The Tainted Manifest

Who authorized thirty head of six-legged steer to bypass the quarantine scales on Line Four? Master Butcher Kolskegg did not drop his bone-saw to ask; he turned from the broken alarm casing on the bulkhead of Deck Three, watching three more swinging carcasses rattle up out of the dark chute below.

The rail was moving at double speed now. Overhead, the heavy iron chain bucked and shrieked against the drive sprockets, throwing hot lubricant across the floorplates. Two butchers from the secondary skinning line scrambled over the zinc counters, their boots sliding in fresh offal.

"Hold the line!" Kolskegg shouted over the grinding machinery. "Torvald, get behind the salt bin! Keep your pressure hose clear!"

Torvald huddled against the zinc bulkhead, clenching his pneumatic saw with white knuckles. Along the overhead track, a tangled mass of gray muscle and exposed ribs whipped around the curved guide rail. It had seized two heavy iron spreader hooks, fusing them into its fibrous bulk like jagged metal spurs. Four disjointed hocks kicked violently in the steam mist, claws clattering against the steel rafters as the chain dragged it straight toward the dressing tables.

Kolskegg tracked the creature's swing along the ceiling. Instead of waiting for it to drop into the butchering bay, he lunged toward the manual rail junction on the support pillar.

The junction lever was rusted solid with dried brine and grease. Kolskegg planted his steel-toed boots against the deck grating, hauled his cleaver into his belt, and threw both hands onto the lever. The cold iron bit into his calloused palms. He shoved his entire weight downward.

The track-diverter pin sheared with a sharp metallic snap. The overhead rail shifted four inches to the left, dead-ending the guide rail into a solid structural girder.

The swinging amalgamation slammed into the iron girder at twenty miles an hour.

Bone shattered with a sound like bursting timber. The impact cracked the creature's ribcage open, wedging its dorsal mass firmly between the girder flange and the chain track. Yellow fluid sprayed over the rafters. Before the thrashing bundle of limbs could tear itself loose from the metal beam, Kolskegg jumped onto the dressing block.

He thumbed the valve on his pneumatic saw. The circular blade spun into a high-pitched scream. Kolskegg drove the spinning teeth directly into the thick fibrous knot anchoring the beast to the chain. Steam hissed and sparks showered across his rubberized apron as the serrated steel ground through gristle, muscle, and calcified bone.

With a wet tear, the main anchoring tendon gave way.

The mangled carcass dropped eight feet onto the zinc cutting table with a dull thud. The severed limbs twitched twice against the draining troughs, then went still as grey fluid pooled around the drain plug.

A ragged silence fell over Line Four, broken only by the deafening rattle of the runaway overhead chain overhead and the hiss of ruptured steam lines.

"Is... is it dead, Master?" Torvald called from behind the salt bin, peering over the edge with wide eyes.

"Dead enough for the brine pit," Kolskegg muttered, wiping black grease from his saw guard. "Keep the saws running. Check every carcass coming down the chute. If it has eyes where the kidney fat belongs, split it before it hits the floor."

Kolskegg turned away from the line and marched along the drainage gutters toward the intake weigh-station at the eastern bulkhead.

Inside the glass-paned inspection booth, Line-Foreman Brandur was crouched under the copper drafting desk. Brandur was a thin man whose apron was clean enough to prove he had not handled a splitting axe in twenty years. His trembling fingers clutched a heavy cylindrical brass tube against his ribs.

Kolskegg kicked the booth door open. The iron latch broke from the jamb and clattered across the linoleum floor.

"Out from under the desk, Brandur," Kolskegg said, leveling his cleaver at the man's leather skullcap. "Hand over the morning shift manifests."

Brandur flinched, pulling the brass cylinder tighter against his chest. "Kolskegg, you have no authority here! This is an administrative station! Damaging company property is a three-month wage forfeiture under Section Nine!"

"Brandur, there are six-legged carcasses trying to chew their way through the skinning crew fifty yards from your window," Kolskegg growled, grabbing the front of the foreman's pristine wool collar and hauling him upright. "Your wage forfeitures just went out the ventilation exhaust. Give me the intake cylinder."

"The Provost's Watch sealed it!" Brandur stammered, his eyes darting between the bloody cleaver and Kolskegg's scarred jaw. "Provost Einarr personally locked the wax seal before the morning whistle! If the Directorate finds the casing broken, they will dock me a half-shift's pay for ruined document wax!"

"I will dock your head from your shoulders for free," Kolskegg replied.

He wrenched the heavy brass tube from Brandur's grip. The metal was heavy and cold, sealed at both ends with thick, red lacquer.

Kolskegg did not bother searching for an administrative key. He placed the tube flat against the iron weighing table and brought the flat of his heavy cleaver down with a single, controlled strike.

The brass lip crumpled. The brittle red lacquer shattered into dry red dust, exposing the rolled parchment within.

Kolskegg pulled the scroll free and spread it across the blood-spotted weigh sheet.

His eyes scanned past the standard line tallies: eighty head of highland steer, forty swine from the western pens, twelve crates of salt-block preservatives. None of those entries had bypassed the intake inspectors.

Then he reached the red-inked addendum at the bottom of the ledger.

`Pen Fourteen-B. Twenty-eight heavy draft bullocks. Origin: Sub-Level Deep Quarry.`

`Bypass standard veterinary lancing. Direct route to Deck Three Line Four.`

Stamping the bottom of the order was not the crude wooden seal of the stockyard drovers. Imprinted deep into the parchment was a raised golden crest: the coiled serpent and three gears of the Citadel Executive Directorate.

Kolskegg stared at the golden impression. The order had not come from a careless drover or a drunk pen-hand. The executive board had deliberately routed the tainted herd directly into the primary cutting lines during the graveyard shift.

"They knew what was inside those pens," Kolskegg said, his voice dropping to a low rasp.

Brandur backed into the corner of the booth, hands raised defensively. "I only logged the numbers, Kolskegg! The Provost said the special consignment was cleared by the board! He said it was an experimental feed trial!"

"An experimental feed trial does not grow compound eyes inside bone marrow," Kolskegg said. He folded the parchment and shoved it deep inside his reinforced tunic pocket. He had the proof now. When Einarr and the Citadel Watch tried to seal the doors and blame the slaughterhouse guild for the sabotage, this manifest would tear their procedural defense to pieces.

Before Kolskegg could drag Brandur out onto the cutting floor, a deep shudder resonated through the deck beneath their feet.

The vibration was not coming from the overhead rail. It came from the vertical shaft at the back of the bay.

A shrill brass bell clanged three times from the heavy iron gate of the central freight lift. Counterweights groaned inside the concrete walls as the massive platform climbed from the sub-level cellars below.

Steam billowed from the elevator seams, carrying the sharp, caustic stench of boiled sulfur and rancid tallow.

The lift jerked to a sudden stop level with Deck Three. Thick, viscous fluid seeped from between the brass-sheathed doors, bubbling as it struck the hot iron floorplates. Something heavy shifted against the interior gate with a wet, dull scrape.