‘We might hurt them, for a while, but look at this place,’ said Thackeray. He gestured to the patches of damp spreading across the walls, the nub-like toadstools that had begun to push up through the wood of the desk. They had cleaned glistening spiders’ webs out of the corners several times already, but somehow, they kept returning larger and more sinister-looking than before. ‘While the Bad Moon hangs above our city, I do not believe we can stop the corruption that is spreading, and I don’t think we can count on the rains. Sigmar’s hammer, we’ve not even seen cheffing night and day now for… well, does anyone know?’

‘It has been in the region of three days and four hours since the Bad Moon rose,’ said Aelyn.

‘Right,’ said Thackeray, faltering for a moment then ploughing on. ‘Even if we could somehow banish that damned moon from the skies, even if we could stop the rot, there must be thousands of grots and monsters infesting Draconium by this point. We’re outnumbered so severely it’s a dark jest. We’re prey in our own city, and they the predators.’

‘Well then, should we not try to evacuate those who still live?’ demanded Shen. ‘We swore an oath to protect the people of Draconium, Thackeray. Are you going to let some sellswords talk you into abandoning that in favour of a vainglorious gesture of defiance?’

‘Vainglorious? Sellswords?’ Bartiman’s voice was indignant, and Romilla was glad to hear at least a ghost of his normal vitriol return. ‘Young man, we could have turned around and walked away any number of times this last turning, and left you fools and your doomed city to rot. But we haven’t, have we? We’ve fought, and we’ve lost, right alongside you, long after the coin dried up, because above all we serve Sigmar, as do you! There is nothing vainglorious about that!’

‘Even if you could gather the survivors, even if you could somehow lead them out of Draconium without suffering the same fate as those cultists, what then?’ asked Romilla. ‘The only safe direction to take them would be south, towards the settled lands around Hammer­hal. The greenskins’ poisons would catch up to you and that would be an end to it.’

She watched the expressions of the three watchmen carefully. She understood the frustration and struggle she saw there. Romilla knew what it was to feel powerless as those you had sworn to protect were taken from you.

‘So, we blow it all up,’ said Shen, eventually. His shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘How?’

Marika turned away and paced to the window, waves of bitterness and anger rolling off her.