Knight of the Black Rose

ELEVEN

The tunnel sloped steeply at first, and the going was treacherous. Water dripped from the stone walls and ceiling, then ran in foul rivulets down the floor. Patches of pale, rank-smelling lichen grew everywhere. More than once Magda slipped and nearly fell, and even Azrael, in half-badger form and moving on all fours, lost his footing twice. Only Lord Soth traversed the corridor as if it were level ground.

“It looks like it goes on forever,” Magda whispered, holding high the torch she had fashioned out of driftwood and reeds. The guttering flame showed that the slope gradually evened out and the walls narrowed so that the trio would soon have to go single file.

The death knight walked more quickly. “If the portal at the tunnel’s end will take me to Krynn, I will gladly cross the breadth of the Nine Hells to reach it.”

Azrael followed close behind Soth as he entered the narrow section of the tunnel. Magda came last, the flame from her torch licking the ceiling. Although the death knight had closed the massive doors behind them and they had passed no holes big enough for anything but rats along the way, Magda had a nagging suspicion that something followed them just beyond the reach of the torchlight. Time and again, a sharp crack or low gurgle made the Vistani spin around and hold her torch out like a talisman. But if anything lurked in the corridor, it contented itself with following the trio at a distance.

At length the hallway grew wider, and soon the werebadger and the young woman flanked Soth again. The tunnel veered sharply to the right, and halfway around the bend Azrael skidded to a halt. “I smell bones,” he growled. He stood up as tall as his stumpy legs would allow and sniffed the fetid air. “Bones but no meat.”

At the end of the curve yawned an arch of jet-black stone, and beyond that, a vast chamber. The room was huge, lined with black stone columns that rose higher than Magda’s torch would illuminate. Every few paces along the walls, torches hung in iron sconces. The wood was shriveled and warped. After a few false starts, the Vistani succeeded in lighting a dozen or so of these, and their combined light washed over the chamber.

Magda looked up and saw row upon row of filled sconces climbing toward the ceiling. “The room of the torches,” she said in awe, “where Kulchek fought the guardians of the portal.” She looked around. “There’s no guardian here now, though.”

Bleached bones lay scattered in heaps toward the room’s center, the piles broken by the rotting remains of wooden trestle tables. The bones were surrounded and partially covered by patches of filth. Magda was disgusted by the sight, but the grisly remains drew Azrael like a tavern drew layabouts. The werebadger lifted a brittle leg bone and studied it carefully.

“Human… male… not too old. That’s my guess.”

He turned the bone over and over in his hairy paws. After sniffing it once, he bit down upon the end. The thing crunched unpleasantly, and Azrael chewed it, his mouth opening noisily with each bite. “Feh. Ancient, too. Not a bit of marrow left in ’em.”

Soth paid little attention to his companions. The death knight carefully studied the walls, running his gauntleted hands over the cold stone. Once he stopped and traced a long, straight crack in the masonry, but when it turned out to be nothing more than a fissure in the wall, he moved on. Both Magda and Azrael were caught up in their study of other things in the room-a store of rusted swords having captured the Vistani’s eye, and a few bones of newer vintage having aroused the werebeast’s senses.

But Magda and Azrael offered little of interest to the sinister eyes that opened only a slit to study the intruders. One eye, then two, then a dozen, blinked away a cover of filth and dust, then stared up at Soth from the dirty stone floor.

“Aiyeee! Look at this!”

Pleasant surprise made Magda shriek, and her smile told of a wonderful discovery. Pushing aside a broken sword, one that was as old as Strahd’s ancient castle, the Vistani grabbed a gnarled wooden club. It was short, only as long as Magda’s forearm, but the knob on its end was twice as large as her fist. “A cudgel. It’s very old. Do you think it might-”

“There’s nothing here!” Soth shouted from across the room. “No portal. No door other than the one through which we entered.”

Azrael dropped the skull he was toying with and looked up sharply. “Perhaps I could help you search, mighty lord. My senses are quite keen, you know.”

As the werebeast stepped away from the scattered bones, the pile of dirt that lay between him and the death knight heaved up from the floor. As the filth fell away from the thing, its true form was revealed. A cloudy, viscous glob made up its body, and its shape shifted constantly, like something made of water. Tentacles of ooze flailed around it, disappearing from one part of the creature to reappear somewhere else on its body. It had no face to speak of, though it had the features of dozens.

