Aelyn turned, hoping they would follow her, and set off with her remaining knife clutched tight. Crossing the square seemed to take a nightmarishly long time, exposed to the unblinking stare of the celestial monster above, her gaze darting back and forth trying to track the spore-sickened where they dashed to and fro, attacking everything they saw. Fresh cries rose, as the horrors smashed through the windows of mansions near the square and plunged into Sigmarite shrines to where terrified feastgoers and other Holyheart residents had fled.

Aelyn plunged into the shadowed tunnel that led through the city’s inner wall, almost slipping on slime-slick cobbles. Above, on the wall’s ramparts, militia-militant were milling and crying out, plucking fungi from their flesh and yelling in panic for orders. She knew the Swords couldn’t remain in this tunnel for long in case they were trapped when the militia inevitably took it upon themselves to close the gates. However, it was shelter from the putrid moonlight at least, and she felt a blessed relief the moment she was away from those awful eyes.

Her companions joined her, breathing hard. They stared at her with wild eyes.

‘Is Hendrick dead?’ she asked Romilla at once.

‘Yes, I told you that,’ she replied.

‘No. I mean is he dead?’ repeated Aelyn. Romilla sighed and nodded, her shoulders slumping as she understood.

‘I gave him Sigmar’s mercy.’

‘Then you did the best you could for our friend,’ said Aelyn. ‘Thank you.’

‘Your best would’ve been not letting him get killed, uh?’ spat Olt. Romilla turned with a face like thunder, but Aelyn raised a hand.

‘Not now.’ Her voice was hard as tempered iron. ‘Borik, you said this wasn’t Chaos. What is it, then? What do you know?’

‘Sky-sailor’s tales, is all I thought they were,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘Evidently, they’re rather more,’ grizzled Bartiman, who was pale and sweating from the pain of his wound.

‘They call it the Bad Moon,’ said Borik slowly. ‘It’s a dark omen, the very worst. They say its light brings madness and death, that it smothers the heavens and brings night everlasting, and that it calls the blackcaps up from the bowels of the earth upon a tide of squirming terrors.’

‘The Moonshadow brings death,’ repeated Eleanora again, counting rapidly on her fingers. ‘I need to get my tools. And my bombs. From the inn.’

‘The Bad Moon? The tales of Grobi-the-blackcap? Borik, these are children’s rhymes, folklore,’ exclaimed Bartiman. ‘“Get ye to sleep little one, and close your eyes up tight, lest blackcap comes a-calling and you see the Bad Moon’s light.” It’s an Azyrite nursery rhyme!’