by James Lowder
One hundred men sat at long tables, eating and drinking. A horned rat crouched at each man’s feet, gulping down the scraps of flesh and lapping up the pools of ale spilled from the table. Past them all, on the other side of the room, stood a doorway wreathed in flames of blue and gold. Through the flickering fires, Kulchek could see a strange landscape. Here was the portal he had sought for so many sleepless days and nights.
The hundred men leaped to their feet, ready to slay Kulchek, for their lot in life was to guard the portal against any who sought to use it. The wanderer knew his lack of sleep would weigh heavily upon him in the battle, so he plumbed his quick mind for a way to win swiftly.
Before the men could even draw their swords, Kulchek held his never-dulled dagger before him, its side toward the guardians. The light from the dozens upon dozens of torches flashed off the bright silver of the blade and blinded fifty of the warriors. These the wanderer slew before they had advanced another step. With each death, one of the horned rats leaped through the portal. Though the blue-and-gold fire licked at their fur, the rodents passed unscathed from Barovia into the strange landscape.
The slaughter of the fifty made the odds more to Kulchek’s liking, and he stood against the charge of the remaining warriors. Against these he wielded Gard. With each blow, the cudgel shattered another man’s skull, and the bodies soon piled up around the wanderer. Sabak dragged these bodies away so the corpses would not hinder his master in the fight.
“And so it was that Kulchek the Wanderer defeated the one hundred men and found his way from Barovia,” Magda concluded, her voice rasping from the long tale.
The sun hung low in the sky, making long shadows trail behind Magda and Soth as they trudged along the road. The river ran close at hand now, and the steady, soothing rush of the water had underscored the end of the Vistani’s tale. High reeds partially blocked the Luna from view. From time to time the travelers noticed slanted, reptilian eyes watching them cautiously from those dark-thorned reeds. More often, larger shapes moved in the trees that lined the opposite side of the river.
“Well?” Magda asked. “Was the story any help?” She shielded her eyes and glanced toward the lowering sun. “If nothing else, it helped to pass the afternoon.”
The death knight did not answer. Slowing his pace, he cocked his head as if to listen.
Sullen, the Vistani took a slow swallow from her water skin. “At least you could-”
“Silence,” Soth hissed, raising his hand. He appeared ready to strike the woman, but then lowered his mailed hand. “Do not turn around. Something is following us. It has been for some time.”
From the expression on her face, Magda clearly had to battle her curiosity to stop herself from looking over her shoulder. “Is it another alligator-man?”
The death knight shook his head. “It is a small beast, child-sized, perhaps the thing you saw back near the village.” A note of savage pleasure crept into Soth’s voice. “I do not like being toyed with, and this mysterious tracker has at last moved close enough for us to discover its identity. I must trust you to do as I ask, Magda.”
Trust? The word startled the Vistani. “Of-of course,” she replied.
“Do you see that bend ahead, where the trees cover the road in shadow?” he began. “When we reach it, I want you to keep walking, no matter what I do. I will tell you when to stop.”
The trail wasn’t difficult to follow, not with the death knight leaving a set of scent-prints stinking of the grave in his wake. No, even though his feet did not disturb the ground as he walked, the dead man was much easier to follow than the Vistani who served as his guide. All gypsies knew sufficient wood lore to make their paths difficult to detect, and this one was no exception. What was her name again? Ah, yes. Magda.
The beast curled back his thin, leathery lips and grinned ferally. If the knight doesn’t mind, I’ll leave her hanging by the side of the road for Strahd. That will curb the vampire lord’s anger a little. Everyone knows by now that killing one of Girani’s brood is enough to win Strahd’s gratitude, and only a fool could underestimate the power of that.
In the road, Lord Soth raised his hand to the girl, ready to strike. The beast’s heart quickened. The death knight had tired of her prattling at last!
He moved through the reeds a little more quickly, though the sound of the river masked what little noise he made. The soft mud accepted his clawed feet willingly, further muffling the sounds of his passing. Sniffing the air, he leered.
