Litany of Winter

Severin put his left hand on the rail and followed Hans down.

The lower flight hurt more than the last one. By the time they reached the floor, the muscles above his left knee were trembling again, and a hard pull had started beneath the dressing across his abdomen.

Hans glanced at him. ”Healing wing first.”

Before Severin could answer, Hans shifted the leather case in his hand and turned into the hall.

Up close, it looked like several buildings forced underground and joined together. Doors opened and shut along the galleries. Clerks carried files between rooms. Men and women in gray robes moved among them, both eyes intact.

The black coats stood out more. Everyone Severin noticed wearing one had a blind eye or kept one covered. A black-coated man signed a ledger with a scarred hand that shook badly enough for the pen to scratch across the page. A dark mark crossed the back of it, similar to Hans’s.

Nobody stopped to stare at Severin.

A bell rang somewhere deeper in the complex. Two people carrying a long wooden case changed direction at once and disappeared through an arch.

Severin looked after them. ”Is everyone here part of the Order?”

Hans nodded and kept walking.

They passed an open doorway where repeated impacts carried into the corridor. Severin caught a glimpse of a broad stone room with padded posts and three people moving around a fourth with wooden practice weapons. A man near the wall barked something in Vhaldrik.

Farther on, a barred counter divided another room from the passage. Weapons lay across the inner tables beside belts and folded black coats. A clerk inspected the cracked stock of a rifle while its owner argued with him.

Severin slowed.

”Armory,” Hans said.

”I worked that one out.”

A woman in a dark medical apron stepped through a doorway and raised one hand. She gave a short order in Vhaldrik.

Hans stopped, and everyone else did too.

A clerk carrying papers backed against the wall while two men hauled their cart aside. Farther down, another door opened and someone inside dragged a metal tray into view.

Severin looked at Hans and saw the smile was gone.

Three people appeared around the bend.

Two walked normally. The third managed it only because he was holding his left arm tight against his body. His black coat hung open, one side dark with blood from shoulder to ribs. Something had eaten small holes through the right sleeve and glove without burning the cloth around them. The exposed skin beneath looked gray and wet.

One of his companions reached toward him when he stumbled.

The woman in the apron snapped another order, stopping the hand inches from his back.

The wounded man straightened by himself, and nobody moved to help him.

He said something sharp in Vhaldrik. The woman answered without raising her voice, and he swore. Severin did not know the word, but the curse was obvious.

Hans spoke quietly beside him. ”They don’t know what came back with him.”

Severin watched the wounded man glance toward the open doorway ahead.

”What does that mean?”

”It means he might be tainted. Nobody touches him for now.”

The woman pointed toward the tiled room. A second healer stood inside with sleeves rolled to the elbows, laying clean cloth and instruments onto a table while another worker set two lidded metal bins beside the entrance.

The wounded man’s companions stayed in the corridor. One of them said something to the healer, but she shook her head.

He tried again. She pointed to the floor at his feet and gave a single word, and this time he stayed where he was.

The wounded man stepped into the room alone.

A clerk appeared with numbered tags and a writing board. He stayed outside while the door remained open.

The healer inside spoke slowly. The wounded man listened, breathing through his teeth. Then he unbuckled his belt one-handed and dropped it into the first bin. His sidearm followed. He struggled with the buckle at his wrist until the man outside took half a step forward.

The medical woman caught his sleeve before he could move.

He stopped, and the wounded man looked over from inside the room. For a few seconds neither spoke.

Then he went back to the buckle.

Severin shifted his weight off the bad leg. ”Can’t they just cut the coat off?”

”Better not to ask.”

Hans’s voice was harder than usual.

The buckle finally opened, and the glove went into the bin. Then the wounded man peeled the coat away from his shoulder.

He made it halfway before his arm failed. The healer inside moved forward, then stopped before touching him and asked something. He nodded.

Only then did she take hold of the coat.

As soon as the coat went in, the second healer closed the bin. The clerk fixed a numbered tag to the lid and wrote the same number on his board.

Outside the room, the companion remained exactly where he had been told to stand.

The injured man looked toward his companion while the healers cut away the blood-soaked shirt beneath the coat, and the other man kept looking back.

Hans exhaled through his nose.

”You know them?” Severin asked.

”One of them.”

”Which?”

”The one trying not to cross the line.”

Severin looked again and found the man standing with his arms straight at his sides, his hands hanging loose.

A second medical worker entered from another corridor carrying a wooden box bound with two leather straps. She showed it to the healer inside and set it outside the room after the healer nodded.

