She wouldn’t lose herself again, she thought fiercely. Never mind that the brothers Saul were gone, that Olt had been slain and Borik had deserted them. She still had Aelyn, and Bartiman, and of course there was Eleanora. Romilla wouldn’t let her down by breaking now. The thought of Eleanora’s injured foot, of the corruption that was clearly spreading up her leg by the hour, preyed upon her mind. Romilla cursed herself for not insisting she check on the wound sooner. Perhaps they could have treated it, stopped the spread of whatever poison was working its way through Eleanora’s body. She glanced up for an instant at the Bad Moon leering high above. Then again, she thought, perhaps not – not with that foul orb blighting the skies. If they passed any kind of an apothecarion, Romilla intended to ransack it for additional herbs and unguents that might help. Still, she couldn’t help fearing that at best Eleanora was going to lose that leg. She had put the decision off thus far, but if the poison spread much further she would have to–

Romilla’s attention snapped back to the present as they neared the end of the alleyway they were creeping along. On the advice of Watchman Shen, they had headed north from their safehouse, up the Threadway Road and thence into a warren of backstreets and workers’ housing that bordered Docksflow. Aelyn had expressed a desire to find a vantage point from which to fully appreciate the condition of the city and the disposition of their foe. According to Shen, an unofficial rooftop highway began amidst the houses of the Docksflow fringe and led uphill to the Mercantile Guild building in High Drake. Providing the plummeting moon rocks had not annihilated it, that building’s rooftops would provide the best view for miles around, or so said Watchman Shen. Besides, there was another objective to be reached in High Drake, one that Watchman Thackeray was intent upon.

The dash along the Threadway had been nerve-wracking, but though they had been forced to navigate thick fungal outcroppings and a minefield of half-buried corpses, they had seen no enemies. Once into the tangle of back streets, things had become less terrifying; the tight confines and high buildings conspired to hide much of the Bad Moon from sight most of the time.

Still, there was fungus growing from every surface, and Romilla had repeatedly had to stamp on hungry swarms of insects that had attempted to clamber up her legs to sink mandibles and proboscises into her flesh. A fat black-and-red spider had fallen onto her shoulder, and she had squashed it before it could bite her. Her skin tingled uncomfortably where its juices had soaked through her cloak.