contrary to each other. One opened hungrily, running a black tongue over pointed incisors, while another smiled sweetly. A third, a handsbreadth away, drooled like the maw of an idiot.
From each of these mouths came a constant babble, a cacophony of screams, curses, laughter, diatribes, and pleas. The stone walls echoed the waves of sound, doubling them, then doubling them again. Azrael, who was closest to the thing, threw his clawed hands against his ears. His muzzle rippled with a snarl of pain, but he remained rooted in place.
The voices called to the dwarf. They exploded in his mind and summoned his most vivid fears and dreams. Through a vague haze of pain, images flashed through his consciousness, one after another.
Azrael looked down at the blood on his hands and smiled. It was his brother’s blood-or was it his mother’s? He couldn’t tell any longer; the murders had blended together in his mind. The fact that the screams of his kin had all been surprisingly similar didn’t help matters. Azrael wondered if his death-scream would be very much like theirs.
Without warning, the door burst in, the shattering of ancient wood sending fragments across the modest dwarven home. Azrael glanced once at his brother, his neck broken, his face covered in gore, then saw the city’s chief constable standing in the doorway. The fat politskara was frozen in shock, his jowls quivering with fear or, perhaps, anger. Azrael felt a rush of energy pulse through him, and he charged past the constable.
He was free! Rushing into the courtyard of his family’s small home, the dwarf felt the cool air of the city flow over him. Dwarves bustled everywhere, and the clink of hammer upon metal, chisel upon stone, filled his ears. A disgust for all the inhabitants of the Crafter’s Quarter-faint-willed lackeys like his family-threatened to overwhelm Azrael. He had to fight down the urge to attack anyone who came near. But, no, he had to escape, had to reach the dark tunnels that led even deeper into the earth.
The cry of “Murder!” rang out from behind him. The constable was shouting out Azrael’s crimes at the top of his lungs. The young dwarf pushed a stonecutter out of his way and ran.
A sea of faces watched Azrael pass, eyes staring in shock and horror, mouths agape with strangled shouts. For a moment, the dwarf thought they were going to let him go, that the blood covering his arms, the scratches and bruises on his face, would hold them in terror.
Then the arrow bit into his arm.
Pain flashed from his elbow to his shoulder, and the world turned red in his eyes. The dwarf cursed the unknown archer who’d shot the arrow, then fletchers and arrowsmiths in general. He’d never liked bows; they were a coward’s way to fight. No threat of blood on your hands if you shoot someone from a rood away, he thought, stumbling in pain.
The crowd closed in, and Azrael found his way blocked. The eyes of the dwarves stared at him, but those eyes held a different emotion now. Anger, not fear, colored the faces of the craftsmen as they tightened their circle around Azrael, and the threats they murmured filled his ears as he tumbled to the ground.
In the underground chamber in Barovia, the gibbering creature loomed over the fallen dwarf, one of its mouths locked on to his arm. The eyes nearest Azrael bulged with a hungry look, and the thing’s body throbbed forward to bring another gaping mouth close to its ensorcelled victim.
Soth and Magda stood mesmerized. They, too, were caught up in paralyzing visions.
Magda found herself once again creeping down the long tunnel toward the underground chamber. A large hound, its head standing almost as high as her chest, followed at her heels.
“Come, Sabak,” she said. “We must find a way out of this land.” The strain of so many days without sleep had changed her voice to a husky whisper.
Light from a room up ahead bled into the tunnel, and the noise of a celebration filled the air. Magda edged along the wall until she came to the open doorway. The room was bright from the light of thousands of torches, and their dancing flames illuminated a scene of savage revelry. One hundred men crowded around trestle tables piled with raw red meat and dark ale. At their feet, rats with twisted horns fought over the bloody scraps that fell to the ground, squealing and biting their kin. Across the room stood the object of her quest, the portal that would take her from Barovia.
Boldly Magda stepped into the room. She was a hero, the stuff of legends, and mere mortals would not stand between her and freedom. As one, the guardians of the portal turned to face the intruder, drawing their swords. Uncertainty gripped Magda for a moment, then a plan of action formed whole in her mind: Use your dagger to reflect the torchlight and blind half of them, then lay into the others with Gard.