A clerk resumed walking with his files as the cart started moving again. Farther down, someone called out a number and another voice answered.

Hans touched Severin lightly between the shoulder blades. ”Come on.”

They turned away while the healers were still assessing the wounded man.

The route Hans chose took them deeper into the complex.

They passed a locked grille behind which rows of cabinets disappeared into a long room. Two clerks worked at a desk beside the gate. One checked a document and stamped it before passing a narrow case through a slot in the grille.

”Records?” Severin asked.

Hans nodded. ”Some of them.”

A narrow iron-framed cart approached from the opposite direction.

The box strapped to it was smaller than the leather case Hans was carrying. Two men pushed the cart while another walked beside it with a ledger held against his chest. Someone ahead cleared the passage.

People moved out of the way before being asked, and Severin stepped against the wall with Hans.

As it passed, Severin could see three locks and a chain threaded through both handles.

”What’s in that?”

”No idea.”

”Thought you’d know more.”

At the next junction Hans tried a door guarded by a man with a blind right eye. The guard listened, looked Severin over, then shook his head.

Hans tried again. The guard shook his head, and Hans gave up.

Severin waited until they were walking away. ”Your insignia no good here?”

”It is. You’re not allowed through.”

”Why? What’s behind it?”

”You’ll learn later.”

The longer route included another flight of stairs, and Severin stared at it.

Hans looked at his leg. ”I’m not carrying you.”

Severin took the rail with his left hand and started down.

Halfway, his abdomen pulled sharply enough to stop him. He waited for it to ease, then continued.

The medical rooms occupied a quieter stretch of corridor where the stone walls had been faced with pale tile. The smell reminded Severin of the hospital in Blackhaven, though the floors here were cleaner and a healer sat at the desk outside.

Hans spoke to the healer at the desk, who looked Severin over before saying something to Hans and directing him toward a narrow examination room.

”What’d she say?”

”That you don’t look that bad.”

Severin raised an eyebrow.

Hans smiled. ”More or less.”

The healer made Severin take off his coat and shirt. She removed the abdominal dressing and checked the wound, pressing carefully around it until he hissed when her fingers found a sore place.

She said something without looking up.

Severin glanced at Hans.

”He’s from Blackhaven,” Hans said in Aethermerian. ”Doesn’t speak Vhaldrik.”

The healer looked up at Severin. ”You’ve been walking too much.”

Severin glanced at Hans. ”Whose fault is that?”

The healer pointed at the table. ”Sit still.”

Severin sat while she cleaned the wound, replaced the dressing and examined his left knee. When she bent it farther than he liked, he swore.

She ignored him and moved on to his right hand.

”Move your fingers,” the healer said.

Severin opened and closed his fingers, but the little finger lagged. He tried again with the same result.

The healer watched his hand. ”You’ll need to rest it.”

”For how long?”

”I’ll check it again tomorrow. Until then, rest it. Avoid the stairs, and don’t lift anything heavy or train. If the knee starts swelling, come back.”

Severin pulled his shirt on. ”Training?”

”Not for you,” Hans said. ”Not until you decide whether you’re staying.”

Hans took him to a small room two corridors away. A bed took up most of the space, with a washstand and narrow cupboard against the wall and a chair beside the mattress. The blanket was folded square at the foot.

He set his coat on the chair and sat on the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight.

Hans remained by the door.

”So... what happens now?” Severin asked.

”You get three days. Starting tomorrow,” Hans said. ”You’ll see how we work. The people who handle recruits can answer the questions I haven’t.”

”And after that?”

”You decide.”

Severin studied him. ”And I can still refuse?”

”Yes. You’ve seen more than most outsiders should. If you leave, it makes things more complicated.”

”For me?”

”For me, mostly.”

”That wasn’t what we discussed.”

”No. We discussed a choice. You still have one. If the pact isn’t for you, you can stay as a clerk, healer or smith.”

Severin looked toward the open doorway. Boots crossed the corridor in quick steps, followed by the rattle of a cart wheel over a joint in the stone.

”I’ll think about it. What am I supposed to do today?”

Hans pushed himself away from the doorframe. ”Rest. Eat. Don’t wander too far.”

Severin gave a short laugh. ”Can’t promise the last one.”

Hans stepped into the corridor.

”Hans.”

He looked back. ”What?”

Severin nodded toward the hall they had come through. ”The bloke who came in. Does that happen often?”

”Often enough. But someone has to do it.”

Then he pulled the door shut behind him.

Severin sat on the edge of the bed until the ache in his knee settled. Boots and cart wheels kept passing beyond the door.