The hall was lined with rows of ironoak feasting tables, spread with rich red and blue tablecloths and piled high with cooked meats, cheeses, steaming vegetables, huge loafs of oat-bread, tureens of richly scented sauces and carafes of blood-red wine. The great and the good of Draconium lined the benches that ran along either side of each table and had clearly not thought to stand on ceremony. A number of platters were already piled high, and a number of faces were already flushed with an excess of alcohol.

‘They all look so damned happy,’ muttered Hendrick as they searched for a large enough gap to seat all the Swords together. ‘So why do I feel like there’s a knot the size of an ogor’s fist in my stomach?’

‘Their cheer feels forced, manic,’ said Aelyn quietly. ‘I am not sure that many of those here do not harbour misgivings of their own.’

‘Whistling past the boneyard, and dancing a merry jig in Nagash’s shadow,’ commented Bartiman with unseemly cheer.

‘There’s some protection, at least,’ said Hendrick, motioning to the palace guards who stood quietly back in shadowed alcoves along the walls.

‘Doing their best to look unobtrusive in case they panic all the delicate little nobles,’ muttered Borik.

‘I just don’t know,’ said Romilla, shaking her head. ‘It has been a long and trying turning, my friends. I fear you are all jumping at shadows. I agree that the excess displayed here is unseemly, and unwise considering the damage done in the past days to the city’s food stocks. What they have here must represent most of the city’s remaining reserve, even assuming private citizens held their own stores back and contributed them to this merriment. But if the regent militant received divine guidance from the God-King himself then who are we to second-guess? Perhaps we should simply sit, and enjoy this repast, and pray to Sigmar that what Captain Morthan saw last night were the final aftershocks of disquiet, and that whatever malign influence beset this city, it has been driven out.’

Hendrick smiled at Romilla, he couldn’t help himself.

‘It must be good to have such strength of faith,’ he said.

‘It is hard-won, as well you know,’ she said with a tired smile, reaching up to place one hand on his shoulder.

‘Let’s try it your way, then,’ said Hendrick. ‘But I’d ask you all to keep your wits about you. No alcohol for the time being, understood? And for Sigmar’s sake try not to offend the locals.’

Finally finding a suitable space near the front of the hall, Hendrick ushered his comrades to sit either side of a feasting table and fill their platters. He nodded to the small group of Sigmarite priests who sat just down from them, and the holymen and holywomen nodded back with reserved smiles that didn’t reach their eyes.