Almost never happens. Mind you, Blorri lost a hand that way. Had to have it replaced with a hook."

Felix swiftly handed the bomb back to Varek who tucked it back inside the pocket of his robes. He was beginning to think this mild-mannered young dwarf was crazier than he looked. Perhaps all dwarfs were.

"Makaisson made it, you know. He's good at that sort of thing."

"Makaisson. Malakai Makaisson?" Gotrek asked. That maniac!"

Felix looked at the Slayer in open-mouthed astonishment. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet this Makaisson. Anyone who Gotrek could describe as a maniac must be crazed indeed. Could probably win prizes for their madness, in fact. Gotrek caught Felix's look.

"Makaisson believes in heavier-than-air flight. Thinks he can make things fly."

"Gyrocopters fly," Snorri piped in. "Snorri been up in one. Fell out. Landed on head. No damage."

"Not gyrocopters. Big things! And he builds ships! Ships! That's an unnatural interest for a dwarf. I hate ships almost as much as I hate elves!"

"He built the biggest steamship ever," Varek said conversationally. The Unsinkable. Was two hundred paces long. Weighed five hundred tons. It had steam-powered gatling turrets. It had a crew of over three hundred dwarfs and thirty engineers. It could sail at three leagues an hour. Such an impressive sight it was, with its paddles churning the sea to foam and its pennons flying in the breeze."

It certainly sounded impressive, Felix thought, suddenly realising how far the dwarfs had taken this strange magic they called "engineering'. Like everybody else in the Empire, Felix knew about steam-tanks, the armoured vehicles which were the spearhead of the realm's mighty armies. This thing sounded like it made the steam-tank look like a child's toy. Still, if it was so impressive, he wondered, why had he never heard of it?

"What happened to the Unsinkable? Where is it now?"

There was a brief embarrassed silence from the dwarfs.

"Err… it sank," Varek said eventually.

"Hit a rock on its first trip out," Snorri added.

"Some people claim the boiler exploded," Varek said.

"Lost with all hands," Snorri added with the almost happy expression with which dwarfs always seemed to confront the worst news.

"Except Makaisson. He was picked up later by human ship.