Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 7 of 150

They pushed north through the pines until the trees thinned and the ground turned to broken stone. The barking animal had gone hoarse. Ben's new box sat quiet against his ribs. Behind them, somewhere in the low ground, something heavy moved through brush. Not close. Not far enough. The path split at a leaning cairn. One track climbed the ridge. The other dropped into a hollow where a stone chimney stood alone in a clearing. The chimney had a face carved into its mouth — wide grin, blunt teeth, eyes cut deep. A small fire still burned inside it. Someone had been here, and not long ago. "Which way," Justin said. He was already looking back down the slope. "Anita. Map." Anita pulled the map out and held it flat on her knee. Her finger moved over the paper. "The mark is north. Both tracks go north." "Then pick one," Justin said. "I pick wrong, we lose a day. We don't have a day." Ben walked down to the chimney. The heat pushed at his face. The carved mouth grinned at him like it knew something. He crouched and looked into the fire. Ash, coals, and under the coals a dull square edge. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and dug it out. A flat panel of pale stone, edges banded in bright enamel, a pattern cut across its face in fine lines. A small handle on one side. He wiped soot from it. The panel opened like a thin door. Inside, folded once, was a scrap of the same map Anita carried — but with the ridge track crossed out and the hollow track circled. A hand had written beside it: takes the low water. "Someone left this for whoever came next," Ben said. He held it up. "Ridge is wrong. We go through the hollow." Anita took the panel, looked at the writing, looked at her own map. "It's the same hand as three of my marks." "Then we trust it," Ben said. Justin was still watching the slope. "Trust it fast." The brush down the hill cracked. Not brush. A branch, snapped clean. Then another, closer. Ben shoved the stone panel into his coat and started for the hollow track. Anita was already moving. Justin dragged the animal after them. It found its voice again and howled. They ran. The hollow narrowed into a cut between two walls of rock. Water ran along the bottom, ankle-deep, cold. Ben splashed into it without stopping. Scent, he thought. Water kills scent. Whoever left that panel knew. Behind them, something big hit the cut and slid. Claws on wet stone. A long, wet breath. Ben did not look back. He knew which way to go now. He also knew the creature had closed the distance to a stone's throw, and the water would only buy them the next hour.