Knight of the Black Rose

NINE

The cracked, weather-beaten sign above the tavern read Blood on the Vine, and it creaked as the wind pushed through the square. The building holding up the sign, a tavern, had seen better days. Sun-bleached wooden shutters framed smudged windows, and whitewash clung to the walls in a few places. The tavern’s closed door seemed to warn that only regulars were welcome.

Not that many people passed by the shabby place. Though it was almost noon, the village square remained subdued. A few tradesmen delivered their wares, and the scarecrow of a man who held the job of tax collector for the burgomaster shuffled from shop to shop.

“Looks like a storm. With luck, the bastard’ll be hit by lightning,” one of the patrons of the Blood on the Vine noted sourly, eyeing the tax man through a small clean spot in the window. The words sounded like thunder in the low-roofed room, for the only other noise came from the gently crackling fire in the hearth.

Taking a swallow of watery wine, he looked to his fellows for support. “I said, with luck he’ll be blasted by lightning.”

The two other men in the tavern weren’t up to the task. Arik, the barkeep, murmured something incomprehensible in a dull voice and went back to cleaning glasses that would not be used for days. Thin as he was, he might have been a brother to the scarecrow tax man, but he was as well liked as the burgomaster’s man was despised and resented. Most older villagers, both men and women, had been served by Arik or his father-who had also been named Arik. The family that owned the Blood on the Vine thought it best to keep the name of the barkeep the same, and the townsfolk found it convenient.

The other man ignored the invitation to rail against the tax collector altogether and stared intently at the pattern of rings and chips worn into the tabletop before him. His blue eyes betrayed the nagging dread that welled inside him, and his pale face held a haunted expression. Unlike the other two in the tavern, he was clean-shaven and his blond hair was neatly trimmed. The straight bangs over his wrinkled brow emphasized the plumpness of his features, making him look younger than his fifty winters.

“Hey, Terlarm,” the man at the window called. “Are you too busy praying to answer me?”

“Leave him be, Donovich,” Arik said from his place behind the bar, in front of the shelf full of glasses. “If you’d witnessed a beast of the night slaughter your friends, you’d not be so boisterous either.”

Donovich downed the last of his wine, wiped a dirty hand across his drooping mustache, and swaggered to the open cask set at one end of the taproom. “True enough, I suppose, but it was my brother the damned Vistani murdered the other night, wasn’t it?” To emphasize the point, he slapped the black arm band he wore, a symbol of grief that told all Barovians the bearer had recently lost family. “You don’t see me moping around.”

Raising his blue eyes at last, Terlarm noted, “Grief is not so easily forgotten where I come from.”

“You’ve been in Barovia long enough to have learned our ways,” Donovich snapped. Like most villagers, he had little tolerance and less patience for outsiders. He refilled his cup and took a place at the table in front of the fireplace.

Terlarm swallowed a caustic reply, then tugged at the sleeve of his tattered red robe. The boyar’s words were true enough; he’d been in Barovia for almost thirty years now. Long ago, he and four others had become lost in a bank of fog, only to emerge from the mists in the village of Barovia. Melancholy washed over the cleric as he remembered his home and the four others who had become trapped in the godsforsaken netherworld with him. “I’ll return to Palanthas some day,” he murmured, half to himself. “It’s the most beautiful city in Ansalon. Its walls have never been breached, its white towers have never-”

The door swung open suddenly, interrupting Terlarm’s morose reverie and eliciting a curse from Arik at the dust spewed into the room by the wind. When they saw the young woman framed by the doorway, they stared, slack-jawed and amazed. The Vistani’s dark curls danced in the wind, and the frayed hem of her blood-red dress swirled up, revealing scratched but shapely legs. She stepped inside, looking over her shoulder as if worried about some unseen pursuer, then closed the door.

Arik picked up a broom, which looked almost as spindly as his arms, and started to sweep up the dirt. “Your kind’s not wanted here.”

Magda swallowed hard. She knew it was dangerous for a Vistani to travel alone anywhere near the village; Barovians blamed much of their misfortune on the wandering tribes. “I wish no trouble, friend,” she said, pouring on the charm with practiced ease. “I’m looking for a villager, a priest named Terlarm. Perhaps you gentlemen know where I might find him.”

