Knight of the Black Rose

by James Lowder

  “That very night, the knights who were besieging Dargaard Keep fell under some sort of spell, a magical sleep that allowed Soth to sneak past them undetected,” Caradoc continued. “He rode for days toward Istar, but the thirteen elven women who had revealed his dalliance with Isolde to the Knights’ Council stopped him on the road. They intimated Isolde had been unfaithful to him, that the son she was carrying was not his child at all, but the bastard of one of his ‘loyal’ retainers.”

  The vampire smiled. “And Lord Soth turned away from his sacred quest to confront his wife.” He stood and paced the study, his agitation playing across his features. “He was a man of strong passions, eh, Caradoc?”

  “He told me Paladine had granted him a very clear vision of what would happen if he failed to stop the kingpriest,” the ghost explained. “He said he knew the gods would punish the kingpriest’s pride by hurling a mountain at Istar. In his vision he felt the fire engulf the city, heard the screams of the dying.”

  Strahd took a seat at a writing desk at the room’s edge. “But he returned to Dargaard to accuse his wife of infidelity.”

  The ghost nodded awkwardly, his head resting on his shoulder. “And when he died that day, his curse encompassed everyone who had served him faithfully. His knights became mindless skeletons, and I…” He raised his hands and looked down at his transparent form. “Soth’s passions brought him low in the end, but I should not have been doomed with him.”

  The vampire lord considered the ghost’s words for a moment. As he did, something the blind mystic had written on the day Soth and Caradoc had been drawn into Barovia came to his mind: Boarhound and boar, master and servant; do not hope to break the pattern. Honor it instead.

  The obscure warning became clear to him at last.

  Taking a quill pen and a piece of parchment from the desk, Strahd scribbled a hasty note. “I want you to memorize this message and deliver it to Lord Soth.”

  Frightened, the ghost tried to stammer a plea, but the words simply wouldn’t pass his lips. Seeing his servant’s distress, the count held up one gloved hand. “I will extend the magical wards that make the castle safe from his sorcery to the gatehouses bracketing the bridge. As long as you go no farther than those towers, you will be safe from him.”

  Caradoc started to object, but the count laid the paper upon the desk. “I would like the death knight to hear these words from your lips before the moon rises. You have my word that you will be safe. Do you doubt that I will uphold that promise?”

  “Of course not, master. I—I will do anything you ask of me,” Caradoc said, bowing his head as the vampire left the room.

  The gargoyle to whom Strahd had assigned the dangerous task of greeting Soth at the clearing was waiting for the count in the hallway. “The battle is going badly, master,” it reported. “The death knight and the werebeast have slain almost half the soldiers you raised, though they have taken few wounds themselves.”

  Closing the door to the study, Strahd nodded. “The battle is not going badly, Iagus. It is proceeding just as I expected. If the army falls to under fifty, I will raise new troops from the graveyard on the outskirts of the village. Soth has no chance of crossing the bridge.”

  Strahd started down the hallway. Over his shoulder he said, “In a few moments, Caradoc will leave to deliver a message to Lord Soth. Follow him and report to me everything that happens.” He hurried away to a room high in one of the towers.

  It was a small cell with no windows and only a single door reinforced with iron. The door opened at a word from the vampire lord. A pair of torches bracketing the jamb flared to life of their own accord as he entered the room. Unlike much of the rest of Castle Ravenloft, no dust covered the shelves lining the walls and floor, no cracks snaked up the stone blocks. Even the torches burned without smoke. The wall behind their flames was free of soot.

  Tapestries decorated with elaborate designs of interlocking rings and geometric patterns hung upon three walls. The ceiling, too, was covered with a mesmerizing fresco of swirling lines and colors. Two pieces of furniture stood in the cell: a three-legged stool and a large table with a clear glass top.

  The count positioned the stool before one of the tapestries and sat down. As he did so, two of the table’s legs elongated so that the glass faced him. Gundar does hate it so when I contact him this way, the vampire noted to himself, then forced a grave mask over his mirth. He closed his eyes and pictured the unkempt ruler of Gundarak in his mind.

