James Lowder - Knight of the Black Rose

After a while, the ghost surfaced. Cautiously he poked his head up and surveyed the area from inside a fallen tree. Cursing and prodding the ground with his sword, the death knight was hunting for Caradoc in the spot where he had disappeared into the earth. The ghost smiled with relief; he had lost his pursuer again, at least for a little white.

“There you are, you coward,” a voice said, and a mace passed harmlessly through the ghost’s head. He looked up to see Azrael standing over him, ready to strike again.

Attacks with mundane weapons had no effect upon the ghost’s noncorporeal form, but Caradoc knew that he could harm a mortal creature, even an unnatural one like Azrael. Before the dwarf could shout an alarm to Lord Soth, the ghost shot from the ground. He rushed past Azrael, raking his ethereal hands through the dwarf's face as he went. The pain was so great that it made Azrael collapse to his knees, gasping and unable to cry out. The ghost’s touch had left the chill of the grave upon him. His face and skull ached as if he’d been stabbed with ten barbed daggers, and the newly grown stubble of his sideburns and mustache turned as white as newly failed snow.

The dwarf's agony bought Caradoc some much-needed time. Without the werecreature’s tracking ability, the death knight could not follow the ghost’s trail as quickly. Moreover, clouds were beginning to roll in. With luck, they would blanket the moon. Without that orb’s light, there would be no shadows Soth could use for travel. He would be slowed to his walking pace.

The sun sank in the west, and the velvet darkness of night replaced the muted colors of twilight. A cavern in the gorge belched forth a thousand bats. The little rodents fell screeching through the air, hunting for their sustenance. Caradoc envied the creatures their freedom as they darted overhead through the cloud-choked sky.

Without the sun or moon to guide him, the ghost found himself slowing his pace, too. Even if he had been able to see the constellations through the clouds, he wasn’t familiar enough with Gundarak’s stars to navigate by them. Fear tugged at his mind, filling his thoughts with wild imaginings. Each tree seemed capable of hiding Soth or Azrael. Each sound in the darkness-the distant yowl of a night-hunting cat, the hiss of leaves rustling in the cool air, the babbling of the river that ran at the ravine’s bottom-seemed to warn Caradoc of the doom awaiting him at the death knight’s hands.

And so it went through the long night. Caradoc kept the ravine to his left as he hurried on. At first he traveled close to the edge of the gorge, but a gnarled branch thrust up from the slope looked so much like a hand reaching up to grab him that he chose to move farther into the woods. Perhaps the branch was a warning, he told himself, suddenly convinced that the land itself was pointing out ways in which Soth could lay an ambush.

Like the clouds blotting out the moonlight, Caradoc’s fear choked off his senses and muddled his thinking. So many things in the night terrified the ghost that his mind began to turn on itself, blocking out the sudden noises of animals on the prowl or wind through the trees. Soon only the void that awaited undead creatures who were destroyed yawned horribly in his mind. The sights and smells of the forest around him paled before this apocalyptic sight.

Caradoc didn’t notice when the first bands of pale blue and gold appeared on the eastern horizon, the harbingers of the dawn. Nor did he notice the thin fog that clung to the ground beneath his feet as he raced blindly through a copse of pine. Even if he had seen the fog, he probably would not have realized that he had finally reached the outskirts of the Misty Border. As the sun pushed its way into the sky and shadows began to fall around the trees, Caradoc knew only one thing: he had to keep running, because the death knight was behind him.

He was wrong.

From the shadow of a gnarled pine in front of the ghost, a gauntleted hand appeared. The ice-cold fingers reached for Caradoc’s throat but only caught him by the hair. “I have you at last,” Soth rumbled.

The death knight stepped fully from the shadows and lifted Caradoc from the ground by the hair. The pain and the shock snapped the ghost from his numbness, but there was little he could do. Viciously Soth slapped him across the face with the back of his hand, then twice more. “The sun will set again before I am done with you,” the death knight said.

“Mighty lord!” Azrael shouted, rushing through the trees. “The mists are rising!”

The dwarf was correct. In the growing light of the new day, swirls of white fog curled around the tree trunks like huge snakes. Smaller tendrils of the stuff wound around Soth’s legs, almost to his knees. The fog covered the shadows and muted the daylight.

“Quickly,” Azrael said. “Kill him! We might still escape from here!” There was panic in the dwarf's voice, and not just from the threat of the Misty Border. He could see himself in the ghost’s place.

Caradoc struggled against Soth’s grip, but the death knight clamped his other hand around the ghost’s throat. His orange eyes flickered as he tightened his grip.

“You will… never… have… Kitiara,” the ghost managed to gasp through the pain.

Soth laughed. “You are hardly in a position to deny me anything, traitor.”

The doomed ghost did not, could not, hope for a better afterlife, but in the instant before he died for a second time, Caradoc saw the mist rising up around Lord Soth. He knew then that revenge had cost the death knight everything. It was enough.

The mist billowed around the death knight in the same instant Caradoc died, his body slipping through Soth’s fingers like fine sand. As it had in Dargaard Keep, the mist filled Soth’s world, blinding him and deafening him. The sun, Azrael, the copse of trees-all were blotted out, as if they’d never really been there at all. For the briefest moment, he dared to hope that the mist would clear and he would find himself back on Krynn, in the burned-out throne room of Dargaard Keep.

A figure appeared in the fog. He was clad from head to toe in shining armor patterned with roses and kingfishers, the symbols of the Order of the Rose. A sash, a token from the woman he championed, girded his waist. The sash was the blue of a clear spring sky, and it matched the color of the eyes that gazed out of his helmet.

Soth tensed at the sight of the knight. The man moved with an easy, confident step, which told the death knight he faced a seasoned warrior. Only one used to the battlefield could move gracefully in heavy plate armor. Yet hope also flared to life in Soth’s mind; the presence of a knight of the Order meant he had found his way to Krynn!

“Follow me,” the knight said, his voice clear and steady and full of resolve. “I have come to rescue you.” He turned and strode into the mist.

Soth followed but took only a few steps before the blanket of fog lifted. He and the silver-clad knight stood next to a busy road. The broad way passed through the thriving tent city that sprawled outside the walls of a castle. Hundreds of knights and priests and merchants bustled toward the keep, and its open drawbridge and gates welcomed them all. The keep was wrought from rose-red stone, its main tower ending in a twisted cap much like an unopened rosebud. Pennants of blue and gold and white fluttered in the wind, and the sound of music and laughter came to Soth’s ears.

“Dargaard Keep!” the death knight said. His mind reeled at the sight of his ancient home.

The mysterious knight stepped forward. “Yes, Soth,” he said happily. “While Dargaard was never like this, it could be, You can make it so.”

A woman came to the knight’s side then. She was thin, with the graceful step of an elf. Her long golden hair hung loose, cascading over her shoulders like warm sunlight. A veil concealed her face, but her eyes shone with beauty and serenity. “My lord,” she said, bowing slightly.