Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 37 of 86

The airship settled toward the muddy rise, but the wood beneath it groaned. Talon cursed and pulled back on the wheel. Where the ground looked firm, black water swallowed the reeds. He circled twice, searching for solid land. "There's nothing here that will hold us," he said. "The whole marsh is soup. If we set down, we sink." Zach gripped the rail and stared down. A cottage sat far off through the trees, a thread of smoke rising from it. But between the ship and that smoke lay miles of open swamp. "Then set us on the highest bank you can find," Zach said. "We walk the rest." Talon nodded. He nosed the ship toward a strip of firmer earth about five miles from the smoke. The hull touched dry ground and held. Zach let out a breath. The vessel was safe. But now the swamp itself became the obstacle. They climbed down into the muck. Water pulled at Zach's boots with every step. Lyra pressed her palm to a tree trunk, reading the ground ahead. "Something moves," she said. A serpent burst from the reeds. Zach cut it in half before it reached Raven. More came. Raven fired her crossbow. Ayla's staff flared and healed a bite on Garrok's arm as a mud-slick creature dragged itself up from the deep. Talon's katanas flashed and it fell back into the dark water. Hour after hour they slogged forward. The mud tried to keep them. Twice Zach hauled Raven free when it grabbed her to the knee. By dusk they reached firmer ground and the cottage stood before them, small and crooked, its windows glowing. The door opened before Zach could knock. An old man stood there, thin and white-haired, wearing a robe stained with swamp mud. His eyes drifted, not quite meeting Zach's. This was Geneva Rudsone, the last descendant of the warrior who sealed Darkthorne a thousand years ago. Ayla had promised he could teach the blade. He did not look like a warrior at all. "I've been expecting you," Geneva said. "Come in. Tea and biscuits. You look half-drowned." He shuffled inside, humming to himself. They crowded into the small room. Geneva poured tea with shaking hands and spilled half of it. But when Zach set the sword on the table, the old man went still. His wandering eyes locked onto the blade. "Ah," he said softly. "So it chose you." He touched the flat of it. "This blade has its own will. You cannot swing it like an axe. You must stop being two things. The sword and the man must become one, or the light inside it will never answer you." Zach frowned. "How do I do that?" Geneva smiled, loopy again. "Slowly. Painfully." He looked to the others. "He stays. I teach him." Ayla stepped forward. "He'll learn from you," she said. "That's why we came." The crossing was over. The teacher was found. Now the lesson began.