If he’s angry, the beast noted to himself with glee, then he might even let me eat her heart. And it’s been so long since I’ve tasted the blood of a Vistani.
Lost in a reverie of victims past, the beast’s mind wandered. When he looked for his quarry again, they’d passed around a bend in the road. He hurried to catch them; the knight was ever wary, and more than once since leaving the village he had attempted to lay a false trail. That never threw the beast off the scent, though.
His eyes searching the shadowy roots of the trees for an ambush, the mysterious tracker loped into the copse. Nothing moved in the darkness. No creature hid in the murk. Sniffing, he picked up the scent-first the knight’s, then Magda’s. They had both passed into the copse.
Warily he crept through the undergrowth, watchful for some flash of silver that might expose a hidden blade or the stench of fear and expectation that meant someone was waiting to strike from the shadows. But the scent continued uninterrupted. It seemed they had both passed through the copse without even pausing.
At last the beast could see the road again, if the muddy path the Vistani had chosen to travel could be called that. Magda walked slowly in the sunlight, but the knight was nowhere to be seen. Panic gripped the beast, and he looked frantically from left to right. A sudden breeze carried a strong stench of decay from behind him, but before he could turn around, an ice-cold hand clamped down around his neck.
“Where is your master?” the death knight asked, stepping from the murk beneath a twisted oak. The ability to enter the darkness and travel from one shadow to another had served Soth well. He had remained hidden within the copse’s darkness, shielded from the beast’s extraordinary senses.
“Where is Strahd Von Zarovich?” Soth rumbled.
Stunted fingers ending in thick claws scraped against Soth’s armored hand. With little effort, the death knight lifted the short, bulky creature from the ground and tossed him from the trees and into the road. The light of the setting sun revealed the hideous nature of the beast that had been tracking Soth and Magda. His frame was heavy, but he stood no more than three feet from head to toe. The beast crouched on legs unfit for great speed but obviously superb for digging and climbing. Short arms, round with corded muscles, stood out from his broad shoulders. Upon his back hung a battered pack, covered with mud and prickling with brambles.
The thing’s head rested upon a neck small enough to be almost invisible. He possessed features similar to a man’s, but flattened until they resembled a wild animal’s. The creature’s eyes were set wide apart and were so absolutely black they seemed to belong to a doll. A caninelike muzzle supported a wet black snout, whose nostrils were even now distended from tracking the death knight. Rounded ears lay flat against the beast’s broad skull, and sharp, pointed teeth lined his mouth. Over his face, as well as the rest of his body, short hair grew in a thick coat. For the most part, this fur was brownish gray, but the hair ran in bone-white stripes below the creature’s muzzle and in a broad stripe running from his snout to the nape of his neck.
In all, the beast resembled nothing so much as a horrifying mating of a small man and a badger.
“I am no servant of Strahd, Lord Soth,” the beast said, the utterance sounding like the growl of a bear. “I am here to help you.”
“You have been spying upon us since we left the village,” the death knight said, studying the strange creature carefully. There was something familiar about the beast, though Soth could not say what. “Those are the actions of
a spy, not an ally.”
The creature barked a laugh. “The wolves you had on your trail-those were spies, Sir Knight. The fact I killed ’em-and I did-should be enough to prove to you I’m a friend.” He stood and rubbed the back of his neck with a pawlike hand. “Besides, we’ve met before.”
Shudders racked the beast for a moment, then he doubled over in pain. The hair covering his stocky frame melted away, seemingly drawn back into his skin. His limbs lengthened, and his features took on a more human-or, to be precise, a more dwarven-cast. The snout became a flat nose, the bristling hair a mustache and muttonchop sideburns. A brown tint, the color of freshly turned earth, seeped into his eyes, giving them a deep, thoughtful appearance. He rubbed his bald pate, always the last thing to return to normal, and nodded with satisfaction.
Magda, who despite Soth’s orders had turned back to see the thing that had been tracking them, gasped and drew her silver dagger. “Werebeast!” she cried. “I should have known you were a cursed thing when first I saw you!”
