19
Using your advanced Kai skills you conjure up a cloud of fog which completely obscures you from the sight of the approaching lookouts.
‘Hurry, captain!’ you whisper, as you pull Prarg to his feet. ‘We must get away before the wind destroys our screen.’
The lookouts stumble into the fog and you hear them cursing as you make good your escape along the beach. You soon outdistance them and, a few minutes later, you happen upon a small secluded cove where Captain Prarg, to his delight, discovers a rusty anchor. At first you cannot fathom why this should please him so; then he tells you that it is a landmark, left on purpose by agents of King Sarnac to point the way to the cave where they have left your boat and provisions. You find the cave and together you haul the boat down the beach and raise its coal-black sail before pushing it out into the icy waters of the Tentarias.
Once aboard, you trim the sail whilst Prarg takes charge of the rudder. There is a good wind and within minutes your tiny craft is bobbing towards the far western channel of the Hellswamp, twenty miles distant. You ask Prarg if this dark estuary has a name, and he replies, ‘Yes. The Drakkarim call it “Dakushna’s Channel” after the Darklord who once commanded the city-fortress of Kagorst. They say it is a fitting dedication, for the waterway is as deadly and as treacherous as the being after whom it is named.’