Donovich stood, knocking over a bench. The clatter startled Magda, but she maintained her pleasant facade as best she could. The burly man took a step toward the Vistani. “Do you know Boyar Grest from this village?” he asked, his voice even and deceptively calm.

Her scuffle with the obnoxious landowner who had tried to buy her virtue already seemed like ancient history. She studied the heavyset man who now stood before her. His mustache and shaggy, dark hair marked him as a local, but his beady eyes and the set of his jaw warned Magda that he might be a relative of Grest’s. And the black arm band the man wore told of a recent loss.

“Many know him,” she replied cautiously. “He is a great man and a friend to my people. But, please, I am-”

Sneering, Donovich pounded a table with his fist. “Your people killed him.” He fished into the pocket of his rough woolen pants and recovered a silver charm on a long leather cord. The teardrop pendant winked in the firelight. “When they found him, dazed and dying by the side of the road, he kept muttering about the Vistani’s promise. He said the pendant should have made him invisible to creatures of darkness.”

The red-robed priest stepped between Magda and Donovich. “Go outside,” he said to the woman. “I’m Terlarm. I’ll talk to you outside.”

A glimmer of recognition dawned on Magda. The fat cleric was the same man who they had seen at the hanging near the ruined church, and who they had encountered in the forest after the dwarf had broken free of his bonds. But before the Vistani could respond, the rugged boyar cuffed Terlarm soundly with a meaty hand. The cleric sprawled on the ground, dazed.

“Mind your own damned business,” Donovich growled without looking at Terlarm. He grabbed Magda by the throat and pushed her flat on a table. The Vistani struggled against the grip, but the boyar was very strong.

Arik went about his business. With Herr Grest dead, Donovich was the head of his family now; it wouldn’t do to thwart the vengeance of an influential landowner. Besides, he mused as he resumed cleaning the glasses, the Vistani are never very good customers anyway.

Magda kicked Donovich hard in the shin and clawed at his face with her fingernails. It may have been the many cups of wine or the stupor of rage that dulled his senses, but whatever the cause, the boyar didn’t seem to feel the blows. The Vistani struggled for the dirk still hidden in the small sack tied to her waist, but Donovich had unwittingly pinned the weapon beneath his bulk. She gasped futilely for air.

“Leave the woman alone.”

The voice that echoed hollowly in the room did not startle Magda as it did Arik. The barkeep spun about, for the words had come from the shadowed corner right behind him. There an armored figure stood, orange eyes glowing from inside his helmet. The stranger stank of charred cloth, and sooty ash clung to his ornate armor. Holding an obviously wounded right arm close to his chest, the knight grabbed the barkeep’s forehead and twisted his head sharply. The snap of Arik’s neck breaking was followed by the shattering of glass.

Intent on his victim, Donovich didn’t hear the commotion. Neither did he loosen his grip or turn his beady eyes away from the choking, red-faced Vistani pinned beneath him, even after the wave of cold had settled on his back. In fact, the boyar never saw Lord Soth raise his gauntleted left hand and lash out. Donovich’s skull caved in at the blow, and he collapsed, bleeding, on top of Magda.

The death knight lifted the boyar’s corpse and dropped it onto the floor. When Magda began to choke, her hands at her throat as if that might bring more air to her tortured lungs, Soth paid her little mind. Instead he knelt by Terlarm’s side.

The cleric came to slowly, but when his eyes could focus again, the death knight’s ancient, ruined armor-the armor of a Solamnic Knight-filled his vision. “Gilean preserve me!” he gasped.

“You know who I am?” Soth asked.

Nodding weakly, Terlarm raised himself on wobbly arms. Few on Krynn, especially those who lived in Palanthas, did not know the story of Lord Soth, the Knight of the Black Rose. Glancing about the room, Terlarm saw the bloody corpses of the villagers.

