The raiders surged forward.

  Nate moved to intercept—and then stopped.

  The memory hit him like a fist to the gut. Garrett's face, caving in under his knuckles. Sara's body going still as he smothered her. Vince choking on his own crushed windpipe, the light fading from his eyes.

  He'd killed people. Humans. And afterward, he'd sat in the ruins and felt nothing but emptiness.

  These were people too. Raiders, yes. Predators. But still human. Still alive. If he stepped in now, he'd have to kill again. Would have to feel bones break under his fists, watch the life drain out of eyes that could think and feel and fear.

  He hesitated.

  One second. Two.

  The bearded man reached the survivors first. He grabbed the gray-haired woman by the arm and yanked her forward, spinning her around, pressing the axe blade against her throat.

  "Anyone moves," he shouted, "and grandma here loses her head."

  The other raiders spread out, grabbing survivors, forcing them to their knees. A man tried to resist—he took a machete handle to the skull and went down hard. A woman screamed. The child who'd been crying went silent, too terrified to make a sound.

  "That's better," the bearded man said. He was grinning. "Now. Here's how this works. You're all coming with us. We've got a nice setup back at base—walls, food, protection. All you have to do is work for it."

  "Work?" The gray-haired woman's voice was strained against the axe at her throat. "What kind of work?"

  "Whatever we tell you to do." The bearded man's grin widened. "Some of you will haul supplies. Some will cook, clean, keep things running. The pretty ones..." He let the sentence hang, his eyes sliding over the younger women in the group. "Well. They'll have special duties."

  One of the other raiders laughed. A few whooped.

  "And the ones who can't work?" the gray-haired woman asked. "The old? The children?"

  The bearded man shrugged. "Everyone's useful for something. Even if it's just as an example." He pressed the axe harder, drawing a thin line of blood. "So. Anyone want to volunteer? Or do I have to start making examples now?"

  The survivors huddled closer together. No one spoke.

  The bearded man sighed theatrically. "Fine. Hard way it is. Boys, start sorting them. The ones who fight back—"

  He never finished the sentence.

  Nate crossed the distance before the bearded man could blink.

  His fist connected with the nearest raider's skull—a woman with a machete who'd been reaching for one of the children. The blow caved in the side of her head, and she dropped without a sound.

  The hesitation was gone. These weren't people caught in desperate circumstances, making hard choices to survive. These were slavers. Rapists. Murderers who'd turned other humans into property.

  They didn't deserve hesitation.

  The raider beside the dead woman turned, eyes wide, mouth opening to shout. Nate grabbed his face and slammed the back of his head into the ground. The skull cracked on impact.

  "Behind us!"

  "What the fuck—"

  "Kill him!"

  Three raiders charged him at once, weapons raised. Nate met them head-on.

  The first swung a machete at his neck. Nate caught his wrist, twisted until the bone snapped, then drove his palm into the man's nose. Cartilage and bone shattered, fragments piercing the brain. Dead before he hit the ground.

  The second came with a pipe. Nate stepped inside the swing, too close for the weapon to matter, and drove an elbow into his throat. The windpipe collapsed. The man staggered back, choking, drowning on nothing.

  The third tried to run.

  Nate caught him by the back of the neck and squeezed. The vertebrae cracked one by one, and the body went limp.

  Five dead. Maybe six seconds.

  The remaining raiders had stopped moving.

  They stared at him, weapons trembling, faces pale. Some of them had seen combat—had killed before, had thought themselves hard. But they'd never seen anything like this. A man who moved like a blur and killed with his bare hands, who dropped five of their number in the time it took to draw a breath.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The bearded man still had the axe to the gray-haired woman's throat. His grin was gone, replaced by something tighter. His eyes darted between Nate and his fallen men.

  "Stay back," he said. His voice cracked slightly. "I'll kill her. I swear—"

  [Killing Intent].

  Nate let it loose.

  The effect was immediate. Raiders stumbled, gasped, dropped to their knees. Weapons clattered to the ground as hands went slack. One man vomited. Another simply collapsed, unconscious before he hit the pavement.

  The bearded man held on longer than the others. His face went gray, sweat pouring down his forehead, his whole body shaking. But he didn't let go of the hostage. Didn't drop the axe.

  Willpower. Or maybe just stubbornness.

  Nate walked toward him. Slow. Deliberate.

  "Let her go."

  "Fuck... you..." The words came out through gritted teeth. "You think you're... some kind of hero? We've got... dozens more. Back at base. You can't... stop all of us."