Two hundred eyes, some large and staring, others small and heavy-lidded, covered the creature. Only a few of these were fixed on the intruders. The rest scanned the room and peered into the darkness that filled the corridor, looking for other foes. Around the eyes gaped dozens of mouths. These held a myriad of expressions, most contrary to each other. One opened hungrily, running a black tongue over pointed incisors, while another smiled sweetly. A third, a handsbreadth away, drooled like the maw of an idiot.

From each of these mouths came a constant babble, a cacophony of screams, curses, laughter, diatribes, and pleas. The stone walls echoed the waves of sound, doubling them, then doubling them again. Azrael, who was closest to the thing, threw his clawed hands against his ears. His muzzle rippled with a snarl of pain, but he remained rooted in place.

The voices called to the dwarf. They exploded in his mind and summoned his most vivid fears and dreams. Through a vague haze of pain, images flashed through his consciousness, one after another.

Azrael looked down at the blood on his hands and smiled. It was his brother’s blood-or was it his mother’s? He couldn’t tell any longer; the murders had blended together in his mind. The fact that the screams of his kin had all been surprisingly similar didn’t help matters. Azrael wondered if his death-scream would be very much like theirs.

Without warning, the door burst in, the shattering of ancient wood sending fragments across the modest dwarven home. Azrael glanced once at his brother, his neck broken, his face covered in gore, then saw the city’s chief constable standing in the doorway. The fat politskara was frozen in shock, his jowls quivering with fear or, perhaps, anger. Azrael felt a rush of energy pulse through him, and he charged past the constable.

He was free! Rushing into the courtyard of his family’s small home, the dwarf felt the cool air of the city flow over him. Dwarves bustled everywhere, and the clink of hammer upon metal, chisel upon stone, filled his ears. A disgust for all the inhabitants of the Crafter’s Quarter-faint-willed lackeys like his family-threatened to overwhelm Azrael. He had to fight down the urge to attack anyone who came near. But, no, he had to escape, had to reach the dark tunnels that led even deeper into the earth.

The cry of “Murder!” rang out from behind him. The constable was shouting out Azrael’s crimes at the top of his lungs. The young dwarf pushed a stonecutter out of his way and ran.

A sea of faces watched Azrael pass, eyes staring in shock and horror, mouths agape with strangled shouts. For a moment, the dwarf thought they were going to let him go, that the blood covering his arms, the scratches and bruises on his face, would hold them in terror.

Then the arrow bit into his arm.

Pain flashed from his elbow to his shoulder, and the world turned red in his eyes. The dwarf cursed the unknown archer who’d shot the arrow, then fletchers and arrowsmiths in general. He’d never liked bows; they were a coward’s way to fight. No threat of blood on your hands if you shoot someone from a rood away, he thought, stumbling in pain.

The crowd closed in, and Azrael found his way blocked. The eyes of the dwarves stared at him, but those eyes held a different emotion now. Anger, not fear, colored the faces of the craftsmen as they tightened their circle around Azrael, and the threats they murmured filled his ears as he tumbled to the ground.

In the underground chamber in Barovia, the gibbering creature loomed over the fallen dwarf, one of its mouths locked on to his arm. The eyes nearest Azrael bulged with a hungry look, and the thing’s body throbbed forward to bring another gaping mouth close to its ensorcelled victim.

Soth and Magda stood mesmerized. They, too, were caught up in paralyzing visions.

Magda found herself once again creeping down the long tunnel toward the underground chamber. A large hound, its head standing almost as high as her chest, followed at her heels.

“Come, Sabak,” she said. “We must find a way out of this land.” The strain of so many days without sleep had changed her voice to a husky whisper.

Light from a room up ahead bled into the tunnel, and the noise of a celebration filled the air. Magda edged along the wall until she came to the open doorway. The room was bright from the light of thousands of torches, and their dancing flames illuminated a scene of savage revelry. One hundred men crowded around trestle tables piled with raw red meat and dark ale. At their feet, rats with twisted horns fought over the bloody scraps that fell to the ground, squealing and biting their kin. Across the room stood the object of her quest, the portal that would take her from Barovia.

Boldly Magda stepped into the room. She was a hero, the stuff of legends, and mere mortals would not stand between her and freedom. As one, the guardians of the portal turned to face the intruder, drawing their swords. Uncertainty gripped Magda for a moment, then a plan of action formed whole in her mind: Use your dagger to reflect the torchlight and blind half of them, then lay into the others with Gard.

The weight of her cudgel, Gard, felt reassuring in her right hand, and with her left she reached for her dagger. She patted her high leather boots, but the handle didn’t jut over the boot top. Panic gripped her, and she looked down. Novgor, the ever-sharp dagger with the point like a needle, was gone.

