The dash through the city streets was chaotic and horrible. From the moment Aelyn emerged from the outer face of the Holyheart Wall, she found herself immersed in panicking, pushing crowds. Faces reared up, eyes wild, mouths yawning in cries of terror. Townsfolk shoved past, clutching children close or dragging maddened animals in their wake. Some fought, crazed with terror or moon-madness Aelyn could not tell. She saw a man in blacksmith’s garb swinging his hammer indiscriminately at everyone who came close, screaming over and over that he felt the Bad Moon’s gaze as he broke bones and skulls. White whiskers of mycelium had pushed out from his scalp and face and waved around him like a silvery halo. Three watchmen bore him to the ground, and his cries were silenced by a pistol shot. Only two cloaked figures rose again from the brawl.

Aelyn was almost run down as a carriage thundered down the street, scattering panicked city dwellers before it and crushing those too slow to clear its path. Olt grabbed her by her collar and wrenched her back before she could vanish under the vehicle’s wheels.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You saved me enough times,’ he said, and his awkward half-smile reminded Aelyn how young he was.

Captain Morthan bulled through the press, shouldering people aside and menacing them with her pistol where she had to. Her watchmen had raised their halberds and activated their blinding lanterns, and folk instinctively scrambled aside from the piercing beams that signified authority in Draconium.

Aelyn kept her eyes on the captain, trying to ignore the bloodshed and bedlam, her pain and nausea, and the building sense of horror as more fungal blooms pushed through her skin. As they passed an overturned stall, she gratefully snatched up a hooded cloak that had spilled onto the cobbles, grabbing one for Olt as well. The garments were trampled and torn, cheaply made, but as she pulled the hood up to shield her face Aelyn felt blessed relief. It warded away the moon’s clammy touch and hid her from its leering gaze.

That was enough.

Morthan led them into a back alley beside a pub. Its frontage was sprouting vile green fungal fronds that spat streams of spores into the night air. Aelyn heard screams coming from within the building, saw that its windows were broken from the inside and that blood drizzled from several of them.

As she entered the alley, black-clad figures swarmed out of the pub’s doorway and set upon the panicked crowd. They cackled and shrieked in a crude tongue she couldn’t understand.

‘What are those things?’ she asked.

‘Moonclan grots,’ replied Borik. ‘Or Grobi-the-blackcap, whatever you prefer. Folklore.’