The mountain pass was narrow, shrouded in the thick pines of the borderlands.
The Barghest—a massive, shaggy black dog with claws like iron spikes—prowled the road. Shadow-Stride. It was far from the English moors, but a road is a road, and it was hunting for travelers to doom. It let out a low growl, smelling magic.
Rübezahl sat on a granite boulder, whittling a pinecone. He appeared as an old man in a gray cloak, but his eyes held the weight of the mountain range.
"You're not a local wolf," Rübezahl noted. "You smell like wet wool and death."
The Bark and the Bite
The Barghest didn't bark; it Bayed. Death-Bay.
The sound was a psychic shockwave, intended to stop the heart of anyone who heard it. The trees shivered.
Rübezahl just tapped out his pipe. "Loud."
He waved his hand. Mist-Weave.
The mountain fog, usually lazy and slow, snapped into action. It swirled around the Hellhound, becoming dense as cotton. Use vision was gone. The Barghest snapped at shadows, biting empty air, its death-omen useless against the weather itself.
"You like to scare people?" Rübezahl’s voice boomed from the mist. "Let me show you scary."
Out-Monstered
The mist parted. The old man was gone.
In his place stood a giant. But not just a giant—Rübezahl had used Shapeshift Guise to mirror his opponent. He was now a black dog the size of the mountain peak itself, with eyes like burning bonfires and a growl like an avalanche.
The Barghest looked up. And up. And up.
It realized, in the simple binary of predator and prey, that it was no longer the big dog.
The Barghest yelped—a pitiful, high-pitched sound—and scrambled backward, tail tucked between its legs. It dissolved into shadow and fled back to the lowlands, leaving the mountain to its master.
Rübezahl shifted back to his human form, chuckling as the echoes died down. "Tourists," he grumbled.