The hundred men closed in, and Sabak leaped to protect its mistress. A dozen of the guardians lashed out at the faithful hound, striking it down. As the dog lay bleeding, the horned rats scurried over its body and burrowed into its chest, seeking its still-beating heart. The sight made Magda loathe her own weakness.

She rushed forward and lashed out with Gard, shattering one of the guardian’s skulls. His teeth rained to the floor, and his staring eyes closed for the final time.

In the chamber, the gibbering thing shuddered at the blow. It released the huge, fanged mouth it had fastened to Azrael and hissed at the woman. She bashed the gaping maw in with the club. Keeping a grip on the fallen dwarf with three other mouths, the thing lurched in the Vistani’s direction. Tentacles appeared all over the side facing her. The dripping arms lashed out and tried to snatch the ancient cudgel from her grasp. One struck her across the face and sent her sprawling.

Soth did not see any of this, though his eyes still stared ceaselessly into the chamber; like the others, he was caught up in a vision brought on by the guardian’s myriad voices. The scene that lay before the death knight was one that had not welled up in his mind for many, many years. Goblins filled a dank, dismal cavern. Their flat faces-hundreds of them-all turned to look at him, and their grins of victory revealed small fangs eager for his flesh.

Along with two fellow knights, Soth had entered this, the most remote section of the Vingaard Mountains, on a quest. He and his fellows sought a relic of the greatest of the Knights of Solamnia, Huma Dragonbane. Legends claimed Huma himself had entered the mountains, searching for a minion of the evil goddess, Takhisis. The hunt took one hundred days, and during the long trek, the great knight’s spurs were lost. Huma had cherished these spurs, for they had been presented to him by the church of Majere for his good deeds, but he did not stop to recover them. The quest was always foremost in Huma’s thoughts.

It was for these spurs, symbols of Huma’s devotion to the cause of Good, that Soth and his companions quested. Like the other two warriors, Soth had hoped the adventure would present a chance to prove his bravery-for that was the only way he would ever advance from Knight of the Sword to Knight of the Rose, the highest honor of the Order.

The trappings of rank held little interest for the young Sword Knight at the moment. A goblin horde guarded the relics, keeping them hidden from agents of Good, and the evil creatures had succeeded in isolating the knights and capturing two of them. Now Soth stood alone, all thoughts of glory gone from his mind.

I am a Knight of the Sword, he told himself, brushing the sweat from his forehead. Paladine, Father of Good, teach your servant not to fear.

Although the young knight repeated the prayer over and over in his mind, his hand still shook slightly as he raised his sword. “Release my fellows,” he heard himself say, surprised at how clear and commanding his voice was. He pointed to the two wounded knights that hung on one wall of the cavern, heavy chains holding their wrists to the dripping stone. “I will ask once for their freedom. If you do not comply swiftly, I will cut a swath through your ranks and free them myself.”

Both captive knights were battered and bloody, and Soth wondered if either of them still lived. The notion was dismissed quickly; his duty to them, dead or alive, was clear. He must rescue them or die trying.

The goblins became a jabbering mob. Some slapped their short, flint-tipped spears against their shields. The leather ovals thudded dully as they were struck, but, added together, they sounded like thunder rumbling through the cavern. Others shouted and cursed in their harsh, guttural tongue. The mob moved forward, the red skin of their faces making them look demonic in the cave’s torchlight. Their slanted yellow eyes glowed with malevolence.

Soth gripped his sword tightly and said a prayer to the gods of Good. “You have been warned,” he said to the mob, but the goblins came closer.

A command shouted from the rear of the press halted the creatures’ advance. Many of the mob turned to face the goblin that had given the order, and fell aside. Down the wide path cleared for him came the goblin king, his armor clanking with each step.

Whereas his subjects were short, perhaps half of Soth’s six-foot stature, the king stood almost as tall as a normal human. His skin was bright red, like the rest of his tribe’s, his face gaunt. The armor he wore heightened his muscular appearance, and he moved with the steady step of one used to treading unopposed through even the most chaotic battlefield. Soth had seen creatures like this before, had even faced a few in combat. They were proud and skilled and deadly. Defeat with honor was a foreign idea to such warriors, as was mercy for bested foes.

“Throw down your sword, knight,” the goblin king shouted. He lifted the studded mace he carried and shook it menacingly at Soth. “Let me split your skull and be done with it.”

