‘MOVE!’ Olt roared, the crackle of fire playing behind his voice, and at last the guard woke up, turned and fled. Olt shook his head in amazement and pressed on, herding the panicked city folk before him. He hoped the others were having an easier time.

‘This is simply unacceptable!’ snapped Bartiman as another fleeing noble barrelled into him, almost spilling him from his feet. The old wizard clung to Borik’s armoured form, the stolid duardin like a boulder amid rough seas.

‘I could just shoot us a way out,’ came Borik’s baritone voice from within his helm. He brandished a short cutlass in one hand, and what he had proudly announced to be a Grundstock Aethermatic Repeating Handgun in the other.

‘No, let me deal with it,’ shouted Bartiman over the cacophony of screams and cries. ‘One should always practise one’s art lest one becomes–’

‘If you have to do something unnatural, just get on with it,’ interrupted Borik. He levelled his pistol and fired it with a loud bang, the shot snatching a charging spore-victim off their feet. Gears clicked and spun as the gun reloaded itself.

‘Very well, very well, bones of Shyish, rushing an old man,’ ­grumbled Bartiman. He cleared his throat and raised his arms, allowing his capacious sleeves and jangling bangles to slide down and leave his forearms bare. He reached out with his senses and found the magics he had spent his long life learning to channel. By now, they were old friends.

‘Ek’suneteh, melloch mel anar!’ Bartiman intoned, his voice growing deep and echoing as he chanted the incantation. ‘Asmosai, asmosai, ghastirith morbidaris Shyishia!’

Black energies leapt along his bone staff and coiled into the air. A howling gale blew up from nowhere and swept into the panicked crowd. It was an icy blast, carrying the howls and cackles of malevolent things as it battered the feastgoers and drove them bodily towards the nearest exits. Bartiman felt the exhilaration of unleashing his powers, caring not one jot that many of those closest to him stumbled away with their hair prematurely greying, or their skin beginning to wrinkle with sudden age. If it got them clear of the hall and away from those monstrous things then he didn’t care what effect it had on them in the long run.

‘There, we–’

He was interrupted as a heavy figure sailed through the air and slammed into him. Bartiman felt something snap in his chest as a great weight landed atop him, then cold fire blazed in his collar bone as fangs dug deep.

Panicking, wheezing, Bartiman struggled against the great weight pinning him. His vision greyed at the edges with shock and pain, and his old fingers fumbled hopelessly for the dagger at his belt. There came another deafening bang, a hot wet spray, and then the twitching corpse rolled off him as Borik shoved one booted foot into its ribs.