Saff ran until the rooftops gave way to rusted gantries, then to broken factory walls, then to the outskirts where Rustrows thinned into scrubland and old rail lines.
Moonlight silvered the ruined tracks beneath her boots.
Her cloak flickered around her, mana bending the air, turning her shape into a smear of shadow and heat-haze.
Not invisible.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
Or so she thought.
She reached the edge of a clearing and stopped.
Engines purred in the dark.
Low.
Hungry.
Three hoverbikes slid from the scrub like hunting dogs, their undersides glowing with stolen neon. They circled her slowly, kicking up dust and ash, each rider masked in candy-painted skull plating and scrap-metal armour.
Saff’s fingers tightened around her staff.
The lead rider laughed.
He cut the engine just enough to coast in close, then lifted both hands from the controls like he had no fear at all.
“Well, well.”
He pulled off his helmet.
A jackal’s sharp, handsome face appeared beneath it, all narrow eyes, gold piercings, and a grin too pleased with itself to be trusted.
Conrad Bloodmuck.
He looked Saff up and down and whistled.
“Now what’s a pretty girl like you doing running from her own clan?”
Saff’s eyes narrowed.
“I belong to no clan.”
Conrad’s grin widened. “That right?”
“And last I checked,” she added, voice cold, “you were doing circus acts for Pureblood scum.”
One of the raiders behind him snorted.
Conrad placed a hand to his chest as if wounded.
“Survival, sweetheart. That’s all. Not like we’re giving fortunes and herbal tea.”
Saff scoffed. “Say what you want. At least we didn’t kiss up for coin.”
“Oh, I dunno.” Conrad leaned one elbow lazily on his handlebars. “Coin spends better than pride. Keeps the lights on. Keeps the engines hot. Keeps ugly people very far away from my bed.”
Saff’s expression did not shift.
Conrad circled her again, bike humming.
“But this isn’t about me.”
“No?”
“No.” His eyes sharpened. “Boss wants to know if they’re keeping a strong mana user with them.”
Saff said nothing.
Conrad watched her.
“A cat hybrid,” he added.
The words were light.
The meaning wasn’t.
Saff tilted her head slightly.
“What’s it to you?”
Conrad’s bike drifted closer.
“Boss has someone spying on them. We know about you. Your little rooftop stunt. The Council. The clans. The fact Brassmane nearly roasted you alive for hearing something you weren’t meant to.”
Saff’s grip tightened on her staff.
Conrad noticed.
Of course he did.
He circled her like a shark around a bleeding thing.
“Question is,” he said, voice lowering, “boss wants to know if she can kill zombies.”
Saff’s face went still.
Too still.
Conrad’s smile turned satisfied.
He leaned back on his bike.
“That’s all I needed to know.”
Saff moved first.
Her staff snapped up.
A stun spell cracked through the clearing, white-blue and violent, striking the nearest raider full in the chest. He shouted as his bike lurched sideways, crashing through a patch of thorn-scrub.
Conrad swore, jerking his hoverbike out of the blast’s edge.
Saff spun and ran.
“Get her!” one of the raiders shouted.
Then the ground began to shake.
Not with footsteps.
With impact.
Heavy.
Ragged.
Massive.
Something thundered through the trees beyond the clearing, smashing branches aside as if they were dry reeds.
Conrad’s grin vanished.
“Oh, no.”
A huge shape burst from the scrub.
A minotaur.
Or what had once been one.
Crackjaw.
His body was plated in swollen candy armour, red and black sugar-glass crusting across his shoulders, one horn snapped and regrown in jagged lollipop spikes. His jaw hung too wide, locked in a permanent grin of cracked molasses and bone. Lime-yellow light burned behind his eyes.
Behind him came the horde.
Candy undead spilled into the clearing like a flood of bright rot—mice, dogs, birds, Purebloods, broken things in sugared skins, all twitching and snapping and laughing without breath.
They were heading for Clawdiff.
Conrad yanked his bike back so fast it almost tipped.
“Move!” he barked.
His raiders scattered.
One barely escaped as a candy hound lunged for his boot, jaws snapping shut on empty air. Another clipped a stone and nearly went under the horde before Conrad grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled him upright with a curse.
Saff stood in the clearing.
The candy undead rushed around her.
Not at her.
Around her.
Their white eyes rolled past. Their jagged mouths chattered. Their claws scraped the earth close enough to slice her cloak.
But not one touched her.
Conrad saw.
His ears flattened.
“Well,” he muttered. “That’s horrible.”
Crackjaw slowed as he reached Saff.
His massive hand came down.
