Skeleton Warriors

The skeleton legions are Nehekhara's old armies keeping their oldest orders. In life they were the levy-men of the river valleys, drilled on the temple fields and interred rank upon rank in the barracks-tombs of the necropolises, so that they might serve their kings in the world beyond. The incantations of the Liche Priests are the muster-call they were promised: at the words of awakening they climb from the sand in files already dressed, shields already locked, beneath banners whose colors bleached away a hundred lifetimes ago.

They are nothing like the shambling corpses of the necromancer's art. No hunger drives them and no fear checks them; they advance at the patient pace of the parade ground and fight with the drilled economy of soldiers who have had thirty centuries of practice at obedience. Break them, and the priests' chanting knits them back together; scatter them, and they reform in step. An enemy can defeat a skeleton legion a dozen times in an afternoon and win nothing but tired arms: the dead simply stand up, redress the line, and come on.