Marcus Graves had killed men. He had never killed a thing that walked like one. Tonight he meant to start. He crouched in the wet grass at the edge of Marshfire and watched the tree line. The town's last streetlight buzzed behind him. Children slept in those houses. The beast had been circling closer for three nights, and this time he would not let it reach them. He checked his rifle. Someone had carved strange marks into the metal, deep lines that no armorer would approve. Marcus hadn't carved them. An old woman in the market had, three days ago, pressing the weapon back into his hands with wet eyes. "Lead won't stop it," she'd said. "These will." He hadn't believed her. He believed in training, in cover, in clean shots. But he had loaded the rifle anyway. The burns on his face tightened in the cold. He'd earned them overseas, the night his squad burned and he didn't. He'd come to Marshfire to build something better. A unit of hardened men who could hunt these creatures and win. Right now he had no unit. He had one rifle and one shot at proving it could be done. The beast came out of the trees. It walked on goat legs but stood like a man. Patchy gray hair covered a ruined human face. Horns curled back from its skull. It lifted its head and sniffed toward the houses. Marcus felt his stomach turn, not from fear, but from recognition. The thing had once been a person. He raised the rifle and fired. The first rounds struck its chest. The beast staggered, then straightened. The wounds closed. It turned its yellow eyes on him and screamed, a sound like a child and an animal at once. Marcus's hands stayed level. The old woman was right. Ordinary lead meant nothing. He shifted his aim and emptied the magazine into its skull. This time the marks on the rifle flared white hot. The rounds tore into the beast and stayed torn. It shrieked and thrashed and dropped to its knees in the mud. Marcus stood and walked toward it, reloading as he moved. He fired again, point blank, until the thing stopped moving and the field went silent. Smoke curled from the barrel. The runes still glowed faint in the dark. Marcus crouched beside the body. The human face stared up at him. He had his proof now. These things could die. With the right weapons, the right men, a squad could hunt them down one by one. Then he saw the marks in the mud. Hoofprints, smaller than the beast's, leading out from the body and back into the trees. Many of them. The creature had not come to Marshfire alone. It had come scouting. Marcus stood, reloaded, and looked at the dark tree line. One dead was a start. He would need the squad sooner than he thought.

The dead beast proved the creatures could die. It did not give Marcus an army. For three days he worked the town. He knocked on doors and laid out his plan. He needed men who would stand and fight. Instead he got shut doors and drawn curtains. The townsfolk had seen the hoofprints too. They knew more beasts were coming. They meant to be gone before the beasts arrived. By the third night Marcus had one man. A farmer with shaking hands and a hunting rifle he barely knew how to load. One recruit could not hold a town against a pack. Marcus sat in the Grimewick Bar and set his rune-marked rifle on the stained wood. He stared at the carved marks and tried to think of a plan that did not end with the town burning. The door swung open. A cold draft cut through the room. An old man stepped in, gray-bearded, one eye hidden under a patch. Claws and odd trinkets hung from his belt. The few drinkers at the bar went quiet and looked away. The old man did not look back at them. He looked at the rifle. "Runes," he said. "Old woman's work. She got the shape right." He pulled out the chair across from Marcus and sat without asking. Marcus studied him. The scars on the man's hands were old and layered. "You've seen these things," Marcus said. It was not a question. "Thirty years." The old man set a claw on the table. It was longer than Marcus's hand. "One died two towns over. I tracked what killed it. Found hoofprints heading this way." He tapped the claw. "A pack doesn't scatter. It hunts together. You fight it one gun at a time, you lose." "I have one gun that works and no men," Marcus said. "The town won't fight." "Towns never do." Garrick Thornwood leaned back. "You don't need the town. You need the old woman to mark more steel. And you need someone who's killed more than one." Marcus had spent his life sorting men. He knew the ones who talked big and the ones who had done the work. This man had done the work. "Why come to me?" "No one else tracks these between towns." Garrick shrugged. "You killed one. You're the only gun here worth training." Marcus looked at the empty room, then at the old hunter. The townsfolk would never be his squad. He had built that plan on sand. But he had come to Marshfire to forge hunters, and across the table sat a man who had hunted for thirty years. Marcus pushed the rune-marked rifle to the center of the table. "Show me how you killed the second one," he said. Garrick picked up the rifle and checked the marks. "First," he said, "we see the old woman. We'll need more than one gun before the pack comes."

