood under the skin of his right forearm and lengthened while Severin watched.

The skin split and white bone pushed through in a narrow wet edge, extending past the wrist along the outside of the arm. Blood ran over it and dripped from the point. The worker made a sound that might have been pain, but the chanting never fully stopped.

Severin’s stomach turned. ”Fuck me...”

The hooded stranger stepped back once. ”Get outside.”

”Wait...”

”Now!” he shouted.

The worker’s left hand closed around the iron band of the nearest burning crate.

Severin had needed another man to carry that box, but the worker dragged it out of the chalk rectangle with one arm.

Wood screamed across stone. A jar broke inside with a muffled pop.

The stranger moved toward him. ”Leave it.”

The worker swung his head around, his shoulders no longer level.

His right shoulder had risen toward his ear while the left sagged lower. Something pressed beneath his shirt along the ribs, lifting the fabric in separate hard lines. He sucked in a breath, and one of them punched through the cloth near his side.

A curved length of bone followed, and the worker kept his face toward the stranger. The words coming from him slowed, each one forced through a mouth that seemed to have trouble shaping it.

Severin backed along the wall, using the bricks to stay upright. His right arm still tingled uselessly from shoulder to fingertips. He wanted more distance, but his left leg barely carried him.

The worker released the crate, and Severin saw that his fingers had changed. The joints were thick and pale beneath stretched skin, and the tips scraped the iron band when his hand opened.

Something shifted under his coat again. This time Severin saw it travel across his chest.

The worker arched backward. His shirt tore beside the breastbone as several pale plates rose beneath it, overlapping badly, each one forcing the next out of place. One rib had already broken through at his side. A second point pushed through lower down.

He lurched forward, and the stranger brought the sword up. ”Stay behind me.”

The worker stopped chanting. For one breath the only sounds were the burning crates and his breathing.

Then his right forearm split farther. The bone blade pushed another handspan beyond his wrist. A shorter white ridge broke through the skin of his left arm near the elbow and began forcing its way toward the wrist.

He lifted the longer blade toward the stranger, and firelight caught the wet white edge. Behind him, violet lines burned through the smoke across the sides of the twelve crates.

The worker took a dragging step forward. One shoulder sat near his ear, and two ribs stood through the torn side of his shirt. Then he raised the bone blade.