‘Eleanora, are you all right?’ she asked as she reached the engineer.

‘I couldn’t get to the weapons,’ said Eleanora, looking dazed. ‘There was a big woman and she–’

‘It will be well, it will all be well,’ said Aelyn. ‘Hendrick will get them out of there and then we can all go in and get our weapons back.’

‘My foot really hurts.’

‘I promise that Romilla will look at it as soon as we get everyone back together,’ said Aelyn, attempting to sound soothing. She had never been especially adept at the finer points of humans and their limited emotional expressions. It was part of why she watched a lot and said only a little.

People were still spilling from the palace in their dozens, and as they came, several battered guards emerged with Olt close on their heels. ‘The infected are coming!’ shouted a guard, clearly retaining a bit more presence of mind than her comrades. ‘Weapons ready, for Sigmar’s sake! Civilians get out the damned way! Run, you idiots!’

That started a fresh stampede, and the guards from the square were forced to stand braced as exhausted, frantic people surged around them in a tide. More than one brave soul was knocked from their feet and vanished under the trampling of the herd.

Behind Olt came Borik, supporting Bartiman’s sagging form. Aelyn had barely taken three steps in their direction when the first infected ran shrieking out of the palace doors. Bows hissed and Borik and Bartiman threw themselves flat as arrows whipped over their heads to thud into the wave of spore-sickened bearing down on them. Olt was there in an instant, grabbing his comrades and hauling them roughly down the steps with his tattoos smouldering.

‘Where are Romilla and Hendrick?’ Eleanora asked.

And then Romilla was there, bursting from the palace doors at a flat run, her chest heaving and eyes wild.

‘The regent is dead,’ she bellowed. Aelyn saw her skid to a stop at the top of the steps by the panicked-looking guards and begin an animated conversation. Where was Hendrick? Aelyn thought with growing alarm. Was he still trapped inside? Why had Romilla gone to the guards rather than coming to join her comrades?

With Eleanora limping at her side, Aelyn hastened through the last fleeing dregs of the crowd and met the Swords at the foot of the steps. Even as she got there, a wave of familiar pressure rolled across the square. Yet this time, it was far more ferocious. Aelyn found herself lifted bodily from her feet then thrown hard against the ground. She hissed in pain as her injured arm was hammered into the cobbles. Eleanora cried out in pain beside her, and as Aelyn staggered to her feet she saw that everyone in the square had been toppled.

Some did not rise again.

‘Where’s Hendrick?’ she asked.

Olt shook his head, Bartiman and Borik stared blankly at her.