Frightened, the ghost tried to stammer a plea, but the words simply wouldn’t pass his lips. Seeing his servant’s distress, the count held up one gloved hand. “I will extend the magical wards that make the castle safe from his sorcery to the gatehouses bracketing the bridge. As long as you go no farther than those towers, you will be safe from him.”
Caradoc started to object, but the count laid the paper upon the desk. “I would like the death knight to hear these words from your lips before the moon rises. You have my word that you will be safe. Do you doubt that I will uphold that promise?”
“Of course not, master. I–I will do anything you ask of me,” Caradoc said, bowing his head as the vampire left the room.
The gargoyle to whom Strahd had assigned the dangerous task of greeting Soth at the clearing was waiting for the count in the hallway. “The battle is going badly, master,” it reported. “The death knight and the werebeast have slain almost half the soldiers you raised, though they have taken few wounds themselves.”
Closing the door to the study, Strahd nodded. “The battle is not going badly, Iagus. It is proceeding just as I expected. If the army falls to under fifty, I will raise new troops from the graveyard on the outskirts of the village. Soth has no chance of crossing the bridge.”
Strahd started down the hallway. Over his shoulder he said, “In a few moments, Caradoc will leave to deliver a message to Lord Soth. Follow him and report to me everything that happens.” He hurried away to a room high in one of the towers.
It was a small cell with no windows and only a single door reinforced with iron. The door opened at a word from the vampire lord. A pair of torches bracketing the jamb flared to life of their own accord as he entered the room. Unlike much of the rest of Castle Ravenloft, no dust covered the shelves lining the walls and floor, no cracks snaked up the stone blocks. Even the torches burned without smoke. The wall behind their flames was free of soot.
Tapestries decorated with elaborate designs of interlocking rings and geometric patterns hung upon three walls. The ceiling, too, was covered with a mesmerizing fresco of swirling lines and colors. Two pieces of furniture stood in the cell: a three-legged stool and a large table with a clear glass top.
The count positioned the stool before one of the tapestries and sat down. As he did so, two of the table’s legs elongated so that the glass faced him. Gundar does hate it so when I contact him this way, the vampire noted to himself, then forced a grave mask over his mirth. He closed his eyes and pictured the unkempt ruler of Gundarak in his mind.
“You have some nerve contacting me now, you bastard!” Gundar shouted. Strahd opened his eyes and looked into the glass. There the duke stood, red-faced and snarling.
The lord of Barovia knew he appeared as nothing more than a ghostly, disembodied head to Gundar, a head surrounded by the mesmerizing patterns of the tapestry behind him. Anyone who stared at those patterns for too long found themselves hypnotized.
Gundar had dealt with Strahd enough times to know better. He focused his eyes on the count, not the tapestry, as he said, “You’ll pay for Medraut’s death, Strahd.”
“The creatures who killed your son are not my servants, I assure you. The werebadger is a renegade, a murderer, and the death knight is far too powerful to serve either you or me.” The count did his best to look concerned. “In fact, they are besieging my castle right now. The portal took them from your hall to an alley in the village of Vallaki. The death knight blames me for this.”
Tugging at his curling black beard, Gundar narrowed his eyes. “You admit they found out about the portal from you?”
“Of course,” the count replied, “though I only dealt with the death knight. The other is his lackey.” He leaned forward. “But let us be honest here, eh, Gundar? I had hoped the death knight would create a little havoc in your keep. If he killed your son, so much the better, but I knew he was not powerful enough to harm you-not seriously anyway.”
The duke uttered a string of foul curses, and Strahd held up one hand. “If the death knight had come to you first,” he noted coldly, “you would have turned him against me. It’s rather like murdering the envoys we send to each other.”
“This isn’t the same as murdering ambassadors,” the duke bellowed. “That monstrous werebeast tore poor Medraut’s throat out. Someone must pay my blood-price for this,” he warned. “I want restitution.”
Strahd laughed. “The werebeast should ask you for payment, Duke. You were terrified of that little brat. If you could have, you would have killed him yourself years ago.”
Slowly Gundar turned his back to Strahd, and silence fell upon both men. When the duke faced the ghostly image again, a look of worry, almost of fear, hung upon his features. “The death knight fought me to a standstill,” he said gravely. “Here, in my own castle!”
“That is why I am contacting you,” Strahd explained. “This death knight-Lord Soth, is his name-has proven himself to be a threat to both Barovia and Gundarak. As I said, he is fighting against my minions as we speak, trying to batter his way into my home.” The count smiled, revealing his fangs. “I can rid us of him, but I will need your help.”
Again Gundar paused, then he asked, “What do you need me to do?”
Soth and Azrael fought back-to-back. The corpses and bones piled around them served to slow down the assault, and they added to that grim barricade with almost every stroke of Soth’s blade, every swing of Azrael’s mace. Both had taken blows from the attackers, but the death knight’s armor saved him from all but the most powerful strike and the dwarf's amazing powers of regeneration helped him shrug off most wounds. Only the scarred mercenary had scored palpable hits against the werebadger time and again; his silver sword and ensorcelled dagger dug deeply into Azrael’s shoulder and leg. The dwarf had not been able to strike back at the human, for he attacked whenever Azrael was caught up in a struggle with a zombie or skeleton. Then he faded back into the press.
The zombies proved to be the most difficult foe, as Soth had expected. Their limbs continued to fight even after being sliced from their torsos. Azrael now clutched a burning branch in one hand, and set the creatures on fire whenever a chance presented itself. Flames seemed to be the best way to stop the shambling undead, for their ragged clothing and desiccated flesh caught fire quite readily.
Azrael had just set another zombie on fire when the half-dozen gargoyles that flapped overhead shouted a retreat. “Back to the bridge,” they cried, snapping their wire whips against the zombies’ backs.
Soth did not allow the soldiers to break off without paying a price. He cut two mercenaries down as they fled and bashed in a skeleton’s rictus grin with the pommel of his sword. As the remainder of Strahd’s army backed toward the bridge, Soth studied the battlefield, waiting for some new and more deadly opponent.
“Greetings, Lord Soth,” came a voice from one of the crumbling gatehouses slouching to either side of the bridge. “I bear a message from my master, Count Strahd Von Zarovich.”
The familiar voice startled Soth, and his sword slipped from his fingers when he saw Caradoc standing atop the gatehouse. The ghost’s head still lolled upon his shoulder as he hovered uncertainly, half hidden behind a crenelation. “The count sends his regrets that he cannot deliver the message himself, but has asked me to inform you that he will come to parley with you when the moon reaches it zenith.”
“Caradoc,” the death knight whispered, unable to believe his eyes. “You traitorous cur!” He staggered a step forward and pointed. A bolt of light flashed from his hand and sped toward the ghost, but before it reached the tower, it struck an invisible wall, a powerful shield against magic that Strahd had erected around the castle. The beam dissipated in a dazzling burst of reds and golds.
It took Caradoc a moment to find his voice. Strahd had kept his word; the death knight could not reach him. “My master’s message to you is this: ‘I regret you have not left Barovia, but your treatment of my subjects in Vallaki and your attack on my home cannot be pardoned. If you break off your hostilities now, I may find mercy for you.’ ”
Azrael kicked one of the corpses littering the field. “Mercy? He’s the one cowering inside his castle, and he’s offering us mercy?”
“His message for you is different, dwarf,” Caradoc replied. “I am to say that you are doomed.”
His fists held before him, Soth rushed forward a few steps. The army pressed together to hold him back, but he stopped before he reached the front rank. “You cannot hide from me forever, Caradoc,” he shouted. His rage
