Aelyn looked up to see a wall of pulsating fungus rolling towards them, dripping tendrils spewing from its surface to grope for the fuel bowser and the bodies around it.

‘Ten seconds, that’s all we’ll need,’ she said. Borik twisted the mechanism again, and as he did so there was a ripple of pistol fire from Morthan and her watchmen. The troggoth, which was stomping towards them clutching a stalactite club taller than Aelyn, staggered as the volley of shots struck home. It gave a subsonic growl of annoyance and kept going. Behind it slunk dozens of hooded greenskins, fangs bared in cruel grins, hands clutching crude shivs and spears. Around their feet flowed the insect tide, rushing like a river towards the Swords and the watchmen.

‘The bomb is set! Run!’ shouted Aelyn.

‘This way,’ replied Morthan, discharging her pistol into the troggoth’s face before turning and dashing away with her cloak flowing behind her. Aelyn felt the ground shake again as she pelted after the captain. The moonlight made her feel nauseous and light headed, and she almost missed her footing. She counted in her head.

‘Four.’

‘Five.’

‘Six.’

One of the watchmen screamed as he stumbled, and insects flowed over him in a tide. For an instant there came an awful sound of massed chewing, and Aelyn glanced back helplessly before the ­troggoth’s club whistled down and smashed the fallen man into bloody paste. Insects fountained into the air at the blow.

‘Seven.’

‘Eight.’

There came an awful creak of stressed metal, and another stolen look showed the fungal abomination rolling over the fuel bowser, spreading its tendrils into the corpses around it, polyps rising on its surface and bursting wetly to spew clouds of glowing spores.

This had to work, she thought, or they were all going to die.

‘Nine.’

‘Ten.’

‘Eleven.’

She felt her heart sink and an awful tingle of dread at the lack of a detonation. Spears clattered from the cobbles around her, and she heard the clang as one rang from Borik’s armour. Cloaked figures sprinted out to either side of her, fungi sprouting from their weapons and cloaks, the lambent moonlight lending the scene a nightmarish quality.

‘Twelve.’

‘Thirteen.’

The troggoth roared, the sound frighteningly close. Insects chittered and skittered.

Then came the blast. Aelyn felt it like a kick in the back from an enraged horse. Her feet left the ground and she was thrown through the air, her back hot with pain. She felt her skin sting in a dozen places at once, though whether from fungi or stone shrapnel she didn’t know. The world spun, and instinct took over. Aelyn hit the ground on her uninjured shoulder and rolled, coming back to her feet with the sort of grace that only aelves could achieve. Still, bolts of pain shot through her and she stumbled, looking back. Her ears rang as she took in the devastation Eleanora’s bomb had wrought.