The young Knight of the Sword swallowed hard. “I am glad to hear you speak the tongue of humans,” he said, “for I can inform you that the path of surrender is one I will not tread. Release my friends and give me the artifacts your tribe unlawfully holds. Only then will I leave.”

“And if I don’t turn these things over to you?”

Unbidden, the teachings of one of the elder knights flew into Soth’s mind: When facing tribes of goblins, a direct challenge to the king or leader can prevent greater bloodshed. If the king is defeated, the tribe will often disperse, for they hold such deaths to be a sign of displeasure from their gods.

Soth straightened and held his sword point-down, a clear sign of disdain for the goblin king. “If you fail to release my friends or do not give me the things that rightfully belong to my Order, I will face you in individual combat. It is my right as a knight to demand this of you, and it is your duty as a warrior to accept. Unless, of course, you fear me.” Soth forced a smile. “If that is so, I will face your champion.”

For a moment the goblin king stood in shocked silence. “I do not fear you, human.” He sneered. Raising his mace high over his head, the king barked a command. The mob rushed forward. Over the cries of the charging soldiers he added, “But I am not foolish enough to send only one of us against your blade.”

Soth slashed the first goblin to come close enough, then cut a second from shoulder to stomach. As the soldiers died, the blood pooled around the knight’s feet, making the stone floor slippery. Panic gripped him just long enough for a spear tip to slip past his guard. The flint bit into his leg. As he struck that attacker down, another goblin stabbed him in the back. His left arm went numb, and his head began to swim.

This isn’t how it happened, Soth realized as another goblin fell before his blade. On the day I entered the cavern, the goblin king accepted my challenge. I killed him and a dozen more of his kind. The others fled. I won. My courage earned me the right to petition the Knights’ Council for advancement…

Another jolt of pain lanced through Soth’s sword arm, making it difficult for him to grip his weapon. He looked down and saw a yawning hole in his armor. The wrist beneath the hole was almost translucent, and the flesh that barely covered the bone was pale and scabrous. The skin of a dead man, he realized, though the gibbering voices in his mind tried to push the thought away. Goblin voices? No. Something else, something in a bone-filled room at the end of a long tunnel. And the wound on his arm wasn’t the work of goblin spears, but the dragon in Castle Ravenloft.

Lord Soth’s fury silenced the voices in his mind. He looked out across the room and saw the gelatinous thing. A half-dozen of the creature’s mouths were biting into Azrael’s flesh. The werebeast lay curled on the floor, howling in pain, partially buried beneath the monster’s bulk. Magda was on her knees a few feet from Azrael, swinging wildly at the thing with a wooden club. Wherever the cudgel struck, an eye closed, a mouth grew silent, or an ugly, blackened welt formed on the creature’s cloudy mass. Tentacles snaked around her arm and entwined themselves in her hair, trying to pull her closer to the large, fanged mouth that opened an arm’s length before her.

“Sabak!” the woman cried. “I will avenge you. I will take your body through the portal when I slay these men.”

The silly bardic tale again, the death knight thought. She thinks she is Kulchek, hammering at her foes.

The thing turned many of its eyes to Lord Soth. The watery orbs registered surprise, and the mouths babbled even louder. A thick, writhing tentacle ending in a clutch of pointed digits shot toward the death knight. Soth slashed the arm with his sword. The blow severed the tentacle cleanly but also sent a lightning bolt of pain from his injured wrist to his chest. The sword dropped from his hand with a clatter.

Again the thing studied Lord Soth. The death knight returned the clinical, appraising gaze. As he looked at the mass of eyes-some without pupils, some without irises-a notion took hold in his mind. Perhaps the bardic tale wasn’t so silly after all.

He raised his hands. Although his right wrist fought against him, Soth wove an intricate arcane pattern in the air.

At a single word, a magical command as ancient as the world of Krynn itself, a brilliant light filled the room. The golden radiance was almost a physical thing, with weight and substance-rather like a deluge of clean, fresh water. Soth’s never-blinking eyes smarted at the flash, but the magical light did not blind him. From the ear-splitting shriek that went up from the unearthly creature at the room’s center, however, the death knight assumed its multitude of eyes had not proven as sturdy.

The creature stiffened, and its eyes became white, sightless orbs swimming in its liquid body. After the hundred-voiced scream died away, the mouths were silent for a moment. Then they began to whimper and mewl. That proved enough to break its hypnotic hold over Magda and Azrael.

