The wolves didn’t stay.<br/><br/>Andrei watched the burning green eyes turn in his direction, as if they’d heard and understood his comment. And then they loped out of the darkness, building speed as they raced towards the barricades window.<br/><br/>This was how Petrov had died. The wolves, hurling themselves against the barricade until it gave. He and Elrick had been too late to help him, and had barely driven the beasts back out of the manor. But Elrick wouldn’t be fool enough to aid him now, not with Lady Ireena’s life in his hands.<br/><br/>The barricade shivered with impact, snarling and scrabbling sounds echoing as the wolf slid down. Then it shivered again as the second wolf hit.  Andrei swallowed, hands tightening on the shaft of his spear. “Morning Lord,” he prayed. “If I live not to see the light of day, grant that I may awaken in the dawn of Thy glory.”  And then he lunged, driving the spear through the loophole with all his might.<br/><br/>The shaft shivered with impact, and the snarling gave way to a keening whine of agony.  Andrei twisted and pushed, feeling the shaft jerk as the wolf spawned and twisted, trying to snap and rip at the hard wood. “For Petrov,” he snarled, leaning on the shaft to hoist the wolf into the air. “And<i>fuck you</i>.”<br/><br/>There was a deafening crack, and suddenly he was flat in his back. For a heart-stopping instant he was convinced the barricade had given way and the wolves were in him.  But even as the panic surged through him, the truth sank in.<br/><br/>It was the spear shaft that had broken.<br/><br/>Heart racing, he peered through the loophole. All of the wolves had withdrawn. All save the one he had killed. It lay in a furry heap, broken spear erect.  Weak with relief, he sagged against the rough wood. He still lived.<br/><br/>“<i>Andrei!</i>”  Elrick’s cry was distant and barely heard, but the terror in it was clear.<br/><br/>Andrei sprinted through the darkened halls of the manor, tossing aside the broken stump of a spear as he went. “Elrick!” he shouted, flying up the stairs to and three steps at a time. “Elrick!  Lady Ireena!”<br/><br/>The bedroom door was locked, and he could hear a voice through it. A man’s voice. He didn’t recognize it, but it could only be one man. One beast. “Lady Ireena!” he cried, slamming into the door. But it was too solid. Too strong.  “Lady Ireena!”<br/><br/>He grabbed an axe off the wall and hewed at the door, sending chips of aged oak flying. Strahd. The devil Strahd. It had to be him, in there. He redoubled his efforts, finally driving the heavy blade through the wood. “Lady Ireena!”<br/><br/>The door gave way as he hacked and kicked, finally flying open into a scene out of nightmare. Elrick lay crumpled, dead or nearly so, and Lady Ireena stood helpless before the demon beast that had terrorized Barovia since time out of memory.<br/><br/>Andrei hurled his axe, only to see Strahd catch it and toss it aside with a contemptuous smile. He clawed his dagger from his belt, a foot of razor-sharp alchemically-treated silver hard as steel. “Get away from her,” he said, unable to prevent the fear that twisted his gut from filling his words, “you bastard.”