Murdock's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Murdock had been lost in Duskwood for three nights, and on the fourth evening he found the claw marks. They cut deep into the bark of the pine behind his tent, four gouges as long as his forearm. The soil under them was raked open. He had ridden his motorcycle into these woods running from something he would not name, with no map and no plan past the next mile of road. Now the road had ended in moss and shadow, and something in the trees had been circling him while he slept. He walked the edge of his camp and counted the marks. Six trees. All facing the fire ring. His tent sagged between two trunks, his shirts hung gray on a sagging line, and his cookpot sat cold on a flat stone. He had built the camp for one night. He had stayed three. He knew engines and he knew roads, and neither skill told him what paced a man in circles before it came in. He stacked the fire high and sat against his bike with a wrench in his hand. The wood burned down. The woods went quiet in the wrong way. Then the wolf walked into the firelight. It was bigger than any dog he had seen, shoulders level with his chest, one eye yellow in the flame. It did not growl. It lowered its head and stepped forward, and Murdock understood it had been waiting for the fire to die. He threw the wrench. The wolf flinched and lunged. Then the clearing turned blue. A small light dropped from the branches, no bigger than his hand, wings catching the fire. She raised both palms and a pale ring closed around Murdock and the bike. The wolf hit the ring and slid sideways, snarling. "Stay inside," the fairy said. "It holds for a minute. Maybe less." Above her, something heavier broke through the canopy. A purple dragon with blue horns dropped into the clearing and put itself between Murdock and the wolf. It struck once with its tail. The wolf rolled, found its feet, and ran. The ring faded. The dragon folded its wings and watched the trees. The fairy landed on the cookpot and looked at Murdock like she was deciding something. "You camped on a hunting line," she said. "It will come back with others. You cannot stay here." Murdock looked at his bike, then at the dark beyond the firelight where no road went. "I have been trying to leave for three days," he said. "The woods keep turning me around." The fairy nodded once, as if this confirmed a thing she already knew. "Then you ride with us," she said. "Now." He kicked dirt over the fire and swung a leg over the bike, and for the first time since he crossed into Duskwood, he was not alone in it.