  “You have some nerve contacting me now, you bastard!” Gundar shouted. Strahd opened his eyes and looked into the glass. There the duke stood, red-faced and snarling.

  The lord of Barovia knew he appeared as nothing more than a ghostly, disembodied head to Gundar, a head surrounded by the mesmerizing patterns of the tapestry behind him. Anyone who stared at those patterns for too long found themselves hypnotized.

  Gundar had dealt with Strahd enough times to know better. He focused his eyes on the count, not the tapestry, as he said, “You’ll pay for Medraut’s death, Strahd.”

  “The creatures who killed your son are not my servants, I assure you. The werebadger is a renegade, a murderer, and the death knight is far too powerful to serve either you or me.” The count did his best to look concerned. “In fact, they are besieging my castle right now. The portal took them from your hall to an alley in the village of Vallaki. The death knight blames me for this.”

  Tugging at his curling black beard, Gundar narrowed his eyes. “You admit they found out about the portal from you?”

  “Of course,” the count replied, “though I only dealt with the death knight. The other is his lackey.” He leaned forward. “But let us be honest here, eh, Gundar? I had hoped the death knight would create a little havoc in your keep. If he killed your son, so much the better, but I knew he was not powerful enough to harm you—not seriously anyway.”

  The duke uttered a string of foul curses, and Strahd held up one hand. “If the death knight had come to you first,” he noted coldly, “you would have turned him against me. It’s rather like murdering the envoys we send to each other.”

  “This isn’t the same as murdering ambassadors,” the duke bellowed. “That monstrous werebeast tore poor Medraut’s throat out. Someone must pay my blood-price for this,” he warned. “I want restitution.”

  Strahd laughed. “The werebeast should ask you for payment, Duke. You were terrified of that little brat. If you could have, you would have killed him yourself years ago.”

  Slowly Gundar turned his back to Strahd, and silence fell upon both men. When the duke faced the ghostly image again, a look of worry, almost of fear, hung upon his features. “The death knight fought me to a standstill,” he said gravely. “Here, in my own castle!”

  “That is why I am contacting you,” Strahd explained. “This death knight—Lord Soth, is his name—has proven himself to be a threat to both Barovia and Gundarak. As I said, he is fighting against my minions as we speak, trying to batter his way into my home.” The count smiled, revealing his fangs. “I can rid us of him, but I will need your help.”

  Again Gundar paused, then he asked, “What do you need me to do?”

  • • •

  Soth and Azrael fought back-to-back. The corpses and bones piled around them served to slow down the assault, and they added to that grim barricade with almost every stroke of Soth’s blade, every swing of Azrael’s mace. Both had taken blows from the attackers, but the death knight’s armor saved him from all but the most powerful strike and the dwarf's amazing powers of regeneration helped him shrug off most wounds. Only the scarred mercenary had scored palpable hits against the werebadger time and again; his silver sword and ensorcelled dagger dug deeply into Azrael’s shoulder and leg. The dwarf had not been able to strike back at the human, for he attacked whenever Azrael was caught up in a struggle with a zombie or skeleton. Then he faded back into the press.

  The zombies proved to be the most difficult foe, as Soth had expected. Their li
mbs continued to fight even after being sliced from their torsos. Azrael now clutched a burning branch in one hand, and set the creatures on fire whenever a chance presented itself. Flames seemed to be the best way to stop the shambling undead, for their ragged clothing and desiccated flesh caught fire quite readily.

  Azrael had just set another zombie on fire when the half-dozen gargoyles that flapped overhead shouted a retreat. “Back to the bridge,” they cried, snapping their wire whips against the zombies’ backs.

  Soth did not allow the soldiers to break off without paying a price. He cut two mercenaries down as they fled and bashed in a skeleton’s rictus grin with the pommel of his sword. As the remainder of Strahd’s army backed toward the bridge, Soth studied the battlefield, waiting for some new and more deadly opponent.

  “Greetings, Lord Soth,” came a voice from one of the crumbling gatehouses slouching to either side of the bridge. “I bear a message from my master, Count Strahd Von Zarovich.”

