Eleanora pointed to where the dense nest of pipes flowed into the chamber. There was a crawlspace, just large enough for a human, which ran along the top of the pipes. Thick leather tarps had been laid over the pipes to allow people to crawl along them without getting scalded. Still, Romilla winced as she placed her hand on one. This would not be a comfortable experience.

‘Of course,’ said Thackeray again. ‘Soonest begun, soonest done. Eleanora, follow on my heels. Romilla, rear guard.’

Romilla raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to take the lead. Thackeray obliged, hauling himself up into the crawlspace with a grunt and a hiss of discomfort, and began crawling.

‘I hope our friends are having an easier time of things,’ said Eleanora before scrambling up onto the pipes.

‘I highly doubt it,’ sighed Romilla, quashing her worries as best she could and following the engineer into the hot, dark tunnel.

Aelyn ducked behind the wreckage of a cart. Stubby black arrows thunked into its opposite side, causing rot-wet wood to splinter. An arrowhead burst through the wood bare inches in front of her face, its barbed head dripping a viscous poison that sizzled where it dripped onto the cobbles.

‘They’ve got archers on the roof of the alchemists’ shop,’ she shouted. Then she rose, nocking her arrow, drawing and loosing all in one smooth motion before dropping back out of sight. A human archer wouldn’t even have had time to aim at a target. Aelyn’s sharp ears picked out the distinct thud of her shaft striking a grot in the chest, the bubbling wheeze of its breath and the clatter and thump as it rolled bonelessly down the slate roof and plunged to the cobbles below. She nocked another arrow, rose, loosed, dropped, then repeated the process again.

Several militia-militant slid in next to her, their shaved scalps, chainmail and robes distinctive. They rose from cover themselves and shot more arrows at the grot archers. Two of them ducked back down. The other toppled backwards with a greenskin’s arrow jutting from his cheek, its poison eating away at his flesh with a wet sizzle.

‘How much further until we reach Fountains Square?’ asked Aelyn. One militiaman just looked at her coldly. The other glanced back up the street as bands of watchmen and militia followed them in.

‘One more intersection, then a short stretch of street and we’ll be there,’ she said. ‘They said this was your plan. That true?’

‘I had a hand in it,’ said Aelyn, rising to loose off an arrow then dropping again as a shrill scream greeted her efforts.

‘Cheffing stupid plan,’ said the militiaman, and spat. ‘Going to get us all killed.’

Aelyn replied with a level stare. The woman stared back, then flinched as another volley of arrows hit the side of the wagon. Fewer this time, noted Aelyn.