Marcus Graves's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The dead beast proved the creatures could die. It did not give Marcus an army. For three days he worked the town. He knocked on doors and laid out his plan. He needed men who would stand and fight. Instead he got shut doors and drawn curtains. The townsfolk had seen the hoofprints too. They knew more beasts were coming. They meant to be gone before the beasts arrived. By the third night Marcus had one man. A farmer with shaking hands and a hunting rifle he barely knew how to load. One recruit could not hold a town against a pack. Marcus sat in the Grimewick Bar and set his rune-marked rifle on the stained wood. He stared at the carved marks and tried to think of a plan that did not end with the town burning. The door swung open. A cold draft cut through the room. An old man stepped in, gray-bearded, one eye hidden under a patch. Claws and odd trinkets hung from his belt. The few drinkers at the bar went quiet and looked away. The old man did not look back at them. He looked at the rifle. "Runes," he said. "Old woman's work. She got the shape right." He pulled out the chair across from Marcus and sat without asking. Marcus studied him. The scars on the man's hands were old and layered. "You've seen these things," Marcus said. It was not a question. "Thirty years." The old man set a claw on the table. It was longer than Marcus's hand. "One died two towns over. I tracked what killed it. Found hoofprints heading this way." He tapped the claw. "A pack doesn't scatter. It hunts together. You fight it one gun at a time, you lose." "I have one gun that works and no men," Marcus said. "The town won't fight." "Towns never do." Garrick Thornwood leaned back. "You don't need the town. You need the old woman to mark more steel. And you need someone who's killed more than one." Marcus had spent his life sorting men. He knew the ones who talked big and the ones who had done the work. This man had done the work. "Why come to me?" "No one else tracks these between towns." Garrick shrugged. "You killed one. You're the only gun here worth training." Marcus looked at the empty room, then at the old hunter. The townsfolk would never be his squad. He had built that plan on sand. But he had come to Marshfire to forge hunters, and across the table sat a man who had hunted for thirty years. Marcus pushed the rune-marked rifle to the center of the table. "Show me how you killed the second one," he said. Garrick picked up the rifle and checked the marks. "First," he said, "we see the old woman. We'll need more than one gun before the pack comes."