Hendrick’s eyes widened as those who had had the spores fall upon them pushed themselves to their feet and began to convulse. Bloody foam squeezed between their teeth and trailed down their chins, and their veins stood out dark and purple against their skin. A man who had not been touched rose to help the woman next to him, who had. Confusion and concern were plastered across his features, but they gave way to shock as she spun with a feral snarl and lashed out. Her nails dragged red lines across the man’s cheek and he reeled back.

The woman wasn’t done. She pounced on her would-be helper, her furs and finery whipping incongruously about her. Her face was contorted in a look of absolute fury and her eyeballs had turned a reddish-purple, as though the blood inside them had burst its channels. The table was only a dozen or so feet from where the Swords had sat themselves, and so Hendrick had a perfect view as the woman pinned the man to the table by his shoulder. Her chest hitched, her jaws yawned wide, and Hendrick’s gorge rose as she vomited a torrent of purple, porridgey slime across her victim’s face. Frantic with disgust, the pinned man managed to get an arm free and land a punch on his assailant’s jaw, knocking her back.

Even as he staggered, dripping, to his feet, the male feastgoer started to shudder and whine, spitting up clots of bruised foam. Unperturbed by a blow that should have stunned her at the very least, his attacker darted past him with a shriek and launched herself at a merchant’s wife who was trying to extricate herself from her bench-seat. The two went over in a mass of flailing limbs, screaming and vomit-spatters.

‘What in the Eight Realms is going on?’ exclaimed Bartiman, hauling himself to his feet and leaning on his staff.

‘It’s begun!’ said Hendrick, before adding, ‘Whatever in Sigmar’s name it is.’

‘Where are the guards?’ asked Romilla.

‘Trapped back in the shadows in those stupid alcoves,’ answered Olt. ‘They’ll be lucky if they don’t get crushed in the panic.’

‘Hrukni, up to us then,’ said Borik.

‘That’s if you’ve not been poisoned like the regent,’ snapped Hendrick. ‘I damned well told you not to drink.’

Borik tossed his goblet aside and spat. ‘Duardin constitution lad,’ he growled, but Hendrick thought he detected a note of concern there all the same.

‘Hendrick, orders?’ asked Aelyn. For an instant, he froze as the realisation struck him that it was he, not his brother, who would have to set their course. He, not Varlen, whose job it was to keep them alive and get the job done. Whatever the job even was, now, with the regent militant possibly dead and some form of spore-madness sweeping through the hall.