The cleric stuttered a few nonsensical phrases, then Soth held up a hand and silenced him. “You and four others were brought here from Palanthas thirty years ago,” the death knight noted. “In the time you have been in Barovia, have you ever heard tales of someone returning to Krynn?”

“They’re all dead,” he mumbled numbly. For a moment, Soth wasn’t certain if the cleric meant his four friends or the other patrons of the tavern. “There were five of us, all clerics or mages devoted to the Balance.” Spreading his arms, he glanced at his worn red robes. “One night we went for a walk by the harbor in Palanthas. A fog rolled in, a thick mist swallowed us, and when we stepped out of it, we were in this village.”

He smiled, then a mad giggle escaped his lips. “Keth and Bast and Fingelin, they all were killed by the watcher, the thing at the end of the dark tunnel. And Voldra…” He made a ritual symbol of blessing over his heart. “The castle took him. Now there’s only me.”

After a moment, Terlarm leaned forward and studied the death knight closely. “You are trapped here, too?” he asked, his eyes filled with tears. “Then I was correct all along! This place is a hell!” The cleric looked to the grimy ceiling and raised his hands. “Gilean, Master of the Balance, forgive me for my sins. At least tell me what crimes I have committed so I may atone for them. Perhaps then you’ll let me through the gate, past the watcher-”

There was an edge in the cleric’s words and a wildness in his eyes. The mention of a gate made Soth suddenly take notice of his rambling. “Gate?” the death knight repeated. “Have you discovered a way back to Krynn?”

Fear filled Terlarm’s eyes. “The Vistani told us of a way back home. They sold us the information for all the gold we had.” The madman frowned. “The gate was there, all right, but the watcher wouldn’t let us by. Only Voldra and I escaped. It killed all the others.”

“Where is it?” Soth growled.

“At the fork of the River Luna,” the cleric said softly, shrinking back from the death knight. “But the watcher-”

Soth laughed. “The watcher means nothing to me!”

“Lord Soth?” a soft voice said from behind the undead warrior. He turned to face Magda. The woman rubbed her bruised throat, and the claw marks on her shoulder from the gargoyle were bleeding again. Her voice hoarse, she added, “I can lead you to the fork in the river. I’ve heard stories about the gate that’s supposed to lie there.”

Soth studied her for a moment. Once free of Castle Ravenloft, Magda had revealed Strahd’s intention to use her as a spy. After what had happened in the keep, the woman was in danger from the count, so she had her reasons for aiding the death knight. She was set against Strahd, or so her battle with the gargoyle seemed to show, but that was not the main reason Soth believed her.

Magda had proven herself far stronger than the death knight would have suspected on the night he destroyed the Vistani camp. She had defied Strahd, defeated one of his minions, and now she had even overcome her fear of Soth. Such strength meant a great deal to the death knight. He had always found weaklings to be untrustworthy-like the treacherous Caradoc-but Magda was far from weak-willed. Still, he had learned enough in Barovia to know trust should never be given fully. “Go on,” he said guardedly.

“The storytellers in a few of the local tribes speak of a gate to other worlds,” she began. “It’s been there for a long time. One of my ancestors-a hero named Kulchek-escaped from Barovia through the same gate. Legend has it that some horrible guardian watches over it now, some… thing. ”

The cleric shook his head. “It had eyes and mouths, and it made us all see visions. Nothing we did could hurt it.” He hugged himself tightly. “First it bit off Keth’s arm. Blood. Oh, gods, blood everywhere…”

As the man rambled on, the death knight turned to Magda. “Does the River Luna run between here and Duke Gundar’s castle?” When she noted that it did, Soth said simply, “Let us start on our way, then.”

Before the death knight had even reached the exit, Magda had stripped Donovich and Arik of their purses. She took the barkeep’s shoes, too. The boots’ worn leather would offer little comfort, but the Vistani knew better than to begin a long trek barefoot. Finally, she retrieved the teardrop-shaped charm from the boyar’s pocket and slipped it into her sack. One never knew when such charms might come in handy.

“Please,” the cleric said, his hands knit together in supplication before Soth, “take me with you. Perhaps you will defeat the watcher.” He got to his knees. “Take me back to Palanthas.”