The scream came before dawn. Marcus rolled off the cot and grabbed his rune-marked rifle. By the time he reached the square, it was over. A beast had taken a man from his doorstep and dragged him into the dark. Only a smear of blood and one heel-mark in the mud remained. The crowd stood over it, and when they saw Marcus, they turned. "You brought this," a woman said. Others took it up. They had seen the hoofprints. They blamed the man who kept talking about the pack. A heavyset townsman stepped forward, fists tight. "Leave. Before more of us die." The crowd pressed in. Marcus did not reach for his rifle. He counted exits instead. Garrick came through the crowd like water through a crack. The old hunter did not slow. "He kills these things," Garrick said. His voice was flat and carried. "You don't." He held up a claw from his belt, longer than any hand. The townsman looked at it and stepped back. The anger did not leave the square, but it stopped moving toward Marcus. "Won't hold," Garrick said low. "They need steel, not words. So do we." He turned and walked, and Marcus followed. They left the square before the crowd found its voice again. The old woman lived at the edge of town. Garrick knocked once and went in. Miriam Ashwood sat by a cold hearth, her eyes white and fixed on nothing. She had marked the rifle that killed the first beast. She did not turn her head, but she spoke before they did. "Two guns," she said. "You want them cut." On the table lay two rifles Marcus had brought the night before. One was military-issue, boxy and gray. The other had a sharp black finish and a snarling face worked into the metal. Garrick set them in front of her. "A man died tonight," Marcus said. "The town wants me gone. I need weapons that work before the pack comes back." Miriam ran her fingers over the gray rifle. The nails scratched the metal. "I can mark these. Tonight." She paused. Her hand went still. "There is a cost to the cutting I have not told you. You will want to know it before the pack arrives. Not now." "Tell me now," Marcus said. "No." Her blind eyes met his as if she saw. "Bring me more steel first. I will have these two done by dark." Marcus looked at Garrick. The old hunter gave a short nod. It was enough. Marcus pushed both rifles toward her. They walked back into a town that wanted them gone, carrying nothing but a promise. By nightfall he would have three working guns instead of one. It was the start of a squad. But Miriam held something back, and the man taken in the dark would not be the last.

By dark the three rifles lay on the bar. Marcus set them in a row on the stained wood of the Grimewick. The gray military rifle. His own, that had killed the first beast. And the third, an AR15 cut with demon faces and sharp black lines. Three guns that could wound the pack. He had two men who could shoot them under fire. The farmer did not count. The problem was simple and it would get people killed. "One gun sits idle," Marcus said. "I need a third shooter." Garrick stood by the window. The old hunter had tracked these beasts for thirty years, and he had thrown his weight behind Marcus in the square that morning. He did not answer at once. He watched the tree line through the broken glass. "Then I shoot it," Garrick said. "You have your own rifle." "Mine's marked for one kind." Garrick tapped the demon-etched gun with one finger. "This one kills anything she cuts. Give it here." Marcus studied him. The claws on Garrick's belt said enough. He pushed the AR15 across the bar. "You've fired one of these?" "I've fired everything." Garrick checked the action without looking down. "You train men to talk about what they saw. I don't need to talk. I've seen enough." They walked out into the field behind the bar. Marcus set three cans on a fence rail. He put his two shooters at the left. He put Garrick on the right with the etched rifle. The light was almost gone. "On me," Marcus said. He gave the signal. The two veterans fired. One can jumped. The other missed twice before it fell. Garrick raised the AR15, exhaled, and put his can off the rail with one shot. Then he lowered the barrel and waited. He did not grin. He did not look at Marcus. "Three guns," Garrick said. "Three hands. Problem's gone." Marcus felt something settle in his chest. The idle rifle had a shooter now. The line could cover the field three ways when the pack came. He had a unit. Small, but real. Then the wind shifted. A smell came with it, wet fur and rot. From the dark tree line came a sound that was almost a voice, almost a word. A shape stepped half into the open. Tall. A man's face stretched over a goat's skull. Patchy hair down a long body. It stood on hooves and watched them with one yellow eye. Garrick went still. "That's the stalker," he said low. "Been circling for days. It's not with the pack." He raised the etched rifle, then stopped. "It's counting us." The thing turned and went back into the dark. It had seen three guns and three shooters. It had seen the whole line. "It'll tell the rest," Garrick said. "Now they know what we have."

