Soth planted his feet, waiting for the shambling corpse to get close to him before he lashed out.
One step closer, then another. The moon revealed the zombie’s features to Soth. Beneath the rusty helmet, dark voids filled the creature’s eye sockets, and only the barest fragment of a nose clung to its face. Pasty skin, pocked from maggots feasting upon it, pulled tight over its cheekbones and chin. Lips and cheeks had been torn away to reveal a set of large, crooked teeth. Slowly, mechanically, the shambling undead took a few more steps. At last it thrust out its hands toward Soth. The bony fingers ended in sharp talons.
Soundlessly Soth’s blade cut through the air. The blow knocked the zombie off balance, and its left arm dropped to the hard earth with a thud. Grunting, the creature straightened and reached for the death knight with its remaining arm. Soth calmly swung his sword again. The zombie’s right arm followed its left. Yet the mindless creature pushed closer to the armored man. Jaws opened wide, it leaned forward to use the only weapon left to it- its sharp, yellowed teeth. With a curse, the death knight struck the creature in the face with his sword’s heavy pommel.
The zombie reeled backward, its skull caved in, the fragment of its nose gone. Before it could shamble any farther forward, Soth lashed out with his blade. The creature’s severed head rolled through the air and landed faceup in a thorny bush. Headless and armless, the zombie’s body stumbled drunkenly on the hill, then toppled into the dirt. A small gout of blood dribbled from its neck, staining the rusted breastplate crimson.
“Pay heed to this!” Soth shouted into the darkness, pointing at the corpse with his sword. “I’ve passed your test!”
As if in response to this boast, the wolves around the hilt released their voices into the night. The baying rang through the forest. More sounds of creatures crashing through the underbrush came just as the howling ceased. Six more zombies, clad in armor and rags like the first, shuffled up the hillock.
“Bah!” the death knight scoffed. “One or six or six hundred, I will slaughter these mindless things like sheep before a feast.”
When Soth took a step forward, however, he found his movement hampered. He looked down and, there, clinging to his armored right ankle, was one of the defeated zombie’s arms. Even without a body behind it, the limb was holding Soth fast, anchoring him in place. The zombie’s other limb was dragging itself across the ground, its fingers resembling nothing so much as a spider’s legs as it moved closer.
“What madness is this?” the death knight exclaimed.
He glanced at the severed head caught in the bush. Its mouth still chewed at the air, and the bush’s thorns dug long, deep scratches into its cheeks as it moved from side to side. The gruesome sight distracted the death knight’s gaze for just a moment. The other zombies had almost reached him by the time he looked up again. Soth did not raise his sword at first; instead he called to mind a spell and pointed.
A small flame burst from the tip of Soth’s finger, then sped toward the lead zombie. The flaming ball swelled quickly, leaving a dancing trail of fire and smoke in its wake. The half-dozen undead climbing the hill did nothing to avoid the missile, almost as if they dimly realized they were doomed.
The fireball struck. Hissing as it was engulfed in magical fire, the first creature fell to the ground, an unmoving, charred husk. The lethal attack took in the shuffling things around that one as well. Suddenly, the flaming corpse exploded, showering all the remaining zombies with fire. Three more of the monsters were soon burning, their bodies covering the hillside with dark, foul-smelling smoke.
Of the two remaining undead, one wore no armor whatsoever. This zombie was clad in a long robe, one like those worn by some priests or monks on Krynn. The death knight dispatched this one first. He raised his sword high and swung it down in a two-handed blow. With a sickening sound, the blade tore through the zombie’s shoulder, continuing through bone and desiccated flesh before exiting from the hip on the other side of the body. The robe- clad zombie managed one more step before its body split into two writhing halves.
The howl of wolves sounded over the hillock once more as the last zombie stopped, just out of sword’s reach from Soth. This one wore no helmet, but the rest of its body was covered in ancient armor. Emblazoned on the breastplate was a raven, its wings spread wide in flight. Wisps of long blond hair hung in places from the zombie’s rotting scalp, and much of its face was covered with skin, making it look far more human than any of its compatriots.
