Soth turned to Magda. “Quickly, girl! To my side!”
The Vistani took only a single step forward before a black, three-taloned hand wrapped around her ankle. She hit the floor hard, face-first, and her breath exploded from her lungs. Through tearing eyes, she saw the gargoyle gripping her leg with one hand. The creature ran its blistered tongue over its lips.
At the same time, the dragon shot forward, cutting the woman off from her would-be savior. The wyrm lowered its head and brandished its set of short horns. When Soth stepped toward the woman, it spread its red, leathery wings. “Do not interfere with us, Soth,” the dragon hissed.
The show of strength did not impress Lord Soth. With an overhand swing, he slashed his reply to the dragon’s warning. His ancient sword bounced harmlessly off the wyrm’s crimson scales, though the creature screeched in anger at the fallen knight’s impertinence. Still growling, the dragon sprang at Soth, its mouth open wide.
Needle-sharp teeth clamped down on the death knight’s wrist. Pain shot up Soth’s arm as the teeth tore a jagged-edged hole in his armor and bit into his flesh. Had Soth been mortal, the attack would have torn his arm off below the elbow.
The blow also knocked the sword from Soth’s grasp. The ancient weapon bounced pommel-first off the floor, then slid with a high-pitched whine of metal on stone out of the knight’s reach. Soth paid little attention to the lost weapon as he balled his free hand into a fist and battered the dragon’s snout.
The gargoyle lay on top of Magda, pinning her legs and one arm. With her free hand the Vistani pummeled the stone-skinned creature’s face. It was soon clear, however, that she could do the thing little harm with her fist, so she frantically groped the floor nearby for something to use as a weapon. When her hand closed on the sword’s grip, made icy from Soth’s grasp, she did not hesitate.
Magda was no stranger to such weapons. The villagers in Barovia and the duchies surrounding it had no love for the gypsies, though they greedily bought the foreign goods they sold. Some even frequented the Vistani fortune- tellers, a practice that cost dearly. Still, a gypsy caught away from her people was an easy target for the superstitious peasants, so at an early age all Vistani learned how to handle a blade.
Gripping the weapon tightly, Magda lashed out and landed the pommel against the gargoyle’s temple. The creature howled, clutching its head as it fell sideways. That gave Magda the time she needed to scramble to her feet.
The gargoyle eyed the woman and the weapon slyly. “Blade can’t hurt me, ’less it’s enchanted. Give up now ’fore you make me really mad.”
Tentatively, the gargoyle extended a hand. Magda hesitated. Creatures born of sorcery were often immune to weapons of steel or iron. If the gargoyle were such a beast, it was true-there was little she could hope to do without an enchanted blade.
The gargoyle sidled closer, its arm still extended. “Give it t’me.”
Magda struck with all the strength desperation could grant. The bloodstained blade glowed blue, and the weapon cut deeply into the gargoyle’s shoulder. One wing hanging limp upon its back, the ebony-skinned monster tried to lope away, but Magda swung again. One of the gargoyle’s hands fell to the floor. Its taloned fingers contracted twice, then lay still.
Gray pus dripped from the gargoyle’s wounds as it hopped up the stairs, yelping in pain. Magda let the sword slip from her fingers as the creature disappeared. At last her heart slowed its pounding, and the throbbing in her ears died away. She turned and faced a sight more awe-inspiring than any she had ever seen in the netherworld.
Lord Soth stood, his right arm held high. The dragon still had its jaws locked onto the death knight’s wrist. Its tail coiled around Soth’s legs, and noisily its clawed feet scraped against his breastplate. The wound on Soth’s wrist brought no blood, but pain burned up his arm like red-hot splinters. Though he knew spells that might harm the creature, the death knight could not use them; magic required concentration and free movement, both of which had been denied him. Soth bore the pain silently and continued to hammer at the dragon with his fist.
The sight of the two evil titans locked in battle was the stuff of legends, the sort of thing that could form the basis for an epic tale one day. But if I don’t escape the castle, the Vistani told herself, there will be no one to tell the story.
