Moving stiffly, Borik took the coin purse and tucked it into a pouch on his belt. He looked around at them, his expression unreadable, then turned without a word and marched over to collect his equipment. No one spoke as the duardin donned his helm, hefted pack and gun, and strode from the room. Borik paused in the doorway for a heartbeat, and then he left. The door swung shut with a click behind him. Aelyn sighed deeply into the deafening quiet that followed.

Another comrade gone. Silently, she wished Borik luck in escaping the city alive. Then she turned back to those who remained.

‘So, a scouting mission,’ she said.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

CURSED

Romilla felt the comforting weight of her hammer in her hand, and of the amulet that hung about her neck. She concentrated on those sensations as she picked her way along in Aelyn’s wake. So much around her was nightmarish and gruesome, it helped to have something familiar upon which to centre herself.

The aelf slipped through the shadows, clad in a heavy watchman’s cloak that she had strapped, slit and swiftly re-stitched to better integrate with her waywatcher’s garb. Thanks to her deep hood, the bandana she had pulled up over much of her face and the lightweight gloves she had donned, not a scrap of Aelyn’s skin was exposed to the foul moonlight that spilled down upon Draconium. Romilla had taken similar precautions; she had no desire to feel the awful sting of fungi pushing through her pores again and besides, they had no idea what further corruption the moonlight might bring.

Eleanora and Bartiman had been left behind at the safehouse, helping to shore up the defences and provide what aid they could to the watchmen and city folk hidden there. Instead, three watchmen accompanied Aelyn and Romilla on their intelligence gathering mission. Watchman Thackeray had insisted that he join them and had brought two watchmen second class with him. Romilla had been told their names but had forgotten them straight away. She had simply been overloaded these last few days, she supposed. Besides, she was fighting a constant battle with the feeling that all those around her had become transitory, fleeting presences who would soon enough leave her side again. The sensation frightened her, for it echoed the dislocation and isolation she had felt before her plunge into depression. Before Varlen and his comrades had found her, and helped to restore her faith in herself, in her deity.