Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 32 of 86

At dawn the group gathered at the southern gate. Lyra spread her map on a barrel and pointed to the mark she had made. "His heartbeat is here. Deep in the wetlands." She frowned. "But I can find the man, not the road. The swamp has no roads. We could wander for days." Raven leaned over the map. Her ears twitched. "Days we don't have. Malachar broke one seal. He won't stop for us." Ayla shook her head. "The swamp is worse than hard. The mud swallows horses. The water hides sinkholes. Even Talon said men die there who don't respect it." She looked drained still, one hand tight on her staff. Zach stared at the small mark on the map. A single heartbeat, and no way to reach it in time. "So we know where. We just can't get there." He rubbed his face. Every plan died on the same wall. Distance he could not cross fast enough. Talon had been quiet, arms crossed by the gate. Raven's brother rarely spoke unless it mattered. Now he stepped forward and set a finger on the map, far to the north, past the mountains. "You're all looking the wrong way." Raven turned. "North? Geneva is south." "The road south is the trap," Talon said. "But I don't need a road." He tapped a large city drawn on the far coast. "Fairhaven. I keep an airship docked there. I flew it across these lands for five years, tracking Malachar's men." He looked at Zach. "Over the swamp, mud means nothing. We land beside the old man's hut. One day, not ten." The group went still. Zach felt the wall crack. "An airship." He almost laughed. "You've had it this whole time?" "You never asked how I crossed the north," Talon said. A rare flicker of humor showed above his mask. Ayla straightened. "Fairhaven is on the other side of the mountains. The journey there will still cost us." Lyra was already tracing the northern route with her finger. "But a known road. A city. Not blind wandering." She looked up. "I can reach it." Zach weighed it. North to fly south. It bent the wrong way. But it turned a hopeless swamp into a single flight. He met Lyra's eyes, then Raven's. "Our focus is Malachar," he said. "We can't beat him without the sword's secrets. So we get the airship first, then reach Geneva before it's too late." Raven gripped his arm. "Then we stop guessing. We go to Fairhaven." Talon rolled the map and handed it to Zach. "Follow me. I know every pass to the coast." Zach sheathed his blade and looked north, past the mountains he had already crossed once. The swamp no longer blocked him. A machine did the crossing now. He turned his back on the southern gate and started toward the high peaks, the group falling in behind him.