Chapter 60 Shadows in the Trees

The chapel seemed to hold its breath.
Cold stone walls and sagging wood pressed in from every side. Dust drifted in thin beams through gaps in the boarded windows. The women stood near the altar, weapons ready, but their eyes kept drifting to the walls whenever the pounding outside came again. The blows weren’t wild. They were steady. Measured. Testing.

The first thing that seeped through was the smell—wet earth and rot that clung in the throat. The boards groaned. Nails shifted in their holes. Something scraped along the outer wall like a blade dragging slow on stone.

Kai’s eyes moved from face to face.
Fara’s ears twitched at every strike. Skye held her knives too close to her body instead of loose and ready. Revoli’s usual grin was gone, her mouth set in a thin line as her hands flexed. Patrona leaned shoulder to stone, reading the vibration. The chapel shuddered again under another hit. A crack split across one of the window boards.

He thought of his boys—small hands, sleep-heavy eyes, the way they used to look at him like he could fix anything. He had tried to be everywhere at once and failed. No one could be everywhere. The fights at home had made it worse. She claimed she didn’t want the children in the middle, but every argument pulled them in anyway. It was a knife she knew how to twist without leaving a mark.

He wasn’t going to watch that happen again.

Looking at the women now, he knew something he hadn’t said even to himself—he loved them. This world, dream or not, was his. It hurt like the real one. It gave him something worth keeping. They were worth keeping.

A board splintered. A gray arm shoved through, fingers curling like they were feeling for life. Another board gave way. A face followed—skin mottled, lips torn, eyes like clouded glass.

“Stay together,” Kai said, his voice sharp and steady. “When I open the way, you run. Don’t stop until you can’t hear them anymore.”

Fara stepped forward, shaking her head. “We’re not leaving you.”

“You will,” he said.

Patrona’s voice came low, almost a growl. “I’ve left too many behind already. I’m not doing it again.”

“You’re doing it now,” he shot back.

Revoli shook her head hard, fingers curling into fists. “No. I’m not—”

Kai cut her off, not with words but with movement. He stepped to the side door, slammed his shoulder into it, and the rusted hinges gave way. Cold night air rushed in, bringing the sound of shuffling feet from all directions.

The first corpse soldier forced its way through the window and hit the floor. Kai met it before it could stand—hooked its jaw, wrenched the head clean from the shoulders. The mouth still moved, the voice thin and wrong.
“Delivering you… to the master…”

He hurled the head back into the oncoming swarm.

“Patrona, Skye—guard Fara and Revoli. Get them out.”

Fara tried to push past him, but Patrona’s grip on her shoulder held her in place. Revoli bared her teeth, her nails catching the dim light.
“I can still claw through—”

“This isn’t a debate,” Kai cut in, his voice low but edged with steel. “It’s my life, and I’ll throw it away for whoever I damn well choose. Right now, I choose you. If you stay, you’re just giving them more to tear apart. I won’t let that happen.”

Revoli froze under the weight of his stare. Skye shifted closer to Fara, her knives ready but her jaw tight. Patrona gave one short nod. “Move. Now.”

The pounding at the front doors became a crash. The wood buckled inward. The dead poured in—gray flesh stretched over rotting muscle, armor rusted to scraps, eyes void of thought. They pressed forward without pause, stepping over the fallen.

Kai waded into them with his batons, striking at knees, throats, and temples. The blows were efficient, meant to drop rather than maim. He opened a narrow gap toward the side passage.

“Go!” he barked.

Patrona forced the others through. Kai stayed behind, taking the brunt of the rush. Hands clawed at him—cold, unyielding, relentless. One locked around his arm, another dug into his side.

The weight of the dead drove him to one knee. Then they were on him fully, piling over one another, pressing him into the dirt floor. Boots ground into his ribs. Rotten teeth snapped near his face.

A guttural roar tore from him. He shoved his arms outward, batons braced, and the mound shifted. A knee drove into something’s jaw. He twisted, rolling free just enough to get his feet under him. He came up swinging—batons cracking bone, scattering bodies.

