Marcus Graves's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The stalker's report would reach the pack by dawn. Marcus knew it. So did Garrick. The old hunter sat at the bar, cleaning the demon-etched AR15, saying nothing. But Garrick had thirty years of these creatures in his head. He knew how the pack moved, where they came from, how they struck. All of it lived behind his one eye. None of it lived in the hands of Marcus's two shooters. If Garrick fell, they would fight blind. "You know their den," Marcus said. "You've known it for days." Garrick kept cleaning. "North. Past the water. They come down through the trees before light." "Then teach it. Draw it. Put it in my men." "No time." Garrick stood. "They move tonight. We hit the den first, or they hit the town." Marcus hated the answer. His whole method was training, drilling, forcing men to speak what they saw until the knowledge was theirs. Garrick offered none of that. He offered only himself, walking point into the dark. But Garrick was right. There was no time left. They went north with the two veterans. Garrick led. He moved without a light, reading the ground. The farmer stayed behind to guard the town. Marcus watched Garrick's back and understood the danger. All their knowing walked ahead of them in one old man. The den was a hollow below a split rock, thick with the smell of rot and wet fur. Garrick raised a fist. He pointed. Two guns there. One high. He placed Marcus and the veterans without a word. Then the pack came up out of the dark, more than Marcus had counted, goat skulls over stretched faces, hooves on stone. "Now," Garrick said. The etched rifles opened up. Rune-marked rounds tore into the beasts and held. Wounds that would seal against normal lead stayed open and bled. One beast dropped. Another. Garrick called targets in flat, short words, and the line held because he held it. He was the eyes. He saw the pack split and sent a shooter to cover the flank before the flank existed. Then the big one came. Larger than the rest, a commanding thing, its body riddled with old sores, horns curling back. The pack moved around it like water. Garrick saw it first. "That's the head," he said. "Kill it and they scatter." He stepped out to make the shot. The AR15 barked twice. The big beast staggered but came on. A lesser beast broke from the side where no one watched. It took Garrick off his feet. The etched rifle spun away across the rock. Marcus did not think. He raised his own gray military rifle, the one marked with runes, and fired into the beast on Garrick. Three rounds. It shuddered and fell. But the big one was still moving, and Garrick was down, bleeding, out of the fight. This was the moment Marcus had feared. The man who knew everything lay in the dirt. Now Marcus had to lead blind. He grabbed the demon-etched AR15 from the stone. He called to his two veterans the way Garrick had, short and flat. "Left. High. On me." He pointed the way Garrick had pointed. He had watched the old man all night. He had taken it in without knowing. The head beast charged. Marcus held the etched rifle steady and emptied it into the thing's chest. The rune-cut rounds went deep and stayed. The beast folded three feet from his boots. The pack broke. With their head dead, they ran, and the veterans cut them down as they fled into the trees. Then it was quiet. Smoke and the smell of blood. Marcus knelt by Garrick. The old man was alive, breathing rough, a hand pressed to his side. "You led them," Garrick said. "Without me." "I watched you," Marcus said. "That was the training." Garrick almost smiled. "Took it from my head after all." They carried him back to Marshfire before light. The town woke to find the pack gone and the threat ended. The blind rune-caster's cost, whatever it was, could wait; the guns had done their work. Marcus set the three rifles on the bar once more, the gray one, his own, and the demon-etched gun. But the thing he had built was not the guns. It was two men who could shoot under fire, a hunter who would live to teach what was in his head, and a leader who could stand in the gap when the man beside him fell. Marcus Graves had wanted a unit that could obliterate these beasts. Now, in the gray morning, he had one.