For one moment, Saff lifted her staff, ready to strike.
Then the minotaur simply grabbed her around the waist and hauled her onto his shoulder like she weighed nothing.
His voice rumbled through cracked candy teeth.
“Boss has a new job for you.”
Saff steadied herself against one of his spiked horns, disgust flickering across her face.
“I got the information from the clans. What else does he need?”
Crackjaw’s grin split wider.
“A distraction.”
Saff frowned.
The horde streamed past below, thousands of bright, broken bodies pouring toward the distant lights of Clawdiff.
Crackjaw turned his head toward the horizon.
“We’re taking the tree.”
For the first time, Saff’s mask of confidence slipped.
“The Egg Tree?”
Crackjaw laughed.
It sounded like stone grinding through syrup.
Saff looked back toward Rustrows.
Toward the place she had abandoned.
Toward the little cat hybrid with light in her chest.
Then she looked toward the route the horde was taking.
A distraction at Clawdiff.
An attack on the Egg Tree.
Two fires.
One night.
Slowly, Saff nodded.
“Fine.”
Crackjaw lowered his shoulder.
Saff slipped down into the moving horde, cloak flickering around her as the candy undead swallowed her silhouette.
Within seconds, she was gone.
Conrad watched from the ridge, his bike hovering low, engine whining beneath him.
His two remaining riders gathered at his sides, shaken and breathing hard.
One of them spat dust. “We following?”
Conrad stared at the horde.
At Saff disappearing unharmed inside it.
At Crackjaw leading the flood toward Clawdiff.
“No,” he said. “We are very much not following that.”
He lifted his arcbracer and tapped a private channel.
Static crackled.
Then a figure appeared in blue shadow above his wrist.
Large.
Broad.
Hippo-shaped.
One arm cybernetic from shoulder to knuckle, metal fingers flexing faintly in the projection light.
His face remained mostly hidden, but the tusks were unmistakable.
So was the thick Scottish growl.
“What?”
Conrad swallowed his nerves and put his grin back on.
“Yeah, it’s me. We have an issue.”
The hippo silhouette leaned closer.
“Did the spy get the readout?”
Conrad flicked his fingers across the bracer and sent the stolen data.
Mana readings.
Core resonance.
Battle footage.
Celeste’s light.
The way the candy undead died beneath the Knights’ attacks.
The hippo was silent for several seconds.
Then he gave a low whistle.
“Feck me sideways,” he muttered. “That’s impressive.”
Conrad glanced again toward the horde.
“Thought you’d like that.”
“If that readout’s true,” the hippo said, voice turning sharper, “we need her.”
“That’s not the only thing.”
Conrad swiped again.
This time, he sent a still image from the camp.
Hughes.
Standing beside the breakfast table, dandelion crown between his horns, looking ridiculous and steady and very much alive.
The hippo’s projection went utterly still.
Then, slowly, his mouth curved.
“Well, wellie…”
His cybernetic fingers clicked once.
“If it isn’t old Charlie.”
Conrad’s brow lifted. “You know him?”
The hippo chuckled.
Not warmly.
“Aye. I know him.”
The amusement faded into something colder.
“That changes things.”
Conrad leaned back on his bike, trying to read the shadowed face.
“How complicated are we talking?”
The hippo’s eyes glinted from the projection dark.
“Very.”
He snapped his metal fingers once.
“Head back to base. Bring everything you recorded. And do not let the candy cattle follow you home.”
Conrad gave a lazy salute.
“Understood, boss.”
The projection flickered.
Then vanished.
For a moment, Conrad sat alone on his bike, listening to the distant thunder of the horde moving toward Clawdiff.
Behind him, his riders waited.
Ahead, the horizon glowed faintly with city light.
Conrad pulled his helmet back on.
“It’s always complicated,” he muttered.
Then he kicked the engine to life and shot into the dark.
Thank you so much for reading Book Four of Nommie Zombies!
I’m incredibly grateful that you’re still following the story and supporting the series. Book Five is on the way, but it needs a little more work than usual, as this is where the plot begins to get much more serious.
In the next volume, we’ll explore how the Knights of Clawdiff work together now that they’ve been truly tested—or, in some cases, how they struggle to work together at all.
We’ll also see Crackjaw the Minotaur launch his attack on the Egg Tree… and whether everyone manages to make it out safely.
Will the Knights be able to protect the Egg Tree? Can they trust one another when everything begins to fall apart?
Find out next time in Nommie Zombies: Book Five!
Thank you again for reading, and I’ll see you in the next volume!
— Kai Kawaii
