“Where do I start?” Drevik’s question hung in the frigid air of the packing ward, lost beneath the rhythmic hiss of steam presses. Olenka wiped her hands on her stained apron, her gaze sharp and devoid of sentiment. “The eldest,” she said, her voice a low rasp. “The Chronos Sector. It’s the closest to the main processing lines, up through the maintenance ducts. I’ve marked the entrance on your map. My shift ends in a quarter-bell. If you’re quick, I can open the service door and distract the patrol while you slip in.” She slipped a heavy brass ring from her belt, a jumble of tarnished keys clinking softly. “These are for the access panels. Don’t lose them.” Drevik took the keys, their cold weight a stark contrast to the necrotic warmth of the Ossuary-Crane’s feather clutched beneath his tunic. The relic pulsed faintly against his ribs, an anchor of chilled bone and quills. “And the guards?” “The usual Ghol Threshers. Brutes. But they’re trained for crowd control, not infiltration. Avoid the light, avoid the noise. You’ll be in the ‘Ageing Halls’ of Chronos. It’s… humid. And loud.” Her eyes met his, a flicker of something he couldn’t quite name – pity? Warning? “They harvest his skin. For ‘rejuvenation tonics.’ The Margrave’s patrons pay a fortune to shed a decade.” “Skin,” Drevik repeated, a sour taste on his tongue. He pictured the grotesque mass of Margrave Zallur, then imagined the eldest son's endless stripping. True to her word, Olenka ushered him towards a rarely used service door in the packing ward’s western wall a quarter-bell later. The air here was thick with the metallic tang of stale blood and the rank syrup of embalming fluids. Her movements were swift, practiced. One key twisted, a soft click. Another, a grating scrape of metal against metal. She pushed the heavy steel door inwards just enough for him to squeeze through, a sliver of darkness opening onto a narrow, grime-streaked maintenance tunnel. “Good luck, carrion-warden,” she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Don’t get caught with your prayers.” Then the door hissed shut, plunging him into oppressive darkness. The tunnel was a suffocating labyrinth of hot steam pipes and cold drainage conduits. The air vibrated with the distant thrum of diesel pistons, a constant, low growl that permeated the very stone. He navigated by memory of the ancient Ghol blueprints, the quill's faint glow a guide in the absolute blackness. It led him upwards, through access hatches and along precarious gantries, until the steam grew denser, hotter, smelling of rendered fat and ozone. He emerged into the Chronos Sector through a ceiling vent, landing silently on a catwalk above a vast, cavernous chamber. Below, a horror-show of industrial efficiency unfolded. Colossal steam-powered stripping rigs dominated the space, their polished steel arms gleaming with a film of fresh gore. Huge rotary blades, each as tall as a man, spun with hypnotic precision, shearing away layers of flesh from something indistinct and vast. A sickly, sweet aroma, like overripe fruit mixed with burnt sugar, filled the air. This was the Eldest’s Excoriation Loom. His eyes adjusted, revealing the source of the mechanical harvest. Suspended in the center of the chamber, held aloft by a complex array of chains, hydraulic pistons, and metallic clamps, was the firstborn heir. He was no longer a man, but a monumental, weeping torso. Bloated and pale, his form was a grotesque monument to suffering, his flesh constantly regenerating, only to be stripped away again. Tubes the thickness of Drevik’s arm plunged into his neck and chest, feeding him a viscous, nutrient-rich slurry that fueled his agonizing immortality. His eyes, though filmed over with a milky white haze, seemed to weep continuously, saline rivulets washing away the blood that periodically splattered his face. Along the perimeter, Ghol guards, hulking men in blood-splattered aprons and thick leather gloves, patrolled with iron truncheons. Motion-sensitive gas-lamps, a cruel modern innovation, cast pools of stark, flickering light across the catwalks and floor. Drevik, relying on the ancient stealth rites of the Carrion-Wardens – a silent footfall, a breath held, a shadow merged – began to move. He was a ghost, a whisper in the periphery, his movements smooth and practiced over decades of devotion. Then a lamp flared. Its arc of light swung, a sudden, blinding searchlight. One of the sentries, a man with a scarred face and a guttural cough, had turned his head. Drevik froze, a statue in the harsh, gas-fueled glare. The ancient rites were useless against this modern menace. The lamp had caught him, its beam a direct accusation. “Intruder!” the sentry roared, his club already swinging from his shoulder. Two others turned, their faces slack with surprise, then contorted with violent intent. Drevik cursed the crude, blunt-edged science of these new abattoirs. He snatched out the rusted meat-hook he’d salvaged from a drain, its barb still sharp from scraping bone, abandoning the elegant, precise staff-work he’d once mastered. The cudgel descended, a blur of heavy wood. Drevik parried, the meat-hook catching the blow with a jarring clang, sending a shockwave up his arm. He ducked under a wild swing, the air displaced by the wood whistling past his ear. He moved with a primal ferocity, no longer the solemn carrion-warden but a desperate animal cornered. He wasn’t fighting for honor or tradition now, but for the Crane, for the world. The hook was an extension of his rage. He slammed the curve into the Thresher’s knee, hearing a sickening crack, then swept low, knocking the man off balance. As the guard stumbled, Drevik brought the hook up, its point catching the man’s chin with a wet thud. The brute collapsed, a heavy sack of meat, unconscious. The other two were on him. One, a man with a tattooed arm, lunged, a blade flashing. Drevik twisted, the hook deflecting the attack, then reversed his grip, slamming the blunt handle into the man’s temple. The second enforcer, wielding a heavy chain, snarled and swung. Drevik rolled, narrowly avoiding the whistling links, then drove the hook deep into the man’s exposed thigh. A scream tore through the din of the whirring rigs, quickly cut short as Drevik twisted the hook, ripping the flesh. He scrambled down a maintenance ladder, ignoring the throbbing in his arm, and raced across the slick floor, dodging the slow, inexorable sweep of the rotary blades. The heir hung above him, a colossal, twitching organism, his constant tears dripping onto the blood-soaked floor. Drevik saw it then: a single, iridescent plumage shaft, black as obsidian, impaled by a polished chrome cannula that plunged into the heir’s spine. It pulsed, a dark twin to the one Drevik carried. With a grunt, Drevik leaped onto a stack of empty regeneration canisters, then onto a protruding support beam. He scrambled higher, clinging to the oily machinery, until he was level with the patriarch's eldest's vast, weeping chest. The air here was thick with the heir’s fetid breath, a sickening mix of stale blood and sweet decay. He reached out, his fingers brushing against the cold, smooth metal of the cannula, then grasped the quill, its barbs surprisingly sharp even through his gloves. He hauled backward. The black quill resisted, locked firmly in place by the embedded apparatus. He yanked again, harder, gritting his teeth. A tearing sound, wet and guttural, echoed through the chamber, distinct even over the roar of the stripping apparatus. The prize came free, a burst of sickly green ichor erupting from the wound in the titan's spine. The twin quill in Drevik’s tunic pulsed violently, a surge of cold, necrotic energy. At the same instant, the elder heir's entire body convulsed. His previously severed vocal cords, raw and glistening, suddenly knitted together. A deep, rasping breath shuddered through his enormous chest, and then, from his torn throat, a scream erupted. It was a sound of pure agony and impossible volume, a shriek that ripped through the very foundations of the Ghol Flesh-Exchange. Lights flickered, sparks flew from overhead conduits, and a deafening, metallic claxon blared, echoing the mutant's inhuman bellow. Heavy, reinforced blast doors, scarred and riveted, slammed shut with a final, echoing crash, sealing Drevik within the Eldest’s Excoriation Loom.

The Eldest's Flaying Loom