At the Gates of Silvermoon

The Ranger-General had bought them time - but it wasn't enough.

Kharisa Silverdawn stood in formation with her brothers and sisters, waiting for death's inevitable march. Their arrogance faltered with every line of defenses the Scourge marched through - and now they knew, for certain, that none of them would live through this.

They were here to give the civilians time to evacuate.

This was the first Khary had ever seen of war - sure, there were skirmishes with the Amani, but she'd lived within the relative safety of Quel'thalas all of her life. 

She'd expected some kind of glorious battle, and a part of her expected to somehow survive it. She still believed in her own immortality.

What she found was a slaughter.

Creatures - because they weren't people anymore - swarmed the gates. She watched as her comrades were slaughtered brutally, viciously - and yet the attackers did their best to leave the bodies intact. Khary couldn't understand why, at first. She didn't want to understand why.

She fought with every ounce of strength in her body, taking as many shambling corpses as she could with her. And yet they didn't kill her.

Oh no.

They took her, the stench of rotting flesh filling her nostrils as three ghouls held her still. A geist worked to free her from the confines of her plate armor, as a tall man - a human - stood before her. Blue runes glowed on his long, thin, sword, as he pressed the tip just under her breastbone.

She lost consciousness, then, as he pierced her heart, as she died. 

But that was only the beginning for her.

Battle for Eastcliff

As she'd predicted, the enemy struck hard and fast.

It would take time for the Nerubians to arrive - she was counting on that fact. By the time they came to take the Keep, the living would be gone.

Still.

One thing at a time.

Arrows, geists, and gargoyles rained from the sky - the scrawny, lithe geists had chosen to scale the walls, to no appreciable success, while the gargoyles scouted from above, seeking any living targets and trying to drag her archers from their perches.

They didn't find much success in that plan.

Khary's arcanite-reinforced, ghost iron armored skeletons decimated the weaker undead that stormed the gates, while her ghouls worked together to dispatch any abominations she herself did not take care of. More than once, she was grateful for her own thick plate armor.

Sure, it wasn't saronite - she'd sworn never to use the foul metal again - but ghost iron, that enigmatic material that flooded the market during the war for Pandaria, was just as durable, and had already managed to save her life without ruining her sanity.

She began, slowly but surely, to lose forces. It began with a massive flesh golem. This thing didn't much care as it became a pincushion. It crushed her ghouls into a fine red paste, and ripped two of her armored skeletons limb from limb, before her 'people' managed to destroy it. Three gargoyles worked together to harry her archers, knocking them from the walls to crack apart on the ground so far below.

It would take more time and concentration than she had to raise the broken bodies to fight once more.

It was a little more than an hour into the heavy fighting. Though Khary herself hadn't taken any severe wounds, her armor was banged up pretty badly, and her forces were down to a single one-armed skeleton and her own self.

The ground rumbled beneath her.

The Nerubians had arrived, tunneling under the walls of the keep. There was nothing she could do about that - it was an eventuality.

The comms reported that the mages were going through their own portals now, unravelling the magic behind them.

The garrison was lost - but this day, the battle was won.

Before Eastcliff

Kharisa Silverdawn stood outside of Eastcliff Garrison.

The undead were coming. The scouts had reported an army arrayed against them, and her mind briefly flashed back to the gates of Silvermoon.

She would not, could not fail again.

"Get everyone out," she'd ordered, and the soldiers had rushed to obey.

She would hold the line.

Arrayed behind her stood her army. Five fleshy ghouls knelt beside her, waiting and hungry. Ten skeletons stood behind her, each wearing heavy armor, and twenty skeletons readied themselves on the walls - these were archers. The skeletons were specially modified, their bones reinforced with metal. They weren't agile, precisely - no - but they were incredibly durable, and the archers carried magical quivers that drew directly from the armory.

It wouldn't have worked, if the elves and humans she'd chosen in life had not agreed, if she hadn't bound their souls already. No, these soldiers had died in the defense of their home, and had signed a contract before that - literally binding - to serve in death. 

She wasn't a great necromancer, to raise so many at the spur of a moment's need - but it didn't take the gift of foresight to know this day would come. She'd set this up with Eridan over the last few months, in preparation.

Inside, the living scurried about. Mages set up portals, and people filed through in orderly fashion.

Above, the first gargoyle screamed, an arrow piercing its throat. It splattered on the ground next to her. 

The siege was upon them ....