Litany of Winter

Hans knocked before sunrise.

Severin woke confused by the silence around him. For a few seconds he lay still under the hotel blanket, staring at the pale square of window and trying to remember whose room he had stolen.

Then his abdomen pulled when he moved, and the rest came back.

”Yeah, yeah. I’m awake.”

Hans opened the door only after Severin unlocked it. He was already dressed for travel, his blond hair tied back and the leather case in one hand. His black coat was buttoned to the throat, and the round smoke-darkened spectacles from the hospital were back over his eyes.

”You look terrible.”

Getting dressed proved the difference between sleep and recovery. Severin’s left knee had stiffened overnight, and bending far enough to pull on the new boot made the stitches in his belly burn. His right little finger missed the top button of his shirt twice before he used his left hand instead.

Hans watched from the doorway. ”You sure you can manage the stairs?”

”Will you carry me if I can’t?”

”Fuck no.”

Severin smiled. ”Then I’ll manage.”

The porter helped anyway, taking Severin by the elbow while he worked his way down one step at a time. Most of his weight stayed on the right leg, but the extra hand kept the bad knee from folding when it started to shake.

Outside, Cinder Row was only beginning to wake. Shop boys were lifting shutters along the row while a milk cart rattled past the hotel. Soot from the chimneys had already begun to settle on the wet street. Another four-wheeled cab waited at the curb. Hans had arranged that too.

Severin got in slowly, keeping the left leg as straight as he could. By the time he settled against the seat, sweat had formed beneath his shirt despite the morning chill.

”How long’s the journey gonna be?” Severin asked.

Hans climbed in opposite him. ”Train to Silverlight first.”

”Great. Met a few fishermen from there. Miserable bastards.”

”We won’t be staying long. I’ll find us a ship to Westhold.”

Severin frowned. ”There’s a small problem. I don’t have any travel papers.”

”You won’t need them yet.”

Hans tapped the pin on his black coat. An open eye sat within a jagged crown, with thorns crossing beneath it.

Severin remembered seeing it at the warehouse. He still had no idea what it meant.

”Perfect. Where are we going in the Empire?”

”Kronvaal.”

Severin knew that one. Kronvaal was the capital of the Vhaldrik Empire. Beyond that, he knew almost nothing about it.

The cab carried them toward the station through streets Severin knew well enough to follow without looking at signs. He recognized the pawnbroker who cheated drunks after midnight and the alley where Spud had hidden three crates of stolen tobacco until the smell gave them away.

After that came wider roads lined with warehouses and railway buildings. Blackhaven’s station frontage rose through steam and coal smoke ahead of them, busy despite the early hour.

The forecourt was already crowded. Cabs pulled in and out while porters worked between the passengers. Hans paid the driver, then disappeared through the booking hall while Severin stood with one hand against the cab door and tried not to put too much weight on his left leg.

People passed close enough to brush his coat. A railway porter glanced at the way he was standing.

”You need a hand, sir?”

Severin almost looked behind himself at the sir. ”I’m all right.”

The porter moved on, and Hans returned a moment later with two stiff paper tickets tucked between his fingers and a folded morning newspaper under his arm.

A woman in a fitted traveling coat crossed the booking hall in front of them. Hans turned his head to follow her for three steps before looking back at Severin.

”We’re in a hurry,” Severin said.

”Calm down. I still have one working eye, and I intend to use it.”

Severin laughed, then immediately regretted it when the movement pulled beneath his dressing.

Hans caught his elbow before the knee could give. ”Easy. Try not to draw attention. You’re still wanted by the police, remember?”

”I know, I know.”

Hans kept a hand under Severin’s arm through the booking hall and along the platform. He handled the inspector, found their carriage and pushed the leather case onto the rack before Severin attempted the step up. The climb was barely a foot, but his left leg shook halfway through it. He caught the brass rail with his right hand. The last two fingers failed to close properly.

Hans took him under the arm and shoved from below.

”Graceful,” Severin muttered once he was inside.

”You’re welcome.”

Their compartment held six seats. An older couple occupied the far corner, and a narrow-faced man with a sample case sat opposite the window reading yesterday’s financial pages. Hans took the seat beside the door. Severin lowered himself opposite him and stretched the injured leg as far as the space allowed.

A whistle sounded outside. Doors slammed farther down the train, followed by a hard jolt through the carriage.

Severin felt the movement before he saw it. The platform began sliding past the window as Hans opened the newspaper.

A headline halfway down the page caught Severin’s attention. His name was printed beneath it.

MURDER AND ARSON SUSPECT ESCAPES POLICE CUSTODY

FIVE SILVER REWARD FOR INFORMATION

”Fuck,” Severin said. ”Didn’t expect them to make such a bloody production out of it.”

Hans folded the paper once and rested it on his knee. ”Most people reading that wouldn’t know you if you sat beside them.”

”That supposed to make me feel better?”

”A little. Once we’re off Aethermere soil, Blackhaven police will have a much harder time doing anything about you.”

Hans handed him the folded paper. ”Read it.”

Severin read the first paragraph twice.

