There were a fair few empty tankards collected on the table between the Swords of Sigmar. After the day they’d had, even Aelyn was drinking, though she had curled her lip at the human-brewed ale. The inn’s barkeep, a stocky man named Gathe, slowly polished his glassware and watched them with an appraising eye. Hendrick supposed, glancing around at the near-empty common room with its guttering fire and smattering of lone drinkers huddled in dark corners, that their coin had been keeping the Drake’s Crown going these last few days.

‘We’ve had worse,’ said Hendrick, trying to sound solid and reassuring. To his own ears his slightly slurred assurances just sounded foolish.

‘When?’ asked Olt, who had given up hiding under his cloak, having declared that the city folk had worse things to worry about than some tattooed heathen. ‘Before I met you Heav’ners, yes? Because I don’t remember a turning this cursed in the last year.’

‘What is going on in this city?’ asked Romilla, staring around at them.

‘More’s the point, what are we still doing in the middle of it?’ asked Borik.

‘We took a contract with Captain Morthan,’ said Hendrick, frowning. ‘And more to the point, we seek to honour Varlen’s passing.’

‘Aye, and we took another contract before that with the Olmori tribe. Last I checked, their loot is still sitting in our bags and we’re overdue returning it, and meanwhile Varlen is just as dead as ever and far beyond caring what we do or don’t do to honour him,’ said Borik, setting his dented armour down with a thump. ‘Now, I’ll ask again, why aren’t we getting out of here tonight, now?’

‘Borik, the watch–’ began Bartiman.

‘Have their rust-taken hands full, and most of them are too busy hiding under the nearest roof to care anymore what’s happening in the streets!’ exclaimed Borik. ‘With the skills we’ve got, hrukni, we could be out of here in half a night at most and long gone by dawn.’

‘And when we hear that Draconium fell, and we weren’t here to help prevent whatever horror transpired?’ asked Romilla. ‘Could you live with that on your conscience, Borik?’

‘They’ve an entire city militia, the whole watch,’ he said, exasperation causing him to raise his voice loud enough that Hendrick winced. ‘What difference are a handful of injured, tired, pissed off mercenaries going to make, eh? This isn’t our problem.’

‘When Varlen died for this, it became our problem,’ said Hendrick.

‘I’m sorry for the loss of your brother,’ said Borik. ‘But he’s dead. He’s gone. In my fleet, we give our dead the burial of the winds, then we move on. A corpse is just ballast, Hendrick, and a memory doesn’t care how it’s kept.’