Marcus Stoneguard's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Marcus Stoneguard had stood on the same wall for three hundred and twelve years, and tonight something was climbing it that he could not name. It moved like smoke along the vines. It struck like a dropped anvil. He watched a chunk of mortar fall from the parapet and understood two things at once. The drifting thing and the hitting thing were not the same creature. And he could not wake his brothers to help him. The other gargoyles crouched along the wall in a long grey line, wings folded, eyes shut. Marcus had tried everything he knew. He had shouted their old post names. He had struck the stone beside their feet. He had bled onto the closest one's claw and waited until dawn. Nothing. Three centuries of sleep, and he did not know the key. A voice came from the vines below his boots. "Stop shouting. You're loosening my roof." Marcus looked down. A small grey figure pushed out from a seam in the mortar, moss on his shoulders, a leaf stuck to one ear. Marcus had seen him before. Never spoken to him. "Pebble Groutstone," the troll said. "I live here. You're the loud one on top." "Something is breaking the wall," Marcus said. "I felt it. Two hits. Third course, north face." Pebble climbed onto the parapet. "Your stone brothers won't wake for noise. Wrong key." "You know the key." "I know what wakes stone." Pebble tapped the nearest gargoyle's foot. "Not sound. Not blood. Threat to the thing they were carved to guard. Real threat. Named." Marcus stared at him. "Named." "Speak what's coming. Out loud. To them. They'll hear it in the stone." "I don't know what it is." "Then you can't wake them." A second voice came from the air behind him, quiet and even. "I can name it." Marcus turned. A pale girl stood on the walkway, black eyes, white hair drifting though there was no wind. A ghost. She did not step; she was simply closer. "Selene Nightshade," she said. "I've watched this wall longer than you think. The thing at your stones is a dragon's shadow. The dragon sleeps under the hill. Its shadow walks first. That's your smoke. The strike is the dragon reaching through it." "Why tell me?" "Because it wakes toward my grave." She tilted her head. "Do you want the name or not?" "Give it." "Vashkareth." Marcus turned to the sleeping gargoyle beside him. He pressed his palm to its cold shoulder. "Vashkareth," he said. "A dragon under the hill. Coming for the wall." The stone under his hand grew warm. A crack ran down the gargoyle's chest, then opened into a slow breath. One eye slid open. Then another, further down the line. Then a third. Below, in the vines, something enormous shifted and began to climb.