"Give a peasant a spear, food, and a cause to fight for, and they would happily die for your sake without blinking an eye. Often in vain, in a useless and pointless manner, just another life ground away in the mercilessness of war.

Train a peasant until he would not stab himself by accident, feed him well and proper, and instill loyalty upon him and you would end up with a loyal man, willing to die for your cause. He might still die, but at the very least now he is far more likely to take some of his enemies to the grave with him, and maybe give his sacrifice some meaning.

Far too many so called rulers out there just toss spears to their peasant militia and then lay all the blame on them when they break in battle. Such a thing is not a deficit of courage or loyalty on the peasant's part in my opinion, but rather a deficit of the brain on the ruler's part.

After all, one should never expect another to be willing to sacrifice their lives for them, unless they have made that a worthwhile cause first." - Saying by Nec Aarin, the Bone Lord.

True to Aoife's words, before an hour had passed, they heard footsteps in march as it echoed through the stillness of the night. Another few minutes, and the first of the thralls came into sight. The sight of which almost made the twelve villagers gathered to groan in dismay.

Thralls had lined up in a neat rectangle, five wide and nine deep, while another five marched beside the necromancer on his undead horse mount. Every thrall carried long spears in one hand, with a round shield in another, and a machete or hatchet at their belts. They wore armor made from boiled leather that covered their torsos, and looked to be in great physical shape.

At least, as long as one ignored the empty, dead-eyed stare the thralls possessed, as they were in practice but soulless bodies, their every move done under the command of their necromancer overlords. It was the most disgusting mockery of life Theodin had ever seen, and the middle aged village elder seethed with anger at the sight, his grip tightened around the handle of his axe until his knuckles turned white.

"That… is the reality of the 'honor' given to those chosen to be thralls," said Aoife in a very quiet voice, just enough for Theodin and the villagers to hear, as the thralls became clearer to their sights under the light of the night's full moon. "Whatever makes you you, gets purged, and the remaining empty shell becomes a tool for your master to use as he sees fit."

"In case you wonder, those women they chose from your villages? Are those with talent for magic. They usually get to serve as breeding sows to birth the next generation of obedient servants, with those of death affinity reserved for the necromancers themselves," continued the female necromancer ruthlessly, her voice as still as if she was talking about something utterly mundane. Two of the elders barely managed to hold their vomit in, as they had lost daughters to the yearly tribute before, and everybody else looked a bit pale in the face after they heard her words. "So keep those indignities in mind, and let your anger fuel your strikes when it comes time to face the necromancer later."

"What is your plan?" Asked Ciarran quietly as he glanced between the marching thralls, and their little group of twelve villagers, and one necromancer they still had no idea was trustable or not. "There are far too many of them, and far too few of us. To fight head on would be suicide."

"Boy, you'll learn that numbers aren't everything very soon," replied the female necromancer with a light chuckle. Theodin was slightly amused at how miffed his son was at being called a 'boy', but he soon focused on the woman's words again as she continued. "You people can stay here, wait until the thralls have all passed through and you see me engage them, as well as get rid of his bodyguards, before you strike."

"What signal should we look out for, in that case?" Asked Theodin to the young woman, who just gave him a smug smile as she replied.

"Trust me, old man, but you wouldn't be able to miss it even if you tried to."

--------------------------

As the villagers waited with nervousness and trepidation at their spot, they felt as if time had slowed to a crawl. The thralls passed not ten meters away from them, and with every step they feared one would take a glance their way and notice them.

The necromancer that led the fifty thralls was a gaunt middle aged woman with a hawkish nose, who looked offended that she had been made to do such a menial task as this. Like Aoife, she too wore the black robes that signified her nature, as if the undead horse she rode not was not a statement enough.

Theodin had wondered where Aoife went, as the woman had parted ways with them and skulked into the bushes after her last words, and a part of him wondered if this was all but a cruel jest, to be played on him while the necromancers watched for their enjoyment.

Behind him, his two sons stood, spears in hand, and so did the other villagers, all of them looking at the road in consternation, and yet their hands firmly gripped their weapons, and their eyes signaled their willingness to do, or die.

When the "signal" came, several things happened all at once, too fast for Theodin to process immediately.

From a bit ahead of where they were, the massive wolf-like bone beast they saw the woman rode burst out of the bushes, and it went to work at the rear of the thrall line, as six scythe-like bone blades on long, prehensile limbs unfolded from its back.