Magda kept glancing at the battle as she hurried to the pillar-lined dining room. Andari was nowhere to be seen, and no music echoed from the front of the dining hall. The small sack she had filled at her wagon before setting out with the death knight lay hidden beneath a corner of the table. She retrieved her silver dirk from the sack and used it to rip a few inches off her dress’s hem and cut away any frills.
She left the room just as Soth and the dragon toppled to the floor. The crimson wyrm’s tail entangled the death knight’s legs, and Soth had to use his free hand in an attempt to force apart the creature’s jaws. The entire right side of the dragon’s head was a bruised and bloody pulp; its eye had swollen shut, and many of its scales had been battered away. Still the creature clamped its teeth down upon the knight’s wrist.
The attack was beginning to show upon Soth. The death knight’s right hand had curled painfully into a fist, much the same way the hand of a paralytic froze into a clawlike pose. The dragon’s teeth had shredded much of the armor on his wrist, exposing skin that was translucent and charred.
With a grunt of pain, the death knight wedged his left hand into the dragon’s mouth. He pulled back its lips, stained a dark red from its own blood, and shattered three of the creature’s teeth. The needle-sharp teeth remained lodged in the death knight’s arm. Slowly Lord Soth pulled the dragon’s mouth open. A cracking of bone sounded in the room.
Suddenly the dragon released its grip and rolled back from Lord Soth. Both the dragon and the death knight were slow getting to their feet, but neither appeared ready to acknowledge defeat. “The master will not be pleased I had to destroy you, death knight,” the crimson guardian growled, its missing teeth adding even more hiss to its already sibilant voice.
Arching its back, the wyrm inhaled deeply. There was a shrill hiss, like rushing air, then the dragon breathed forth a jet of smoke and fire. Magda dove back into the dining hall, but Soth let the liquid fire wash over him. The death knight’s long purple cloak burst into flames, and soon he appeared as little more than a pillar of smoke and fire.
A deep, rumbling laughter filled the room. “Magical fire wrought by the gods themselves took my life three and a half centuries ago,” Soth said. The cloak fell from the death knight’s shoulders in flaming rags as he stepped forward. “Your spittle is nothing to me, little wyrm.”
A preternatural calm came over Soth, and he cleared his mind for an instant. A single word, terrible in its intensity, flashed into existence in his brain. Those on Krynn who studied the darker paths of sorcery knew and feared such magical words of power, for they could be used to blind or stun or kill most living things. Not even dragons were immune to the fearsome effects of these ancient sorceries.
Soth pointed with his uninjured hand and spoke the most deadly of these words. The dragon recoiled at the sound, then opened its mouth to breathe fire again. Before the wyrm could exhale, a crackling ball of black energy formed around it. The sparking bands contracted, and searching tendrils wove their way into the dragon’s eyes and ears and mouth. The wyrm shuddered once, then again, and black light began to stream from cracks in its crimson scales. The death knight, his armor still glowing red from the dragonfire, stood over the dying creature as agonizing spasms racked its body. At last the dragon lay still, its eyes bulging from their sockets and smoke seeping from its nose.
“Come out, Magda.”
The Vistani emerged from the dining hall, her dagger in her hand. Soth kept his back to her as he examined his wounded arm; his flesh had been shredded by the attack, his bones scarred. The pain still pulsing along his arm oddly fascinated the death knight, for it was rare that an adversary caused him any harm. “I am leaving Castle Ravenloft.”
After retrieving his sword, Soth scanned the room for a shadow, one large enough that he and Magda could use to escape the keep.
Gibbering and howling began to sound from the stairway the Vistani had descended earlier. The woman looked from the staircase to the door. “Let me leave on my own,” she pleaded. “I’ll not tell the count what you did.”
Soth smiled beneath his helmet as he turned to her. “I want Strahd to know what I did. Besides, you owe me an explanation of the count’s plans…”
The noise from the upper floor grew louder, and a hunchbacked form emerged from the darkness at the top
