The dead had claimed the land—though they had no right to walk at all. That was not how death worked, not until now. The wind carried some foul sickness; the mist was so thick the sun could not touch the earth. Cold had settled over everything, a seasonless chill that invaded what should have been summer. The fog had come with the dead, as if it fed them.
Months had passed since the dead rose, and the survivors had learned one brutal truth: the only way to make them sleep again was to cut through the nape. Sever the spine and the body would fall useless; the head might still growl and bite, but without a body it was only a twitching, snapping thing—dangerous, revolting, but no longer lethal in numbers.
Kalindi moved through the ruins with the rest of her group—eight or nine people from her village, drifting from ruined place to ruined place in search of any pockets of humanity still left. She carried her five-month-old on her back and kept a small hand in hers: a five-year-old who never left her side.
They came upon a village ransacked by the dead. A few of the corpses still remained, dragging themselves with rotten organs exposed. The group cleared the immediate surroundings and scouted the settlement for shelter. They found a small brick house that seemed defensible: a single small window and an old wooden door that might hold against whatever came.
"We'll spend the night here," said Rayan, a seventeen-year-old who had become one of the group's leaders, "and move south at dawn." Beside him stood his brother, Rashid, twenty-one. Ashmi, twenty-three, who had served in the Thallorian army before the dead rose and had recently joined them, climbed onto the roof through a trapdoor to keep watch while the others tried to rest.
Late in the dark, Ashmi saw a figure emerge from the mist. She kept her eyes on it, and then the mist tore open with a sound like a hundred dry branches: a whole horde advancing, dragging feet, growls echoing through the empty night. Ashmi signalled—stay alert.
The horde passed their house. The group held its breath; a single sound could draw the dead back, and that would be the end. The last line of the horde was already moving away when Kalindi's baby began to cry. She clamped a hand over the infant's mouth, desperate to hush him—but too late. A dead head turned, and it began to move toward the door.
Ashmi steadied herself on the roof, ready to shoot, but she waited; firing would summon the rest. The thing came to the door. Inside, Rayan braced, sword at the ready. Rashid waved him back—stop—but Rayan didn't. Through the gaps in the wood he thrust his blade and gutted the creature's neck.
Everyone flinched as the corpse collapsed with a heavy thud. The sound carried. Part of the horde, alerted, swung back toward them. Ashmi shouted for them to run.
They fled, but wherever they turned they found themselves pressed by the dead. With no choice left, they fought. Swords rose and fell in a last, desperate struggle. Three of their number were claimed—torn apart as the rest hacked on. Kalindi, in the chaos, saw a narrow drainage channel and led the survivors toward it. They wouldn't have made it if Ashmi had not held them off.
Ashmi turned and met the horde alone, buying the others a chance. Kalindi glanced back in horror as the dead tore Ashmi apart, a woman who had become their shield. Then the living plunged into the drainage. A few dead followed, but the group outpaced them and finally came to a broken barn at the foot of Mt. Lysmere. They slipped in through the back door.
By torchlight the barn showed its age and its violence: broken beams, blood and scratch marks across the wood, the bleached skeletons of animals scattered where some long-past feast had taken place. The place reeked of old hunger.
Rayan, raw with fear and fury, screamed, "Feed your baby to the dead if you can't keep him quiet—he's a liability."
Kalindi answered, cold as winter itself, "Watch your words. They may be the last you ever speak."
Rayan shot back, "Lady, you and your children live because we led the group. What do you think would happen if we left you here now?"
Rashid, furious, said, "You were itching to kill. It's because of you, Rayan—if you'd controlled yourself, this wouldn't have happened. Their blood is on your hands, not hers."
"Wow," Rayan snarled. "When did you two turn on me? Your own brother—against me?"
The argument rose and fell, a dangerous thing in a place where voices could mean death. They had no strength left for a long fight, so it petered out into exhausted silence. They checked their immediate surroundings and found a small house nearby—someone had lived there before the outbreak, which meant there might be dead inside. They split up to search.
Kalindi found a crawling corpse that stopped her cold. It was a child, or what had been a child—its lower body gone, dragging itself on bloody stumps. Empathy and despair hit her like a physical blow. She wanted to end the child's misery, but the only way to stop the dead was to sever the nape; there was no quick mercy otherwise.
Fortunate for them, the interior of the house was clear. No dead lay inside, and for the first time that night they had a chance to rest. They took the shelter and tried, as best they could, to sleep while the mist moved beyond the walls and the world outside held its new, terrible order.