  "I don't need to stop all of you." Nate was five feet away now. Close enough to see the fear in the man's eyes, the desperation. "Just you."

  "If I die... they'll come for you. They'll find you, find everyone you care about, and they'll—"

  Nate moved.

  His hand shot out, grabbed the axe handle just below the blade, and wrenched it away from the woman's throat. The bearded man tried to hold on—his grip was strong, his arms thick with muscle—but Nate was stronger. The axe came free, and in the same motion, Nate reversed it.

  The blade buried itself in the bearded man's chest.

  He looked down at the axe embedded in his sternum. Looked up at Nate. His mouth opened, but no words came out—just blood, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside.

  He fell.

  Nate stood over the body, breathing hard. Not from exertion. From something else.

  He'd killed him. Hadn't given him a chance to surrender, hadn't tried to take him prisoner, hadn't done any of the things a good person would do. He'd just... ended him.

  And he didn't feel bad about it.

  That should have bothered him. Maybe it did, somewhere deep down. But right now, looking at the man who'd talked about "special duties" for the pretty ones, who'd threatened to make "examples" of children, all Nate felt was satisfaction.

  Some people didn't deserve mercy.

  The remaining raiders were scattered across the ground—some unconscious, some awake but paralyzed with fear, a few slowly crawling away. Nate let the [Killing Intent] fade.

  "Run," he said.

  The ones who could move ran. They scrambled to their feet, tripping over each other, not looking back. In seconds, they'd vanished into the ruins, leaving behind their weapons, their dignity, and their dead.

  Nate watched them go.

  They'd said there were more. Dozens more, back at their base. That meant this wasn't over. They'd regroup, find new leaders, maybe come back for revenge.

  But that was a problem for later. Right now, there were survivors to deal with.

  He turned to face them.

  Fifteen people, huddled against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes. Some looked grateful. Others looked terrified. A few seemed caught between the two, unsure whether they'd been rescued or simply claimed by a different monster.

  The gray-haired woman was the first to move. She stepped forward, her hand going to her throat where the axe had cut her. The wound was shallow, barely bleeding now.

  "Thank you," she said. Her voice was steady, but her hands were shaking. "You saved us."

  "Are you hurt? Any of you?"

  "Cuts and bruises. Nothing serious." She glanced back at the others. "We were heading east. Heard there was a settlement in the warehouse district. A safe place."

  The warehouse district. The same place Nate had been heading.

  "I don't know if it's still there," he said. "The raiders were coming from that direction. It might be overrun."

  The woman's face fell. "Then where do we go?"

  Nate thought about the camp. Tyler and Mira. Frank and the others. They'd taken him in, trusted him. Would they take in fifteen more strangers?

  They'd have to. There was nowhere else.

  "West," he said. "About fifteen miles. There's a camp there—survivors, barricades, people who can fight. Tell them Nate sent you."

  "You're not coming with us?"

  "I have to check the warehouse district. Make sure there are no more survivors who need help." He paused. "And find out where those raiders came from."

  The woman studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded.

  "Be careful," she said. "Those men... they talked about their leader sometimes. Someone back at their base. They called him—" She hesitated, frowning. "I couldn't hear clearly. But they were afraid of him. More afraid than they were of the monsters."

  Someone the raiders feared. Someone who'd organized them, given them purpose, turned them from scattered survivors into an army of slavers.

  "What else did they say about him?"

  "Not much. Just whispers. Something about..." She shook her head. "It sounds crazy."

  "After the last month, nothing sounds crazy."

  She met his eyes. "They said he could make the dead walk."

  Nate went still.

  "I don't know if it's true," she added quickly. "Could just be stories. Something to scare people into obeying. But they believed it. You could see it in their faces when they talked about him."

  Make the dead walk. A necromancer. Someone who'd gotten a class from the System that let them raise corpses.

  If it was true—if there really was someone out there who could control the dead—then the raiders were just the beginning. Every body that fell, every person who died, would become a soldier for the other side.

  The longer this went on, the stronger he'd get.

  "Go west," Nate said. His voice was harder now. "Don't stop until you reach the camp. Don't talk to anyone you don't trust. And don't let anyone follow you."

  The woman nodded. She turned to the others, started organizing them, getting them moving. In a few minutes, they were heading west, casting fearful glances back at Nate as they went.

  He watched until they disappeared around a corner.

  Then he turned east and started walking.

  The warehouse district was five miles away. Whatever he found there—survivors, raiders, or something worse—he'd deal with it.

  And if the rumors were true, if there really was a necromancer building an army of the dead...

  He'd deal with that too.

  One way or another.