The ghoul’s scream choked off into a bloody gurgle as the elven sword sliced halfway through its neck. The creature staggered back to be torn apart by its frenzied companions. Cydric, blood streaming from his wounds hacked like a man reaping corn, severing hands, heads and arms with equal impartiality. Camilla’s sword arm ached and her body trembled near exhaustion, she couldn’t keep this up much longer and their enemies seemed undiminished. Looking around for a means of escape she spotted a stairway that ran up towards the center of the cursed keep.

“Go!” she shouted, pushing Cydric in the direction of the slime slicked stairs. Together they desperately chopped their way through the ghouls. Cydric appeared to be slowing too, though his deadly blade kept any further ghouls from touching them. The scent of his blood drove them into a frenzy and it was all Camilla could do to keep the beasts back. Once they gained the stairs and the higher ground the beasts drew back, hissing and clawing but mostly focusing on devouring their own dead.

“Get up the stairs,” Cydric said through gritted teeth. Camilla looked at him skeptically.

“You are the one all covered in blood, you go first,” Camilla retorted. Cydric grimaced but the set of his jaw told her that he wasn’t willing to budge on the matter. There was no time for argument and Cydric’s heavy blade was probably a more formidable object than hers, she turned and scampered up the stairs without further argument. At the top of the stairs was a long passageway that might once have been used to bring supplies into the keep. A dilapidated cart filled with mouldering straw leaned against one of the stone walls. She rushed over to it and grabbed the handles. The wood cracked and crumbled beneath her hands but she managed to turn the cart towards the stairs. Hastily she drew her pistol laid it on the straw and pulled the trigger. The powder, still soaking from her underwater adventures, failled to ignite, but the flint struck sparks on the steel. It took Camilla two more attempts but she finally managed to blow the sparks into a flame that began to spread over the straw.

“Cydric!” she yelled down the stairwell. 

“Run!” 

To his credit Cydric didn’t hesitate, he turned and lumbered up the stairs, slower than his usual pace. He was pale from loss of blood but he kept ahead of the ghouls which were scrambling over each other trying to get at the Imperial. By the time Cydric reached the top of the stairs the cart was well and truly ablaze, billowing thick choking smoke as the ancient staw burned. The moment he was clear she shoved the cart into the opening it clattered down the stairs, picking up speed, one of the wheels snapped with a crack and dropped the axle to the stone, shattering the ancient timber. The whole cart overturned spreading flames and burning straw over stairwell. Ghouls shrieked and capered back, even though they probably could have rushed through the flames. Camilla grabbed some fallen timbers and hurled them down onto the cart, adding fuel to the blaze. 

“Are you alright?” Camilla demanded leaping to Cydric’s side.

“Its nothing,” he said in what was so clearly a lie that he had the good grace to look embarrassed at saying it.

“Anyway its nothing we can do much about in here,” he added. Camilla gave him a worried look but chose not to argue the point.

“I know how to break the enchantment,” she declared and grabbed Cydric’s blood slicked hand. Together they ran back into the central keep entering the large central hall they had first encountered. The clank of steel on stone announced the approach of more of the undead soldiers but Camilla raced to the throne room. The room was much the same as they had first encountered, save that the shattered staircase and fallen statue disfigured it. The noblewoman on her throne looked up at them.

“Have you seen my husband?” she asked. 

“Your husband is dead,” Camilla informed her advancing on the apparition as quickly as she dared.

“They all say that,” the ghost wailed, burying her face in her hands.

“For good this time,” she promised and without warning reached out and grasped the hilt of the sword that transfixed the woman's pregnant belly. The ghosts aspect changed instantly, her beautiful face distorting into a shriek of rage and agony. Boney hands, suddenly quite solid shot down and seized the Tilean’s wrists, sharp fingernails digging into her pale flesh.

“No! You can’t! You can’t free my baby!” the ghost howeled, so loud that the sound itself was physical agony. Camilla gritted her teeth, tightened her grip and yanked as hard as she could. The blade slid free like a knife being drawn from a slab of beef. As the tip slipped free the ghost let out a final dispairing shriek and fell back onto her thrown. Blackness, raw and evil coiled from her stomach like smoke.

“My son!” the ghost wailed but her substance was already beginning to fade like sand being blown before a storms. Camilla dropped the blade in her hand as the iron began to corrode, pitting and wearing away before her eyes before blowing to dust as though it had never been. The darkness poured from the fading ghost, swirling into a shadowed figure that seemed to hover in the air. There was a sudden evil hollow laughter and then, like a sudden thunderclap, it streaked up through the ceiling with a hollow boom that shattered all of the stained glass windows. Thousands of pains of glass rained down to shatter upon the stone floor like hale lashing stone.

There was a shout from the far end of the hall where they had entered but Camilla was already sinking her knees before the throne, then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into unconciousness.