Sigmar was with them. They did his work. And perhaps, she thought, he was trying to tell her something more. It was enough to get her moving, one more time, dragging the near catatonic Eleanora behind her as she made for the nearest stairway. They could still do this, she thought. Perhaps they could not escape the chamber – that much she could accept, though the thought of Eleanora’s death filled her with misery. But perhaps, like Hendrick before her, she had to hang on to her hope. If nothing else, they could do this, and if their deaths meant that thousands of innocent Sigmar-worshipping settlers were spared the vile fate that had befallen the people of Draconium, then Romilla could accept that price. She ran hard, adrenaline driving her exhausted body onwards, and as she ran she prayed.

Another grot came at Aelyn and she spun her dagger, weaving aside from the creature’s spear thrust and ramming her blade into its throat. Blood jettisoned out. Aelyn whipped her blade back, and the grot collapsed. It wasn’t enough, though, she thought. Not nearly enough.

The greenskins had borne down upon them and, trapped between their maddened comrades and the onrushing horde of foes, they had had no choice but to fight or die.

Or, more likely, fight until they died, she corrected herself grimly.

Bartiman was still propped against the rubble, muttering incantations as best he could. He had reduced a handful of grots to mummified corpses, and blasted another band to ashes, but Aelyn knew he couldn’t possibly keep his efforts up much longer. His voice had become little more than a rasp, and his last attempt at a spell had fizzled to nothing. Now she stood over him against a seething tide of foes and fought harder than she ever remembered fighting.

Aelyn’s shoulder was a mass of agony. Her ribs ached, and her thoughts reeled under the malign gaze of the Bad Moon. Still she spun her daggers in her hands, wove and twisted and stabbed with furious determination. A spear tore a deep graze across her shoulder, and she stabbed its wielder in the eye. A rusty shiv found its way past her guard and sunk into her ribs, but only an inch or so before she had lopped off its wielder’s hand and kicked him back into the press of his fellows. A squig launched itself at her, jaws agape, and Aelyn ducked under its hurtling mass before sweeping both daggers up to slice the tip from one grot’s hooked nose and bury the other under another’s jaw.

Another speartip came from somewhere to sink deep into her calf, and Aelyn hissed with pain as her leg gave out beneath her. She fell half on top of Bartiman, and heard him grunt in pain as her weight landed on his frail body.