Still, though he repeated the tenets of the code to himself again and again, Borik couldn’t entirely stop himself straining against his bonds. He was used to a mask upon his face, but this was different. Whatever it was felt awful, scratching and tickling his skin, bound close against his flesh as though whoever had captured him had given only the vaguest thought to whether he could breathe. That thought tightened his chest all the more, and Borik let out an involuntary groan around his disgusting gag.

He heard movement, and suddenly felt the need to stay very still. He couldn’t feel the weight of his armour, he realised, just his leather undersuit. Borik felt suddenly exposed.

How had he got here?

Where even was here?

Hazily, he remembered leaving the safe house with his equipment and a small band of survivors in tow. He hadn’t tried to talk them into it, hadn’t cared whether they followed him or not. He had assumed that they must have heard the raised voices through the office door. A watchman – Kasmir? Kasyr? Something like that – had stopped Borik right before he left and said that he and a few others thought the duardin was right. They wanted to join him in his escape. Borik had shrugged and set off with the watchman in tow, a small band of nervous city folk following close behind.

Borik’s plan had been to make for the rivergate. He had thought to steal a boat of some description and then lay low under a tarp, a cloak – whatever he could find – until the craft had drifted through the city wall and away.

He couldn’t remember exactly how that had worked out, but some sardonic nugget of icy calm deep in his mind suggested that it couldn’t have gone especially well. He had a vague memory of something huge and hulking, of a retched stink of rotting fish and the awful sound of spewing bile that hissed and bubbled as it ate away at screaming city folk. Borik remembered nothing else, but from the pain in his skull and his current predicament, he assumed that whatever had come for them had knocked him out and dragged him… where?

He didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Harsh voices now, jabbering in grot tongue and sniggering evilly. Something poked him hard in the side of the head and made him groan in pain. More sniggering, then a harsh shout and the sound of scampering feet receding.