  The familiar voice startled Soth, and his sword slipped from his fingers when he saw Caradoc standing atop the gatehouse. The ghost’s head still lolled upon his shoulder as he hovered uncertainly, half hidden behind a crenelation. “The count sends his regrets that he cannot deliver the message himself, but has asked me to inform you that he will come to parley with you when the moon reaches it zenith.”

  “Caradoc,” the death knight whispered, unable to believe his eyes. “You traitorous cur!” He staggered a step forward and pointed. A bolt of light flashed from his hand and sped toward the ghost, but before it reached the tower, it struck an invisible wall, a powerful shield against magic that Strahd had erected around the castle. The beam dissipated in a dazzling burst of reds and golds.

  It took Caradoc a moment to find his voice. Strahd had kept his word; the death knight could not reach him. “My master’s message to you is this: ‘I regret you have not left Barovia, but your treatment of my subjects in Vallaki and your attack on my home cannot be pardoned. If you break off your hostilities now, I may find mercy for you.’ ”

  Azrael kicked one of the corpses littering the field. “Mercy? He’s the one cowering inside his castle, and he’s offering us mercy?”

  “His message for you is different, dwarf,” Caradoc replied. “I am to say that you are doomed.”

  His fists held before him, Soth rushed forward a few steps. The army pressed together to hold him back, but he stopped before he reached the front rank. “You cannot hide from me forever, Caradoc,” he shouted. His rage burned within him, as hot as the fires that had robbed him of his life.

  The ghost leaned out over the crenelations. “You will never defeat Strahd.” He laughed and gestured toward his broken neck. “This is the best you could do against me, and I’m the least of his servants.”

  So caught up in the joy of taunting the death knight was Caradoc that he did not notice the soft shimmer in the air above Soth’s head.

  “I robbed you of Kitiara,” the ghost shouted, “and you expect to outwit Strahd? The medallion was hidden in my skeleton in the tower at Dargaard. You practically stepped on it when you scattered my bones. It’s still there, but you’ll never reach it. She is out of your grasp forever.”

  A huge fist appeared above Soth, glowing with a fierce red luminescence. The death knight raised his gauntleted hand over his head, and the radiant fist he had formed rose higher. When it was level with the top of the gatehouse, Soth pounded the air before him; the fist mirrored that action and slammed into the invisible shield.

  “You… will… never… escape!” the death knight shouted. The fist struck the barrier with each word, sending peals of thunder rolling through the clear night sky. Lines of blue light snaked across the air like cracks in plaster, and the gatehouse quaked to its foundation.

  Caradoc needed no more prompting. He fled back to the keep, Soth’s shouts and the ominous rumble of magical thunder filling his ears. Relief washed over him when he saw Strahd framed by the castle’s entryway.

  “You seem to have angered him,” the count said smoothly. “That’s quite unfortunate.”

  Caradoc’s relief turned to fear when he saw the cold glint in the vampire’s eyes, the calculating way in which Strahd was studying him. “Master, I—”

  Strahd shook his head, silencing the plea before it left the ghost’s mouth. “I’m afraid you are no longer welcome at Castle Ravenloft, Caradoc,” the vampire lord said. “I want you to leave immediately.”

  SIXTEEN

  The magical fist Soth wielded against the barrier protecting Castle Ravenloft struck one final blow, then faded. The invisible wall had withstood the death knight’s furious attack; though it had cracked many times, the snaking lines of blue had healed after each blow, never widening into a full breach. The last thunderous report reverberated from the castle’s outer curtain of stone and into the crevasse that gaped before the front gate, then silence fell upon the clearing.

  Strahd’s army stood in formation before the bridge. The zombies, skeletons, and human mercenaries had originally outnumbered Soth and Azrael one-hundred-to-one, but their number had been halved in the first assault. A few of the soldiers had intellect enough to understand their peril. They prayed to whatever dark gods they worshiped that Strahd would not order them to attack again. They did not wish to share the fate of the mangled corpses that littered the field.

  Whistling tunelessly, Azrael took advantage of the lull in the fighting and made his way across the battlefield. He set fire to the twitching remains of the zombies and battered anything that tried to move.

