Marcus Valorian's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

By dawn the pack had melted back into the mist. The wall stood, but Marcus found no rest. Inside the low stone barracks, three wounded boys shook on their cots. Their bandages stank. The wounds had turned red and swollen. Marcus knelt by the nearest boy and touched his forehead. It burned. "The crushed fern is gone," said the old nurse beside him. Margaret Holloway had worked the cots all night, her white apron gray with grime. She pushed her small glasses up her nose and met his eyes. "I used the last of it two days back. Without fresh medicine, these three won't see another dawn." She said it plain, the way a woman says it who has watched many die. Marcus stood. He knew the fern grew near the swamp beyond the wall. He also knew what hunted there. "Where does it grow?" "Wet ground, near the water," Margaret said. "You go out there, you may not come back." Chen was already lacing his boots. He did not wait for the order. "You're not going alone," he said. Since the night of the first beast, Chen followed Marcus without a word of doubt. Now he stood ready, spear in hand. Rose met them at the gate with a burlap sack and a short knife. "I know the plants," she said. "I've cooked with half of them. You need me." Marcus started to argue. She shoved the sack against his chest. "You waste breath. Move." They slipped through a breach in the wall. The mist hung thick and cold. Marcus led, spear up. Chen watched their backs. Rose crouched low, fingers brushing the wet moss. She stopped at a cluster of dark green ferns growing thick along a muddy pool. "There," she whispered. "That's it." They worked fast. Rose cut stems by the handful. Chen filled the sack. Then Marcus heard it. A low growl, off to the left. Then another, to the right. The pack hunted in a ring, closing from two sides. "Enough," Marcus said. "Run." They bolted for the breach. A beast broke from the mist behind them. Chen turned and drove his spear into its shoulder, buying a breath. Marcus grabbed Rose's arm and pulled her through the gap. Chen dove after them. Marcus and two conscripts jammed a broken cart into the breach as claws raked the wood. Inside, Marcus dropped the sack at Margaret's feet. She tore into the stems at once, crushing them into paste. She packed the wounds and the boys' breathing eased. "They'll live," Margaret said. She wiped her hands and looked at the three of them, muddy and scraped. "You went out there together. That's the only reason you came back." Marcus looked at Chen and Rose. They had followed him into the mist without being ordered. But the beasts had marked the breach now. They knew a soft spot in the wall. And they would come for it.