Litany of Winter

The bone blade came down.

The stranger caught it on his short sword. Steel struck white bone with a hard crack, and the force drove him back a full step.

Before the stranger had recovered, the worker swung again. His altered right arm moved badly but fast, the elbow refusing to bend where it should. The bone edge scraped down the stranger’s blade and tore a strip from his sleeve.

”Run!”

Severin stayed against the wall.

The stranger shoved the bone arm aside and cut for the worker’s throat. One of the pale plates over the man’s chest shifted upward. The sword glanced off it with a sound like steel on crockery.

The worker struck with his left arm. The shorter ridge had pushed past the wrist, blunt at the tip but thick enough to crack a skull. The stranger ducked under it and kicked the man behind the knee.

Nothing happened. The leg bent a little, then straightened again. The worker drove forward and slammed his shoulder into him.

The stranger hit a burning crate and caught himself on the iron band, swearing. ”Outside, boy. Now.”

Severin looked toward the doorway. It was less than twenty feet away and might as well have been across the bloody yard.

His left leg shook when he put weight on it. His right arm still answered badly, the fingers slow and numb from shoulder to knuckle. He could probably drag himself outside if the worker ignored him long enough.

The worker was between him and the door.

”Buy me some time.”

”Hurry.” The stranger nodded once.

The worker lunged. The stranger parried the long bone blade and turned with it, but the man’s new strength ruined the movement. Their arms locked. For a second they stood almost chest to chest, the stranger braced on both feet while the worker leaned into him with enough force to make the sword tremble between them.

The stranger released the hilt with one hand and tore off his glove with his teeth.

Severin saw the mark. Dark lines covered the back of the stranger’s hand and ran between his fingers, too deliberate to be scars. They curved over his wrist beneath the sleeve. He knew what burns and knife cuts looked like, and these marks were neither.

The worker’s head jerked toward the bare hand. Severin could not look away as the stranger planted his palm against the worker’s chest.

The dark lines on the back of the stranger’s hand lit green. A white arc snapped from his palm into the worker, and the crack hit Severin a fraction later, sharp enough to make him flinch. White branches raced across the worker’s coat and vanished beneath the pale plates. His whole body seized, the bone blade stopping inches from the stranger’s face.

His jaw clamped shut, forcing a broken noise through his teeth, while the stranger held the contact for another second. The stranger’s arm began to shake before he tore his hand away.

The worker staggered backward. Smoke curled from a blackened patch of cloth over his chest. His right arm hung stiffly for a moment, bone blade pointed at the floor.

Instead, the stranger stayed where he was, marked hand half closed at his side, the fingers twitching hard enough that he had to force them open one by one.

Severin stared at him. ”Was that lightning? Are you like him?”

”No. We’ll talk after.”

The worker moved again, and the stranger swore as he raised the sword with his other hand.

Severin understood the glove now. The marked hand had not stopped trembling. Two fingers failed to close around the sword hilt, so the stranger kept the weapon in his steadier hand.

The worker’s right shoulder rolled with a wet series of clicks. Bone pulled beneath the skin. The blade extending from his forearm thickened near the wrist while the point narrowed. His left arm followed more slowly, pale ridges pushing farther down toward the hand.

The stranger backed away from the burning crates. ”Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.”

”He’s not slowing down. You can’t take him alone.”

The stranger stepped aside at the last instant, and the worker’s bone blade punched through a crate lid behind him and stuck.

The worker ripped it free, bringing burning wood with it. A chunk of the lid hit the floor between Severin’s boots, and when he kicked it away his left knee nearly folded under him.

A slash across the worker’s back opened coat and shirt, but the blade stopped shallow against something underneath.

The blade struck more bone beneath the coat. The worker spun, and one of the protruding ribs caught the stranger across the side and threw him into a stack of empty pallets.

He landed badly and this time he could not get up at once.

As the worker turned toward him, Severin pushed away from the wall before he had decided to.

Pain drove through his knee and up his thigh, and he caught the bricks again, breathing through his teeth. The worker still had not looked at him, which gave Severin another second.

Rolling aside as the bone blade came down, the stranger let it strike the pallet where his shoulder had been and split one board clean through. He caught the worker’s wrist with his marked hand.

The second discharge hit harder, and the worker convulsed so violently his heels lifted off the floor. Both bone blades jerked outward as the pale plates over his chest pulled apart, the muscles beneath them locking.

His head snapped back, and for half a second the right side of his neck opened between the raised shoulder and the edge of the bone plating. Bare skin.

Then the current stopped and the stranger dropped to one knee, his bare hand hanging uselessly from the wrist. Two fingers curled inward and stayed there. He sucked air through his teeth and tried to stand, but his first attempt failed.

The worker recovered faster and kicked the stranger in the chest. The man went over backward and lost the sword.

”Let me fucking help.” Severin limped forward two steps before the stranger shouted at him.

”Stay back!”

The worker raised the long blade again. The stranger grabbed the fallen sword with his steadier hand and barely got it up in time. Bone hammered steel. His marked hand slapped against the floor beside him, the fingers twitching against the stone.

Severin looked at the doorway again. It was still blocked, and even if he reached it, the watchman was outside. If this thing followed, the old bastard in the booth would have no idea what was coming, and neither would anyone passing on the road beyond the yard.

The simplest route to the door was through the worker, and the stranger was losing. The Imperial had bloodied the side of his head and wrecked his knee. He had kicked away Severin’s knife too, then spent most of the night calling him slow. Severin was not leaving him to get carved apart by a freight hand with bones sticking out of his arms.

He could resent the man properly after they were both alive.

The stranger shoved the worker away and scrambled up.

Another attack came before the stranger had reset his stance. He met the first blow late, his sword driven low, and the next clipped his shoulder hard enough to turn him half around. He stumbled close enough for Severin to see sweat running from beneath the hood. His marked hand shook against his coat.

The worker pressed forward. The stranger looked at Severin once. Keeping the sword in his steadier hand, he hooked two trembling fingers of his marked hand around the dagger’s hilt.

A clumsy throw sent the dagger spinning through the smoke. Severin got his left hand around the hilt but nearly lost it before pinning it to his chest.

”Try not to drop this one,” the stranger said.

The dagger was heavier than Severin’s folding knife. Its blade was narrow and straight, the grip wrapped in plain leather. He got a proper hold of it with his left hand. His right still would not close with enough strength to trust.

Under the next rush, the stranger gave ground toward the burning crates. Severin ignored the blades and watched the worker’s body.

The right shoulder stayed high, protecting a neck hemmed in by pale plates running from breastbone toward collar. Every time the worker swung, the altered ribs tightened under his coat and the shoulder climbed higher.

After two parries, the stranger caught the worker’s wrist with his marked hand again. His fingers barely closed, and the worker pulled free before the current came.

Severin held the dagger ready as the stranger retreated. When the current had locked the worker’s muscles, his shoulder jerked back and the chest plates separated, showing his neck for half a second. Now the bone blade rose again.

The stranger lifted his marked hand again, though it was shaking badly now.

Severin stopped looking at the doorway.