Romilla swung again, dodging aside from the scrabbling limbs of the third spider and managing to smash her hammer into one of its legs. The thing limped backwards, hissing. Eleanora gasped, dropping her other gun and thumbing the arming mechanism of her pistol. She fired in the instant before the spider dropped, then its dead weight hit her from above and pinned her to the floor. Romilla screamed in denial and waded in, hammer swinging at the thrashing mass of limbs and chitin. She realised with a gasp of relief that the monster was already dead, flailing its death throes from the huge hole Eleanora’s pistol had bored through its abdomen. She heaved it aside all the same, revolted at its skittering touch, and felt twice the relief as she saw Eleanora pale but still alive, staring up at her in horror.

‘Behind you!’ urged Eleanora, and Romilla spun, instinct propelling her hammer in a wild swing. She caught the first spider in the mandibles even as it reared up to strike, and sent it toppling backwards with ichor gouting from its ruined face. She hit the monster again, and then again, just to be sure.

Romilla turned, breathing hard, sweat rolling down her forehead, to look for the last spider. She saw it squeezing itself through a crack in the stonework, just a tangle of legs and glittering eyes vanishing into the dark. Romilla reached down a hand and heaved Eleanora to her feet.

‘There are more of them coming,’ said Eleanora, gathering up her guns and hastily reloading them.

‘I can hear them,’ said Romilla, properly taking in the room for the first time. They stood in a bare stone chamber, one wall of which played host to a mass of piping and gauges. Two metal stairways led up and out of the chamber in opposite directions; one right, one left.

‘Which way, El?’ asked Romilla.

‘I… uhm…’ Eleanora swayed, and Romilla looked at her in alarm. Eleanora never forgot anything once she had learned it. Not ever. Now was not a good time for her to start, yet as she took in the engineer’s greenish pallor and red-rimmed eyes, Romilla admitted to herself that she was amazed Eleanora was even still on her feet.

‘I don’t…’ Eleanora furrowed her brow, looking panicked and ill.

‘Sigmar, guide me,’ breathed Romilla then chose the right-hand stairway. ‘Always the righteous path over the sinister,’ she said and tugged Eleanora after her.

The two of them clanged up the stairs and burst through a veil of webbing into another corridor. They ran along it, passing clumps of gauges and dials furred with cobwebbing. There were no windows here, though they must have been a floor or so above street level now. From ahead they heard a growing sound of clanging and hissing. Romilla felt the temperature increase by the moment, and as they rounded a corner she saw a fiery glow radiating from ahead of them.