Aelyn twisted in the air. In a feat of agility, she kicked one foot against the buckling railing and, at full stretch, got a hand to the ladder. The aelf curled her long, strong fingers around an iron rung and grabbed hold. She snatched Borik’s ammo harness with her other hand.

‘Romilla!’ she yelled.

The priest managed to snatch the ladder as the wood of the walkway plunged away into the raging waters below. She swung, banging hard against Aelyn and nearly dislodging her grip.

Aelyn screamed with the effort of hanging on to Borik. The duardin’s armour-clad weight was enormous, and Aelyn felt tendon and muscle strain and begin to tear in her limbs as she clung on. Her shoulder was going to pop from its socket any moment. Her fingers were white hot agony. The ladder groaned ominously. Aelyn tasted blood in her mouth as she pushed her body past its limits.

‘Drop me, or we’ll all drown,’ yelled the duardin.

Aelyn dimly heard Romilla speaking low and fast. A prayer, she thought incoherently. Then she felt something give in her wrist, felt something else blossom hot and awful somewhere in her chest, felt her fingers begin to slip.

White light filled the tunnel, the sudden flare of a lightning bolt unleashed from the heavens. Through a haze of pain, Aelyn felt Borik’s weight taken off her as Romilla reached down, grasped the duardin by his other shoulder guard and hefted him upwards with no apparent effort.

Aelyn blinked as she saw the corona of holy light wreathing Romilla’s head, the lightning crackling around her limbs.

‘Climb,’ spat Romilla, her voice underpinned with a rumble of thunder. ‘Sigmar’s miracles are brief.’

Limbs shaking, her left arm screaming with pain and virtually useless, Aelyn dragged herself up the ladder towards the metal cover above. Below her she heard Borik’s gauntlets and boots clanging against the ladder’s rungs. The holy light flickered out as suddenly as it had come, and the shuddering in the brickwork around them redoubled.

With a last surge of strength, Aelyn heaved the sewer cover aside and dragged herself out onto the rain-slick cobbles, uncaring of the downpour that engulfed her. She felt it scald her skin, but simply didn’t have the energy to shield herself. Behind her, Aelyn heard her comrades pull themselves, coughing and gasping, into the light. The street convulsed beneath her, then someone was lifting her up, wrapping a rain-cloak about her. She saw Romilla’s concerned face, skin pale, eyes red-ringed, then nothing.

Eleanora looked up from her work in surprise as a shudder ran through her workbench. Metal clattered as cogs toppled from their neat stack and spilled across the table. Her carefully arranged tools jumped and danced.

She sat back, frowning, swivelling the lens of her monocle away from her face.

‘What is happening?’ she asked the empty air.