Litany of Winter

The ambulance struck a rut hard enough to wake him.

Pain tore through the left side of Severin’s belly before he knew where he was. He tried to curl around it and found a hand already on his shoulder.

”Easy now. Lie still.”

The ceiling above him was low, painted white once and gone yellow at the seams. A lamp swung from a brass hook near the rear doors. With every turn it dragged shadows across the timber ribs of the carriage.

Severin swallowed against the bitter taste. The draught came back first, then the warehouse with it: fire around the freight, the one-eyed man pressing cloth against his stomach while the worker’s body burned beside the crates.

He tried to lift his head.

”Don’t.”

The man beside him wore a gray wool coat under a stained apron. One sleeve had been rolled past the elbow. His hands were red from cold and work. He felt at the side of Severin’s neck for a pulse while the ambulance rocked over another stretch of setts.

Across from them sat a constable in dark blue with brass trim, his helmet on his knees. A brass plate on its front bore Aethermere’s seal: a crown above a crossed hammer and wheat sheaf.

Severin looked at him, then at the rear doors. ”Where am I?”

”Municipal ambulance,” the attendant said. ”We’re taking you to the infirmary.”

Outside, a horse snorted under the shafts. Harness rings knocked together, and the driver shouted at something ahead. The carriage slowed, jolted sideways, then picked up again.

Severin let his head sink back. The bandage around his middle had been reinforced with another strip of cloth, with something thicker packed over the puncture. His coat was gone, and the shirt beneath the blanket had been cut open almost to the hip.

He touched the edge of the dressing with his left hand. ”How bad is it?”

The attendant looked at him for the first time. ”You’re alive. Keep still and let’s keep it that way.”

The constable shifted on the bench. Leather creaked under his coat, and soot blackened his boots to the ankles.

He looked at the constable. ”What happened to the warehouse?”

No answer came. Severin turned toward the attendant. ”Did they put the fire out in time?”

”No. Brigade’s still there.”

”What about the other man?”

The constable turned toward him. ”What other man?”

Severin stared at him as the carriage passed beneath a railway bridge. The noise changed at once, wheels hammering under brick while a locomotive moved somewhere overhead. Then they came out into the factory quarter, where a whistle sounded through the ambulance walls.

”The man with one eye,” Severin said. ”Black coat, hood up. He was there.”

The constable leaned forward. He was broad through the middle, perhaps forty, with a mustache clipped close enough to show the gray in it. ”Your accomplice?”

”What? No. I don’t even know his name.”

The constable glanced at the attendant, then back at Severin.

Severin’s face went hot. ”There was another man.”

”We only found you there,” the constable said. ”And a corpse.”

”The worker?”

”We haven’t been able to identify him.”

Severin pushed himself up on one elbow before either man stopped him. The movement pulled across his belly. The wound seemed to open inside him, knocking the breath out of him.

The attendant swore and forced him flat. ”You tear that open again, you’ll bleed out before we reach the doors.”

Severin pressed his teeth together until the pain eased enough to speak. ”Didn’t the corpse look... wrong?”

The constable rubbed a thumb along the edge of his helmet. ”What do you mean, wrong?”

”Well, you saw him, didn’t you?”

”He was badly burned by the time we got to him.”

”I get that, but didn’t you see the bones? He had bones through his arms.”

The constable sat back. ”You’ve taken a bad knock to the head.”

”No. I mean, yes, but that has nothing to do with it.”

”There were some unusual growths,” the attendant said.

”Burn damage. Birth deformity, maybe.” The constable looked back at Severin. ”Doesn’t explain the rest of what happened there.”

Severin scoffed as the attendant tightened one of the straps holding the stretcher in place. ”That thing wasn’t human. He had growths everywhe—”

”Enough,” the attendant said. ”Leave that for the coroner.”

The ambulance rounded another corner. Through a gap in the rear curtains Severin caught a slice of Blackhaven he knew too well and recognized the Lower Kiln Ward: blackened brick terraces pressed against a mill wall, wash hanging gray above a narrow court. Three boys ran beside a tram until the conductor shouted them off. Chimneys stood beyond the roofs in rows, smoke hanging low over the morning.

A factory bell sounded somewhere east, then another farther off as the morning shift changed without him.

Severin looked back at the constable. ”Did any of the cargo survive?”

The constable set his helmet beside him. ”Not much. You were hired to guard it?”

Severin kept quiet.

”Speak up, lad. That’s what the watchman told us.”

”He was there?”

”He’s the one who called the fire brigade.”

Severin shut his eyes for a few seconds and heard the watchman shouting outside again, followed by the gate giving way and lantern light moving through the doorway.

”Wasn’t me. I think he saw the other man I told you about.”

”Did he? He says he saw smoke coming from the warehouse and found you inside when the doors opened.”

”Can’t be. He was at his booth most of the night.”

”So you were there, and you were being paid to guard the place.”

Severin said nothing.

