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While you are hiding from their search parties, you consider your companion's plight and grow ever more fearful for his safety. You are also very anxious that, under torture, he will reveal your identity and the reason why you have come to this town. You are determined not to allow this to happen and so, as midnight approaches, you slip away from your hiding place and make your way stealthily towards the Shugkona Gaol.
The dark alleys and streets surrounding the gaol are illuminated by a hundred guttering brands. Magnaarn's soldiers are everywhere, casting their suspicious eyes over every section of the nighted town laid bare by their torches. Your Kai skills keep you hidden from sight and soon you reach the gaol, but only to discover that the entrance is now heavily guarded by a platoon of Drakkarim.
You abandon your hopes of entering by the front door and instead you circle around to an alley at the rear of the building where you discover a line of windows, each one criss-crossed with iron bars. Instinct leads you to the last in the line and you peer inside to see Captain Prarg lying on a bed of filthy straw. He looks in poor shape; both his eyes are bruised, his lips are swollen, and his bushy moustache is caked with dried blood. You whisper his name and wearily he turns his head towards the cell window. Then he sees you and suddenly his whole face lights up with renewed hope.
'Thank the Gods you are still free, Lone Wolf,' he says quietly, pressing his battered face to the bars. 'The Drakkarim have tried to make me talk but I have kept silent. They know nothing about the mission.'
You examine the cell window and reassure Prarg that you will soon spring him from this gaol, but he insists that you do not risk your life on his account.
'Listen, Sire. I have learned that Magnaarn isn't here in Shugkona. When the gaolers' beat me, I feigned unconsciousness and overheard them say that their leader is at a place called Antah. It's a ruined temple some forty miles away to the north. They talked of certain victory now that their warlord has found "the stone". Please, Lone Wolf, I beseech you to continue without me. Go to Antah and defeat Magnaarn, before it is too late.'
Then a yellowy flicker of torchlight at the end of the alley cuts short your conversation. It is a Drakkarim patrol. They turn the corner and come marching towards you with purposeful steps.
'Don't give up hope, Captain,' you say, as you make ready to run from the approaching patrol, 'I'll come back for you.'
This quarter of the town is now teeming with enemy soldiers, and as you hurry away from the cell window, you know that you are in grave danger of being caught unless you can find somewhere safe to hide.
At length you discover a refuge on the far side of the main square. It is an empty grain storage tower which overlooks Magnaarn's headquarters and the gaol, and it is here that you spend a sleepless night contemplating the mission and the fate of your captured companion. Now that it appears Magnaarn has found the Doomstone, you know you should do as Captain Prarg insisted; you should try to reach Antah and confront him before he can use his new-found power against the Lencians. But you are loath to abandon your guide. You have promised Prarg that you will help him escape, and a Kai Grand Master never breaks his word. The Captain has been captured as a spy, and as such, he can expect no mercy from the Drakkarim.
Soon after dawn you witness some activity in the main square which confirms your worst fears. A squad of Drakkarim engineers arrive and set to work constructing a raised wooden platform in the centre of the square.
An hour later, when their work is complete, a covered wagon arrives. The engineers unload a large lump of black oak which they place in the middle of the platform, and as you focus on this block, a shiver runs the length of your spine the moment you realize its grim purpose.
The solid lump of oak is an executioner's block. Its surface is cut and scarred by blows from a heavy axe, and its sides are stained dark with the blood of a hundred Lencian prisoners who have lost their lives upon it.
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