Marcus Blaze's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Marcus Blaze had carried men out of fire before, but never one pinned like this. His captain lay flat under a fallen roof beam, blood soaking the collar of his coat. The tower groaned above them. Smoke pressed down thick and low. Marcus grabbed the beam with both hands and heaved. His arms shook. The wood lifted an inch, then dropped. The captain screamed. "Leave me," the captain rasped. "Get out while the stairs hold." Marcus knelt close. He had served under this man for six years. The captain had pulled Marcus from a burning stairwell his first week on the job. "Not a chance," Marcus said. "You'd never leave me. So shut up and hold on." He looked around for anything to use as a lever. Nothing. The beam was too long, wedged under the crumbling wall. He needed strength he did not have. He needed something bigger than himself. A whistle hung on Marcus's belt. His captain had given it to him years ago. "For when the job's too big for muscle," the old man had said. Marcus had laughed then. He wasn't laughing now. He raised the whistle and blew hard. The sound cut through the smoke. For a moment, nothing. Then two shapes poured through the shattered window. The first was a lion made of soft yellow blooms, its mane trailing floating seeds. It padded to the captain and lay beside him, breathing slow. The captain's ragged gasps steadied. The lion was keeping him calm, keeping him alive. The second shape coiled through the air. A long serpent, blue-scaled, with fins like wet silk. Water dripped from its jaws. It fixed one gold eye on the beam. "There," Marcus said, pointing. "Lift it. Just enough." The serpent looped its body under the beam. Marcus wrapped his arms beneath the captain's shoulders and braced. The serpent flexed. Its coils tightened. The beam rose, one inch, two, a foot. Marcus hauled backward with everything he had. The captain slid free across the ash-slick floor. The serpent let go. The beam crashed down where the captain had lain. Marcus dragged him clear and pressed a hand to the wound. The captain was breathing, but pale as chalk. "Stay with me," Marcus said. Then the ceiling shifted. A crack split the plaster above the window. The way they had come in was buried now under fallen stone. The stairs the captain had spoken of were gone too, swallowed by a fresh collapse. The lion lifted its head and looked toward the far wall, where a doorway glowed faintly through the smoke. Marcus followed its gaze. He did not know what lay past that door. He only knew the tower would not stand much longer, and the captain could not wait. He hooked his arms under the wounded man and lifted. "New way out," Marcus said. "Let's move."