The naked dwarf took the pack from his shoulder. He faced the woman, unconcerned with his lack of clothes, and snorted. “Put the blade away, little girl. Even if it is silver-and I know from the way it reflects the light that it is-you won’t get a chance to strike me with it more than once before I split your skull open.” He pulled a bright red tunic from the pack and shrugged it on over his head, then gestured toward three long scars crisscrossing his stomach. “And believe me, one blow isn’t enough to kill me.”
Folding his arms over his chest, the death knight said, “Even if you are an ally, why have you been following us?”
“Not us,” the dwarf noted as he stepped into a pair of ratty leggings. “You. I’m following you, Sir Knight. I’d just as soon see the Vistani dead-and I’m willing to act on that, too, if you give the word.”
Magda cursed and moved to Soth’s side. “He’s a spy, my lord. Why else would he follow you?”
With a sigh the dwarf removed his iron-soled shoes from the pack, sat on a stone at the road’s edge, and slipped them on. “I’d much rather wear these than carry ’em,” he noted. Fully garbed in a motley collection of ill-fitting clothes, the dwarf approached the death knight. “I am Azrael,” he offered, as if that information alone was a great concession. “I follow you, Sir Knight, because you are very obviously a being of great power-greater than me, I’m more than willing to admit.” He smiled slyly. “Perhaps even greater than Strahd Von Zarovich himself.”
The death knight nodded to acknowledge the compliment. “I am Lord Soth of Dargaard Keep. What do you hope to gain by trailing me?”
“First,” Azrael said, “let me tell you what you can gain by accepting me as a follower.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the east. Darkness had begun to settle on the horizon there. “I can help you to deal with the count’s minions-like those wolves I killed a few days back. They were following you and reporting back to Strahd each sunset. That’s their howling, you see? Messages. Haven’t heard any howling at night lately, have you?” He puffed out his chest pridefully.
“I fear neither the count nor his servants,” Soth replied. The dwarf exhaled like a balloon stuck with a dagger. “In fact, there is nothing you can offer me, little man. Be glad I am letting you live.” Turning on his heel, the death knight started down the road again. Magda, trailing behind him, brandished her sliver dagger at the werebeast as she left. The gesture was not so much threatening as insulting.
A look of puzzlement crossed the dwarf’s face. He tugged at his mustache and smoothed his sideburns as he considered his plight. At last he sat down by the side of the road.
He hadn’t expected the death knight to turn down his company so quickly or so completely. Yet, when it comes right down to it, Azrael realized sadly, there’s little I can offer Lord Soth… except my loyalty-not that my loyalty is a worthless commodity. The knight just doesn’t realize how valuable I could be. I’ve got to prove myself.
Smiling, the rag-clad dwarf stood and brushed himself off. Whistling tunelessly, he set off down the road after the death knight.
“None of these stones bear the mark you described,” Lord Soth said angrily. He looked out across the Luna, flowing red in the dying light of the sun. “Is there another fork to this river?”
“Yes, but this is the spot where Kulchek found the tunnel into the earth,” Magda replied. She overturned a large stone and peered beneath it, searching for the Vistani trail marker that was rumored to show the way to the portal. “The doors blocking the tunnel were buried beneath the ground, remember?”
“In your children’s story, perhaps,” Soth began, “but I-”
A mournful cry rent the air just as the sun’s last glow faded in the west. It wasn’t the low howl of a wolf, but a high, sorrowful cry of anguish. The sound echoed over the river and rattled through the foothills for a time.
Magda looked stunned, as if some deity had granted her insight into the workings of the world. “Sabak mourning for his lost quarry!” she gasped. “Did you hear it, my lord? We’re in the right place!”
After scanning the area for some mundane source for the cry, the death knight nodded. “Perhaps, Magda, perhaps. But where is the entrance to the tunnel?”
Cursing vilely, Azrael barreled out of a clump of bushes, his hands clutching at the rabbit that zigzagged across the ground before him. The dwarf’s presence hardly startled Soth or Magda, for he’d made no secret of following the pair. And when they’d refused to reveal anything about the object of their search, he’d set about capturing dinner for the party.
