Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 72 of 150

The seam narrowed. Ben felt the rock press in on both shoulders. The woman ahead stopped and raised one hand. Her courier animal froze at her heel. From the west, a boot scraped stone. From the east, a horn answered, low and close. "They doubled back," the woman said. "Both ends." Eileen set her end of the crate down without a sound. "Six." "Six," the woman agreed. "They're sweeping toward the middle." Ben looked at the crate between them. The oiled patch had dried tight, but the wood was still soft from the basin. If he ran, the seams would knock loose. If he stayed, the men closed on him in minutes. He set his hand on the lid and made himself think. "There's a fold above the seam," Eileen said. She pointed at a dark slot in the rock, chest high, wide enough for the crate and nothing else. "Cache it. Come back for it after." "They'll find it." "Not if they're chasing us." Ben looked at his sister. Six years of nothing, and now she was offering to be the bait. He did not have time to argue. He nodded once. They lifted the crate into the slot. Ben packed pine boughs against the front until the wood disappeared. He set a flat stone across the base to break the line. When he stepped back, the fold looked like every other shadow in the seam. The woman whistled low. From the brush behind her, a sleek blue-marked creature slid out and pressed against her leg, muscles wound tight, head forward. Her hand rested on its neck. "Mine goes east," she said. "Yours?" Eileen clicked her tongue. Her lynx came down off the rock above them, striped and heavy, ears flat. It brushed her hip and waited. "West," Eileen said. "I'll pull the three on that side up the scree. She pulls the three east. You stay with the crate." "Eileen—" "I know the ground here. You don't." She met his eyes. "Twelve or thirteen, Ben. Finish it." She went before he could answer. The lynx ran ahead of her, deliberate, loud on the loose stone. The woman went the other way with the blue creature at a dead sprint, kicking gravel to leave a trail a child could read. Ben pressed himself flat into the seam beside the hidden crate. The east horn blew again, then swung after the woman's noise. Boots pounded past above his head, three sets, going east. A shout came from the west slope. Three more sets crossed the top of the seam and climbed after the lynx. He counted them past. He counted the silence after. The crate was still hidden. His sister was gone up the west face with three armed men behind her. He was alone in the rock with twelve pieces and no one to carry the other end.