Knight of the Black Rose

by James Lowder

  Magda sat down on the steepest part of the hill, just before the gate. Next to her, an uneven and badly constructed stone stair rambled down the hill. “We can’t be on our way too soon for me,” she noted impatiently, tapping the ground with her club.

  It wasn’t long before the death knight and the vampire lord joined Soth’s servants. Caradoc shrank back into the shadows, then into the tower wall itself, at the sight of the death knight. A memory of Soth’s icy hands crushing his throat flashed in Caradoc’s mind, and he shuddered. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good time for a meeting.

  “Although you do not agree with my assessment of your companions,” Count Strahd said, “I will present you with special troops that you will undoubtedly find of some use on the journey through the duke’s lands.” Both Magda and Azrael glanced at the vampire, but he spared them not a word.

  His hands raised over his head, Count Strahd bayed the words of a spell. Wolves echoed the sound from the woods ringing the tower, and bright moonlight rained down upon the hillside like a sudden downpour. Faces appeared in the white light, faces contorted in screams of agony. These swirled around the hill, then disappeared into the earth. The ground trembled in thirteen places along the slope. First one dirt-crusted hand clawed its way to the air, pushing aside dirt and grass, then another. Like some ghastly spring bloom, skeletal hands and arms slowly reached up toward the gibbous moon.

  Magda gasped and crawled up the slope. Less than an arm’s length from where she’d sat, a helmeted head had emerged from the ground. The skeleton pulled aside the earth from its chest with bony fingers, then sat up and proceeded to methodically free its legs. The hillside was awash with similar scenes—long-dead warriors, their armor hanging loosely upon rotting bones, responding to Strahd’s call. Worms twisted and fell from the dirt between the skeletons’ ribs, and pincered insects scuttled from beneath their helmets. At last, thirteen skeletal warriors stood on the hillside, their shallow graves at their feet, their battered swords in their hands.

  “This should give you a fighting force worthy of a knight of your stature,” Strahd said, gesturing to the grim host assembled there.

  Caradoc shrank back into the castle wall even farther, until only his face lay outside the cold stone. The count was revealing too much! Soth had commanded thirteen such warriors on Krynn, and it seemed that Strahd was taunting him.

  Soth nodded and gestured for Magda and Azrael to gather up their packs. “They will follow my commands?”

  “As I said, they are my gift to you, Lord Soth,” the vampire replied with a bow. “They once served the boyar who ruled this keep, and now they are yours to command.” He paused and pointed to the west. “Beware of Duke Gundar’s influence over them once you get close to his castle. Such mindless creatures are easily swayed to the side of a duchy’s lord once they enter his province.”

  The death knight turned to the skeletal warriors. “Come,” he said flatly and started down the stone steps. Magda and Azrael fell in behind him. The undead warriors shuffled into place, keeping a relentless pace behind their new master.

  “May we never meet again,” Lord Soth called from the edge of the forest.

  The count raised his gloved hand in a casual salute. “Indeed,” he said softly. “Let us hope.”

  Only after the death knight and his strange following had been swallowed by the forest did Caradoc emerge from his hiding place. The ghost floated tentatively toward the vampire lord, wringing his hands before him. “Forgive me, terrible lord, but by raising troops like those he commanded on Krynn, have you not revealed to Soth that you know more about him than you should?”

  Strahd arched an eyebrow. “That was my intention, Caradoc. Soth did not miss the significance of my gift, and the question it will raise in his mind will help me. If he can’t be sure what I know, he’ll not be so quick to turn against me.”

  After studying the sky for a moment, Strahd turned away from the ghost. “Dawn is coming. I must away.”

  “Master,” Caradoc cried. “I watched as you healed the death knight’s arm. Might you heal my broken neck. I have been a faithful—”

  Strahd faced his servant, the calm on his features and in his voice more terrible than any threat. “Don’t be foolish, Caradoc. Be thankful Soth didn’t discover your presence. I gladly would have let him destroy you, had you been careless enough to be seen.”