The rabbit proved too quick for the dwarf, and it soon disappeared into a knot of brambles. Futilely Azrael yanked the bushes apart, their thorns doing little damage to his rough, callused hands. The only thing he uncovered was a large, lichen-covered stone, but when he turned that over, a small burrow presented itself. The dwarf considered transforming into his full badger form-for his curse granted him the ability to hold one of three forms: dwarf, giant badger, or horrifying cross of the two-but before he could decide, Magda called out.
“He’s found something,” the Vistani cried. She was at Azrael’s side in a flash, her loathing of the werecreature momentarily forgotten. With a trembling hand she pointed to the stone the dwarf had overturned. “His paws burn into stone when he’s on the prowl,” she whispered. “Sabak’s print!”
The mark of a single paw, made by a wolf or very large dog, glowed from the stone. Azrael reached down. The track was warm to the touch.
“Perhaps you can be of use, dwarf,” the death knight noted, staring with glowing orange eyes at the stone.
The death knight briefly explained what it was they were hunting for, and Azrael offered to dig down from the stone to search for the iron gates. As before, pain shot through the dwarf’s body as he transformed, but this time the creature he became appeared as nothing more than a badger, very large but otherwise ordinary. With a nod of his flat head to the death knight, he lunged at the ground and proceeded to tear into the earth.
The rabbit’s burrow provided a head start for Azrael’s excavation, and in very little time he had disappeared completely. Dirt and stone shot from the hole in bursts, then that, too, stopped. Magda paced back and forth, gnawing at her fingernails, watching for any sign of the werecreature. For his part, Soth appeared to calmly watch the Luna flow past, though he was actually scanning the area, watching for any sign of Strahd’s minions or the strange beasts that lived in the river.
At last the badger trundled out of the hole, his fur coated with dirt. Ignoring Magda completely, he went to Soth’s side. Letting the transformation flow over him once more, Azrael shifted into his beastlike form. “The wall of iron lies not far below the surface,” he reported, brushing the large clumps from his fur. “Little more than your height, mighty lord.”
“Then begin to uncover it,” Soth said, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice. He turned to the Vistani. “Help him.”
&nb
sp; Azrael, still in his half-badger form, shredded the hard-packed layer of dirt and stone on the surface. Magda trailed behind him, clearing the loose earth to the side. Like a statue, Soth stood motionless as the pair opened a wide swath of ground. Hour after hour wore past, with the death knight observing the toil of his allies. Yet Magda and Azrael did not complain; the Vistani wanted escape from Barovia, from Strahd’s wrath, more than anything, and the dwarf wished to prove himself a worthy servant.
The moon had reached its zenith before the death knight ordered them to stop. “You have uncovered enough of the door for me to open it now,” was all he said.
As the werecreature and the young woman fell back, their hands caked with dirt and cut by stones, their hair matted with sweat, the death knight held his closed fists toward the earth. A blue light wreathed his gauntlets, spinning and growing in intensity as he chanted. Slowly Soth opened his hands, palms down, and the energy flowed from them to the newly broken ground. The earth trembled as if some long-dead leviathan were waking and shrugging off the mantle of soil that had settled over him in his millennium of slumber.
The blue light flowed from Soth’s hand in crackling bands now. The bands spread out like fingers, working their way into the ground. His arms shaking, the death knight began to turn his palms face-up. The fingers of energy responded, tightening their grip on the still-hidden door.
It became clear why so much of the ground had needed to be cleared. Even with but a foot or two of earth to displace, the strain of magically forcing the doors open showed on the death knight. Soth arched backward, straining to move his hands.
The swelling, trembling ground made a sound like thunder, and as the fingers of energy pulled the door open, another noise was added: the groaning of the metal gate. The cacophony reminded Soth of the cries made by tortured souls in the Abyss. Anything within a mile of the fork would undoubtedly hear the racket.