This spectacle of unbridled foulness could not be easy on her.

‘It may be,’ Aelyn allowed. ‘A clue, perhaps. If so, we should not expose ourselves to this foulness any longer than we must.’

Toftin looked at her with fresh alarm. ‘Do you think it’s catching?’ he asked. ‘Bad air, curdled humours?’

Aelyn shrugged. A muscle twitched in her cheek. Her mind had already leapt ahead.

‘Are there other routes in and out of here?’ she asked.

‘The… er… the big doors at the street end,’ said Toftin, gesturing. ‘There’s another entrance like this at the back, another set of steps down for labourers. Oh! And there’s the culvert, empties right into the sewers down there by the far corner.’

‘Rain drainage?’ asked Borik. Toftin shook his head.

‘Smouldergrain,’ he said, and when they offered him blank looks he elaborated. ‘It sweats when you bag it up. The runoff sours the grain if you leave it to stand, and in extreme cases build-up can even be explosive. So, we let it drain into the sewers. That way it doesn’t… um… spoil.’

‘Didn’t work,’ said Borik, earning an angry glare from Toftin.

‘There’s food ruined, livelihoods lost. Sigmar’s hammer, there’s lives lost. Is this a joke to you?’ asked the overseer.

‘Hardly,’ grunted Borik.

‘Overseer Toftin, thank you for your aid,’ said Aelyn, capturing his gaze with hers and holding it. Toftin seemed for the first time to become aware he was standing in the presence of an aelf, registered her alien features and the piercing amber eyes that shone beneath her cowl. Aelyn had found that many humans, especially the less-well-travelled, could be knocked off their stride by her ‘otherness’. Toftin nodded absently, taking an involuntary step away from her.

‘Of course, that is, er…’

‘We will circle around to inspect the rear entrance in case anyone has used that to gain entry and commit malfeasance,’ said Aelyn. ‘I would ask on behalf of the city watch that you don’t permit anyone in here in case there is a contaminant that may spread.’

‘Of course,’ said Toftin again. He looked relieved when they swept past him and out through the meagre office chambers of the warehouse into the rainy street beyond.

‘That’ll all need burning,’ said Borik.

‘The rear entrance, really?’ asked Romilla as she swathed herself in her leather cloak and raised a scald-shade over her head. Next to them, Borik’s armour emitted a constant chorus of metallic pings and plinks as the heavy rain rebounded from it.

‘No,’ said Aelyn. ‘Captain Morthan spoke of tunnels, did she not? Things move beneath the surface here.’

‘The sewer culvert, then,’ said Romilla with a sigh. ‘Sigmar’s grace, won’t that be pleasant.’