VI.
Jonas took a careful step forward and jabbed through the broken window. The steel blade punched neatly through the closest skull. A few more careful attacks and the first skeleton fell. The other dead quickly closed the breach, and continued to pound forward against the broken window. The squire nodded to the dead. Like cutting firewood — one log at a time.

Several minutes later the last skeleton fell. A pile of bones lay outside the window, each dispatched one by one as they clawed their way through the opening. Jonas leaned on his sword, and felt pain and relief.

His head jerked up — footsteps coming down stairs, somewhere across the darkened church. Not the bony clack of the skeletons — but the slow, measured pad of booted feet.
Jonas dropped behind the pew.

“I know you’re there.” A still voice, barely echoing. The slow tread continued down the center aisle, approaching the far side of his pew.

“I heard you fighting the dead. There’s no need to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

Jonas heard the rustle of fabric as the speaker sat down on a pew bench, one row over.