“Come on,” he growled, pushing toward the open night.

The forest swallowed him whole. Moonlight cut in thin slivers through the canopy, splintering across damp soil and twisted roots. His boots struck the ground hard, each step driving him deeper into the dark. Behind him came the scraping of armor against bark, the heavy drag of dead feet, guttural sounds that used to be language.

Kai kept low, weaving through the trees. He slipped behind a thick oak and held still, listening. One shadow staggered past, slow and unguarded. He stepped out and cracked the baton across its temple—perfect weight, perfect angle. It collapsed without a sound.

He waited, hidden, until another came close. His arm hooked around its throat, pulling it into the dark. The corpse didn’t struggle like the living would. It just clawed forward, even as its windpipe crushed in his arm. The eyes were blank, the jaw slack.

Another approached from the flank. He used the same method—silent grab, pull, choke. But this one didn’t stop moving either. It raked at him with blackened nails even as it went limp. Kai dropped it into the brush and stared at his hand for a beat.

They didn’t think. They didn’t fear. They didn’t stop.

The shadows weren’t going to be enough. The quick kills didn’t matter. The only way through was to break them completely. Smash and bash until nothing moved.

He shifted tactics.

The next soldier to come within reach met the full arc of his baton to the jaw, the blow snapping bone with a wet crack. Kai stepped in, drove the other baton into its temple, and shoved it back into its companions.

A spearhead flashed in the dark. He caught the shaft, yanked hard, and rammed his knee into the wielder’s face. Another lunged from the side—Kai sidestepped, swung low, and took its legs out from under it before bringing the baton down on its head.

The swarm tightened around him. More hands reached. More teeth snapped.

Then they came all at once.

The first wave slammed into his chest, driving him back into a tree. The second hit from the side, tangling his legs. The third barreled over the rest, knocking them all into a tangled mass with him at the center.

The weight crushed his lungs. Rotted armor plates dug into his ribs. Boots stomped across his back. Fingers hooked into his clothes, pulling, tearing. Teeth bit at anything they could reach.

Kai roared and pushed back, his muscles straining. He rolled his shoulder, shifting just enough space to free one arm. The baton cracked into something’s skull, and he kept swinging—blind, furious—until the pressure eased. With a violent shove, he exploded upward, flinging bodies off in every direction.

The nearest corpse got a baton to the side of the head before it could rise. Another got shoved into a third, both toppling into the dirt. He kept moving, forcing space, until the mob hesitated.

That was when he saw it.

A figure in the clearing ahead, the corpse soldiers parting around it like water. Its robes were stitched from human skin, and its face was a patchwork nightmare of stolen features sewn together with thick black thread. The stench rolled off it like smoke from a burned grave.

“You’ll come quietly,” the thing said, voice woven from many throats. “The Lord wishes to see you.”

Kai’s grip tightened. “Not happening.”

The necromancer tilted its head. “Refuse, and the women will suffer first.”

“Your ‘Lord’ can come here and try,” Kai said flatly.

The creature’s sewn lips twisted into something like a smile. “Lord… or Lady… who can say? Only the will of the Demon Lord matters.”

The horde surged forward at the necromancer’s gesture. The first impact hit Kai’s shoulder, the second smashed into his side. He swung through them, batons cracking against skulls, forcing bodies back one step at a time.

The necromancer dissolved into smoke, reappearing at his flank. Each time Kai turned, it shifted away, taunting.

He struck through the vapor, missed, then lunged into it—his hand closing on something solid. He yanked, dragging the creature into the open and locking an arm around its throat.

“I’m done talking.”

His fist hammered into its face until the gurgling laugh broke into wheezes.
“Mercy—” it croaked.

Kai twisted. Bone cracked. The necromancer’s body went limp, and the corpse soldiers collapsed around them like cut marionettes.

The forest was suddenly still.

Kai looked toward the escape route. Through the trees, he saw the road clear, the women gone. Safe.

His legs felt heavy. The cut at his ribs burned hot. The baton in his hand dipped toward the ground. He took one last step before the cold rose from the earth and pulled him under.

Darkness took him.