Marcus Graves's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Marcus Graves had killed men. He had never killed a thing that walked like one. Tonight he meant to start. He crouched in the wet grass at the edge of Marshfire and watched the tree line. The town's last streetlight buzzed behind him. Children slept in those houses. The beast had been circling closer for three nights, and this time he would not let it reach them. He checked his rifle. Someone had carved strange marks into the metal, deep lines that no armorer would approve. Marcus hadn't carved them. An old woman in the market had, three days ago, pressing the weapon back into his hands with wet eyes. "Lead won't stop it," she'd said. "These will." He hadn't believed her. He believed in training, in cover, in clean shots. But he had loaded the rifle anyway. The burns on his face tightened in the cold. He'd earned them overseas, the night his squad burned and he didn't. He'd come to Marshfire to build something better. A unit of hardened men who could hunt these creatures and win. Right now he had no unit. He had one rifle and one shot at proving it could be done. The beast came out of the trees. It walked on goat legs but stood like a man. Patchy gray hair covered a ruined human face. Horns curled back from its skull. It lifted its head and sniffed toward the houses. Marcus felt his stomach turn, not from fear, but from recognition. The thing had once been a person. He raised the rifle and fired. The first rounds struck its chest. The beast staggered, then straightened. The wounds closed. It turned its yellow eyes on him and screamed, a sound like a child and an animal at once. Marcus's hands stayed level. The old woman was right. Ordinary lead meant nothing. He shifted his aim and emptied the magazine into its skull. This time the marks on the rifle flared white hot. The rounds tore into the beast and stayed torn. It shrieked and thrashed and dropped to its knees in the mud. Marcus stood and walked toward it, reloading as he moved. He fired again, point blank, until the thing stopped moving and the field went silent. Smoke curled from the barrel. The runes still glowed faint in the dark. Marcus crouched beside the body. The human face stared up at him. He had his proof now. These things could die. With the right weapons, the right men, a squad could hunt them down one by one. Then he saw the marks in the mud. Hoofprints, smaller than the beast's, leading out from the body and back into the trees. Many of them. The creature had not come to Marshfire alone. It had come scouting. Marcus stood, reloaded, and looked at the dark tree line. One dead was a start. He would need the squad sooner than he thought.