It was only when he came upon Alexi, locked in mortal combat with one of the brutes, that Soth drew his ancient blade. The death knight did not slacken his pace, merely called to the Invidian as he came.

"Face me," he rumbled, "or flee. There is no third way."

The ogre turned, hesitated. Soth slashed open the brute's throat and continued on.

As his opponent crumpled, Alexi stood staring at the Knight of the Black Rose. He felt certain that Soth had not even seen him. The death knight was simply clearing a path to Inza.

As abruptly as it had started, the battle was over.

Only four of Inza's troupe remained alive. Piotr and Nikolas tried to offer their thanks to Lord Soth. They hesitantly approached the death knight, but he did not acknowledge them. Instead, he stood stone still among the dead, eyes focused on something in the carnage.

Inza wiped the blood from Novgor and came to Soth's side. "They were Aderre's lackeys," she offered, "sent here to slaughter us."

When Soth remained silent, Inza followed his gaze to the ground. A burst of silver and gold coins spread across the dirt, spilled from a leather pouch one of the ogres had been carrying. The Vistana knelt. Some of the coins were Invidian, others Sithican or Barovian. She held up one silver piece whose mint she could not recognize.

"Where is Palanthas?" she asked.

"Far from here," Soth said, his mind awash in a memory of that city's never-conquered walls falling before his magic.

The death knight pushed the remembrance aside and walked to the next fallen ogre. With the tip of his blade he opened the corpse's purse. A similar fortune in gold and silver slid onto the ground. He turned and seized Inza by the arm.

Her arm went numb immediately from the unearthly cold of his touch. "What is it?" she asked, panic making her voice shrill. "What does all that money mean?"

"That someone within my domain has bought the allegiance of this rabble," the death knight replied flatly. "They are garbed as Invidian soldiers and surely crossed into Sithicus as such. Yet even Malocchio Aderre is not fool enough to pay his army before a battle is fought or let them take their wages on campaign."

Soth indicated the battlefield with a swipe of his sword. "If I am correct, then this has been a simple diversion."

"Diversion?" Inza sputtered. She pulled free of Soth's grip. "There are but four of us left standing. Our vardos are smashed, our horses frightened off. This is the stuff of a diversion? The Wanderers are extinct!"

"In the larger war that will be fought, you and your tribe are meaningless," Soth said coldly. "You have been a pawn in this, put in peril to draw me away from the main army's true objective. Come, we must return to Nedragaard Keep."

Alexi stepped forward as though he meant to challenge Soth, to demand he release their raunie. But Inza flashed him a warning look, and he stopped in his tracks.

"What about the rest of my people, mighty lord?" she asked.

“They are not my concern."

"But they are my concern," Inza snapped. "They were my mother's concern, too. In her name, if not in mine, help them." She swallowed hard, as if the next word were barbed in her throat. "Please."

Soth regarded the men coolly. "Very well. Make your way on foot to my castle. You will be permitted to stay there."

"Alone and on foot they will be dead before noon," Inza said. "Only you saved us from this 'diversion.' What if they encounter another?"

"You demand much of me, raunie? Soth warned.

"Only what is fair. My mother's benediction is surely worth this small beneficence for her people."

Turning to Alexi, Soth said, "I will summon guards to protect you, but their number will be yours to determine."

"How so?" the grim Vistana asked.

"Shall your fallen kin be part of this guard or no?"

Alexi's face blanched. "No," he gasped. "Our ancestors would-"

"Enough," Soth rumbled. "You have chosen."

The death knight strode to the center of the camp and raised his arms. A sudden wind howled around him, billowing his purple cloak. Soth clenched his hands into fists, and midnight-black clouds blossomed in the sky, obscuring the sun. The wind's howl grew more strident. There was another sound, too, faint at first but growing more insistent with each passing moment. It was the awful moan of souls in torment.

The slaughtered ogres rose from the battlefield. There was an awkward, disjointed quality to their movements that made them terrible to watch. They shambled toward Soth, eyes fixed sightlessly ahead. Their arms hung limp at their sides. The zombies carried no weapons, save those still buried in their flesh.

"You will follow this man's orders," the death knight said, indicating Alexi. "You will escort him and his companions to Nedragaard Keep, killing anyone who tries to detain or harm them."

With that, Soth turned his back on them and approached Inza. "Now," he intoned gravely, "we are leaving."

"Of course, mighty lord," the Vistana said demurely. She glanced at Alexi and called out, "Bring the chest from my vardo. It has supplies you'll need on the journey."

Soth put his arm across Inza's shoulders and ushered her into the shadow of a gaunt oak. The Wanderers watched their raunie disappear into the dark. When she was gone, Alexi turned to the others.

"We have our orders," he said brusquely. "We are to travel to the keep as quickly as possible. We take the raunie's strongbox, but anything else that might slow us down must be left behind." He cast a meaningful look at Katan.

The boy's wounds were grave. He might survive the day, but without the medicines only Inza knew how to concoct, his wounds were all but certain to fester. Moving him would be tantamount to torture. But to delay, even for a few hours, might mean losing their raunie forever. Without her, the Wanderers would have to disband. The men would be outcasts, stray dogs in a society that valued the pack above all.

"Thank you for all you've given and done, Brother," Nikolas whispered to Katan. He kissed the boy on each cheek and then thrust his short sword between the youth's ribs. Katan died instantly. The zombies watched it all with patient, passionless gazes, as if they expected the boy to rise up and join their ranks.

"Shall I build a pyre?" Piotr asked, "or should we have the monsters do it?"

"Neither," Alexi said. "We break camp now. There is no time to build a fire hot enough to burn the bodies."

Piotr shook his head emphatically. "I will not leave my Greta to the crows," he said. "This is not our way."

Alexi clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Much we have done today is not our way, Brother." He stared sadly at Katan's corpse, at Nikolas, who lingered over the friend he had murdered.

"What good are all these sacrifices if we lose ourselves?" Piotr asked. "What are we fighting so hard to save?" He walked to the corpse of his beautiful Greta. With a short sword he found on the ground, he began to scrape the beginnings of a grave.

Alexi sighed raggedly. "Dig a grave," he told the zombies. "Make it deep enough and wide enough to hold all the Vistani you killed." He called to Piotr. "Let them do it. Come help me sift through the splinters of the raunie's vardo. We need to find her strongbox."

By the time the zombies finished with their work and the corpses had been laid to rest, the sky had clouded over. A light rain fell upon the three men as they looked upon the shallow grave. Alexi said a few brief words in Patterna, commending the fallen Vistani to their ancestors and wishing them fair travels beyond the Mists.

"Now you are no longer bound to any lands. Now you are free," he finished quietly. The silence that followed was marred only by the hollow spatter of rain on the zombies' armor.

Only a short while after the Vistani left the clearing, bound for Nedragaard Keep with their shuffling guardians, a figure separated from the trees. His colorless clothes seemed to match the bleak, rain-sodden day, yet his spirits were bright as he approached the grave.