“Palanthas is gone,” the death knight noted. “I led the armies that sacked it a few days ago.” He turned his back on the cleric and pushed open the door.

The priest whimpered and tugged at the hem of his red robes. “It can’t be gone,” he said. “I won’t believe it. Palanthas has never been invaded. Its beautiful walls have never been breached, its towers…”

The death knight strode unimpeded through the streets of the village. Shutters banged closed and mothers hustled their ragged children inside their homes. Even the trade road into the mountains to the west remained strangely empty as the dead man and the Vistani left the village behind. Only once, a few miles along the Svalich Road, did Magda think she saw something following them, but when she stopped and studied their trail, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Soth sat crosslegged at the mouth of a small cave, watching the rain fall in cold, swollen drops. It beat a jarring, staccato rhythm on the ground around the mouth of the cave. The death knight silently cursed the weather. The noise would make it difficult to hear anything creeping from the rocky crevices or scattered copses of trees nearby. It might even prevent him from hearing if the traps he’d set up were sprung during the night.

Turning his orange eyes to the nighttime forest, Soth scanned the inhospitable landscape for any sign of the trio of wolves that had begun to follow them almost immediately after they’d left the village almost two days past. The shaggy beasts had always remained just out of sight, exchanging piercing howls. Something else was tracking the duo as well. Magda had glimpsed it once, outside the village, and the death knight, too, had spotted a hairy, child-sized thing loping through the underbrush on the following day.

“Are they still out there?” Magda asked from deeper inside the cave.

“Yes,” Soth replied. “But the wolves will not attack me, and the other thing… We shall see.”

A pause followed. “Why hasn’t Strahd come after us?”

The death knight did not respond at first, for he truly did not know why the count had failed to chase them. The wolves were clearly his spies; they had led Soth toward the Vistani camp his first night in Barovia. “His reasons do not matter as long as we reach this portal near the river or the one in Duke Gundar’s castle.”

A wolf howled long and low in the distance. Closer to the cave, another answered, and a third yelped its response from an outcropping of rock above the cave entrance. As Soth scanned the trees and blisters of granite for some sign of the beasts, another sound came to his ears: music.

Magda half-sang, half-hummed an ancient Vistani bardic song. The death knight caught snatches of the story-a strangely familiar tale of love gained and lost. It was not the fact the gypsy was singing that caught Soth’s attention; he’d been in enough battles, awaited enough tense confrontations during his time as a Knight of Solamnia, to recognize an attempt to calm jangled nerves.

No, it was the tune itself that tugged at the corners of his subconscious. The song insinuated itself into the death knight’s mind and curled up like a cat before the cold hearth of his memories. At this prompting, images buried by hundreds of years of disregard shrugged off their ashes and flared to life. Soth marveled at the memories, even as he attempted to smother them. The images would not be damped, though, and soon he was lost in the past, remembering…

Music filled Dargaard Keep. Five minstrels in the gallery overlooking the large, circular main hall played a light air on dulcimer, horn, flute, and drum. The spritely notes seemed to leap over the railing, down the twin curving stairs running along the walls, then prance around each reveler in the room. Six men and women, attired in their finest silks and brocades, hose and silver-buckled shoes, twirled by pairs. The music twirled with them, then rose higher and higher toward the room’s massive chandelier and vaulted, rose-colored ceiling.

As the dance went on, booming laughter twined with the music. The laughter came from the thirteen renowned knights clustered around a table at the room’s edge. Their hands cupping goblets that were brimming with sweet wine from the vineyards of Solamnia, the men loudly saluted the wedding couple who hosted the revelry. This done, they returned to telling stories of heroic deeds and fair maidens.

The song reached a crescendo, sweeping the dancers in breathless haste around the room, then ended suddenly. The three couples clapped for the minstrels, but their polite appreciation of the musicians was overwhelmed by a burst of loud boasting.

