In the glow of her amulet, Eleanora turned the dial sharply to the right. There was a roar like dragon’s breath, an earthquake shudder, and the panicked squeal of dozens of huge spiders. Every indicator on the console flashed red. With a cacophony of screaming metal and rushing steam, the machinery in the chamber began to come apart. Pipes tore away from their housings and crashed together, belching boiling vapour. Glass valves smashed from the pressure behind them. Rivets shot through the air like bullets to ricochet from the stonework of the chamber. There came a sound like cannonfire as the huge panes of glass forming the ceiling cracked and shuddered. Romilla felt Eleanora’s hand close on her arm like a vice and turned her head to look at the young engineer in surprise.

Eleanora was staring at her with feverish intensity, then back at the shuddering console.

‘What?’ asked Romilla, shouting to make herself heard. Her ears were ringing.

‘The pressure shift is too much for the radial support pipes!’ shouted Eleanora. ‘The overpressure is bowing the structure! I think there’s enough spare if I can just…’

Romilla shook her head in bewilderment, grabbing the console for support as the gantry groaned and tilted. Something vast and dark moved behind them, but she dared not look.

‘What are you saying?’ she yelled, but Eleanora was bent over the console, working the controls with feverish intensity. She gave a snarl of frustration and smacked one hand against the metal.

‘I hate not being able to think clearly!’ she exclaimed. ‘I forgot to account for the structural warping. If I can trap enough pressure in the nearest vent-pipes now that they’re blocked, I might be able to blow their internal seals and cause a localised explosion that will blast a support stanchion free without weakening our blast wave! If I get it right it will punch right through the wall and give us a bridge to exit by. But I can’t calculate the variables in this condition. Romilla, the pipe might not blow, the stanchion might fall wrong, we might get caught by spiders or consumed in the explosion if we’re too slow. I–’

Romilla looked at the amulet blazing white in her hand, then at Eleanora’s anguished expression. Even at a time like this, she thought, the girl found it so hard to act without certainty.

‘All we have now is faith,’ shouted Romilla. ‘If it fails, then we die. If we fail to act, we die. Just do it and pray to Sigmar for his aid!’

Eleanora bit her lip so hard that Romilla thought she would draw blood. Her hand hovered over a brass switch, fingers twitching as though she longed to count off on them even as fire leapt around them and the platform shrieked.

‘Eleanora, now!’ yelled Romilla.