Camilla dragged her eyes off the eerie woman with an obvious effort. Her throat was thick with a strange taste, like gravedust mixed with lilacs. The common folk spoke with terror of necromancy but this was the first time she had ever seen it up close. From the dark came a sinister chuckling sound, though it sounded more like that of a hyena than anything human. Camilla revolved on the spot the point of her elven sword held low, watching for attack. Who was this woman, why was he belly pierced with a sword. She must be some distant ancestor of the current Lord of the castle. Is that why he had turned back?

There was a knocking at the great doors. Then a second fist joined the first and another until the panels themselves began to shake with the hammering. Dust rained down and Camila fought back a sneeze as she backed from the door. Glancing over he shoulder she saw the spectral lady was sitting on her throne, hands folded placidly over her belly.

“My husband’s men at arms I fear,” she commented with gentle regret.

“How can we lift the curse on this place?” Camilla demanded. Timber splintered and a rusted sword blade thrust a foot through. Before it could be withdraw Cydric kicked at it, warping the blade and trapping it in the timber despite its unseen wielders best efforts to wrench it free. The ghostly woman looked up at Camilla in surprise.

“What curse?” she asked in puzzlement. The door flew open as though struck by a vast cannonball of dark energy. Cydric only survived being smashed to jelly by virtue of being located so centrally that the doors opened around him. On the other side of the door was a hoard of men, all armored in rusting mail and moth eaten tabards. Camilla was no judge of such things but some of the armor looked new, and others looked like they had been taken from a painting of days long past. Baleful green witch fire glowed in empty skeletal eye sockets, and leathery tendons stretched and popped as the phalanx of dead knights pushed forward.

“Back!” Cydric yelled, lashing out to amputate the arm of one of the knights as he thrust. Severed bracer, gauntlet and sword fell to the floor with a clatter but rather than falling back in agony like a human foe the undead knights other hand shot forward seizing Cydric by the rim of his breast plate. Camilla sprang forward, slicing her blade down through the things elbow before reversing the thrust and whiping it up through the knights neck. Links of rusted chain mail exploded in a shower of tinkling metal. The witch fire in the thing’s eyes went out as its head clattered to the floor.

“Back!” Cydric yelled again and the fell back from the onrushing horde of undead. Camilla cast her eyes about her. There were no obvious exits on the three enclosing walls of stained glass but in the corner of the wall which housed the door was a dusty wooden stair case, rising in a tight spiral to a balcony above.

“Go!” Cydric shouted, as his eyes followed hers and Camilla dashed up the stairs at a sprint. Cydric parried a thrust from a sword, skipped back and bolted. Camilla pulled her pistol from her belt, hesitated for a second and then thrust it back. She only had powder for one shot and there was nothing in so homogenous a horde to inspire her to waste it. The dead moved fast, but not so quickly they could catch the fleeing Cydric. A statue of a knight stood on a central plinth that reached towards the ceiling. Camila leaped to it, bouncing back and forth between the statue and the wall to give herself height and then thrust out her legs and arms. Her boots were on the statues shoulders and her arms pressed against the wall. She heaved with all her might and the great stone statue shifted and began to topple. Cydric reached the top of the stairs just before the ponderous statue tumbled from its plinth striking the stairs with an explosion of splitters and a great cloud of dust. A half dozen of the knights were crushed beneath the weight, though their arms and legs of some continued vainly to drag themselves forward.

“What now?” Camilla demanded, wiping dust from her eyes. Hallways led from either end of the balcony though to where they couldn’t be sure. Below them the evil chuckle sounded again and the horde began to shamble out of the throne room, proof that there was another way to reach their position despite the momentary respite.