In the courtyard beyond, the undead guards had all toppled from the walkway on the wall and lay sprawled on the flagstones, but movement was returning to them. Limbs wavered and twitched. Like armoured beetles on their backs. We’d better get out of here. Because, now, I am all used up.

‘I’d almost moved to that wall you destroyed, you know.’

‘That would have been very unfortunate,’ Quick Ben replied. ‘Climb aboard – we’re leaving.’

‘Finally, some wisdom!’

Bauchelain’s eyes opened. Emancipor looked down on him.

‘We’re in the garden, master,’ the servant said. ‘I dragged you and Korbal out. Doused the fire, too. Got to go open all the windows now ...’

‘Very good, Emancipor,’ the grey-bearded necromancer groaned after a moment. ‘Emancipor,’ he called when the servant made to move away.

‘Master?’

‘I confess ... to a certain ... confusion. Do we possess some chronic flaw, Emancipor?’

‘Sir?’

‘Underestima— oh, never mind, Emancipor. Be about your tasks, then.’

‘Aye, master.’

‘Oh, and you’ve earned a bonus for your efforts – what do you wish?’

The servant stared down at Bauchelain for a dozen heartbeats, then he shook his head. ‘It’s all right, master. Part of my job. And I’ll be about it, now.’

The necromancer raised his head to watch the old man trudge back into the house. ‘Such a modest man,’ he breathed. He looked down the length of his tattered, bruised body, and raggedly sighed. ‘What’s left in my wardrobe, I wonder?’

Insofar as he could recall – and given recent events – not much.

Shrouded once more in shadow, Quick Ben made his way down the rubble-littered street. Most of the fires had either died down or been extinguished, and not one of the remaining structures showed any light behind shutters or from gaping windows. The stars commanded the night sky, though darkness ruled the city.

‘Damned eerie,’ Talamandas whispered.

The wizard softly grunted. ‘That’s rich, coming from someone who’s spent generations in an urn in the middle of a barrow.’

‘Wanderers like you have no appreciation of familiarity,’ the sticksnare sniffed.

The dark mass of the Thrall blotted the skyline directly ahead. Faint torchlight from the square before the main gate cast the structure’s angled stones in dulled relief. As they entered an avenue that led to the concourse they came upon the first knot of Barghast, surrounding a small fire built from broken furniture. Tarps slung between the buildings down the avenue’s length made the passage beyond a kind of tunnel, strikingly similar to market streets in Seven Cities. Figures lay sleeping along the edges down the entire length. Various cookfires painted smoke-stained, mottled patterns of light on the undersides of the tarps. A good many Barghast warriors remained awake, watchful.