Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 32 of 150

Ben ran north with the yapping animal under Joe's arm and Justin at his shoulder. The chest sat hidden in stone a half day behind them. The tracker animal was on their heels somewhere in the scrub, silent and fast. Two days left. If Ben missed Anita at the trade stop by dusk on the third day, he lost the last two relic locations. He could not arrive with a tracker glued to his back. By afternoon the yapping animal had gone hoarse. Its noise was thinning. The tracker had not shown itself, but Joe kept glancing at the ridge behind them. "It's pacing us," Joe said. "Not chasing. Marking." "Marking for who?" Justin said. "For whatever the herbalist sends next." Ben needed the tracker off his line before dark tomorrow. He needed a false trail, and he needed it loud. They came down a slope onto a wagon track. A man stood in the middle of it, coat too big, beard black and wild, eyes hollow. He was chewing a strip of bark. He looked at Ben like Ben might be edible. "Feast," the man said. "Eternal Table. Which way." "I don't know it," Ben said. "Sundown," the man said. "Miss it, no food a full cycle." He spat the bark. "Point." Ben looked at Justin. Justin looked at the yapping animal. Ben saw it then. "Chris," the man said, before Ben could ask. "Chris P. Bacon. Point." "East," Ben said. "Follow the ridge line east. Big fire. Long table. You'll hear it before you see it." "Hear it how." Ben crouched and took the yapping animal from Joe. It squirmed. He pressed it into Chris's arms. "This one belongs to the feast cook. Return it and they'll feed you first. Run. Don't stop. Don't set it down." Chris clamped the animal to his chest. It started barking again, fresh at a new grip. Chris turned east and ran, coat flapping, animal yowling under his arm. The noise moved off fast, straight along the ridge. Joe listened. Something in the scrub above shifted, then shifted again, following the barking east. "It took it," Joe said. "For now," Ben said. They went north in silence, boots only. No hum. No yapping. By dusk the next day they climbed the last rise and saw the trade stop below, three roofs and a stock pen. Ben watched the road east. A small figure came up it at a walk, alone, dusty. Anita. She reached the pen before he did. She was breathing hard. She had a folded scrap in her hand. "Two names," she said. "Two places. I have them." Ben took the paper. His hands shook. He had shaken the tracker. He had made the meeting. Somewhere east, a hungry man was running a barking animal toward a feast that did not exist, and something blue-scaled was running behind him.