Hendrick gave a low grunt. His thoughts were far away, filled with the darkness of the night before. He heard again the screams of the townsfolk and the raving of his brother, the crack and crunch as Varlen unmade them with hands that had become talons. He felt the awful shock up his arms as Reckoner connected with his brother’s chest, the sensation so real that Hendrick’s knuckles twitched with it. He heard his companions’ cries as they fought to subdue the monster that had once been their leader and friend, and he smelled the smoke as the villagers lit their great pyre. He jumped as he felt a hand-clap land on his shoulder, half fearing as he looked up that he would see his brother’s twisted visage and melting pupils.

Instead, he saw Romilla crouched before him.

‘It doesn’t do to dwell, Hendrick,’ she said, her tone stern but not unkind. ‘What happened was too terrible to keep reliving.’

‘What did happen?’ asked Aelyn. ‘Are we sure we know?’

‘It was that damned crown,’ replied Hendrick. ‘I told him to leave it where it lay.’

‘You know Varlen,’ said Romilla, then winced at the faux pas. ‘Knew. Sorry. We had fought our way through Sigmar-knew-what to get to the heart of that Dreadhold. If there was a prize to be had for all that effort, he was going to claim it. And once it was on his brow–’

‘It wouldn’t come off,’ growled Hendrick. ‘We all saw him trying to pry the damned thing off his skull. We all saw what it did to him!’ He took a breath, lowered his voice. ‘There’s no sense indulging in should-haves or would-haves. Varlen put the crown on, and saw visions, and they led him here to his death.’

‘The Moonshadow brings death,’ said Aelyn. ‘That’s what he was shouting, at the end, when he… burned. “The Moonshadow brings death to Draconium”. What do you suppose it means?’

‘Varlen was under the influence of a malefic artefact,’ said Romilla. ‘It didn’t mean a thing.’

‘Yes, it did,’ said Hendrick, and even he was surprised at the iron he heard in his voice. They were all silent for a few moments, and he felt his companions glancing uncomfortably at one another. Eleanora’s tools clicked relentlessly, dry and irritating jags of sound in the sepulchral quiet of the chamber.

He drew breath, wanting to shout at her to leave the damn mechanism alone. Before he could, Aelyn spoke.

‘We need to decide what to do.’

‘The townsfolk are undoubtedly winding themselves up to something even now,’ said Romilla. ‘They lost loved ones last night, in horrible ways, and it was us that brought that horror into their home. They won’t care that it wasn’t intentional, and they won’t stay too frightened to act forever.’