They pushed hard, trading off running and riding to keep the horses from flagging. Erik found that even jogging for miles with his heavy axe wasn't as taxing as he'd expected. In his old life, he had pushed his body to its absolute limits, chasing the burn of exhaustion as an escape. This new body started at that limit and went further; the raw stamina was astonishing, turning what would have been a punishing marathon into a mere discomfort. The road stretched on through rolling hills and sparse woods turned autumn-gold. By late afternoon, the urgency of their mission spurred them to even greater speed. They barely halted for rest or water. Graystone had perhaps survived one night; Erik wasn't sure it could survive a second.
As dusk began to creep across the sky, they crested a small ridge and Zara, riding ahead, called back, "I see it! Graystone!" Erik and Finn clambered forward in the wagon to look. Below, in a shallow valley, lay the village of Graystone. It was little more than twenty-odd thatch-roof cottages and a central stone meeting hall, all ringed by a humble wooden palisade fence. But the scene around it made Erik's blood run cold: smoke curled upward from multiple fires both inside and outside the village, and dark shapes swarmed at the front gate. His vision seemed sharper, more focused than it had any right to be. A flicker of insight, a whisper from the Battle Sense rune he now knew resided within him, allowed him to pick out the skeletal figures clambering against the barricaded gate, clawing and heaving. The gate itself shuddered under their weight and had partially splintered.
As the wagons thundered closer, he could make out villagers on the inside pushing back and stabbing through gaps with spears or pitchforks. Their ragged shouts echoed across the field. But there were other shapes, too. Still shapes, lying in the mud near the palisade.
"Gods above…" Lyra whispered, her voice barely audible over the rumble of wheels. Even from a distance, the palpable aura of death and dread reached them.
Darius didn't waste a moment. He turned in his saddle and drew his sword, its steel reflecting the deep orange of the setting sun. "We break through and relieve the gate. Form a wedge on me!" he barked. His voice carried the confidence of a man who had led cavalry charges and routed brigands before. "Iron Wolves, with me!"
Erik leapt off the slowing wagon before it had even fully stopped. He, Lyra, Finn, and Holt sprinted to catch up as Darius and Zara charged ahead on horseback. The plan was simple and brutally effective: hit the undead from behind, break their lines, and open the way into the village.
As they charged, the scene came into sharp, horrific focus. The still shapes weren't just bundles of rags. They were bodies. A farmer, his chest pierced by a rusted spear, his own pitchfork still buried in the skull of a zombie. A woman, her arms outstretched toward the splintered remains of her front door.
And then Erik saw it.
It was a small bundle, lying near a trampled vegetable patch. A child, no older than five or six, her simple dress smeared with mud and something darker. A wooden doll lay a few feet from her outstretched hand. She wasn't sleeping. She was just… gone.
The world seemed to lurch to a halt. In his old life, Marcus Kane had died in a meaningless, random accident. It was pointless, but it wasn't malicious. This… this was different. This was a slaughter. These people hadn't died by chance. They had been hunted. Their lives hadn't just ended; they had been stolen. They had been given no choice, no chance to fight or flee, their simple freedom to exist erased by a tide of mindless, shambling hatred. The sight of the child crystallized the horror into a single, diamond-hard point of rage in Erik's chest. This wasn't a battle for a village. This was a stand against an absolute, obscene wrongness.
The fear he'd felt melted away, replaced by a cold, silent fury far more potent than the hot rage of the goblin tunnels.
He didn't know he had roared until he felt his throat go raw. He overtook Darius's horse, his legs pumping with a power born of pure indignation, and swung Erythrael in a brutal, two-handed cleave at the first enemy in range. The great axe tore through a skeleton from clavicle to hip, bones exploding outward in a puff of dust. The momentum carried the axe into the next creature, a rotten ghoul, and hacked into its torso with a wet chunk. Foul black ichor splattered as the ghoul shrieked.
All around, allies engaged. Holt came charging at Erik's side with a wordless bellow, bringing his massive hammer down on a clutch of skeletal limbs. The crunch of bone under iron was sickening and final. Finn, far more agile, had veered off to the right flank, where a trio of snarling ghouls were loping toward the disturbance. In a blur, Finn vaulted onto a broken cart for height and sent a throwing knife singing into one ghoul's eye socket. The creature dropped, flailing, as the other two bounded up at the agile rogue. Finn drew his twin daggers, spinning them deftly. "This way, you stinking corpses!" he yelled, leading one ghoul away from the gate and slashing at its hamstrings as he danced just out of its reach.
Lyra remained a few paces behind Erik, protected within the wedge formation. She held her oaken staff aloft, her lips moving in fervent prayer until she thrust the staff forward. "Purge," she whispered. A searing bolt of white light slammed into a cluster of undead pressing toward the left, incinerating a skeleton to ash and badly charring a zombie.
Within moments, they carved out a wedge-shaped breach in the horde. The creatures, mindless and focused on the barricade, were caught completely off guard by the onslaught from behind. Bones and rotted flesh littered the muddy ground.
