‘The powder barrels still could not be deployed in this way. Too confined a space, too slow a method, and we wouldn’t be able to guarantee a large enough concentration of explosives in the pumping chamber located beneath Fountains Square, especially if it has sustained structural damage, which seems likely.’

‘So what then?’ snapped Shen. ‘Sigmar’s oath, we’ll all be dead by the time you get to the point.’

Eleanora levelled a flat stare at him. ‘Without understanding the reasoning behind what I am suggesting, you would only ask unhelpful questions that I would then have to provide answers for anyway. By showing you how I reached my conclusions, I save us all time having to explain why I am right.’

Romilla couldn’t help but feel a little spark of amusement at Shen’s expression, despite the grimness of the situation. He looked as though he had swallowed a frog, she thought.

‘By all means, continue. We will not interrupt again,’ said Thackeray stiffly.

‘The thermal pipes,’ said Eleanora, leaping suddenly to the point as though it should be obvious to everyone in the room. ‘According to the plans that I memorised, they draw vast quantities of heat and pressure up from the volcanic reservoir beneath Draconium, then diffuse it through a series of shunt-pipes and cogwork heat-locks while bleeding off the excess via venting valves at regular intervals. If given access to the shunting board controls in the pipeworks, and assuming damage to the pipe network itself has not been in excess of workable parameters, I ought to be able to close enough valves and direct enough pressure flows to create a catastrophic overpressure event directly beneath the square.’

‘And that would be a violent enough explosion to guarantee the poison was destroyed, not just, say, blown sky high and scattered across the city?’ asked Marika.

‘It would,’ replied Eleanora. ‘I calculate that with the correct application of heat and pressure, magnified by the ferocity-factor applicable to all Aqshian natural magics, we will entirely incinerate the barrels and boil off the poison within. In addition, anything stood within one hundred paces of the greenskins’ meteor shrine will be killed in the blast, which I believe will cave in the heart of the square entirely. To warn you of an undesireable side-effect – if successful, my plan will definitely render the thermal heating system permanently inoperable.’

‘I think the people of Draconium have greater worries than their heating just now,’ said Romilla.

‘Will it definitely work?’ asked Shen.

Eleanora just stared at him, then counted off her fingers, right then left.

‘If she says it will work, then it will,’ said Romilla. ‘The question is, how do we make it happen?’