Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 107 of 150

Ben waited in the ruin until the light dropped. Tim did not come back. He waited longer. He listened for boots and heard only wind in the vine. He could not sit here another night without knowing. If Tim never reached the mill, Cage's men would keep hunting him until they found him. He left the ruin at dusk and cut east along the pine cover. He kept off the roads. He needed a high point to see the mill road from without being seen on it. He climbed a bare slope and found a burned house at the top. The walls stood. The roof was gone. The wood was black and split, and a red glow still lived in the seams where the char had not gone cold. He circled it once and stopped at the door. A girl sat inside on a fallen beam. Small. Red hair. Bare arms marked with old burn scars. She was pulling a coal from the floor with her fingers. The coal glowed under her hand. She did not drop it. "You'll want to go around," she said. "Ground's hot." "You did this," Ben said. "Yes." She set the coal down and pressed her palm to her knee. She counted under her breath. One. Two. Three. The glow faded from her fingers. "I need to see the mill road," Ben said. "From up here. Tonight." She looked at him. Her eyes were the color of the coal. "Someone carried a chest through the pass an hour ago," she said. "Tall. Yellow eyes. Grey animal at his heel." Ben's breath caught. "Which way." "Down to the mill. He went in at the gate. He came out without the chest. He walked north." "Did they read the paper." "I couldn't see paper from here. I saw four men on the gate, and I saw them let him leave." Ben sat down on the black sill. His hands shook once and stopped. Four men would have shot a stranger with a chest. They had not. They had opened it and let Tim walk away. "Why are you telling me," he said. "You asked." She counted again under her breath. "And I saw you climb. I wanted to know who was coming." "You always up here?" "Until I learn to hold it," she said. She lifted her hand. A small flame woke in her palm and she watched it. "I burned this house last month. I stay where there is nothing left to lose." Ben stood. The proof was inside Cage's gate. Tim was walking north with his six coins to collect. The hunt on Ben's name would end when the list reached Cage's hand, and by the girl's account it already had. "Watch the road an hour more," he said. "If riders come up from the mill, I want to know." "I'll know," she said. "I don't sleep much." He went back down the slope with the ember light at his back.