The report called the freight-yard fire a suspected act of deliberate destruction involving valuable commercial cargo. One man had been found dead inside the burned warehouse. His body was described as badly burned and ”severely deformed,” with police awaiting a medical opinion. There was no mention of bone blades, violet marks or lightning.

Farther down, the article named Severin Hale.

A temporary freight worker, previously questioned in connection with the fire and death, had disappeared from hospital custody during a smoke emergency the previous evening. Police were seeking information from anyone who knew his whereabouts. The report also mentioned possible theft and suggested that other persons might have been involved.

Severin looked up from the paper. ”All your fault, by the way. Now everyone thinks I’m a criminal.”

”I’m getting tired of hearing that.” Hans rested his head against the seat. ”Who’s everyone? You’re an orphan with nowhere to call home.”

”Don’t fucking talk to me like that. I meant my mates.”

”That gang of hoodlums? I doubt they give a shit.”

Severin shifted forward in his seat. ”Careful what you say. Don’t make me smack you in the mouth.”

Hans laughed. ”Didn’t go very well the first time you tried.”

A smile pulled at Severin’s mouth. ”Fair point.”

He leaned back and looked down at the paper again.

”You told me not to worry about the police once we leave the Crown. Does that mean I can never come back here?”

”No.” Hans rubbed a thumb along the edge of the newspaper. ”The Order has people who deal with governments and local authorities. If you decide to stay with us, the Master can sort out Blackhaven.”

Severin nodded and went back to the article, willing to believe that much.

”They didn’t write anything about the body.”

”What would you have them write?”

Severin had no good answer. He remembered the worker’s ribs standing through his shirt and the white blade pushing beyond his wrist. On the page, all of it had become severe deformity.

Spud would hear about the article even if he never bought a paper. By midday half the pubs near the freight districts would have their own version.

The train cleared the station sheds. Rows of brick houses passed close to the line, followed by workshops and long stretches of sidings beside the coal yards. Severin recognized streets from above that he had only ever walked from ground level. The freight district appeared briefly through a web of tracks.

He leaned nearer the glass, looking past the warehouses toward the yard where taking a few extra silver had ended with a hole through his belly.

Hans reached into his coat and produced a small metal flask.

”What’s that?”

”A little something for the road.”

Hans took a small swallow, grimaced and put the flask away.

Severin handed back the newspaper. ”Tell me something. What do you actually do when you’re not burning freight?”

Hans folded the paper. ”Whatever the Master needs. Usually strange deaths, occult sightings, cults, missing people, dangerous objects. You’d be surprised how often somebody finds something they should’ve kept fucking buried.”

”You do all that alone?”

”Not always. Depends on the job and who’s available.”

Severin lowered his voice. ”How long have you been doing this?”

”A few years.”

”And you’re what, exactly?”

”I’m what the Order calls a Pilgrim.”

”What’s that?”

”My rank. Means I can work missions on my own, but I’m usually not the one giving everyone orders.”

Severin looked out the window. ”Are all of you like this?”

”Hell no. Some are rude and unpleasant.”

That got a proper laugh out of Severin.

The city thinned by degrees. Factories gave way to storage yards, then rows of workers’ houses separated by stretches of muddy ground. Telegraph poles paced the train beside the line, and Severin kept expecting another district beyond each bend until there wasn’t one.

Fields opened on both sides of the railway, wet and flat beneath the morning sky. A farmhouse stood alone beyond a hedge. Then came a village of perhaps thirty houses clustered around a church tower. Its tiny platform slid past without anyone in their compartment moving to leave.

Severin watched it disappear behind them. ”How often do you travel?”

”The temple in Kronvaal is heavily guarded. Most of the work is elsewhere.” Hans glanced toward the window. ”So yes, I travel often enough to despise the sea and hate station coffee.”

”Damn. That much?”

”You’ll understand soon enough.”

The narrow-faced man across from them folded his paper, put on his hat and left at the next stop. A woman with two children replaced him. Hans shifted his case down from the rack to make room for their bag without being asked.

The younger child stared at Hans’s smoke-darkened spectacles until his mother noticed and pulled him closer.

Hans did not seem bothered.

For the next hour they spoke only in pieces. Severin learned that the Order fed its people while they were working. Hans had slept in barracks, inns, farmhouses and once a church vestry he still complained about. Nobody would ask Severin to make a pact before he had been properly told what it meant.

When Severin pressed him on what ”properly” meant, Hans shook his head.

”I know you’re curious, but wait until we reach the temple.”

”Why not now?”

Hans nodded toward the other passengers, then the thin wooden partition beside them.

”Because we’re on a fucking public train.”

Severin looked around the compartment. Hans had a point.

The newspaper remained folded on Hans’s knee.

Blackhaven continued shrinking whenever Severin found another angle through the window. First he lost the streets. Then only the tallest chimneys remained, dark above the low morning haze.

He knew those chimneys. He could have named the districts beneath several of them.

After another bend, even the last bank of Blackhaven smoke dropped behind the fields. The paper had slipped partly open on Hans’s knee, leaving Severin Hale visible in the middle of the column.

Severin reached across, folded it shut and sat back.

At the next small station, the painted nameboard read STEELMERE. Severin had never heard of it. The train stopped for less than a minute before moving again, and he kept watching until Steelmere vanished behind them.