‘Then let us be about Sigmar’s work,’ said Romilla. ‘Thackeray, you’ve got the only blade amongst us. Lead on.’

Thackeray shot her a dark look, but he paced up the stairs, using his halberd blade to puncture and drag aside thick wads of webbing that blocked their path. Romilla followed behind, keeping Eleanora by her side. She half-supported the engineer, who sweated and shook but took one determined step after another.

They were near the top of the steps, and the web was funnelling inwards, tightening down to a dense mass. Thackeray raised the blade of his halberd and slid it into the fibres near the top before dragging it downwards as hard as he could.

The web fibres split with audible snaps. He dragged the blade lower, unzipping a ragged gash in the sticky mass. Thackeray’s blade gave a sudden lurch downwards as the web’s resistance gave, almost spilling him from his feet. His halberd-point hit the metal steps with an audible clang, and all three of them froze, listening for the telltale sounds of skittering limbs and rasping chitin.

They heard nothing. Romilla breathed slowly out and took another step up the stairs.

‘What are those?’ asked Eleanora. Romilla followed her gaze and gasped as she saw hundreds of silvery specks spilling from amidst the webbing and up Thackeray’s polearm.

‘Drop it!’ she barked, and Thackeray let the halberd fall with a yell of alarm.

Too late.

Dozens of infant arachnids, translucent and each no larger than a thumb nail, had swarmed onto Thackeray’s gloved hands. He staggered back, making sounds of revulsion as he tried to shake them off. He slapped the backs of his hands against the walls, crushing the swarming creatures. Still they bit him again and again.

Romilla had a sudden vision of the three of them being trapped in the cellar by a tide of biting spiders. That couldn’t happen.

‘Hood up and stay close,’ she told Eleanora, grabbing her wrist, then drove into Thackeray from behind with all the force she could muster.

The three of them tumbled through the mass of webbing and spilled onto a metal landing beyond. Romilla felt things scuttling across her body and she rolled and slapped frantically, crushing spiderlings with every swat.

‘Oh, Sigmar!’ spat Thackeray, writhing and beating at himself in revulsion. Eleanora echoed their movements.

‘Don’t stop! Not here!’ Romilla urged as she scrambled back to her feet. They were in the midst of what must surely be a spider nest, and the walls and ceiling churned with a silvery mass of constant motion. Dragging Eleanora and Thackeray behind her, Romilla pushed through the last strands of webbing and up another clanging flight of stairs. She ignored the squirming sensation on her skin, the sharp stabs of biting pain across her flesh, until she had hauled both her companions to the head of the next set of steps.