‘How?’ demanded Morthan, marching up to them. ‘You were tasked with protecting him.’ More watchmen climbed from the coach behind her and formed up in a menacing group at her back. Aelyn sensed her comrades subtly shifting postures, tightening their grip on what meagre weapons they held.

‘Poison, we think,’ she replied. ‘He gave a toast, then immediately afterwards began coughing up spores that in turn have begun the spread of some terrible plague.’

‘There’s madness and panic in the streets,’ said Morthan. ‘Mindless, insane rioting in Docksflow and Marketsway and Sigmar knows where else. And damn me for a fool if I don’t see your bloody Moonshadow now, eh? What in the hells is that thing in the sky? Tell me now, truthfully – did you have something to do with all this? Have I allowed the architects of this doom into my city? Because if it is so, I will execute you all where you stand.’

‘You can’t seriously think this has anything to do with us?’ exclaimed Romilla, her tone incredulous.

‘Where is Sergeant Saul?’ asked Morthan, ignoring her. ‘I’d have the truth of this from him.’

‘He’s dead,’ said Aelyn, and felt something splinter inside her as the words made it real.

Morthan stopped and stared harder at them, seeming for the first time to see their wounds and their dismayed expressions. She paused, took a breath, then continued in a slightly calmer tone.

‘How did he die?’

‘The same spore sickness that claimed so many others at the feast,’ said Romilla. ‘I gave him Sigmar’s grace.’

‘I am truly sorry to hear that, he seemed a good man,’ said Morthan.

‘He was better than he knew,’ replied Aelyn. There followed a moment’s uncomfortable silence, in which screaming voices and tolling bells could be heard echoing over the city. Aelyn felt the tunnel shudder as another pressure wave rolled across Draconium. Mortar dust drizzled down from above, the tunnel creaked and her head spun.

‘Do you know what this is? Is this what Hendrick’s brother warned of?’ asked Morthan.

Swiftly, they told her what little they knew.

‘The Bad Moon?’ asked Morthan incredulously. ‘Grobi-the-blackcap and squiggling-squirms and all that?’

‘There are monsters all over the realms, why not these?’ asked Aelyn. ‘And can you deny the evidence of your own eyes filling the sky?’ She was surprised to find she believed Borik’s tale without a great deal of effort. In her experience, most myths and fairy tales bore a seed of truth in the Mortal Realms; more often than not the reality of that seed was ghastlier than any tale could be.

She could see Helena Morthan struggling with the idea, but as she’d said, it was hard to deny your own eyes.