The first rock crushed the lead wagon’s wheel with a splintering crack, sending shards of wood and bursts of dust into the air. The second boulder followed seconds later, thundering down the opposite ridge and catching a wagon broadside. Oxen screamed. The formation exploded into chaos.

  The gunfire rained down—sharp, practiced shots from both ridgelines.

  “Cover!” Voss shouted, he dismounted and unslung his rifle in fluid motion. “We’re under fire!”

  Carlos dropped beside Swift, calm despite the chaos. He leveled his M21 and began returning fire with precise shots, picking targets in a cold rhythm.

  Swift scrambled behind a wagon. His pulse pounded in his ears. This wasn’t corrosion. These weren’t rot-stained corpses or lurching undead.

  These are people.

  From his cover, he caught glimpses between the spokes of boots pounding the dirt—figures clad in mismatched armor, cloth masks over their faces, moving with coordination. Bandits. Maybe thirty of them, maybe more.

  Voss’s voice rang out again. “Form a line! Return fire!”

  Swift gritted his teeth, brought Excalibur up, and peered down the barrel toward the nearest ridge. A figure rose from behind a rock—raising an old bolt-action rifle.

  Swift hesitated.

  His finger hovered on the trigger.

  This wasn’t a monster.

  Just a man.

  He angled his shot low and squeezed.

  The boom of Excalibur split the air, deafening and deep. The shot punched into the man’s leg, sending him tumbling behind cover. Screams echoed.

  Swift ducked again, exhaling shakily. He couldn’t shoot to kill.

  Not like this.

  The battle raged on.

  One bandit tried to flank the rearguard but was met by a volley of fire from two escort mercs crouched by an overturned barrel. Another rushed Swift’s position. Swift met him head-on.

  He sidestepped the wild swing of a blade and brought Excalibur’s stock into the attacker’s ribs, then slammed the barrel into the side of his head. The man dropped, groaning.

  Swift stood over him, breath short, weapon raised. One clean shot would end it.

  Instead, he kicked the bandit’s weapon aside and dragged him behind the wagon, binding his hands with leather cord. It was a gamble—every breath spent tying the man up was time spent not returning fire.

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  Gunfire rolled like thunder through the forest.

  A shout from his left. Swift turned just in time to see a bandit turn and run—stumbling down the slope, away from the wagons.

  A sharp crack. The fleeing figure jerked and fell face-first into the dirt.

  One of the mercs reloaded calmly. “He was breathing,” he muttered.

  Swift stared at him, horrified. “He was running.”

  The man shrugged. “And he could’ve come back.”

  By the time the shooting stopped, dusk had settled over the woods like a veil.

  The wagons were mostly intact—one had a cracked axle, another had a small fire smoldered out before it could spread. The horses were spooked but alive. Supplies, for the most part, remained secure.

  Bodies, though, lay in the dirt—bandits armed with sickles, shovels, broken spears, and only two recognizable rifles.

  The air stank of sweat, blood, and dust.

  Swift knelt beside the unconscious man he’d spared, checking the bindings. Still breathing. He stared down, unsure what to do next.

  BANG

  A gunshot cracked beside him.

  Blood misted upward. The bandit collapsed limp.

  Swift’s head snapped up. Another mercenary, face blank, lowered his rifle.

  “He was a threat,” the man said. “We don’t take prisoners.”

  Carlos arrived a second later, already pulling the bandit’s collar aside. What they saw made both men pause.

  Blackened veins. Discolored skin beneath the jaw. Faint webbing under the eyes.

  Carlos exhaled. “Corrosion.”

  Swift stared. “He looked normal. He fought like a man.”

  “Maybe he was,” Carlos said. “Part of him, at least.”

  Swift didn’t reply. He looked around—then stopped cold.

  One of the dead bandits lay face-up, mouth open in death. The man’s chest bore the scorched remains of a badge. A patch identical to the ones worn by convoy merchants.

  Carlos saw it too. His voice came out low and hollow.

  “Some of these weren’t bandits,” he said. “They were part of the convoy we were supposed to meet.”

  Swift took a step back, pulse hammering.

  They hadn’t been ambushed by raiders. They’d been attacked by what was left of the missing escort group—twisted, corroded, and turned against their own.

  Swift looked down at his gloves, the blood darkening around his fingers. The weight of it wasn’t just guilt.

  Is it grief? Fear?

  Carlos and Swift locked eyes for only a moment before Voss’s voice cut through the cold silence.

  “Everyone move! We’re not staying here!”

  He pointed toward the supply wagon. “Get that axle fixed, now!”

  No time to bury the dead. No time to question what had just happened. The truth—that some of these attackers were human not long ago—was swallowed by the night, replaced by a more immediate threat.

  They had made too much noise.

  Between the rockfall, the gunfire, and the chaos, they’d stirred up enough sound to draw every corroded thing in earshot. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

  “Double harness the oxen,” Voss barked. “We’re riding through the night. No stops.”

  Swift didn’t argue. He didn’t even speak. He moved, helping lift the cart with a cracked wheel while another mercenary drove a new pin through the axle. Sweat slicked every movement, but no one dared slow down.

  The trees around them watched like silent sentinels. The forest felt darker now. Heavier.

  Within twenty minutes, the convoy creaked back to life, rolling forward under a darkening sky.

  Carlos rode next to him, White Feather across his lap. The rest of the escort team was scattered through the wagons, weapons in hand, scanning the ridgelines and treeline as they passed.

  No one joked. No one spoke.

  Swift’s eyes flicked from the shadows ahead to the ridges above. Every branch twitch, every rustle of wind sent his muscles tightening. The fight might be over—but the danger wasn’t.

  They rode for hours, past midnight. Even when the moon slipped behind cloud cover, they didn’t stop.

  Every bounce of the wagon made Swift grip his musket tighter.

  He didn’t think about the bandit he spared.

  He didn’t think about the face-up corpse with the patch.

  He just scanned the tree line for shadows … and kept his finger off, but near the trigger.