Night-time and they’d come back for more. The huge gun swung around in a haemorrhage of steam, sounding good. Behind me, Avez was loading the first rune into the chamber. It was squat and densely inscribed – European design, in contrast to the sleek Nile Sevens I usually used.

“Hey Avez, we’ll need the #7 Egyptians to get up there!”
“We’re low on Niles and there’s thousands of Six-point-Fives left, so…”
“Man, you know I hate those!”
“No choice Raoul, you know I’m just the loader,” he replied, pointing at the pile of Half-Six Sausages he was sitting on. I shook my head, looking up into the sky. The freshly-cast Illuminations spilled night-light down on us and silhouetted the enemy in the clouds they were hiding in.

The 6.5mm Sausage hurled itself into the sky, quickly followed by five more that burst sequentially in a display of pyromancy. I tracked one shape, throwing fire runes at it until I saw it suddenly plunge downwards – there were things to be said for the new guns, unreliable though they were.