the chain and steel weight swept across the ground, hissing like a scythe. Two skeletal warriors were caught by the blow. Their bones flew apart like shards of broken pottery.
Frantically Magda looked from Soth to Azrael. The giant was too close to allow the death knight the time to cast another spell, so Soth drew his sword. The undead warriors did the same. Azrael, however, backed toward the wall of ice. At the sight of the retreating dwarf, the Vistani cursed; there seemed little question now that Azrael was indeed a traitor.
Magda gripped her cudgel tightly and joined Soth against the flail-wielding giant. The thing had raised his weapon for another blow, but the death knight slashed him across the knee. As his leg buckled beneath him, he stumbled forward and the flail slipped from his hands. That didn’t prevent him from swatting another of the skeletal warriors with his torch. The blow lifted the skeleton from the ground. It struck a boulder with a resounding, sickening snap of bones, then crumpled to the earth.
At the same time, a huge fist knocked a hole in the wall of ice. The second giant reached through the breach and grabbed Azrael. The dwarf, caught partway through his transformation into half-badger form, could do little but squirm and growl in the giant’s grasp. With a grunt from his piggish snout, the hunchback tossed Azrael over his shoulder as if he were nothing but a discarded toy.
“Oi, Fej, give me a hand here,” the first giant cried. He was on his knees, holding off five skeletons with his huge torch. His arms were covered with bloody slashes from the undead warriors’ blades. His tunic hung about him in ribbons.
“Awright, Bilgaar. Stop yer whinin’.” The hunchbacked giant had been busy climbing over the ice wall, and now he loped forward. At Soth’s command, the skeletons broke off from the first battle and formed a line between Fej and his fellow, their swords bristling before them.
Bilgaar, the giant in front of Soth and Magda, braced a hand on his wounded knee and struggled to his feet. As he did so, the Vistani lashed out with her cudgel. Bilgaar tried to block the club with his torch, but all he received for the attempt was two broken fingers. “Aooww!” he howled. His torch spun from his hand and landed at the base of the pillar.
Magda raised Gard to strike again, but the giant shoved her aside. The Vistani tumbled to the ground. The action cost the giant dearly, though. Soth, taking advantage of the opening, chopped at Bilgaar’s outstretched hand with a powerful two-handed swing. The death knight’s blade severed the giant’s hand from his wrist, and Bilgaar collapsed, clutching the bloody stump. Without hesitating, Soth drove his sword through the back of the giant’s skull. After Bilgaar whimpered once, his gaping mouth closed and the life fled from his oddly paired eyes.
Fej was having a much easier time of it. A defeated skeleton lay unmoving at his feet, and the seven remaining ones were having a hard time scoring any hits through the giant’s armor. One of the undead moved too close to Fej, and he used his huge fist to crush the skeleton into the ground.
The giant chuckled at the scattered bones, but that mirth was cut short by a bloodcurdling howl. Before Fej could spare a look behind him, Azrael leaped from a granite outcropping and landed on his hunched back. The werebeast had transformed fully into his half-badger form, and he looked none the worse from the giant’s earlier attack. With daggerlike claws and teeth, he tore into Fej’s throat.
The giant dropped his torch and tried to grab the werecreature. He screamed once before Azrael severed his vocal cords. Then the skeletal warriors closed in.
From the darkness between two boulders, Magda watched the skeletons and the werebadger tear the hunchbacked giant to bloody pieces. Soth, his back to her, studied the proceedings and cleaned his sword on a shred of Bilgaar’s tunic. Azrael had joined the fight, she noted acidly, but only because we were winning. There was no doubt in her mind now: The dwarf had used the pillar to summon the giants. Whether he did so for Strahd or Gundar didn’t matter; he was part of the trap.
This might be my last chance to escape, she decided. They are all too caught up in the slaughter to notice. Quietly Magda got to her feet and edged into the darkness.
“Six left,” Soth noted grimly, counting the remaining skeletons. “And we are still days from Castle Hunadora.”