The weight of her cudgel, Gard, felt reassuring in her right hand, and with her left she reached for her dagger. She patted her high leather boots, but the handle didn’t jut over the boot top. Panic gripped her, and she looked down. Novgor, the ever-sharp dagger with the point like a needle, was gone.
The hundred men closed in, and Sabak leaped to protect its mistress. A dozen of the guardians lashed out at the faithful hound, striking it down. As the dog lay bleeding, the horned rats scurried over its body and burrowed into its chest, seeking its still-beating heart. The sight made Magda loathe her own weakness.
She rushed forward and lashed out with Gard, shattering one of the guardian’s skulls. His teeth rained to the floor, and his staring eyes closed for the final time.
In the chamber, the gibbering thing shuddered at the blow. It released the huge, fanged mouth it had fastened to Azrael and hissed at the woman. She bashed the gaping maw in with the club. Keeping a grip on the fallen dwarf with three other mouths, the thing lurched in the Vistani’s direction. Tentacles appeared all over the side facing her. The dripping arms lashed out and tried to snatch the ancient cudgel from her grasp. One struck her across the face and sent her sprawling.
Soth did not see any of this, though his eyes still stared ceaselessly into the chamber; like the others, he was caught up in a vision brought on by the guardian’s myriad voices. The scene that lay before the death knight was one that had not welled up in his mind for many, many years. Goblins filled a dank, dismal cavern. Their flat faces- hundreds of them-all turned to look at him, and their grins of victory revealed small fangs eager for his flesh.
Along with two fellow knights, Soth had entered this, the most remote section of the Vingaard Mountains, on a quest. He and his fellows sought a relic of the greatest of the Knights of Solamnia, Huma Dragonbane. Legends claimed Huma himself had entered the mountains, searching for a minion of the evil goddess, Takhisis. The hunt took one hundred days, and during the long trek, the great knight’s spurs were lost. Huma had cherished these spurs, for they had been presented to him by the church of Majere for his good deeds, but he did not stop to recover them. The quest was always foremost in Huma’s thoughts.
It was for these spurs, symbols of Huma’s devotion to the cause of Good, that Soth and his companions quested. Like the other two warriors, Soth had hoped the adventure would present a chance to prove his bravery-for that was the only way he would ever advance from Knight of the Sword to Knight of the Rose, the highest honor of the Order.
The trappings of rank held little interest for the young Sword Knight at the moment. A goblin horde guarded the relics, keeping them hidden from agents of Good, and the evil creatures had succeeded in isolating the knights and capturing two of them. Now Soth stood alone, all thoughts of glory gone from his mind.
I am a Knight of the Sword, he told himself, brushing the sweat from his forehead. Paladine, Father of Good, teach your servant not to fear.
Although the young knight repeated the prayer over and over in his mind, his hand still shook slightly as he raised his sword. “Release my fellows,” he heard himself say, surprised at how clear and commanding his voice was. He pointed to the two wounded knights that hung on one wall of the cavern, heavy chains holding their wrists to the dripping stone. “I will ask once for their freedom. If you do not comply swiftly, I will cut a swath through your ranks and free them myself.”
Both captive knights were battered and bloody, and Soth wondered if either of them still lived. The notion was dismissed quickly; his duty to them, dead or alive, was clear. He must rescue them or die trying.
The goblins became a jabbering mob. Some slapped their short, flint-tipped spears against their shields. The leather ovals thudded dully as they were struck, but, added together, they sounded like thunder rumbling through the cavern. Others shouted and cursed in their harsh, guttural tongue. The mob moved forward, the red skin of their faces making them look demonic in the cave’s torchlight. Their slanted yellow eyes glowed with malevolence.
Soth gripped his sword tightly and said a prayer to the gods of Good. “You have been warned,” he said to the mob, but the goblins came closer.
A command shouted from the rear of the press halted the creatures’ advance. Many of the mob turned to face the goblin that had given the order, and fell aside. Down the wide path cleared for him came the goblin king,