“There was never a man in Solamnia, nay the entire continent of Ansalon, who could best Sir Mikel in a test of wit!” one of the knights shouted. He gestured with his cup to the smiling man on his right. “Why, in Palanthas that night-”

Anger swelled in the breast of one of the dancers. Before the knight could elaborate on his boast, this dancer, Lord Soth, took a single step away from his partner. “My loyal retainers,” Soth proclaimed, his voice silencing the boasts and laughter. “You do a disservice to minstrels who visit us.”

The thirteen knights lowered their wine cups as one. Soth could see the shame in their eyes, though he could not tell if it was feigned or genuine. The men put leather-gloved hands together in gentle applause, but kept their contrite faces upon the man who had pointed out their breach of etiquette.

After a moment, Soth dismissed the minstrels with a wave of his hand. He gave his men the briefest of glances, but they knew from his slight frown that they were to moderate their revelry. Finally, he returned to his lovely partner.

“Sincere apologies, my dear,” Lord Soth said, taking his new wife’s hand. He gazed into her pale blue eyes and ran his fingertips gently across her lily-white cheek. The warmth of her skin made desire stir within him. “My knights sometimes forget themselves. They are quite happy for me, knowing my marriage to you will make this keep a joyful place.” He laughed softly. “Perhaps they celebrate in hopes your fair temper will soften my hand in ruling the lands surrounding Dargaard.”

The elfmaid smiled sweetly. “There is nothing we cannot overcome together, you know.” She nodded her fine-boned chin, and her long golden hair stirred, revealing the daintily pointed ears of a high-born elf. “Perhaps even Paladine, given time-”

“Indeed,” one of the other dancers chimed in, moving to Soth’s side. “Lady Isolde is correct. The great god Paladine, Father of Good, Master of Law, will light your way from this, er, time of tribulation. That you brought me here to officiate over your union is a good step, of course. We of Paladine’s faithful are certain that such a fine knight as yourself will come to see…”

The speaker, a fatuous cleric of little reputation, let his comment trail off and grinned obsequiously when Soth turned his gaze upon him. The knight could feel the tension drawing his mouth into a grim line and draining the happiness from his heart. His desire for his wife fled in the face of boiling anger, a desire to strike the man before him. Soth found it difficult to banish these thoughts of violence, thoughts that were so familiar to him of late.

“Disciple Garath,” the knight murmured, taking his hand from his wife’s grasp, “we value your presence at the ceremony. Yet even your position as celebrant at this wedding does not give you the right to offer comment on our private problems.”

The priest straightened the few wisps of hair remaining on his shining pate and swallowed nervously. His wife, a sour-looking woman twice the age of the young cleric, hurried to prevent her husband from doing any more damage.

“Your Lordship is correct, of course,” she offered. With a mongoose-quick grab, she snatched Garath’s hand. “We are honored to be at this splendid occasion. The musicians are fine, are they not?” Before Soth could answer, she turned to Lady Isolde. “That is a lovely dress, by the way. I understand you made it yourself.”

The elfmaid blushed. “I made do with what we had in the keep. I’m glad you find it pleasing.” She raised her arms, and the gossamer shawl of the snow-white dress wafted gently in response. Isolde gazed down at the floor-length gown, and the slightest veil of sadness crept over her eyes.

Soth gritted his teeth. In Silvanost, the land of Isolde’s people, the wedding gowns of the high-born were strewn with pearls and other precious gems; hers was but a slight imitation of the beautiful garb her sisters and friends would wear upon their wedding days. Soth could see the unhappiness marring her beautiful features as she looked up, and that expression cast a shadow across his own heart.

Wandering to various other subjects, the conversation let the knight and his bride, the priest and his wife, put the tension behind them. The other couple that had joined them in the dance, a minor bureaucrat from the nearby city of Kalaman and his mistress, came to listen to the discussion of hunting and court fashion, but they said little. They were not used to the company of the rich and powerful.

Though Soth remained polite, the inane chatter galled him. These four were the only ones who had responded to his invitation; the other knights, politicians, and merchants from Kalaman and the smaller towns near Dargaard Keep had found any excuse not to attend. Many had not even responded to Soth’s missives.

