Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 134 of 150

Ben left the burned house behind with the sack on his shoulder. The blue cat held his coin, and the fox rode quiet beside it. But the rider who had dismissed the cat was only one of Payne's crew. The rest still worked the plague road. If any of them tied him to the collapsed arch, the coin would mean nothing. He needed to be gone before dawn, and clean. He reached the ruined hall a mile west, where the two arches lay in rubble. His tool marks were buried there. But fresh boot prints ringed the stones, and a lantern glowed near the far heap. Payne's men had come back to dig. Ben crouched behind a fallen block and watched. Among the broken stones lay a fractured relic, jagged pieces spread in the dirt. The crew had turned it up while clearing the arch. One man held a chunk to the lantern, tracing the faded red and gold lines. Ben's chest tightened. If they kept digging, they would reach the pale marks his chisel left in the base stone. He saw a way to turn them. A weathered granite hearthstone sat half-buried at the pile's edge, the same gray as his cut marks. Ben crept along the shadow. He worked the hearthstone loose and rolled it over the tool marks, hiding them under plain rock. Then he pushed a broken relic shard into the open dirt beside it, so the fresh disturbance looked like the crew's own digging. A voice called out. Ben dropped flat. Two men walked the line of stones, holding a small carved face up to the lamp, a furrowed brow and open mouth, some trinket from the rubble. They argued whether the hall was worth more digging. One kicked the shard Ben had planted. He held it to the light, saw only old broken junk, and tossed it back. "Nothing here but rot," he said. "The mark tracks led north. We waste the night on stones." The crew gathered their tools. Ben pressed into the black gap between two blocks and did not move. The lantern swung past his boot and away. Boots crunched off toward the road. He counted their steps until the light shrank to a point and was gone. When the hall went silent, Ben came out. The tool marks lay hidden under the hearthstone. The crew believed the trail ran north, away from his true path. No one had tied him to the arch. He wiped the fox's damp nose in the dark and lifted the sack. But the men were walking north, and north was where he had meant to carry his coin. Their trail and his now pointed the same way. He could not follow behind a crew that hunted him. He would have to find another road, and quickly, before the light gave him up.