The crimson thread, a pulsing artery of guilt, anchored Tsongen to the ash-choked floor of his hut for only a moment longer. Chenzom’s rasping breath, fragile as a spider silk, cut through the hallucination, reminding him of the true stakes. He slid the bone-pin from his palm, the familiar sting a small price for the terrifying clarity. The air in the loom-shack still shimmered with the residue of the Trance, but the path was undeniable. Namra. The name tasted like rust and resentment on Tsongen's tongue. The ascent from his valley hovel toward the butcher's ledge made his shins ache, the path climbing through cold strata of grey grit. The razor-ash, usually a swirling veil, here lay thick and undisturbed, clinging to every rock and withered shrub like a morbid shroud. It scratched at his throat, a constant, abrasive reminder of the village’s decay. He passed the abandoned market stalls, their wooden frames skeletal against the bruised sky, then the silent dormitories where families huddled, waiting for the inevitable. Higher still, the air thinned, and the razor-ash seemed to dissipate slightly, though the lingering scent of rot remained. He navigated the winding game trails, slick with fine dust and the desiccated remains of small creatures caught in the ashfall. The air grew colder, sharp with the metallic tang of dried blood that only a butcher's domain could possess. Tsongen recognized the scent from childhood festivals, before the beast's sacred flesh had been carved away. The path opened into a clearing, a jagged shelf of rock that overlooked a precipitous drop. This was Namra’s slaughterhouse, carved into the granite slope, a place of butchery and drying racks. A crude, lean-to shelter, constructed from splintered timbers and stretched animal hides, sagged against the cliff face. A low, guttural moan, raw with pain and despair, emanated from within. Tsongen paused, a flicker of dark satisfaction stirring in his gut. He pushed aside a flap of hide, the interior dim and reeking of fear, sweat, and old blood. Namra sat hunched on a rough stone bench, his back to the entrance, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. His head was bowed, revealing a scalp matted with grime and ash, a few sparse braids clinging to the sides. They were not hands anymore. The heavy butchering irons, instruments of his sacrilege, had become extensions of his forearms, fused at the wrist with grotesque efficiency. Jagged blades of what looked like hardened bone jutted from where his palms should be, sharp and menacing, yet utterly useless to him. One calcified wedge was caked with dried crust, the other smeared with mucus and tears from futile attempts to wipe his chin. He rocked back and forth, a low, wretched sound escaping his throat, a primal lament that spoke of ceaseless agony. His face was streaked, gaunt, his eyes swollen and red-rimmed. A bowl of some watery gruel sat on the ground beside him, untouched, mocking his inability to lift it. Tsongen felt the cold, hard knot of his suppressed hatred loosen, a dark tendril unfurling. This was the man whose greed, whose disregard for the sacred, had condemned Chenzom. This was the man who, like the rest, had always looked down upon the loom-worker’s family, who had enjoyed the fruits of the mountain while Tsongen toiled in the shadows. Tsongen lingered in the gap of the doorway, drinking in the sight. Namra tried to tip the bowl toward his cracked lips with a forearm, only for the heavy bone-edge to overturn the pottery and spill thin mash into the dirt. The hunter brayed a broken oath. Driven by starvation and fury, he began swinging his forearms wildly, slamming the heavy wedges against the bedrock. Thud after thud cracked through the shelter. Flakes of granite pinged off timber posts. Each jarring impact wrung a raw shriek from the hunter's throat, a noise Tsongen savored like salt on a parched tongue. Hours passed. The sun climbed higher, then began its slow descent, painting the razor-ash clouds in hues of bruised purple and dying orange. Namra’s cries had diminished to whimpers, his body slumped in exhaustion, the frantic impacts ceasing once his calcified appendages chipped against the granite. He was starving, desiccated by despair, his torment a slow, agonizing feast for Tsongen’s vengeful heart. The loom-worker finally stepped forward, his shadow falling across Namra’s slumped form. Namra flinched, his chin jerking upward, milky film parting over red irises. “Tsongen,” he croaked, his voice a raspy whisper. “The weaver. Have you come… to finish it?” His gaze drifted to his fused hands, then back to Tsongen, a flicker of desperate hope joining the fear. “Please. End this. I beg you.” Tsongen said nothing. He knelt, pulling a length of coarse, ash-stained rope from his satchel. Namra slumped, offering no resistance as hemp pinned his forearms flat to the bench. The hunter whimpered, a sound of utter defeat, but offered no further plea. Tsongen then withdrew a fresh bodkin, longer and thicker than the one he’d used on himself, its tip honed to an ice-pick taper. It pulsed faintly, a pale, milky white, reflecting the karmic threads he could still perceive, even outside the Trance, clinging to Namra’s suffering. “The Orolang requires its flesh back,” Tsongen stated, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. “Starting with the instruments of its demise.” Namra shuddered, his eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from beneath his lids. “The sin… it consumes me.” Tsongen drove the bodkin into the chalky ridge where wrist met weapon. Namra let out a strangled cry, a sound that quickly dissolved into a series of pained gasps. The spike severed the corrupted sinews and dense marrow as smoothly as warm tallow. A sickening *crack* echoed through the shelter, followed by a wet, tearing sound. The first severed wedge detached with a wet pop, dropping onto packed gravel. It did not lie still. Instead, the severed mass twitched violently, its hardened edge scraping against stone in dying spasms. Tsongen moved to the second limb, ignoring Namra’s ragged breathing and the visceral movements of the first. The process was identical, brutal, and horrifyingly efficient. When the second severed slab lay beside its twin, quivering like a gutted fish, a faint, resonant hum filled the air. It was not a sound Tsongen heard with his ears, but with the very essence of his being. The Orolang’s spectral presence, vast and ancient, pressed down on him. A voice, like wind scouring the high granite, yet as intimate as his own thoughts, sounded in his mind. [The lungs lie in the Sunken Mire, beneath the Whispering Weep of Elder Jigmed. There, the mountain’s breath is stolen, trapped by the greedy patriarch’s hoard.]

The Fused Cleavers