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.”
Azrael 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