Erik stomped down hard on a crawling severed arm that still twitched toward his ankle, crushing it. He panted, breath fogging as the cold air scraped his lungs, but there was no time to rest. More undead were staggering toward them between the houses, drawn by the commotion. Amid the clatter of bone and guttural moans, he could hear villagers crying out in renewed hope: they knew help had come.
"Open the gate! It's the guild!" someone yelled from inside. With a heavy crack, the reinforced wooden gate was pushed ajar. Darius wasted no time; he thrust his sword through the gap and helped heave the damaged gate open enough for people to slip in. "Inside, quickly!" he ordered.
A gaunt skeletal warrior lunged at Erik with a rusted sword. He met it head-on, the rune for Power Strike flaring with a brief, hot light beneath his leathers, and he brought the axe down in a savage overhead chop that shattered the skeleton's skull. Another undead took its place, stabbing a spear at Erik's side.
Holt's hammer came from the left, intercepting the spear mid-thrust. "Keep moving, lad!" Holt grunted. Together they backed toward the gate.
Zara was already inside the palisade, helping villagers. One of the scouts and the archer volunteer were on the palisade firing arrows down. Finn appeared beside Erik, breathing hard. "Everyone in!" he urged. With a powerful kick, Darius sent the broken wagon they'd used as a brace tumbling fully outside. Then the knight, last through, heaved the gate shut again. Villagers swarmed to bar it with timbers.
They had made it inside Graystone. But the battle was far from over.
The cold anger in Erik's chest solidified into an unshakeable resolve. He caught Darius's eye, and the knight nodded, they shared the same determination.
"Form up! We push them back, house by house!" Darius commanded, his voice a rallying cry.
Erik wiped sweat and grime from his brow and moved to Darius's left. They advanced down the main lane, a tide of retribution against the tide of death. As they pressed forward, he saw firsthand the gruesome panorama of the siege. Several more villagers lay dead or in pieces. Each scene was a dagger of guilt and fury in Erik's heart.
A clatter of bones snapped him back to the present. A skeleton leapt from an alley and swung a rusted mace. Erik reacted on instinct, catching the blow on Erythrael's haft. With a snarl he kicked the skeleton's knee, knocking it off balance, and followed with a diagonal chop that cleaved it apart. Almost immediately, a ghoul came bounding over a broken barrel, its eyes glowing with pale hunger. It lunged at Erik's flank.
"Erik, look out!" Lyra shouted. The ghoul crashed into him, tackling him to the ground. It was on his chest, snarling, its stench overwhelming. He grappled with it, using the axe's haft to hold back its snapping fangs. The ghoul raked its free claw at Erik's face. He jerked his head aside, but white-hot pain blossomed as the talons scored a line across his cheek. Lyra was screaming something, unable to get a clean shot. The ghoul pressed closer, its strength tremendous.
A primal fury ignited in Erik's core. The Berserker's Rage rune on his forearm answered his call, flooding his veins like liquid fire, drowning thought in a singular, brutal purpose. "GET OFF!" Erik roared. He slammed his forehead into the ghoul's face. There was a crunch; the creature reeled. Seizing the moment, he heaved upward and flung the ghoul off him.
He was on his feet in an instant, vision tinged red. He swung Erythrael overhead. "RAAHH!" The axe blade, glowing faintly with a crimson aura, crashed down, cleaving straight through the creature's skull and chest. Black, tar-like blood sprayed out. He yanked his axe free with a snarl, chest heaving. The runes on Erythrael's handle seemed to glow red as the ghoul's blood dripped off the blade.
Behind him, Lyra finally reached his side. "Are you hurt?" A soothing warmth emanated from her hand as she poured a small healing spell into the gashes on his face.
"I'm alright," Erik managed, voice rough. The berserker fury was fading, leaving him drained but clear-headed. He offered Lyra a quick, grateful nod. "Thank you."
Darius's voice echoed from up ahead: "To the center! Drive them back!"
Erik found himself fighting back-to-back with a young soldier who seemed to be everywhere at once. The man was already battered, his fine but unfamiliar gear, a burnished half-plate cuirass marked with an unknown twin-gryphon crest, smeared with grime and black ichor. He was clearly no simple village militiaman.
The young soldier grimaced as he kicked a skull aside. "I've never seen this many at once," he panted, his voice strained from exertion. "They just keep coming."
"Neither have I," Erik replied, smashing an axe into a skeleton's ribcage. "Just hold the line."
He caught a flash of movement, a ghoul sprinting toward a cluster of children huddled behind a rain barrel. A throwing knife whistled in, thudding into the ghoul's temple. Erik whirled to see Finn on a rooftop, already balancing another blade between his fingers, and flashing a tense thumbs-up. Erik returned a brief wave.
In minutes that felt like hours, they cleared the central square. The remaining undead horde was now strewn in pieces. Darius stood at the forefront, armor smeared with black blood. "Hold… we've done it. They're retreating!"
Erik turned in a slow circle, axe at the ready. A lone ghoul limped away into the darkness. Finn sent a final throwing knife through its skull. The remaining undead lay inert. An eerie silence fell over Graystone, broken only by the crackle of fires and the whimpering of the injured. A ragged cheer went up from the survivors. They were safe.