An hour passed slowly, then the great hall rang with the footsteps of self-importance. Soth, like the others, turned to the spotlessly attired young man who made his way toward the matrimonial gathering. Caradoc was seneschal of Dargaard Keep, the man in charge of the day-to-day operation of the fortress-home. This night he wore a pair of white velvet breeches, high black boots, and a doublet of the finest elven silk. Dwarven-smithed bands of purest gold clasped his wrists, and an ornate medallion proclaimed his office. The servant carried himself with an acquired grace usually denied one of such low birth and spotty education.

Yet the servant’s presence was a slap to the master of Dargaard. From the day Soth had ordered the murder of his first wife, Caradoc had used his knowledge of the crime for blackmail; the Knights’ Council had condemned Soth for suspected involvement in the mysterious disappearance of his wife, but no one could prove any crime-unless Caradoc revealed what he knew. The seneschal was wise enough to limit the freedoms he bought with that knowledge, for Soth would surely kill him if he pushed things too far. Still, he flaunted his position just enough to make Soth uncomfortable.

Caradoc moved to Lord Soth’s side as if unconscious of the attention his entrance had attracted, then asked to speak to the nobleman privately, on a matter of the household. “The knights encamped outside have sent word that the red moon has now risen,” he said meaningfully, when they were apart from the others.

Lord Soth sighed. “Then the feast must end, as we agreed yesterday.” He looked around the room and found concern on all faces, creasing even the unwrinkled brow of his elven wife. He forced as convincing a smile as possible to his lips and gestured broadly. “Our keepers tell us the time for celebrations is at an end.”

A few of the knights rose, but Soth motioned them back to their seats. “We need not man the battlements again-” he turned to his four guests “-until our friends leave. The men of the army outside are to be trusted. They will not harm you.”

A flurry of half-sincere congratulations to the bride and groom followed, then the two couples gathered their cloaks and left, guided by Caradoc to the keep’s main entrance. At the door, the priest of Paladine stopped and uttered a prayer, spreading wide his arms as if to encompass all of Dargaard Keep. The gesture struck Soth as pathetic somehow.

“This is not the wedding I would have wished for us,” Lord Soth said sincerely, turning to his wife. “The lords and ladies of Kalaman feared to come to a feast in a castle under siege-even if the knights offered a truce for the day. That toadie and his-”

Softly the elfmaid put her fingers to Soth’s lips. Her touch was light, carrying the gentle, alluring fragrance of her perfume. “My darling, your men remain loyal to you. And Caradoc. And the servants who man the stables and the kitchen. I, too, will stand beside you always.” She cast her eyes down and placed a slender hand on her stomach. “Neither can we forget our child, my lord. He will need you and love you most of all.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment, then the wide, main double doors to the hall swung wide. A blast of chill air curled into the room from outside, setting the candles on the chandelier guttering. Broad shadows warped across the floor and walls, and for a moment it seemed as if the light would vanish altogether. Caradoc closed the doors behind him, however, and the candles sputtered back to life.

“The siege party has seen the musicians and your guests across the bridge and to a safe distance from the keep,” the seneschal announced, but not before he straightened his short black hair and settled his chain of office on his chest. “Perhaps it’s time to man the towers and draw up the bridge.”

“All right,” the nobleman said curtly. “Go see to the servants, Caradoc. Make certain the craftsmen have plenty of water stored near their houses in case our foes try to lob burning pitch into the keep again tonight.”

With a flourish the seneschal bowed and went his way. Soth faced his wife one last time. “Good night, my love,” he murmured. Gently he kissed her hand. “I must prepare our defenses, and you need your rest.”

Isolde returned her husband’s kiss before she moved up the stairs to her quarters in the keep’s upper floor. Only when she had been gone for several minutes did Soth order his knights to arm themselves and take their defensive positions. Then he stood alone in the main hall, which now seemed cavernous and lonely. For an instant, the echo of the minstrels’ song wailed ghostly in the back of Soth’s mind. With a frown and a shake of his head, he dismissed it and made his way to the stairs.

At the first landing, he passed a full-length mirror, a gift from the cleric and his wife. Such items were rare and quite expensive, though it didn’t surprise Soth that the priest could afford it. Churchmen, at least those Soth knew, rarely went without luxury.