The Vistani recovered first, blinking away the pain the spell had caused her eyes. She recoiled from the creature before her, but for only an instant. Gripping the cudgel, she struggled to her feet and swatted away the tentacles reaching for her. At the vigorous attack from the Vistani, the sightless thing edged away, positioning its bulk over Azrael.

A shout came from beneath the creature. “Bloody hells! Get this great mound of spit off me!” A horrible sound, like a dull cleaver slicing through raw meat, followed the cry. The thing lurched again, this time away from the dwarf.

Azrael lay on the floor, three of the creature’s mouths still attached to his arm and shoulder. The fanged maws continued to work their teeth deeper into his flesh. It took all the werebeast’s strength to pry the mouths apart. Magda moved to the dwarf's side and contributed a few well-placed blows.

Soth retrieved his sword, lifting it with his uninjured hand. He warily approached the gibbering thing, studying it as he did so. A thousand waving fingers protruded from the creature now, surrogate eyes searching the room for some escape route, keeping attackers at a distance. Mottled bruises dotted its smooth skin where Magda had struck it, and three puckered wounds marked where Azrael had torn the mouths from its side. One moment the creature appeared as a giant fringed mushroom suddenly pushed up from the filthy floor, the next it was a monstrous, spiky flatworm, slithering along the stones, seeking escape.

“The thing has no scent,” Azrael said, wonderingly. “I would have smelled it when we entered the room, but it just doesn’t have a scent.” He kicked the mouths that lay on the floor. “Has quite a bite, though.”

Magda helped Azrael to his feet, though she kept a wary eye on the creature. “Do you need help, my lord?” she asked of the death knight, who was moving in for an attack.

For a reply Soth stabbed the creature, burying his blade to the hilt. The sword thrust did little to harm the thing; like the injuries wrought by Azrael, the stab wound puckered closed almost the moment the steel left the flesh.

The thing gathered into a ball and slid toward a corner, its thin feelers sweeping over the death knight, trying to read his intentions. When Soth raised his sword to strike again, thick ropes ending with gaping mouths shot from the creature and wrenched the blade from his grasp. Before Magda or Azrael could take a step toward Soth, a single tentacle, this one as thick around as a jungle snake, encircled the death knight’s waist and pulled him to the thing’s side. The creature’s milky flesh pushed up against the knight’s armor. Pulsing skin filled the gaps in Soth’s helmet, sealing out the air.

With his face pressed so close to the monster, Soth could see the ebb and flow of the thick ooze that made up its body, the play of filtered torchlight in its flesh as mouths opened and closed. At the center of the creature lay a lumpy mass, pale but darker than the matter around it.

Soth flexed his arms and snapped free of the dozens of ropy arms binding him. He drove his gauntleted left hand, held open like the tip of a boar-spear, deep into his attacker. The thing tried futilely to push him away, surprised that its attacker had not suffocated, but the death knight was too strong. His arm buried almost to the shoulder, Soth grabbed the pulpy mass that was the creature’s brains and heart. The thing whimpered only once as Soth crushed the life from it, then it slumped to the floor.

When the death knight pulled himself free of the creature’s limp form, he saw that Magda and Azrael were close by. They battered the thing savagely, stopping only when Soth held up a restraining hand.

The Vistani opened her mouth to speak, but a rush of unbearably hot air and the sudden roar of a massive fire superseded her questions. The wall opposite the room’s single door had disappeared, and the gap where it had stood opened onto a vast sea of blue and gold flames. The three walked wordlessly to the edge of the stone floor and looked out. The heat forced Magda and Azrael to shield their faces with their hands; even Soth felt the inferno’s warmth on his dead flesh.

The sea of fire lay hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet down, though pillars of twisting flame leaped into the black sky. The pillars spiraled higher and higher, finally diminishing into wisps of color and light. A whirlpool spun madly below the companions, a blot of red in the expanse of blue and gold. In the maelstrom’s center yawned a circle as black as anything in the lowest depth of the Abyss.

“Th-this is the portal you’re looking for?” Azrael gasped. “It don’t look quite… safe to me.”

“No,” Soth said, almost in a sigh. “This is no portal.”

Magda shook her head. “But the tales. Kulchek found a portal ringed in blue and gold flame. This must be it. The bones. The torches.” She paused, then lifted the cudgel. “Even this. It’s all too close to the tale to ignore.”

“Then after you, by all means,” Azrael growled, motioning to the brink with an open palm.

“Yes,” came a smooth voice from the doorway on the other side of the room. “By all means, Magda, jump.”

