Etienne cleaned one of his wounds and quietly prayed to his goddess. The wound in his side closed some, making him look a little less close to death.
Aloysius wandered around the room and picked up a glowing rock.
Kaileer peered out the door to look at the arrows. From the scatter of shafts and bolts, it seemed that the most likely place for the archers was in the watchtower.
About the time that Jana got the body of the woman in the room, those peering out into the courtyard were met with a chilling sight. The east door of the courtyard opened, and the walking dead started to emerge, two at a time. Two, four, six, eight corpses moved slowly into the courtyard and started closing the distance to the open door on the other side. Strolling nonchalantly behind them was the dark-clad form of a man in a tattered looking cloak, the bright polished flail at his side a contrast to the blackness he wore. He stopped outside the doorway and began to chant a prayer.
The thought of the archers was shoved aside when Kaileer saw the form in the doorway. "We need chose what we do NOW." he said before pulling back and launching an arrow at the priest, ignoring the zombies for the moment. Not waiting to see if the first one would even reach it's mark, another arrow was in his hand and then streaking towards the chanting figure.
"Well, shit," Jana muttered. She drew her sword and said, "Run for it if you get the chance." She sprinted out of the door, charging the man chanting the prayer. Her path was an arc, trying to both get around the zombies and stay out of the line of missile fire, preferably keeping the zombies between her and the watchtower. As she neared her opponent, she gripped her sword with both hands in preparation for her attack.
"I guess we chose," Arachne said. "Though you have to expect to find a ward or two around a man who _strolls_ across an arrow-strewn courtyard..." She also elected to get out into the courtyard rather than stay put in the room. Her scurried path, however, was along a wall.
Perhaps inspired by the valor of Janathell Caislean, Aloysius quickly dug something from his pouch. "Leave yon archers to me," he said exiting the room.
"I'll watch your horse," Echo told Jana as she went charging after the priest. "I'm going to be useless in a straight fight right now," she told the others. "I'll go see if I can get the gates open in case we have to run." She slipped out of the room and made her way down the west wall until she found the gates.
Aloysius, Arachne, Echo, and Jana quickly abandoned the room, making their way around Kaileer standing in the doorway.
Aloysius took the rock with him, diminishing the light in the room to only what streamed in the open door. He took a few steps down the west wall, paused for a moment, then flung the stone as far as he could across the courtyard. The result was an even darker room where Blacky and Etienne remained and a more brightly lit courtyard, with the roof of the keep and the edge of the watch tower on the northeast corner. Two human figures were now visible behind the tower's waist high palisade. One of them appeared to be blinded by the new light, but the other trained his crossbow on the courtyard below and fired. The bolt traveled an impressive distance to give Aloysius a grazing wound.
Arachne and Echo both headed down the west wall as well. Echo broke into a sprint and soon disappeared into the darkness farther down. Arachne ducked into the open door that was adjacent to the door they had just come out of.
The dark priest finished his chant before anyone could get to him. There was no visible effect.
Kaileer fired two arrows at the priest. One of them almost hit one of the zombies, but the second hit its true target. Jana avoided the zombies in her charge across the courtyard, but her swing against Ranchefus went wild.
Two of the zombies returned to aid their master against the warrior woman. One followed in the direction that Echo had gone. Two shambled toward Aloysius. The remaining three closed in on the room where Kaileer, Blacky, and Etienne were.
"Etienne, could you do something about these arrows, so I can go hack up some zombies?" Blacky asked as he saw everyone vacate the room.
Etienne nodded weakly, "This is gonna hurt, but I can cast one more magical cure and it should help relieve it some. Now hold still." Etienne examined the arrow wounds quickly then tried to dislodge them. He then layed his hands upon Blacky's neck and began to chant once more.
Aloysius grimaced slightly as the crossbow bolt grazed off of him. He warily eyed the zombie shambling towards him and then carefully gauged the distance to the tower.
Suddenly, the mage took off in a dead sprint towards the corner where the tower was, trying to use his mobility advantage to elude the zombies.
As the zombies closed range, Kaileer saw that his bow would soon be useless and threw it aside unceremoniously. Seeing that Etienne would need a moment to take care of Blacky, the elf nodded to his companions and turned back to face the three Zombies.
"Gods protect me," he whispered in elven as he drew his sword and club, then with a shrieking warcry, charged the walking corpses and barreled into the middle one, hoping to break through their formation and get their attention long enough for Etienne to do his thing.
