Countless figures began to erge from the dark fog, their movents jerky and unnerving as they sped into the village streets.
These weren't n, nor were they simple beasts; they were the walking dead composed of several races of creatures, such as dead humans, abominations and beasts, their flesh grey and sloughing off in patches, their empty or decaying eye sockets glowing with an unnerving malevolent light.
"They're undead! I repeat, the enemy is an undead force!" the soldiers remaining at the village entrance shouted, finally sounding the alarm that should have been rung minutes ago.
They pulled their weapons from their sheaths, the ringing of steel echoing through the narrow alleys as they prepared to et the charging horde.
" Goddamnit, no one ntioned the McClain's having a necromancer on their side, I thought those pale bastards preferred to be holed up in a cave sowhere conducting their sses up research." One soldier lanted, clear, he didn't expect the McClain's to react so soon, and with a threat of this magnitude to boot.
" What more can we do? The village has already been surrounded." Another comnted, feeling quite helpless, if he could help it, he would've fled right this instant. The tales of how difficult it was to kill an actual necromancer served as a desisting factor.
However, as the first wave of the undead fully erged into the dim light of the village, the initial paralyzing terror of the soldiers began to give way to a flicker of hope.
For they saw that the creatures charging out of the fog were mostly composed of countless zombies and basic skeletons creatures that, while horrifying to look at, were generally considered weak and mindless in the eyes of a trained military.
Seeing the tattered rags and brittle bones of their opponents, the Montgory soldiers felt a surge of their forr confidence return to them.
"Don't be afraid, everyone! Keep your heads and hold the line!" a squad captain declared, his voice booming over the din of the approaching monsters.
He brandished his longsword, the blade catching the dim light as he pointed it toward the lead zombie.
"It's just a bunch of rotten corpses and rattling bones. We can deal with these guys quickly and then we'll go after the coward of a necromancer who's commanding them from the shadows! Show them the strength of Montgory!"
"Yes, Sir!" the soldiers responded in a fierce unison, their collective shout drowning out the moans of the dead for a brief mont.
Reinvigorated by the random soldiers words, they broke their defensive formations and charged forward, their armor clanking and their weapons raised high as they prepared to smash the advancing undead back into the darkness.
They believed they were facing a minor nuisance, unaware that they were rely looking at the tip of a very large and very lethal iceberg they could never have fathod.
The ground beneath the village began to rumble and groan with an intensity that rivaled a natural earthquake as the two opposing forces sprinted toward one another across the open square.
On one side, the soldiers of the Montgory estate moved with the desperate, iron-clad discipline of n who believed they were fighting for their lives against a mindless pestilence, while on the other, the silent, relentless wave of the undead surged forward like an incoming tide of rot and bone.
The air was filled with the discordant symphony of clanking plate armor, guttural roars of the living, and the eerie, thudding of an unknown number of decaying feet striking the cobblestones in perfect, terrifying unison.
"Die, you rotten bastards!" one particularly bold Montgory soldier scread, his voice cracking with a mixture of adrenaline and fear as he reached the leading edge of the zombie swarm.
He unsheathed his heavy broadsword in a single, fluid motion, the steel glistening with what little light which remained in the gloom as he prepared to cleave through the first row of shambling corpses.
He had already envisioned the way his blade would bite into their soft, grey flesh, confident that his superior training would make short work of such clumsy opponents.
Whoosh!
The sharp, whistling sound of a projectile cutting through the air was the only warning he received, but it was far too late for a man in mid-swing to adjust his posture.
Before his blade could even make contact with the nearest undead, a black-shafted arrow shot out from the very center of the zombie swarm, piercing cleanly through the vulnerable gap in his gorget and exiting the back of his neck in a spray of crimson blood.
" GUAH!!!"
" COUGH! You cowardly bastards! How could you–!"
The soldier's eyes went wide, his sword slipping from his nerveless fingers and clattering to the ground as he collapsed into a heap, his life-blood staining the very soil he had sought to defend.
This scene was repeated across the entire front line like a never ending scene, as several other soldiers who had tried to charge the zombie horde head-on were t with the sa lethal precision.
It beca imdiately apparent that these were no mindless corpses; arrows continued to rain down from within the depths of the horde, striking gaps in armor and finding throats and eye slits with a horrifying accuracy that shouldn't have been possible for a shambling ss of at.
Of course the ones behind such sharp blows where non other than the lesser vampires hidden within the confines of the horde, which their senses that far surpassed those of humans, it wasn't difficult for them to hit their marks each ti.
Before the first true clash of steel could even fully comnce, dozens of Montgory's finest had already fallen to the ground, their bodies serving as obstacles for the comrades following behind them.
"Damnit! Everyone retreat! Fall back to the secondary barricades!" one of the veteran squad leaders bellowed, his face pale as he realized they had walked into a slaughterhouse.
He had seen enough battles to know when a force was being toyed with, and the way those arrows found their marks suggested a level of coordination that defied logic.
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