  Whenever he came across a human mercenary, he would rifle the dead man’s pockets, taking whatever coins or trinkets he found. Having completed his rounds, the dwarf moved to Soth’s side.

  The death knight stared at the gatehouse where Caradoc had stood, taunting him. “He will not escape me,” Soth repeated softly. “I cannot let his treachery go unpunished.”

  Azrael was about to ask the death knight how he intended to get at the ghost, seeing as Strahd’s defenses were standing up quite well to their assault, but movement in the enemy ranks silenced him. The gargoyles who commanded the mob suddenly took to the air, cracking their whips. At the savage prompting, the dead men and sell-swords parted into two groups, leaving open a wide path directly to the bridge. Soth took a single step toward the gap, then stopped.

  A cloud of mist was swirling across the bridge. As Soth watched, the cloud stopped midway, took the shape of a man, and solidified into the vampire lord of Barovia, Strahd Von Zarovich.

  “Where is Caradoc?” the death knight shouted.

  Strahd’s hands were clasped behind his back. He wore a white shirt with billowing sleeves, its buttons undone partway down his chest. His black pants were lightly wrinkled and his high boots scuffed. Soth knew the count’s appearance was a carefully considered facade, meant to give the impression that he had been caught unprepared by the attack on his home.

  Glancing to the left and right, Strahd eyed his remaining troops. The zombies and skeletons stared blankly at the count; the humans averted their eyes. “You may return to the keep,” he told them.

  As the soldiers shuffled across the bridge, Soth stormed forward. “You have much to account for, Strahd,” he rumbled.

  Strahd cocked his head. “I have nothing to account for,” he replied without emotion, “I told you all I knew about the portal. If it did not take you back to Krynn, I am hardly to blame.”

  “And Caradoc?” Soth asked. He was close enough to Strahd now that the vampire could smell the bitter scent of blood on the death knight’s blade and armor. “You told me he died entering your home, remember? He is my servant. I want him released to me immediately.”

  “The ghost was your servant, Lord Soth,” the vampire corrected. “He came to me seeking sanctuary. Since there are no churches to speak of in Barovia, I feel it is my responsibility to take such unfortunates into my care. Caradoc swore an oath of loyalty to me, and I consider him one of my own household
now.”

  “Then I will tear your household apart until I find him,” Soth said, stepping past the count. Strahd did not attempt to stop him as he headed toward the keep.

  Gesturing to the castle, the count said, “You will not find Caradoc there, Soth. You frightened him so badly with your show of force that he fled.”

  Strahd suddenly turned to Azrael. The dwarf was only a few paces behind the count, his mace gripped tightly in his hands. Before the dwarf could utter a single word, he found himself paralyzed. “You are fortunate, cur. I have a dozen spells that would have taken your miserable life instead of freezing your limbs.”

  Although his features were locked in a snarl, Azrael’s brown eyes showed his fear and surprise quite clearly.

  The count faced Soth again, a complacent smirk twisting his thin lips. “I will not hold you accountable for the mistakes of those who serve you. Do not hold a grudge against me because you have an old score to settle with a servant of mine.”

  The death knight looked back at Strahd. The vampire was standing over the paralyzed dwarf, tracing with one finger the wounds Azrael had gained during the battle.

  “Once,” Strahd noted casually, “when I was a soldier, I was forced to eat raw meat. It was the only food we could find, you see, and we couldn’t start a fire because the enemy would have spotted our camp.” He licked Azrael’s blood from his finger and gritted his teeth. “I never thought I would live to enjoy it so much.”

  Soth walked back to Strahd. “Where is he?” he asked. When the vampire continued to prod Azrael’s wounds, the death knight grabbed his wrist. “Where did Caradoc go?”

  Narrowing his eyes until they were dark slits, Strahd licked his lips. “If Magda was still with you, I would demand a trade—her life for the ghost’s. The dwarf is not worth so much.” He wrenched his hand from Soth’s grasp and pointed at Azrael. “You will need him to find your errant seneschal.”