  The ghost fell to his knees and cast his eyes at the ground. “Forgive me. I thought—”

  “You thought I might heal you. Put that thought out of your mind, Caradoc. It was the hope that you might be human and whole again that caused your problems with your last master—” Strahd gestured for the ghost to rise “—and I will not tolerate the repeat of such foolishness. Abandon all such hopes. You are a servant, and it is best for servants to be content with their lot in life.”

  The vampire lord closed his eyes, and a thin mist covered him. He blurred before Caradoc’s eyes, then changed into the form of a monstrous bat. In an instant Strahd was flying through the night sky, hurrying back to Castle Ravenloft. The dawn was coming, and the box of earth that served as the vampire’s protection from the sun’s killing light beckoned him.

  A bitterness welled up in Caradoc as he watched the bat fly to the east, but he knew Strahd was right. The ghost had nothing to offer, and the count would allow him to live only as long as he proved a complacent servant. Defeated, he set off for Castle Ravenloft. With luck he would be there by nightfall and ready to do Strahd’s bidding when the vampire lord awoke and emerged from his coffin.

  As he made the long journey through Barovia, Caradoc assuaged his bitterness with a single bleak thought: perhaps learning to exist without hope would be like learning to see the world with a broken neck. The trick was patience. With time, one could get used to almost anything.

  THIRTEEN

  Carrion crows had picked most of the softer flesh from the naked corpse hanging at the road’s edge. Its remaining skin looked as white as chalk in the midday sun, and it swung back and forth in the breeze. One of its legs was gone below the knee, taken by a wandering scavenger; its arms ended in ragged stumps. A sign hanging around the corpse’s neck trumpeted the reason: Thief, it proclaimed in blocky, weatherworn letters.

  “Welcome to Gundarak,” Azrael snorted. He shook his head and glanced back at Soth.

  The death knight stopped and signaled the thirteen skeletal warriors to do the same. No sign had marked the border between the duchies. The terrain was unchanged. Twisted oak and pine covered the foothills through which the party marched, just as it had in Barovia. “How can you tell we are in Gundar’s domain?”

  Jerking a thumb at the hanged man, the dwarf said, “That thing. Strahd’s usually much more subtle with his victims. He’s left a fair number of corpses scattered around the countryside in his day, mind you, but always for effect. You know, when villagers grumble about taxes, the count leaves a shopkeeper in the square at dawn, all his blood drained from him.” Azrael faked a shiver. “Just enough carnage to scare the yokels.”

  Magda moved into the corpse’s shadow, shielding her eyes from the bright sunshine as she looked up at it. “How is this any different?”

  “Gundar and his thugs kill anyone and everyone who crosses ’em,” Azrael replied. “We’ll be seeing poor sots like him—” he, too, squinted up at the body “—or her, all the way to Castle Hunadora.”

  “You’ve traveled before in Gundarak?” Soth asked. “Why haven’t you mentioned it before?”

  “Oh, uh, hadn’t I?” The dwarf laughed, though it was forced and unconvincing. “My apologies, mighty lord. I’ve roamed around so much that sometimes even I forget where I’ve been.”

  An awkward silence settled on the group. Azrael, aware of the probing eyes upon him, straightened his overlarge chain mail shirt and fidgeted with his sideburns. “I would have told you sooner or later, but I thought you might be suspicious. I lived here for a little while, but that was years ago.”

  Azr
ael grew more bold, even angry, when he saw the unspoken questions in the death knight’s stance and the Vistani’s face. “I was a thief just like this unlucky bastard. It was the only bloody way I could survive. See what Gundar does to criminals? That’s why I left. Believe it or not, Barovia’s a much better place to be. I mean, Strahd is dangerous and no doubt unbalanced, but Gundar is ten times the madman.”

  Soth signaled for the skeletal warriors to renew the march. He spared the dwarf a glance as he headed down the road again. “You have until the sun sets to reveal any other secrets you’ve kept hidden from me. I will decide then if you may continue with us.”

  Sighing, Azrael bowed his head and waited for the shuffling undead soldiers to pass. When he looked up again, he saw Magda, still watching him from the other side of the road.

