As they drew closer, Savina make out their faces. She cried out and nearly dropped her sword, "Aragorn, what are they?"
Aragorn's face was set in a look of pale determination. He glanced at Savina, sadness in his eyes, "they are the dead."
"How…" Savina swallowed her question; she already knew the answer…necromancy. Someone had been bringing the dead back to life.
Aragorn looked at her again, and then at Legolas and Gimli, "I'm sorry."
The army was a terrible sight. Goblins, Orcs, humans, elves, and other races Savina had never seen made up the army. They were a macabre parody of what they had once been. Nothing more than bone with black skin hanging off, empty eye sockets and dried blood, skeletal hands holding battered swords. Their faces were expressionless and they moved as one, their feet moving at the same time, as if they were controlled by one mind. They were mindless slaves, brought back from the dead to do their Master's bidding.
When the army was about twenty feet away, it came to an abrupt halt and a single elf came forward. One side of his once-beautiful face was completely gone, his long hair, which may have once been blonde, was filthy and blood caked. He spoke haltingly in common, his voice monotone and almost unintelligible, "you, human, elf and dwarf, are prisoners of my Master, surrender now and you may be spared."
Aragorn raised his sword and spoke three quiet words, "we will not."
Then the army crashed down on them like a black wave crashing against rocks during a storm.
The dead fought clumsily but fiercely.
The elf that had spoken ran straight toward Savina, then paused, looking at Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, "you are four," he said, sounding surprised, then Aragorn swept his head off with his sword.
Savina blocked an Orc's sword and yelled to Aragorn, "can these be killed?"
"Cut their heads off!" he yelled back, swinging his sword and skillfully decapitating another elf and three humans.
Savina pushed the Orcs backward and, with a grunt, swung at its neck with her sword. She was surprised how easily her sword had cut through the rotten flesh.
What had once been a very large human lunged toward her, one of his eyes hanging from its socket. He raised his sword and plunged it downward, making it almost impossible for her to block.
She jumped backward and found her back pressed against the side of the mountain. Raising her sword to defend herself against the human's sword, which was coming down again, her braced herself.
Then she heard a sliding sound, living voices, and found herself in complete darkness.