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"Damn, you Dh'oine bring nothing but bad luck!" Isengrim Faoiltiarna growls against the gale, his ugly, scarred face a grimace of hate. The ship rolls, tossed about in the high waves.
The rudder breaks. Then the main mast.
Cahir jumps to the side to not get crushed by the falling rigging. Shit, that was close!
Suddenly, he sees a shape emerge from the wild spray of the waves and the fog. Rugged black rock. They are headed directly toward it. Fuck!
There is nothing they can do.
Moments later, wood cracks and splinters in the roar of the surf that clashes against the cliff. The ship keels over, breaks apart, spills those aboard into the stormy sea.
Cahir cries out as gigantic waves smash together over his head, pulling him into the watery abyss.
He gasps for air when, for one last time, his head bobs up above the roiling water. A bolt of lightning flashes across the darkness of the sky.
Then he sees it, looming ominously in the distance. Tor Lara, The Tower of the Gull. They will not make it there. This is the end, the end of his mission, of his life. He has failed again. Yet, somehow, Cahir does not care as he sinks deep and deeper, no matter how much he kicks his legs and flails about, his lungs burning, bursting. Finally, he gives in to the pull of the sea that takes him down, down below, where the black waters roll - to the heart of the ocean.
Everything goes black and quiet.
"Cahir, wake up!"
He blinks his eyes open.
"Bad dream?" Milva asks with a sympathetic smile.
"Hmm." He sits up with a grunt, rubs his eyes and gazes around, disoriented. Not the ocean, a forest. Right, they set up camp here yesterday, far away from the sea.
"Have a cup of tea, lad. And some breakfast before we break camp. The sun's almost up and I believe it's going to be a brilliant day." Regis, holding a mug with a steaming herbal concoction out to him, smiling cheerfully through pursed lips.
"Thank you," Cahir mumbles, accepting the mug with slightly shaking hands, the nightmare still vivid in his mind. Had it happened in reality, had their ship shattered against the cliffs off Thanedd, how history would have been different. Better.
Yet, it feels good to be alive and surrounded by friends.