Aloysius sprinted across the courtyard to get the tower within the range of his spell. The zombies swiped at him as he ran by, but missed. He quickly incanted his spell at the tower, and both of the men slumped over. One of them sunk down behind the palisade, but the other fell over the side, hitting the roof of the keep thirty feet below with a sickening thud.
Kaileer valiantly held the zombies out of the room to give Etienne time to heal Blacky. He slammed one of them with his club, but three against one odds were hardly favorable, as had been seen earlier with Rumer, and the already wounded elf fell from the wounds he took. With their moving target down, they shambled into the room with Etienne and Blacky, who looked slightly better after the healing spell.
More canine snarls, growls, and barks came from the direction that Echo had gone.
Two zombies, Jana, and Ranchefus started an odd dance, with Jana trying to kill the priest, the zombies trying to kill Jana, and the priest trying to cast a spell. The man got his spell off, again with no visible effect. Of Jana's attacks against the man, only one managed to get through in spite of his disregarding her and doing his own thing. The wound she gave him seemed to get his attention, but unfortunately one of the zombies got a clawed hand through her mail shirt and nearly eviscerated the woman. The severity of the injury broke the pattern of her swings and left her unable to react to the continued attacks of the zombies.
"Kill her," Ranchefus growled at the zombies as he headed across the courtyard with slightly more determination than he had shown earlier, in Aloysius' direction. "You can surrender and I will call off my servants," he told the mage, "or I will kill you and all your friends."
"Take care of Kaileer quickly, Etienne. I'll be done with these walking dead shortly." Blacky yelled as he saw the elf fall. Blacky quickly moved to intercept the three zombies with his axe. "Thanks, by the way." He said as Etienne moved by.
Etienne gathered his swords and moved as quickly as he could to Kaileer. "Thank me if we live." Etienne dropped down to Kaileer and quickly started to bind the elf's wounds, keeping an eye on the people around him.
Jana's face went grey with pain and shock at the zombie's attack. She stumbled back a few steps, it being all she could do to simply try to evade the attacking creatures.
Aloysius backed up slowly as he listened to Ranchefus's proposal. He glanced quickly at Kaileer sprawled in the mud, at Jana barely evading the zombies bearing down on her, and the sheer nature of the odds facing his group.
Still clutching something he had plucked from his pouch, he glared at Ranchefus. "Then call them off NOW!" he demanded. "And come no closer. Then, we'll stand here for time enow' for them to safely flee."
"I think not, dark one!" Aloysius screeched defiantly. "Methinks thou wouldst be wise to turn around," he said, a faint note of confidence in his voice.
Aloysius then raised his hands and began to mutter an incantation.
Jana stood in shock as the zombies tried to pummel her to death. Her armor absorbed the worst of the damage from both of them, but she was still wounded further and the injury to her gut bled down through her undertunic and started to soak down her leg as well.
Blacky whacked into one of the walking corpses with his axe. Rotted flesh splattered in all directions, but the zombie pressed on. Two of the monstrosities clawed at Blacky, but his armor prevented them from harming him. One of the zombies split off from the other two, moving after Etienne as he bandaged the fallen elven ranger. Etienne stopped the worst of Kaileer's bleeding, causing a little of his color to return to his face, before he was forced to defend himself against the zombie. The zombie batted at Etienne but missed.
Aloysius began casting again after refusing to meet Ranchefus' terms. One of Oleanne's wolves, or another that looked much like them, suddenly appeared in the courtyard behind the priest. Ranchefus glanced at the thing, and to prove his unconcern, swung his flail at the mage, only barely missing. One of his zombies did not have the same problem, clawing into the wizard as he stood there in the rain.
More snarls, followed by yelps of pain then silence filtered from the direction of the gates.
"A little tougher than the last batch, huh?" Blacky said surprisedly when the dead thing didn't fall under his axe blow. "I don't suppose your goddess empowered you to turn these things to dust." Blacky said to Etienne as he swung a couple more times at the two zombies around him.
Etienne gripped his blades and stood as the zombie moved toward him,"The Lady deals only with the natural. I think it's safe to say that these are anything but natural." Etienne moved rhythmically around the zombie as launched his attack. This time using both blades to try to take out the monstrosity.
Jana stumbled back another step, gasping at the pain from the still-bleeding gut wound. Her face became a mask of rage and she yelled in wordless anger as she swung her sword at the zombies with all of her quickly-ebbing strength.
The blow from the zombie caused the mage to exhale sharply as he grimmaced with pain. Perhaps recalling his success earlier, the mage once again feinted to one side and then dashed off in the direction of the gates, trying to dodge all three of his attackers as he did so.
