One of his powerful, armored hands gripped the runeblade, while the other rose in a slight beckoning gesture. Sylvanas watched another slain human twist and slowly rise to his feet, pulling the arrow from his eye as easily as plucking burrs from his clothes.
Their attacks had caused Arthas almost no losses, because his dark magic could raise any fallen dead—even corpses chopped into pieces could be reclaimed by the Scourge and remade into fresh soldiers.
He saw realization and fury flash in her eyes, and his sneer turned into booming laughter.
"I told you," his voice carried over the battlefield's clamor. "But you keep replenishing my forces..."
He made another gesture, and another corpse crawled forward convulsively before slowly rising to its feet. The body was lean and strong, with long black hair tied into a ponytail behind its head. Its skin was dark brown, its ears pointed, and the four wounds across its throat still streamed with blood. Its head swayed crookedly, as though its neck had suffered a devastating blow and could no longer support it. Eyes once as blue as a summer sky searched blankly for Sylvanas. Then it slowly began walking toward her.
She remembered it. It was the elven ranger the gargoyles had killed only moments ago. A warrior who had bravely resisted the undead was now forced by evil magic to become one of his former enemies.
Just then, she felt the gate beneath her feet tremble lightly. The slaughter before her and the sight of the dead rising had thrown her into such turmoil that she had failed to notice his siege weapons were already in position.
By now, the enormous creatures the size of Ogres, monstrosities that looked as though they had been stitched together from different corpses—the Abominations—had also reached