They made swift progress along the alleyway, until another vicious earth tremor threw them against the wall of the pub. A scullery door smashed open in the building’s flank, and three of the Moonclan burst into the alley. One raised a flintwood bow and loosed a black-fletched arrow from point blank range. The shaft struck a watchman in the face, snapping her head back and throwing her to the ground. Captain Morthan yelled and shot the archer, blasting away half of its face. Borik shot another grot in the chest, and the third was quickly spitted on a pair of watch halberds.

The group stepped over the corpses and pressed on, leaving the fallen watchman where she lay.

‘They’re grots all right,’ said Olt. ‘But they don’t act like them. Big greenies, orruks and the like, sure they get a sniff of battle and they’re brave as heroes. But I’ve never seen grots attack like this. Usually cowards, you know?’

‘Only know what I heard,’ said Borik tinnily, reloading his pistol as they approached the end of the alley. ‘Something about the Bad Moon filling them with a sort of madness. Draws them up from their caves and tunnels like the ocean tides. They call it the Gloomspite.’

‘Oh, damnation,’ said Captain Morthan quietly as they halted at the mouth of the alleyway. She brushed a stray strand of red hair out of her eyes, rubbing away the crusted blood on her face with her knuckles. Aelyn caught up to the captain and saw what had caused her to halt.

Beyond the alley, lit a sickly green in the moon’s poison light, was a scene from some gruesome underhell. A wide square sat at a confluence of smaller streets, flanked on two sides by townhouses and on its other two by some kind of eatery and what looked like a public library. The centre of the square had collapsed into a wide pit from which spore-laden fumes rose. A wagon lay half-in and half-out of the hole, its dray beast lying dead in its traces with great chunks missing from its flesh and mycelium crawling into its wounds.

A handful of palace guards and militia-militant were fighting against a swarm of bizarre beasts. The monsters were bulbous, each one easily three feet across and roughly spherical in shape, its flesh spongy and burnt orange in colouration. The creatures had stubby, muscular legs ending in vicious talons, short, jutting tails and the entire front of each one’s body was taken up by a pair of piggy eyes set above a massive lantern jaw stuffed full of crooked fangs.