Marcus Stoneguard's Arc

Chapter 6 of 10

Sixteen gargoyles stood along the wall, and none of them moved right. Marcus watched Hoken try to lift his club-arm and stop halfway, elbow locked. Tress swayed on her post. The nearest eastern sentry took one step and had to catch the parapet to stay upright. Three hundred years of stone sleep had left them hollow. The dragon was climbing. Marcus had woken an army that could not swing. "They're empty," Pebble Groutstone said. He had come back along the seam and now sat by Marcus's foot, moss dripping. "Stone sleeps by eating slow. Dew. Lichen. Grit. Wake them fast, they wake starved. Limbs seize inside two minutes of use." "Feed them what?" "Green. Living green. Vine sap, leaf, root. Wall's covered." Pebble slapped the mortar. "Vines run the whole face. Tell them to eat." Marcus looked down. The vines had crawled the wall for centuries. Thick ropes of them, wet leaves, roots buried in every seam. He had cut a section away two nights ago to tear the dragon's shadow. The rest still held. "Hoken," he called west. "Eat the wall. The green on it. Now." Hoken turned his stone head. He did not understand. None of them did. They had never been told to feed. Aldric Hornkeeper stepped up beside Marcus. He unhooked the horn from his belt and held it low. "Show them," he said. Marcus reached over the parapet and pulled a fistful of vine free. Leaves, stem, a knot of root. He crossed to the nearest gargoyle and pressed it into the stone mouth. The jaw ground once. Then again. The gargoyle's shoulders shifted. The locked arm loosened. "Pass it down," Marcus said. The gargoyles that could still move began tearing at the vines below their posts. Leaf by leaf, they fed. Aldric raised the horn and blew one short note, and the sound traveled the seam the way Pebble's voice had. Along the wall, west to east, sixteen heads bent to the green. The dragon reached the middle courses. Marcus felt the wall shift under its grip. "Enough," he said. "Line up." Hoken lifted his club-arm clean this time. Tress steadied. The eastern sentries let go of the parapet. Sixteen gargoyles turned outward and looked down at the climbing dragon. Below them, half the vine cover was gone. Pebble stared at the bare stone with his mouth open. "You stripped it," he said. "They needed to eat." "The vines were the seam's skin. Rain gets in now. Frost splits mortar. Wall starts breaking from inside within a month." Marcus watched the dragon climb the newly bare stone, its claws finding fresh purchase where the vines had blocked them. "Then we hold it tonight," he said, "and worry about the wall in the morning." The gargoyles raised their arms together. The dragon kept coming.