Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 43 of 150

Ben crouched at the tree line on the west slope. The cider press cellar sat below, roof mossed, door half-buried in weeds. He could see the two guards at the door. He could not see the inside. If he walked in blind, he would pass the relic and step into the horn's range before he found it. "I need the layout," Ben whispered. "Where the press sits. Where a man could hide something small." Joe shook his head. "I've never been in. Sandy?" Sandy pressed against the trunk beside them. She had counted the guards without missing. She looked at the cellar door and her mouth pulled tight. "I passed it at noon," she said. "I looked in the vent slot on the north wall. Big room. Press in the middle. Shelves on the left. A gap behind the press where the floor drops." "How deep a gap?" "Knee deep. Stone lid on it." Ben turned that over. A lidded pit behind the press. That was where he would hide a relic. A small brown creature crept from the roots at Sandy's foot. It stood on its hind legs, ears twitching, eyes wide. It stared at the cellar and shivered. "Yours?" Ben said. Sandy nodded once. "He came up from the water with me. He's scared of the men." "Good," Ben said. "He'll hear them before we do." Ben set the felt crate down. He lifted out the small wooden box carved with a nervous face. The screaming guard was still inside, quiet. He weighed it in his palm. "Amanda. Take this thirty paces east. Wedge it under a root. When Joe whistles, open it and run." Amanda took the box without a word. "The horn man will move toward the scream," Ben said. "The crossbow will follow. Sandy and I go in the vent. Joe covers the door. Anita, Justin, hold the chest at the pines." Justin frowned. "What if the two at the door stay put?" "Then the scream keeps going and they still turn their heads." They moved. Amanda came back at a crouch. Joe put two fingers to his mouth and whistled once, low. The scream tore up through the trees a heartbeat later. Both guards at the door pivoted east. The two in the trees crashed toward the noise. The little creature at Sandy's ankle flinched and pressed against her boot. Ben ran. Sandy ran with him. She led him to the vent slot on the north wall and dropped through first. Ben followed, boots on packed dirt. The press stood where she had said. Ben went behind it. His hand found the stone lid. He lifted it. Inside, wrapped in oiled cloth, sat a small carved shape shaped like a tree, hollow at the base. The relic sat in the hollow. Ben lifted the tree-shaped container, closed the lid, and climbed back through the vent. The scream still tore the air. Twelve. He had all twelve. Now he had to get off this slope before the horn sounded and the men turned back.