It might well have seemed like a sea to the peasants that first discovered it, for it was larger than any other lake in the Empire, but according to Captain Vance it could theoretically be crossed with less than a day’s sail. Volkmar gazed out across the thin mist that covered the waters. The peasants had got the first part of the name right, at least. Woe betide the fool who plied it in anything less than a waterborne fortress. The lake’s waters were black with some nameless curse. Grasping little waves clawed at beaches whose sands were little more than powdered bone. Scattered amongst the osseous dunes were the bleached remains of strange and indefinable monsters that prowled Helsee’s depths. Their skulls reminded Volkmar of the dragon bones he had gawped at as a boy in the Altdorfer Mausoleum; he had spent the rest of the day slaying invisible dragons with the wooden Ghal Maraz his father had carved him. Precious times, far too long in the past. On the shores of the lake the crusaders were debarking from the Luitpold III with commendable efficiency.
