That Shouldn't Be Too Hard

The gate held, but Parriwimple never got back up. The party brought him home to Bildrath's shop in a cart, with his uncle walking beside it holding his hand, and laid him in his bed. Bildrath offered to work on their weapons when they come back, and asked to be left to mourn.

The west gate was worse. The two Vistani the party had paid turned on the defenders in the middle of the fight and opened the gate to the dead. Hay-zel pulled Ismark out of the mud, sick with plague. "Your friends turned on us." Remi mended the gate in five minutes.

Then a rider came out of the mist on a horse with no jaw and broke the new locks with one push. He was Rahadin, the right hand of Strahd, and he had come for Ireena: his master meant to care for her, and one day marry her. Nash asked whether the master liked games. He plays chess with all of Barovia, Rahadin said, and offered a new move: the party takes Ireena and swears to keep her safe, and the master might spare the town and watch them struggle. "That shouldn't be too hard," said Beowolfe. Before he left, Rahadin told Nash his head would look nice over the fireplace, and told Genji that one of his kind was lying at the foot of the master's bed.

At the mansion a mob led by Alenka was screaming for Ireena. Nash stepped forward and they stepped back; Genji stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. Over beef stew, Hay-zel shut the kitchen door and told Ireena the truth: the master wants her for his bride. The party chose to seek Madam Eva, a day north, and take Ireena with them, and Nash talked Ismark into letting her go. Ismark named the toymaker who made their compass, Blinsky of Vallaki, and asked them to bring Ireena to the Church of St. Andral there.

At midnight they buried Kolyan and Parriwimple. The bell Remi fixed rang twelve times, and the dead of Barovia rose and marched toward the castle. The first one out was Parriwimple, and he waved at Remi. Zombies hidden in the march attacked; Genji punched them from twenty feet, Mayla chewed one like a toy, and Ireena ran one through. "I've been training all summer."

That night Beowolfe slept through until morning for the first time he could remember. So he never heard it: at two in the morning, a tapping at Ireena's window. Mayla barked, Genji kicked in the door, and a vampire stood at the window with Ireena limp in his arms. He looked up, and he dropped her.