She was a warrior, a general in the Dark Queen's armies on Krynn. He had been dead for hundreds of years when he met her, but Soth instantly recognized the woman as his perfect foil, a dark gem with facets enough to keep him occupied for all eternity. The fractured memory had healed itself, and she was revealed before his mind's eye. She stood defiant, clad in the blue armor of a dragon highlord.
Kitiara!
She must be the White Rose.
In the hours before he'd been drawn into the netherworld, Lord Soth had attempted to capture Kitiara's soul. He had planned to raise her as his undead consort. That plan would have succeeded, too, had it not been for the treacherous ghost who had served as his seneschal on Krynn-Caradoc, the death knight recalled bitterly. That whimpering cur had attempted to barter the captured soul for some reward so trifling Soth could not recall it now. The betrayal had cost Soth dearly. Before he could retrieve Kit's essence, he found himself transported far from Krynn, stranded in the domain of Strahd von Zarovich.
Kitiara's soul must have been taken, too, Soth decided. It had eluded him for all these years. Now, though, she had shown herself. Of course her army knew his true history; she had witnessed some of his dark deeds herself. Soth smiled grimly; it seemed Kit had not lost her will to fight. He was certain, though, that he would win her to his side in the end. It was their destiny.
The death knight's sudden preoccupation was lost on neither Magda nor Malocchio. The raunie watched the Invidian troops, alert to the possibility of attack. Though she tried not to betray her concern, she could not help but glance at Soth. The death knight's burning eyes were little more than faint sparks. His arms hung slack at his sides.
The lord of Invidia continued to catalogue his grievances against Soth and Sithicus, pausing now and then to voice his hatred for the Vistani and anyone who harbored their kind. Hidden within his rant were the words of a command. It was heard only by the poisonous serpents that lay coiled near the river. These creatures, by the lives they had stolen, had helped the waterway earn the name "Widow's Tears."
At Malocchio's subtle bidding, a trio of serpents crossed from the weed-choked bank on the Invidian side of the river and slithered onto Sithican soil. With the stealth only snakes possess, they crept along the rail. Hidden by the lengthening shadows of twilight, they crawled to within striking distance of Magda's legs.
With a savage snarl, Sabak whirled to meet them. In the blink of an eye, he had two of the snakes in his jaws. Green poison and limp pieces of reptilian flesh mingled with the hound's own frothy drool and hung like icicles from his chops.
Alerted by Sabak's snarl, Magda turned in time to kick the third serpent away, back toward Sithican soil. The hound took off after the retreating snake. As he bounded across the bridge, Sabak's paws burned smoking prints into the stones. Like his ancestor, the mythical hound of Kulchek the Wanderer, this beast did not hunt without leaving a clear trail for his master.
The last serpent was almost to the grass and relative safety when Sabak grabbed its tail and flung it from side to side. The serpent reared, hissing loudly and displaying its glistening fangs. Sabak paused for a moment; the potential threat this creature posed was clear even to his canine intelligence. He made a few quick feints at its head, trying to draw the serpent forward. Finally, the enraged snake lunged toward one of Sabak's front paws. The hound sidestepped the attack and snatched the creature by the tail. With a deliberate twist of his neck, Sabak snapped the serpent's head against the bridge. Sabak's tail swished happily as he sniffed the gory remains.
Magda breathed a sigh of relief as her faithful hound trotted back onto the bridge. She was so startled by the abrupt attack, so caught up in Sabak's skirmish, that she hadn't seen Soth draw his sword. The death knight leveled the blade at Malocchio in a manner that made it quite clear he intended to bury that ancient steel in the black-garbed man's skull.
For his part, Malocchio sighed raggedly. "In for a penny," he said and gave the signal for his troops to attack.
The vanguard clattered onto the bridge. Soth did not reposition his blade as the ogres thudded across the stones. He kept his arm stiff, the blade pointed at Malocchio, stoically watching the ogres rumble forward in a sweaty, swearing mass.
Magda cast Soth a frantic glance. The ogres were close enough that she could smell the stench they gave off, and still the death knight stood. Was he lost in another reverie?
Magda got her answer an instant later. The first of the ogres had reached the tip of Soth's outstretched sword, far enough onto the bridge that the entire vanguard had pressed in behind him. The ogre raised its club with both hands and shouted "Invidia!"
The ogre did not see Soth open his empty left hand. Neither did he see the small spark of orange flame erupt from the death knight's palm and speed toward him like a sling bullet. The ogre only realized his peril at the very instant his patriotic cry had left his lips. A fireball, his sluggish ogre mind noted. Uh oh-
The magical fire incinerated the ogre at the front of the charge, then swelled to fill the bridge. The rest of the brutes in the first two ranks met a similar fate. Those half-dozen ogres toward the back were less fortunate. The fire had diminished just enough to allow them to realize they were ablaze, then to shriek in agony before they died.
The burst of flame blinded Magda for a moment, and the horrible whoosh made by its passing left her ears ringing, so she didn't hear the clumsy splashing beneath the bridge, nor Sabak's warning barks. Before she knew she was in danger, her head snapped back with incredible force.
A brutish hand covered in rotting river weeds had grabbed her by the hair. As the stars of pain cleared from her eyes, she saw the ogre to which that much-crusted hand belonged. He was clinging to the rail. He and the remaining troops had used the vanguard's demise as a distraction.
At a thought, Gard was in her hand. Before the brute could drop back into the water, taking her- or at least her head-with him, Magda twisted around so that her stomach braced against the rail. The ogre's face was so close to hers that she could count the hairs on each wart dotting his pug nose.
The Vistana lashed out with her cudgel and kicked away from the rail at the same time. That single blow from Gard caved in the left side of the ogre's face; his death cry was punctuated by the clatter of his broken teeth on the rail. But the ogre never relaxed his grip. As the corpse dropped from the bridge, it tore loose a bloody trophy. The ogre sank into the weedy mire still clutching that hank of hair and scalp.
Panting, Magda fell against the rail. She looked up to see Soth calmly assessing the situation. Ogres were scrambling up from the water on either side of the bridge. A dozen human soldiers held both ends. The troops on the Sithican side, still wet from their charge across the river, had swords. The soldiers standing with Malocchio had strung bows and were already nocking arrows.
The Invidian lord gestured to the archers. "They may not kill you, Soth, but they're almost certain to pierce her withered heart."
The death knight waved his gauntleted hand once, directing outward the awful, unearthly cold that wracked his body. Before the archers could loose a single arrow, they found themselves facing a wall of ice that sealed off the entire Invidian end of the bridge. Soth turned to the other human soldiers. "You are in my kingdom now," he said, and raised his sword.
Magda didn't see what happened next; two more ogres had pulled themselves up onto the bridge. She turned to face the first. The other had to contend with Sabak.
The Vistana sparred with the brute, testing him for weaknesses. She knew better than to rush the duel. Impatience would only cause her to make a fatal mistake. But Magda was tiring much more quickly than she had expected. Each blow from the ogre's club made her arms shake just a little more, her guard drop a little lower. When she remembered that there were more ogres to fend off after this one, Magda felt an unprecedented despair sweep over her. Once I could have stood alone against such threats, she thought, but no longer.