  “If you don’t trust me,” the dwarf said, “you should run back to Barovia right now. After all, if I’m a spy, you and Soth’ll never make it to the duke’s castle. That’s what you think, eh, Vistani? Maybe I work for Strahd? Or Gundar, perhaps?” He spit on the ground at her feet and turned to follow Soth.

  “I will be watching you, Azrael,” Magda called after the dwarf. “If you do anything suspicious, I’ll bash your brains in while you sleep.”

  The dwarf stopped. When he looked at the young woman, his anger had gone and a toothy grin had split his face. “I’ve told you before, girl, don’t threaten like that unless you intend to follow up on it.” He took a few menacing steps toward Magda, and she raised her cudgel to strike. “That’s better,” he said smugly.

  Chuckling, Azrael trundled after Soth. “By the way,” he called over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t stay too close to the corpse. Gundar’s brat sometimes casts spells that keep ’em alive for a while after death. They’re good at playing dead until something tasty gets close enough to grab.”

  The Vistani jumped sideways, away from the hanged thief, but the corpse did nothing but swing limply in the breeze. Hurrying after the others, Magda cursed the dwarf for his sick humor.

  All along the twisting road through the foothills of Gundarak, bodies hung from the trees. More were lashed to boulders, with still others littered across the ground like fallen leaves. Most were labeled as thieves or traitors, but not all had signs around their necks. The duke’s men were not particular about their victims; men and women, young and old, all dangled together.

  Azrael was right—a few of the corpses were ensorcelled. The first of these they encountered hung from an ancient oak. A long piece of black rope suspended the corpse so that its feet almost brushed the ground, and, from the flesh remaining on the body, it was clear that once this had been a woman.

  “She hasn’t been here long,” Azrael noted casually, eyeing her tattered dress. “The peasants strip the clothes from ’em within a day or two. Even rags like that aren’t too meager to steal.”

  When one of the undead warriors jostled it, the female corpse began to thrash about on the end of its rope, as if the skeleton had awakened it. Cursing, the rag-clad body snatched the skeleton’s helmet. With quickness that surprised everyone, it struck a powerful blow with the rusted helm. The skeleton’s naked skull shattered, leaving a dark, jagged hole the size of a man’s fist. The skeleton reached for its sword, but the corpse lashed out twice more.

  Both blows sent fragments of bone spinning into the air. The second caved in the skeleton’s eye sockets. Its skull yawning open, the undead warrior dropped its blade. The corpse wrapped its legs around the skeleton’s rib cage and pulled the warrior toward it, shattering its right shoulder and crushing half its ribs.

  The dozen remaining skeletons hacked the female corpse to bits, doing their fellow even more damage in the process. From then on, taking no chances, Soth had the twelve surviving undead knights attack every body they came across. A few corpses shouted curses and lashed out with fists or feet, but without the advantage of surprise, they were no match for the combined strength of the skeletal warriors.

  “We wouldn’t have to wait for the knights to hack up all these bodies if we went through the woods,” Magda complained irritably as they waited for the skeletons to silence another corpse that had been shrieking threateningly by the side of the road.

  Azrael lay flat on his back in the middle of the road, arms spread out at his sides. From that undignified position, he mumbled his agreement. “Brilliant. I trust the forest. We’d be out of this sun then, too.”

  “We stay on the main road,” Soth replied without taking his eyes from his skeletons as they slashed up the shrieking corpse. “Strahd gave me precise directions to Gundar’s keep, directions that let us avoid any traps the duke may have set in the woods.”

  Magda moved in front of Soth and locked gazes with him. “My lord, you cannot trust Strahd. For all you know, this could be an elaborate plot to get revenge upon you for what you did at Castle Ravenloft.”

  “Perhaps that it so,” the death knight allowed.

  With a grunt, the dwarf sat up. “Then it’s into the woods, is it?”

  “No,” Soth said. “We follow the count’s directions.”

  Both Magda and Azrael gaped in disbelief. “Why?” the Vistani managed to ask.

  “There is only one fact with which you need concern yourselves,” the death knight rumbled. “I have chosen to follow Strahd’s suggestions. There is no opening for debate.”