The stalker's report would reach the pack by dawn. Marcus knew it. So did Garrick. The old hunter sat at the bar, cleaning the demon-etched AR15, saying nothing. But Garrick had thirty years of these creatures in his head. He knew how the pack moved, where they came from, how they struck. All of it lived behind his one eye. None of it lived in the hands of Marcus's two shooters. If Garrick fell, they would fight blind. "You know their den," Marcus said. "You've known it for days." Garrick kept cleaning. "North. Past the water. They come down through the trees before light." "Then teach it. Draw it. Put it in my men." "No time." Garrick stood. "They move tonight. We hit the den first, or they hit the town." Marcus hated the answer. His whole method was training, drilling, forcing men to speak what they saw until the knowledge was theirs. Garrick offered none of that. He offered only himself, walking point into the dark. But Garrick was right. There was no time left. They went north with the two veterans. Garrick led. He moved without a light, reading the ground. The farmer stayed behind to guard the town. Marcus watched Garrick's back and understood the danger. All their knowing walked ahead of them in one old man. The den was a hollow below a split rock, thick with the smell of rot and wet fur. Garrick raised a fist. He pointed. Two guns there. One high. He placed Marcus and the veterans without a word. Then the pack came up out of the dark, more than Marcus had counted, goat skulls over stretched faces, hooves on stone. "Now," Garrick said. The etched rifles opened up. Rune-marked rounds tore into the beasts and held. Wounds that would seal against normal lead stayed open and bled. One beast dropped. Another. Garrick called targets in flat, short words, and the line held because he held it. He was the eyes. He saw the pack split and sent a shooter to cover the flank before the flank existed. Then the big one came. Larger than the rest, a commanding thing, its body riddled with old sores, horns curling back. The pack moved around it like water. Garrick saw it first. "That's the head," he said. "Kill it and they scatter." He stepped out to make the shot. The AR15 barked twice. The big beast staggered but came on. A lesser beast broke from the side where no one watched. It took Garrick off his feet. The etched rifle spun away across the rock. Marcus did not think. He raised his own gray military rifle, the one marked with runes, and fired into the beast on Garrick. Three rounds. It shuddered and fell. But the big one was still moving, and Garrick was down, bleeding, out of the fight. This was the moment Marcus had feared. The man who knew everything lay in the dirt. Now Marcus had to lead blind. He grabbed the demon-etched AR15 from the stone. He called to his two veterans the way Garrick had, short and flat. "Left. High. On me." He pointed the way Garrick had pointed. He had watched the old man all night. He had taken it in without knowing. The head beast charged. Marcus held the etched rifle steady and emptied it into the thing's chest. The rune-cut rounds went deep and stayed. The beast folded three feet from his boots. The pack broke. With their head dead, they ran, and the veterans cut them down as they fled into the trees. Then it was quiet. Smoke and the smell of blood. Marcus knelt by Garrick. The old man was alive, breathing rough, a hand pressed to his side. "You led them," Garrick said. "Without me." "I watched you," Marcus said. "That was the training." Garrick almost smiled. "Took it from my head after all." They carried him back to Marshfire before light. The town woke to find the pack gone and the threat ended. The blind rune-caster's cost, whatever it was, could wait; the guns had done their work. Marcus set the three rifles on the bar once more, the gray one, his own, and the demon-etched gun. But the thing he had built was not the guns. It was two men who could shoot under fire, a hunter who would live to teach what was in his head, and a leader who could stand in the gap when the man beside him fell. Marcus Graves had wanted a unit that could obliterate these beasts. Now, in the gray morning, he had one.