‘Whatever we’re dealing with, we need to control the situation and restore order swiftly,’ said the captain, falling back on what she knew best. ‘I’ve got the watch spreading out across the city to maintain order, but I’ve no idea where half of my men and women even are right now. It’s anarchy. There are rioters in the streets, we’ve had reports of insects spilling up from the sewers and attacking people, and now you tell me there’s a sickness spreading and something growing in the palace.’

‘Public unrest can wait,’ said Romilla. ‘You haven’t seen what the infected can do, how quickly their sickness spreads. And whatever that thing in the palace is, last we saw it was outgrowing the damned walls! Those have to be our priorities.’

Her words were punctuated by the groan and crash of masonry falling.

‘That came from the palace,’ said Olt, sounding rattled.

‘Sigmar, how do you stop something like that?’ said Romilla.

‘What about the militia?’ asked Borik.

‘Arch-Lector Hessam Kayl should be massing their strength in Fountains Square,’ replied Morthan. ‘That’s standard procedure in the event of a threat to the city itself. He’ll march them out from there to restore order, using whatever force is necessary.’

‘They’d be no use to us anyway – an army could assail that growth all day and it would simply roll over them,’ said Romilla.

‘Fire,’ said Olt. ‘The gods of plants and nature, they fear the deities of the volcano and the inferno.’ He touched fingers to his heart then his throat reverently.

‘The notion has merit, but where would we get a fierce enough blaze to kill something that vast and fecund?’ asked Bartiman. ‘No, the city is going to be overrun by spore-sickened and fungus, you mark my words. We need to get out of here now.’

‘The Kazlag and Gephryn third type brimspark fuel bowser has a contained volume of over three thousand measures of liquid fuel held at a pressure of one point two parts to the unit,’ said Eleanora as though reciting from an engineer’s manual. ‘The fuel itself is refined from crushed bellicosite and magma-oil, and must be fed through a triple-filtration control nozzle before it reaches the brazier in order to prevent compound flaring and uncontrolled detonation. Were the Kazlag and Gephryn third type brimspark fuel bowser to be pierced by an incendiary projectile or secondary explosive component, even assuming a two-thirds load due to persistent use over a period of no less than six hours at this point, the detonation would be the equivalent of in the region of ten thousand aqshels of force and heat.’

Eleanora subsided, becoming aware that everyone was staring at her in silence.

‘What?’ asked Morthan.

‘Oh, you damned genius, El!’ exclaimed Romilla. ‘The mummers, their…’ she flapped a hand. ‘Their braziers and the fuel wagon thing powering them. She means that, don’t you Eleanora?’