Looking into the glass, Soth stood as if on military review-his broad shoulders squared, his back straight. His golden hair shone in the light of a nearby torch, framing his face like a heavenly glow. His mustache, long but neatly trimmed, hung to either side of a small, expressive mouth. A doublet of black velvet hugged his muscular frame to his waist, its darkness broken by a fiery red rose embroidered on its breast. This, the symbol of the order of knighthood to which Lord Soth belonged, was the only ornamentation he wore.

Soth was satisfied with the man he saw reflected in the silvered glass. Though the Order had stripped him of his rank and official title, they could not take away his nobility. He was still more worthy of respect than all the hypocrites who had condemned him. Isolde knew that. So did his loyal retainers. Given the chance, he would prove his worth to the rest of Solamnia, too.

Self-satisfied, he resumed his march to the keep’s upper floors. The interior stairs wound in a circle, tighter and narrower as they reached up. Soth was not even winded by the climb. In fact, he barely noticed as the number of steps passed one hundred, then two hundred. The knight’s mind was on other matters, more weighty than purely physical discomfort.

As Soth pushed open the trapdoor marking the stairs’ end, a brisk wind tugged at his mustache and ruffled his golden hair. Ignoring the chill that surely signaled the coming of winter, the knight stepped onto the keep’s highest vantage. From a thin walkway bordered by a low and ornate wrought iron railing, he surveyed his domain.

The main structure of Dargaard was a large, circular castle-more a tower, really-hewn from the mountain that eternally protected it on all but one side. The castle narrowed as it climbed high into the air and tapered to a blunted peak. Stairs circled the exterior of the keep, flowing into landings at strategically important heights, all the way to the top. It was there, at the very pinnacle of Dargaard, that Soth now stood.

The knight watched as servants rolled cartloads of weapons onto the four main terraces that jutted from the keep just above the fourth story, crossing the courtyard high above the straw-and-wood cottages of the castle’s craftsmen. From the terraces, Soth’s knights moved the arrows and spears, torches and barrels of pitch across latticework bridges to the hexagonal outer wall. From there the defensive weapons were being transferred to the twin gatehouses standing sentinel to either side of the massive iron portcullis and iron-strapped wooden doors that barred entry to Dargaard. Beyond this single entrance to the keep lay a wide drawbridge that, when extended, spanned the thousand-foot-deep chasm gaping for miles in either direction.

The bridge, however, was being noisily withdrawn. Soth could picture the cavernous room below the gatehouses, where five or six sweat-soaked men grunted and cursed as they turned the giant wheels that reeled the bridge back into the side of the mountain. Greasy black smoke from the men’s torches would be swirling around the low ceiling, staining everything dark. Long shadows, like creatures wrought only of darkness, would be playing upon the walls as the men heaved against the wheels. It was like a small window into the Abyss in his mind, though Soth knew the hells must be far worse than that.

The reason for all these defensive precautions lay on the other side of the chasm, patiently huddled around a dozen campfires: a party of knights, fellows of Lord Soth’s order, were arrayed before Dargaard, ready to take up the siege they had so graciously delayed for the wedding celebration. Ballistae and catapults stood at the ready, threatening to toss their missiles at the keep’s rose-colored stone. Armored knights, their bright cloaks flapping in the wind, stood close to campfires to fight off the cold.

Soth himself had been part of such sieges. He knew the men would be tired, sick of their bland trail rations and the hard ground that served as their bed each night. Yet they wouldn’t lift the siege, though they had too few catapults to batter down the walls and winter was coming on fast. Knights of Solamnia never gave up easily.

The whole situation reminded Soth of an old ram he’d seen in the mountains. It must have been blind with age, for it mistook a chunk of rock for a rival. The ram smashed itself bloody and senseless against the stone. Wolves tore it to shreds that night as it lay dazed.

And here is the head of the ram now, Soth thought scornfully, for he could see the leader of the siege, Sir Ratelif, as he broke from one of the group of knights.