Soth, his feet still held by the two disembodied arms, presented his sword in a defensive stance. Yet the expected attack never came. The wolves cried out again, then the zombie turned and shuffled down the hill. Passing its burning kin, the creature repeated a single word over and over again. “Strahd,” came the strangled hiss. “Strahd.”
The zombie waded into the forest. The monstrous wolves also faded into the trees one by one until only a solitary beast remained. This wolf glared at the death knight, and the small fires on the hillside made its eyes sparkle malevolently in the night. Soth met that savage stare with his own unblinking gaze.
At last the wolf turned and retreated. As he hacked the clutching hands from his ankles, Soth could hear the wolves barking and yelping as they spread out in the forest, heading west. The death knight knew their noise was meant for him. “Follow,” they were saying.
The death knight tossed the writhing limbs and bodies onto a pyre. He bolstered the fire with chunks of the shattered tree, though the wood did not burn even half as well as the undead flesh. The blaze sent even more thick, pungent smoke into the night sky.
A few stars winked against the carpet of black, but their positions seemed random to Soth. Gone were the Dark Queen, the Valiant Warrior, all the constellations that defined the night sky of Krynn. Gone, too, were the black and red moons. Only a single gibbous orb, its light reflecting brightly, hung overhead.
“I am far from Krynn,” Soth said. After a pause, he added, “But I will not return there until I find Caradoc, until I know where he has hidden Kitiara’s soul.”
To the west, a wolf howled long and low.
The death knight sheathed his sword. “Your master lies at the end of your trail, and he might be of aid to me in finding my wayward servant,” he said. “I will follow and let you take me to this ‘Strahd.’ ”
• • •
Bony, age-spotted hands caressed the crystal ball like a lover. The milky white glass glowed slightly under their touch. The ancient artifact would reveal nothing to the casual observer. To the scarred fingers weaving intricate patterns upon it, however, the crystal ball had much to say.
“Urrr,” the ancient mystic groaned pensively. He closed his blind eyes and rubbed his fingers over the globe with more urgency. The light from the crystal grew more intense, casting ominous shadows over his wrinkled face.
The old man removed his hands from the glass suddenly, almost as if he’d been burned. With jerky movements, he reached for the parchment and the feathered quill pen that lay nearby. He turned his sightless eyes, as white as the crystal orb, to the paper and started to write.
The lines wandered across the page, some sentences crossing over others, some curling almost in a circle around the parchment’s edge. Yet the mystic’s hand never strayed from the yellowed paper, and, for those used to reading his scrawl, the message was quite legible.
When the old man finished writing, he swayed for a moment, then lowered his head to the rutted tabletop. “Let us see what you have learned,” came a silken voice from the other side of the room.
With a word of magic, a half-dozen candles burst into flame. A slender hand gloved in kidskin lifted the candelabra that held the wax sticks. Warmly their light flowed across the stone floor and onto the table where the mystic lay, exhausted. The possessor of the voice reached into the pool of light and gently lifted the parchment.
Two have arrived, the message began, one of great power, both of great use. The sins of ancient wrongs unforgiven bring them to your garden, though they know neither the Dark Powers nor the place to which they have been brought. Boarhound and boar, master and servant; do not hope to break their pattern. Honor it instead.
The graceful man placed the candelabra on the table, the parchment held absently before him. His eyes bore a vacant, distant look, and his lips were turned down in a slight frown. His dark clothes and his long black cape swallowed the light striking them, but the large red stone that dangled on a chain of gold from his neck reflected the candlelight sharply. Tracing his high cheekbone with a single finger, he stood elegantly, lost in thought. At last he reached down and stroked the old man’s snowy head.
“It is a shame your visions cannot provide you with more specific messages, Voldra,” Count Strahd Von Zarovich said, though he knew the mystic could not hear him. The old man was as deaf as he was blind. “At times
