The rain had stopped at last. The sunset had begun to color the horizon with myriad shades of red. Like blood and rust and burning fields they crept across the clouded sky and still lent some semblance of light to the fog swathed stones of the Ruins. The blanket of fog cast everything in the gray of dreams, half remembered yet still terrifying as the dark began to descend.. Nothing seemed alive, even the dense plants of the marshland seemed gray and listless.
Yet through the midst of this scene of stillness there moved a long, straight spear. An army of steel and flesh and living breath made its way along the weed traced stones of a road older than many of them would care to think about. On every side of them lay the broken remnants of weapons and bones. The long dead garrison of the Ruin had fallen before the advance force, leaving the path open for the main body of the Crusade to advance unopposed.
They had passed four of the outer walls without slowing. They were now approaching the fifth wall. Only two more would remain before they could enter the city at the center of the Ruin. Anticipation was running high as the sun sank low. The advanced force had reportedly cleared as far as the gate of the seventh and final wall. The dream of finally destroying this nest of nightmares was so close to becoming reality that the very air trembled with it.
Yet, hidden by fog and mountain's looming shadow, the sun finally set beyond the horizon. For a moment the air seemed tense and all the insects fell silent. A vague sense of pressure moved over the place in a strong ripple from the direction of the city, like a nudge at the back of the mind. Then it passed like a moment of doubt.
But the insects stayed silent.
Many children are told stories about the moaning of the undead that shamble and reach, desperate for the flesh of the living. Those stories are meant to frighten. They are far from true.
From the water and the murk rose the racing hordes. Without number and with only their boney fingers as weapons, these skeletal irregulars burst from where they had fallen only hours before to race as fast as their bones could go in a furiously silent effort to rush the column of Crusaders. Among these simple skeletons ran fierce beasts of flame and shadow, wood and water, conjured creatures too numerous and varied to identify or plan against. Yet still in the distance, at the boundary where the darkness and fog began to draw the curtain of mystery over the landscape, there loomed a greater threat.
With measured pace they came. They came from both flanks. In phalanx after phalanx the bones and weapons of the army of the Ruin advanced. Beside them, awaiting the silent order to charge, paced cavalry wielding long hafted warhammers upon slender skeletal steeds. The order came. The steeds rushed forward in lengthening V's as the spears of the phalanxes lowered and their pace increased. The battle was joined.
The Ruins were defended.