Sir Ratelif walked to the edge of the chasm, then waited for the grinding squeal of the retreating bridge to cease. When all that remained of the noise was the echo from the gaping split in the earth, the armor-clad man held his hands out, palms up. To Soth, the gesture looked like pleading, and his scorn for the knight grew.

“Soth of Dargaard Keep, you have been found guilty of crimes against your family and the honor of the Order. In the name of Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, and Habbakuk, surrender yourself to the lawful army arrayed against you,” Sir Ratelif cried, repeating a ritual declamation used by the Knights of Solamnia for centuries.

Soth raised a defiant fist. “This keep can withstand your siege for months,” he shouted. “And winter is not so far off that you can stay there forever.”

Sir Ratelif ignored the nobleman’s reply and continued with the ritual, repeating phrases he had said once a day to the besieged Lord Soth for the last two weeks. “Your crimes are many, so I will name only the most grievous offenses. Know first that you stand guilty of breaking your marriage vows by dallying with the elfmaid Isolde of Silvanost while still married to Lady Gadria of Kalaman. Know next that you are guilty of lying to the elfmaid, of misrepresenting your intentions, of getting her with a bastard child.” The knight pursed his lips, as if trying to expel some awful taste from his mouth. “Know finally that you stand suspect of plotting and achieving the murder of your lawful wife, Gadria.”

His jaw clenched, his hands held in tight fists, Soth turned away from the army. From below, Ratelif's voice rang out once more: “You stand atop a tower wrought in the likeness of the red rose, Lord Soth. Never has there been a greater stain upon that blessed symbol of our Order.”

The words bit into the nobleman’s heart. He had chosen the sight for Dargaard Keep because of the abundance of rose quartz in the mountains near at hand, had drawn plans to the keep himself so that its tapering tower would resemble nothing so much as that incomparable flower. That a fellow knight would denigrate his monument to the Order…

Lord Soth gazed up at the two moons visible to him in Krynn’s sky. Solinari, only a sliver in the night, cast its silver-white light over the ground wanly. It was Lunitari’s red glow that colored the world, bathing the night in blood. There was a third moon, Nuitari, but that black orb could be seen only by those corrupted by evil.

By the white moon, symbol of good magic, the Knight of the Rose uttered a vow. “I will make them see, by the light of Solinari, how wrong they are, how foolishly they try to expel me from their ranks. My honor is my life,” Soth whispered, “and I will have my life back once again.”

A sharp snap, like a bowstring breaking, made the remembered image waver in the death knight’s mind. His eyes focused on the drab cave and the bleak landscape beyond. The early morning sun flared through breaks in the swirling clouds. The rain had stopped. Silence shrouded the copses of hardy trees and stolid outcropping of granite, then the noise came again-a quick, sharp cracking sound.

Soth got to his feet, his injured sword arm dangling at his side. The noise came a third time. It’s the traps, the death knight realized. Something has stumbled across the traps. “Wake up, Magda.”

The Vistani came awake instantly and snatched up her silver dagger. Without a word, she followed the death knight out of the cave and into the dawn.

Cautiously they approached the first trap, a simple snare Soth had rigged near the largest copse of firs. A wolf, its throat torn open, its mangy fur matted with its own blood, lay sprawled over the trap. The scenes at the other two snares were the same. The bodies of the wolves that had been following them lay butchered over the deliberately disturbed traps.

The death knight examined the third beast’s wounds; the ragged, gaping tears in its throat had been made, not by a blade, but by another animal’s teeth and claws. Yet no mindless beast could have purposefully set off the traps so.

“Lord Soth,” Magda called, kneeling on the other side of the dead wolf.

She pointed to a muddy patch near the snare. A set of small boot prints trailed through the muddy ground up to the wolf's corpse. Next came an area of watery muck where any prints had been obliterated. “The footprints lead up to the wolf, but I can’t find any leading away from it,” the woman said, puzzled.

Soth searched the ground, then pointed something out to the Vistani. Another set of prints did indeed lead away from the slaughtered wolf, but ones not made by boots. After leaving the body, the creature had walked away from the area on two legs, but legs that ended in paws with long, curled claws.