Before the necromancer atop her horse could even react, seven of the rearmost thralls in the formation were torn to pieces by either those blades, or the beast's own claws and fangs, as it loped gracefully like a lupine predator around its victims.

At the same time, two humanoid figures emerged from the woods on the other side of the road. One looked vaguely like a human skeleton, other than its three faced head and six arms, each of which held gleaming weapons of compressed and polished bone.

Another six thralls fell to its onslaught within moments, as sword, spear, axe, mace, hammer, and shield were wielded with uncanny expertise and slaughtered thralls one after another.

The last skeletal figure that emerged could only be described as "humanoid" in the most generous of terms. The massive figure - easily twice as tall as most of the villagers - straight up killed a thrall as it stepped on the poor victim with its clawed, digitigrade leg.

A dozen arms, eight of which held spiked shields while another four wielded odd mace-axe hybrids, demolished the frontline of the thralls, and to the mounting horror of the villagers they saw how the six skulls of the monstrosity slithered around on prehensile necks and ripped chunks of flesh from the thralls that were close enough for it to reach.

By the time the necromancer woman atop her horse reacted and relayed orders, which got her thralls to go into the semblance of a formation, over half of the forty five thralls had already been shred to pieces.

The woman was just about to order the five thralls by her to join the fight, when bolts of death magic suddenly struck them right on their heads, and wiped every bit of commands the necromancers had given to the thralls. As a result, they slumped to the ground, the soulless bodies devoid of intent and command, and just laid there without moving.

A larger bolt of death magic overrode the woman's control over her undead mount, and it bucked, which caused her to fall down from the mount, before the bones collapsed to a pile of pieces as it failed to tolerate the necromantic energies that tugged it in different directions.

By now, Theodin had no more need to ask for a signal, and with a wave of his hand, he led the villagers in a run at the necromancer, who was still trying to stand after her fall.

The woman looked at the villagers charging her with surprise and consternation, as their expressions were not of fear as she had expected, but that of fury and utter hatred, as if they couldn't wait to mince her into pieces.

She launched a few bolts of pure death magic at them in an attempt to deter their charge, and pulled out a dagger from.her waist. The bolts of death energy flew true towards the villagers, and all four struck home.

One struck an elder right on the face, and the villager crumpled down lifeless on the spot. A second took the hit to the stomach and bent over as he clutched his stomach, clearly in severe pain. Caelleach took a third bolt on his wooden shield, and winced as he felt the necromantic energies invade his arm, but toughed it out as he charged on.

A fourth bolt caught Theodin right on his chest, and when the man felt the energies of death invade his body, he felt something awaken within him. Bright light purged the necromantic energies within his bodies, the pain soon soothed to a mere dull throb, as he yelled and charged at the necromancer before him.

A thrown spear caught the woman in the thigh as she tried to turn and run, and as she turned around in despair, she yelled threats at the villagers. Threats that were all too familiar to their ears, that just incensed their rage all the more.

Theodin was the first to reach the downed necromancer, and he hacked off her right arm as he saw her raise it, with dark energies gathered by her hand.

The woman screamed in pain, and raised her other arm in a desperate attempt to launch a spell, just to have the middle aged man hack it off as well.

Before the armless woman could utter another word Ciarran had arrived, a cudgel in his hand that he picked up from the slain elder after he threw the spear that pinned the woman earlier, and with rage and fury over his lost sister, he slammed the wooden cudgel on the woman's head so hard he nearly broke the weapon.

What happened to the woman's head was far more gruesome however, as her skull caved in under the forceful blow. Blood and brain matter splattered over Ciaran and Theodin's clothes, as her eyes popped out of their sockets.

The body, with half its head pulverized brutally, swayed to and fro for a moment, before it collapsed, and allowed the villagers to finally catch their breath.

With a wary eye, Theodin looked towards where the thralls had fought only to be greeted by three blood-drenched undead constructs and many, many thralls in bloody pieces. Not a single one of which still moved.

As the villagers pondered what they had just accomplished, how they had just slain another of the supposedly inviolable necromancer lords of theirs with their own hands, they heard clapping from behind them, and turned to see Aoife as she walked out from the woods while clapping her hands.

On her face, was a clear look of approval for them and what they just did.