Strahd Von Zarovich stood framed by the door-jamb. His hands, clad in stylish kidskin gloves, lay folded over his chest in the fashion of corpses about to be put to rest. He wore the same finely cut clothes he’d worn the night Soth and Magda had arrived at Castle Ravenloft-the tight black jacket over a white shirt, black pants, dark leather boots, and a flowing cloak of ebony silk lined with a similar fabric colored red. A casual, almost amused look hung on Strahd’s gaunt face, and his thin mouth was turned up in a mocking half-smile.

The Vistani looked into the count’s dark eyes and saw sparks of anger, hints of the emotion the vampire lord’s mask imperfectly concealed. Magda also saw her fate in those eyes-a slow death at Strahd’s hands, a death that led to eternal life as one of the count’s slaves.

She spun around and leaped from the precipice.

The air itself seemed to push down on her the moment she moved over the sea of fire. A horrible, abrupt sensation of vertigo made her head swim. Her eyes found the maelstrom spinning below, and she knew in that instant that Soth had been right. This was no portal.

In the same instant, the low collar of her dress bit into her chest. A pained gasp escaped Magda’s lips, then she found herself thrust back into the room. She landed in a heap near the pile of bones at the room’s center, the front of her dress torn slightly from straining against her weight. She dropped the cudgel, then marveled that she’d managed to hold on to it. Finally she looked to Soth.

The death knight stood on the very brink of the flaming abyss, watching her with his glowing, unreadable eyes. His left hand was still extended a little before him, the hand with which he’d plucked her from certain death. Azrael stood at the death knight’s side. The werecreature crouched in a defensive stance, and his earth-brown eyes darted from Magda to Soth to Strahd.

“Too bad,” the count said languidly, stepping into the room. “I would have enjoyed hearing her screams. Anyone clumsy enough to fall into the inferno catches fire long before they hit the flames.” Gesturing at the open wall, the vampire continued. “The guardian you fought was here when I uncovered this place, too. When I killed it-”

“You killed it?” Azrael asked.

Strahd spared the werebadger a withering glance. “Yes, and if we stay here long enough, we will see it rise up yet again,” he said. “When the guardian is slain, the wall opens. Perhaps it was a portal at one time, but not now. A few of my servants offered to… test this particular rumor some time ago. They came to a most painful end.” He extended a slim hand to the woman.

When Magda shrank away from the offered hand, the count shrugged and turned his back on her. “Of course, I could have told you this was a ruse, Lord Soth, had you asked me.” He faced the death knight again. This time the facade of amusement slipped away fully, revealing the anger seething underneath. “But, then, you spurned the hand of friendship I offered, as did this gypsy whore who follows you like a cur.”

Lord Soth walked slowly to Magda’s side. “Get up,” he demanded coldly. Using the cudgel as a brace, she stood, though she never took her eyes from the vampire lord. Azrael, too, crept to the death knight, his extended claws scraping the ground as he loped forward.

“Servitude does not breed friendship, Count,” Soth said. “You treated me like a lackey, an errand boy or hired murderer.”

“And you are no man’s lackey, eh, Soth? You believe you control your own fate?” the vampire lord asked. He smiled, a genuine smile of cruel amusement. “You will learn we are all lackeys of the dark powers that rule this place, chess pieces to be moved about and set against each other.”

Soth curled his hands into fists. “Have you come to set yourself against me?”

“Us,” Azrael said to the vampire lord. Magda held the ancient wooden club before her, an obvious statement of her agreement.

Strahd laughed. “Of course not,” he replied. Bowing slightly and fanning his cape with one hand, he added, “I am here, Lord Soth, to call a truce to our little conflict and to offer myself to you as an ally.”

“Fine,” the death knight said. “Let us leave this place then. We’ll find somewhere more suitable for… allies to discuss their plans.”

Strahd bowed again, this time more fully. He headed for the door, saying, “I have an outpost nearby, a ruined tower. It will be perfect for just such a discussion.”

Soth retrieved his sword and sheathed it, then followed the vampire toward the tunnel. Azrael quickly fell in beside the death knight and the Vistani.

Before he left the chamber, Lord Soth turned to the werecreature. “If you ever try to speak for me or amend my words again, I’ll cut the tongue from your mouth before you can utter a cry of protest.”

Azrael knew it would be foolish to answer, so he simply nodded and fell a few steps behind the death knight. In silence the trio made its way back through the tunnel, to the fork of the River Luna. The weight of dashed hopes hung on their shoulders like cloaks sodden with foul water.