C.E. Gallagher

Perched on a sheer spire of limestone above churning sea tides, the Lazaretto of Tash-Bashi is where the empire sends its infected and disgraced to die out of sight. Arslanbek wants nothing from the world beyond quiet days tending bone fractures and distilling bitter herbs. But when an exiled prince dies without a single pustule or fever mark—his teeth stained with an untraceable herbal poison—the cloister becomes a slaughterhouse. With the ocean rope-basket severed by a winter storm and the sea-winds howling through the stone halls, Arslanbek knows one of the seven cloister attendants is a paid royal butcher. If he cannot prove which caretaker holds the vial, none of the quarantined will leave the rock alive.

Inside the soot-blackened walls of the Skallagrim Abattoir, thousands of steam-driven hooks haul slaughtered beast carcasses along a mechanized labyrinth. But tonight, the butchered meat is pulling itself back together. An occult chimeric entity has hooked itself into the overhead rail system, turning the factory into an automated harvesting machine. Master Butcher Kolskegg arms his floor workers with bone-saws, while Chief Engineer Berglind fights to disable the runaway steam gears. Guard Provost Einarr hunts for the corporate saboteur who introduced the tainted herd, and Hrapp’s vat scavengers fight for survival in the flooded offal cellars. They must cut the power, or end up on the hooks.