Within minutes, the ground started to shudder.
Far off, dense shapes began to spill into view—an endless smear of moving bodies that grew clearer with every heartbeat.
Everyone on the wall went rigid. Faces drained of color.
They'd done all the mental prep they could. They'd told themselves it was just numbers, just meat, just targets.
But the moment the zombie tide actually came into sight—when it stopped being a report and became reality—fear rose up anyway, cold and automatic.
Edmund swallowed hard. His own heart was hammering like crazy.
Then he glanced back at the compound behind him, gritted his teeth, and forced his voice out.
"Brothers! This is it—life or death!"
"Pick up your weapons—kill!"
But the people below hesitated.
They didn't surge forward.
They wavered.
Everyone understood the same ugly truth: charging a tide like that looked an awful lot like volunteering to die.
A horde this big didn't feel defendable. It felt inevitable.