Azrael, his muzzle and paws caked with gore, finally stood back from the dead giant. He scanned the clearing. “She’s gone,” he rumbled. “The Vistani bitch has run off!”
The death knight probed the night with his unblinking eyes. Azrael was correct. Magda had fled. “Can you find her?” he asked, something akin to disappointment in his voice.
Grinning ferally, the werebadger dropped his hands to the ground and sniffed the air. “Don’t bother dispatching the skeletons,” he said. “She’s got a medallion that makes her invisible to ’em.” That said, he disappeared into the maze of boulders, sniffing the gravel.
The moon had disappeared by the time Azrael returned, but he found Soth standing in exactly the same spot, in just the same position he had left him in earlier. The werecreature was in dwarf form again, and a large, swollen bruise covered the right side of his face. “She tricked me, mighty lord,” he said humbly. “I followed her scent into a blind alley, but it was only her clothes. She’d left ’em there to draw me in.” He bowed his head. “Before I could even turn around, she dropped off a boulder and hit me with that damned club. She knocked me out.”
“Do not trouble yourself over it,” Soth said after a moment. “She has earned her freedom. Besides, she knows little that would be of value to our enemies.”
Azrael gingerly touched his swollen face. “She could warn Gundar of your plan,” he noted.
Soth roused himself from his reverie. “That is not like her,” he replied. “She would put herself in great danger by contacting Gundar-if he is the madman he seems to be. That would be quite foolish, and Magda is no fool.” He paused, pondering her disappearance. “Besides, these are not lands to be traveled alone. She will likely be dead by the time the moon rises again.”
At the sight of the wounded dwarf, a smile came to Soth’s lips. He pointed at the purpled bruise and added, “Though I wonder what creature might be strong enough to best her.”
FOURTEEN
The soft, rhythmic sobbing reminded Soth of the cooing of a dove. He looked up from the keep’s account books, sparing his wife the briefest of glances. “If you cannot control yourself, go into another room, Isolde.”
The elfmaid stopped crying and raised herself ponderously from the bed. Any movement was an effort these days-for she was far along with child-but Soth knew that the tears had not been caused by the strain of the pregnancy. A blue-black welt marred Isolde’s perfect white cheek. Soth winced inwardly at the sight; she had deserved some punishment for her strident nagging, he reassured himself, but perhaps I struck her a bit too hard.
“I don’t know how you can stand yourself anymore, Soth,” she said as she reached the door.
The lord of Dargaard stood quickly, trembling with anger. The feeble remorse that had colored his thoughts a moment earlier was gone, replaced by a cold rage. With a curse, he snatched the leaded glass ink pot from the desk and hurled it at his wife. She ducked out of the room just as the glass hit the door. The ink splattered across the whitewashed walls, and a shower of tiny glass shards rained upon the floor. The sharp sound, Soth mused, was like the laughter of the harlots who had occupied a cell near him in Palanthas’s jail.
He tried to calm himself, but murder was all that he could think of. Caradoc had disposed of Lady Gadria. Perhaps he should do the same with Isolde…
“Gods,” Soth shouted, disgusted with the bloody thoughts, “have I fallen this far?”
The answer stared at him from across the room. Disheveled and scowling, Soth’s image returned his gaze from the full-length mirror that had been the priest’s wedding gift. The disgraced knight found himself drawn to that reflection, mesmerized by the man who stood before him.
His face was haggard and drawn, his blue eyes ringed by dark circles. Waves of unkempt hair hung to his shoulders. His mustache was similarly untrimmed. It framed his mouth but did not hide the split lip he’d gotten the previous night. Like the other men in the besieged keep, Soth drank even more than usual, wine being easier to come by than water after almost two months of captivity. After a long bout of drinking with his retainers, he’d slipped on an ice-slicked stone in the bailey and landed facedown on the frozen ground.
That was what his knights told him, at least. He didn’t really remember.