The constable cleared his throat. ”Look, lad, I’ll be straight with you. It isn’t looking good. You were supposed to be guarding that warehouse. Then we find you on the floor, the place burning, most of the freight destroyed and a dead man beside you.”

”This wasn’t my fault. That man tried to kill us.”

”Us?” ℴ

”Me and the one-eyed man.”

”The one nobody else saw and whose name you don’t know?”

Severin looked at the ceiling again. ”Fuck me...”

The attendant gave a quiet snort and went back to the bandage. The constable did not smile as the carriage began climbing. Severin knew the grade even without seeing it. The horse slowed and the wheels lost some of their rattle. This road ran past the old foundries toward the municipal buildings and the infirmary beyond them.

A motorcar coughed somewhere alongside, engine knocking hard before it pulled ahead. The horse shied at the noise. The driver cursed, reins snapping once, and the ambulance lurched against the curb.

Severin’s left knee struck the stretcher rail, and pain shot up his thigh. He reached for support with his right hand, but his fingers closed too slowly to catch anything. He swore.

The attendant looked at his knee. ”That injured too?”

”Yes. Before I got the bloody hole in my stomach.”

”Anything else?”

”My right arm’s gone half stupid.”

The man tested Severin’s fingers one by one. ”Can you feel that?”

”Some of it.”

”How about this?”

”Ouch. Yes.”

”How did you manage to get yourself this beaten up?”

”I told you already. That man did all this.”

The constable looked over. ”And this friend of yours? Is he in the same state you are?”

”He’s not my friend. He fucking hit me too.”

”With what?”

Severin touched the side of his head and remembered the stranger’s sword coming toward him. ”The pommel of his blade.”

The constable raised an eyebrow. ”Blade?”

”I’m serious. I thought he was a thief at first. Tried to keep him away from the cargo.”

”So you fought this thief, then helped him fight the dead man, and somehow the whole warehouse ended up burning?”

”Well...” Severin looked at him. ”When you say it like that, it sounds bloody stupid. But yes.”

Across from him, the constable shook his head and looked down.

The wheels rolled onto smoother paving. Through the wall came the clang of a tram bell, then voices and the broader noise of the central streets. The attendant leaned over Severin again. ”Nearly there.”

The constable put his helmet back on as the ambulance stopped under a covered entrance. Voices and footsteps sounded outside before the doors opened. Cold air came in with the sharp smell of carbolic.

Two orderlies took the stretcher handles. Severin clenched his left hand around the blanket as they lifted him. The movement pulled hard at his abdomen, and he kept his mouth shut until they were inside.

The receiving hall had white tile to shoulder height and dark brick above it. Boots tracked soot across the wet floor. A porter pushed an empty wheeled chair past them while a nurse argued with a man whose hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked rag. Someone coughed somewhere deeper in the building and did not stop.

They carried Severin behind a screen, and a surgeon arrived before the constable left, sleeves already rolled and spectacles low on his nose. He cut away the outer bandage and paused when he saw the packing beneath it.

”Who dressed this?”

”No idea. That’s how we found him,” the attendant said.

The surgeon pressed hard beside the wound, and Severin’s whole belly tightened.

”Keep still. I need to know where it went.”

”It went inside me.”

The surgeon ignored that and looked at the attendant. ”Pulse?”

”Racing. Over one-thirty when I counted. He lost a lot of blood before we reached him.”

The surgeon lifted the edge of the inner dressing with forceps. ”What caused this?”

”I was impaled,” Severin said. ”Is it bad?”

”Bad?” The surgeon set the dressing back down. ”I’m not sure how you haven’t bled out. You’re going to the theatre.”

The constable stepped closer to the end of the bed. ”Can it wait a few minutes? I need to question him.”

”Absolutely not.”

”Give me five.”

The surgeon kept his voice level. ”You can do whatever you like with him after I make sure his bowel isn’t spilling into his belly.”

The constable stood there for a few seconds, then nodded. ”Understood.”

Severin stared at the white tile beside the bed while the attendant prepared to move him again. ”Constable.”

The man paused.

”What happened to the body?”

”It’s under police guard until the coroner examines it.”

”What about the crates? Did you check what was inside them?”

”We recovered what was left. It’s being held with the rest of the evidence.”

Severin thought of the glass jars, powders, wrapped bundles and violet marks shining through the smoke. That one-eyed bastard had known exactly why he wanted them smashed and burned.

”One more thing, sir. Am I under arrest?”

The constable took a folded notebook from his pocket and kept it in his hand. ”You’re being detained until we determine what happened at the yard.”

”Great...”

Severin looked toward the door. Another uniformed constable stood outside.

The surgeon pulled the screen partly closed. ”You’ve had your answer. Move him.” The orderlies lifted the stretcher, and Severin watched the second constable by the door as they wheeled him toward the corridor.

Severin shut his eyes. How the hell was he supposed to explain any of this?