Aelyn swept a needle-like dagger from her belt and threw it in one smooth motion. The blade sang through the air and struck a squig in the eye just as it landed. The beast convulsed, throwing its rider and toppling onto its side with a weak kick of its legs. Another blade in hand, Aelyn slid in beside the fallen grot and slit its throat before it could rise. She plucked the first dagger from the dead squig, then dropped forwards onto all fours as she sensed a rush of air. Another squig hurtled over her, close enough for her to smell the rancid stink of its breath. She sprang to her feet and threw her blade again, sinking it into the back of the grot rider’s neck and spilling him from his saddle. Riderless, the squig bounded high into the air, landed on a nearby rooftop in a shower of slates, then leapt away into the night.

Aelyn heard a cry, and spun in time to see Olt surge across the square with flames licking around him. His tattoos glowed furiously as he slammed bodily into a squig and smashed it from the air. The creature landed on its side, rider squealing with fury, the squig’s legs kicking and clawing for purchase. Swift as thought, Olt drove his forehead into the grot’s nose and slammed its skull against the cobbles hard enough to break it. He bellowed in his tribal tongue and conjured a swimming heat haze around his fist before driving it savagely into the squig’s flank. Fungal flesh gave way, hissing and sizzling as it literally cooked. The monster’s eyes bulged, and it bicycled its stubby legs in panic, but Olt wasn’t letting his quarry get away. Ignoring the gouge it cut across his chest with its talons, he reached deep into the monster and, with a feral cry, tore out a smouldering fistful of its guts. Sparks belched from the squig’s maw. It convulsed once more before lying still.

Pistol shots rang out across the square. Blades clashed, and voices rose in cries of hate or screams of pain. Captain Morthan hacked her sword through a grot’s neck as its steed landed nearby, and the squig bounded on again with the headless corpse still clinging to its stubby horns. A squig landed on Borik from behind and Aelyn felt a surge of alarm, but the thing’s fangs struck sparks from the Kharadron armour before Borik managed to squirm around, ram his pistol into the monster’s mouth and fire. The back of its spheroid body erupted in a flash of fire and gore, and its rider was blown through the air to land twitching on the cobbles.