Marcus Valorian's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Marcus Valorian counted the gaps in the wall before he counted his men. Eleven breaches. Twenty-three conscripts, none older than nineteen, none who had held a spear a month ago. The empire had sent them here to die and called it a posting. Marcus meant to make them a brotherhood strong enough to hold the line. Right now they could not hold a conversation. The stones had crumbled where the mortar rotted. He set the boys in a line along the worst stretch, shields locked, and shoved against them himself. The wall shifted. The line broke. Boys stumbled back and cursed each other. "Again," Marcus said. A short soldier with a shaved side to his hair spat in the dirt. Marcus Chen. He had argued with every order since he arrived. He dropped his shield now and crossed his arms. "The wall's dead," Chen said. "You want us to die holding a pile of rocks." "I want you alive behind it," Marcus said. "Pick up the shield." Chen didn't move. The others watched to see who would win. Then the horse screamed in the paddock. Every head turned. Beyond the broken wall, low against the ground, a shape moved through the dusk. Sleek. Black. Its coat drank the light. Green eyes fixed on the boys, and it did not blink. The nightstalker beast slid closer, one paw at a time. The conscripts froze. Two dropped their spears. Chen went pale and backed toward the barracks. "It smells the horse," Marcus said, low and even. "It smells fear worse. Shields up. Now." No one moved. The beast gathered itself to spring. Marcus grabbed the heavy breastplate from the wall peg. Overlapping steel plates, scarred from older wars. He hurled it into the widest breach. It landed with a crash of metal on stone. The beast flinched at the noise and skidded sideways. "That gap is filled," Marcus shouted. "Fill the rest with your bodies. Together you're a wall it can't break. Alone you're meat." Chen stared at the beast, then at Marcus. Something turned in his face. He snatched up his shield and jammed himself into the line beside the next boy. "Lock in!" Chen yelled. "You heard him. Lock in!" The boys crashed their shields together. This time the line held. Marcus threw his weight behind them. The wall of steel and rotten stone stood as one thing. The beast circled once. It measured the solid line, the noise, the twenty spears that no longer shook. Then it slid back into the dark and was gone. The boys did not cheer. They stood shaking, still locked together, and that was the victory. For the first time they had held. Marcus lowered his arms. The line had held against one beast, in one gap. But the crash had carried far into the night. And a hunting beast that circles a camp does not hunt alone.