Three days passed without issue. The group’s pace had barely needed to slow since Tapo and Vas had monitored the groups personally.

Every night while the others made camp, Vas pored over the map. He memorized lake positions, the distances of each lake to the next, the sizes of the lakes.

Ishone had mocked him the second night and told him he would exhaust himself.

She was right, Vas was exhausted.

He suspected if a Risen ambushed happened that night he’d sleep right through it.

However, knowing your terrain in a fight was the bread and butter of tactics.

Additionally, if Vas’s squad was required to act as a decoy for the main group, he wanted to ensure they could make their way back to the main group.

On the fourth day, when the sun was directly above, Vas saw a large rock formation. The ground had long since turned into an area with varied terrain. There were ravines, trees, rocks, and all other sorts of cover.

Everything was still blanketed in snow, but the air was warming up little by little.

Vas and his squad decided to climb the rock formation, hoping it would give them a good view of the valley below. The ascent took around ten minutes of carefully picking their path.

Finally, they reached the end of the climb. There was a seven-foot rock wall left to climb before they would reach the top of the hill.

Vas jumped up and grabbed the ledge, pulling himself up with relative ease. Just as he pulled his first leg onto the ledge, he saw a corpse.

Startled, his body froze and he let out a quiet curse. There weren’t enough curses in the world to describe how he felt.

Vas started to climb back down as stealthily as possible. Maybe it hadn’t noticed him?

Then it smiled and turned its head right at him.

The freaks always smiled.

It made Vas want to run for his life. Which made him angry.

Vas pulled himself up and rolled forward.

He had to kill it. Right now.

His sheath clicked open, and he beheaded the creature in the next moment.

It was a moment too late, however, as three more Risen had just climbed up the top of the hill.

These were watching him.

Vas stepped back in horror as three more climbed up the hill.

Again and again.

There were more than a dozen before Vas turned around and ran back the cliff where he’d climbed up. He rolled off and hit the ground hard.

His squad stood with weapons unsheathed.

“Risen,” Vas panted out, “Tare and Fem, tell the main camp. Stay with them.”

The two men jumped into action, and ran away immediately.

“Kill the first one that jumps down, then run,” Vas said to his remaining friends.

Seconds later, three Risen reached the cliff Vas had jumped off.

One of them jumped down, and Vas swung at it.

The swing took an arm, but the monster avoided taking a fatal blow.

A second later, Jade’s halberd shot through its neck.

“Run.”

They turned and sprinted, bounding down rocks they had scaled only minutes ago. Vas sheathed his sword as he ran.

He glanced back just in time to see a Risen with a crossbow aimed right at him.

The bolt flew out, and Vas held his left arm in front of his face as he tried to dodge.

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He felt a flash of pain as the bolt shot through his hand and got stuck halfway through.

It wasn’t barbed, which was fortunate.

Without thinking much about it, Vas pulled the bolt back out and threw it at an oncoming Risen.

His throw was extremely lucky, and hit the Risen in the face just as it was jumping to its next rock. The bolt threw off the monster’s trajectory just enough and the Risen missed its jump, falling thirty feet to the ground.

The Risen who had shot at him went from smiling to jaw-dropped awe.

Vas turned back around and made his next jump.

He landed awkwardly and rolled along the ground.

Using the opportunity, he grabbed some snow in his right hand and stuffed it into the bleeding hole in his left hand.

It stung worse than he expected.

The world flashed, and he was unable to see for a few moments.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t run, though.

Right around where Vas remembered seeing the next gap, he leapt.

His guess had been just right, and he landed on the next rock safely.

The three Decoys were a rock ahead of him.

Jade glanced back and slowed her pace for him.

Hopefully that meant the Risen weren’t too close behind.

“Run!” He shouted it at Jade, but was half talking to himself. He could feel his body getting tired. It was going into shock.

Jade of course did as she pleased and continued in her slow pace until he caught up.

She matched his strides. “Partners.”

Vas just nodded. Jade noticed his wound with a grimace.

She started to try ripping her scarf, which was sewn into her hood like Vas’s own.

However, since she held her halberd in one hand, she quickly realized her folly.

It was the same reason Vas hadn’t tried it himself.

They were almost to the ground now. Vas glanced back.

The closest Risen was three rocks behind them.

There must have been more than thirty Risen chasing them. The creatures just kept pouring over the top of the hill.

Vas shook his head.

This was bad. It was a herd.

Vas would need to spend the next six hours leading them on a chase in the wrong direction. He would take them back in the direction they had appeared from. He couldn’t afford to take them north; the main group would get too far away in that case.

Vas hit the ground running, and the other three let him lead. He turned to the direction where the Risen had come from.

Luckily, Risen did sleep. It was something like sleep, at least. They slept at random times of the day, since the sun did not affect them. Therefore, they would often attack at night. This was terrifying from the perspective of a group or an army of people that were unaware of nearby Risen. Vas however felt confident that he could lead a group of Risen on a chase they could never win.

Then he ran into a clearing. It was the bank of a lake, he knew.

The lake was frozen over. It was covered by snow. The snow was covered by Risen.

Tens of thousands of Risen. Hundreds of thousands.