  Having finished with the latest corpse, the skeletons stood in the road, awaiting Soth’s instructions. The death knight strode past the mindless undead, and they fell in after him. Side by side, Magda and Azrael watched Soth as he marched ahead.

  “He’s probably right,” the dwarf noted. He slung his pack over a shoulder and shrugged his mail shirt into a more comfortable position. “I mean, we’ve encountered no foes on this road—none alive, anyway—and we are heading in the right direction.”

  That last comment fanned Magda’s nagging suspicions. Her thoughts showed clearly in her dark expression. Azrael could not help but notice.

  “Yes, I saw the castle once,” he admitted, “but I was never inside. And, yes, I plan to tell Soth about it by sundown. I’m just waiting for a good time to tell him everything he might find the least bit interesting.” He smirked. “My life has been more colorful than those Kulchek tales. No offense, but fairy-tale heroics always bore me to tears.”

  Without a word, Magda fell in behind the last of Soth’s mindless soldiers. The undead knight shuffled along at a slow, steady pace, his armor clanking against bones, shoulders stooped and arms limp at his sides. Every step seemed a monumental task.

  That must be what it’s like to be undead, Magda realized suddenly. You want to rest, but you can’t. You have to press on, toiling endlessly, just as you did when you were alive.

  She edged closer to a skeleton and gazed at its strange visage. Although a battered bronze helmet covered much of its head, the dark sockets of its eyes were visible. They were empty, just as the knight’s features lacked personality.

  The undead warrior stepped sideways to avoid a large stone in the road, and ran straight into Magda. The Vistani knew that, though the skeleton had no eyes, it should be able to see as well as most living men. Her puzzlement deepened when it paused and scanned the road for whatever had caused its stumble; its eyes passed over the Vistani as if she weren’t there.

  “The medallion,” came a voice from behind her.

  Magda spun around at the sudden sound, her cudgel raised to strike. Azrael laughed. “They can’t see you because of the medallion,” he said. “You said so yourself.” The dwarf shrugged. “I mean, that’s what you told me, anyway. You could have been lying, I suppose, but we spies can usually tell when someone is bending the truth.”

  The Vistani smiled despite herself, though more from the absurdity of her situation than any genuine humor in it. In less than a half-cycle of the moon, she’d gone from a quiet, uneventful life among the Vistani to struggling to survive from day to day. Undead warriors and a werebadger were her travelin
g companions, creatures she’d heard about only in legends until Soth had appeared in camp. She even carried a weapon out of the tales she loved the most—for she truly believed the cudgel was none other than Kulchek’s own Gard.

  “Don’t make light of my suspicions, Azrael,” she said at last, though her voice held little anger. “You had questions about me when we first met, just because I am Vistani. I have proven myself, but you have not.”

  “You haven’t proven yourself to me,” Azrael replied bluntly. “Besides, I’ve never said I trusted you. I just have the good manners—even if I must point it out myself—not to bring it up every few hours.”

  They traveled for the rest of the afternoon in silence, stopping every now and then for the skeletons to deal with yet another body found along the road. Soth grew more distant from Magda and Azrael. He spent almost all of his time with the undead warriors. Once Magda even heard Soth talking to one of them, as if it might fully understand his words. The sight chilled her to the core.

  By the time the sun touched the horizon to the west, the road had begun to crawl up the slope of a small mountain. Trees grew more sparse, then were replaced by huge boulders as the predominant feature of the terrain. Fewer and fewer bodies dotted the landscape as well. The relief anyone felt at that fact was soon overcome by concern, for the going quickly became treacherous. Even the mindless skeletons, whose careful progress rarely faltered, slipped on the loose gravel that covered the mountain road.

  Only Soth and Azrael moved with ease. The rocky landscape was not the dwarf's favorite, though, and he trudged along with a sorrowful look on his face. Magda wondered if the place made the dwarf homesick—Soth had said that, back on his world, dwarves lived deep underground in vast cities of stone. She could not know that the place depressed Azrael for the exact opposite reason.