Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 67 of 86

Zach read the scout report twice on the flight home. Two more villages gone. Tracks leading back toward the Dead River. But no answers about what did it. He set the paper down and stared out the airship window. Seven years he had built a peaceful life. Seven years without a war. Now something was taking whole villages, and he could not name it. He could march north with soldiers. He could also march them into whatever hunted those people. Back at the cabin, he paced the floor. "I can't lead men blind," he told Raven. "If I take an army north and something swallows villages whole, I hand it an army too." His hands twitched at his sides. Once he had a sword that answered his will. Now his palms were empty. He hated the feeling. Raven watched him wear a path in the floorboards. Her ears flicked. She crossed the room and caught his wrist. "You've been clenching your fists all day," she said. "Do you need some time in the bedroom?" Zach met her purple eyes. "Yes." She pulled him through the door and shut it. For a while the report and the villages did not matter. There was only her hands and his, her laugh against his neck, the two of them tangled and breathing hard. The war fell away. Afterward he lay staring at the ceiling. Raven traced the tattoos on his arm. And in the quiet, without trying, the answer came. Zach sat up fast. "I've been thinking about this wrong," he said. "I keep wanting to know what took them before I go. But I could scout it myself. Not blind. Armed." Raven propped herself on an elbow. "You don't have a sword anymore." "So I make one." He turned to her, awake now, alive with it. "Garrok's people forge steel in Black Hollow. The best blades in the mountains. And Talon's airship runs to Fairhaven. The skyport there works metal with their sky-tech. I've seen it. Engines that hold light and lightning in a hull." Raven's eyes widened. "You want a mountain blade fitted with Fairhaven's craft." "A weapon built for this world, by both of them." He gripped her hand. "Not the old sword. Something new. Something I can carry into the dark to see what we're facing. If I can arm myself, I can scout the north myself. Then I bring back facts, not guesses. Then I decide about the army." Raven studied him a long moment. Then she smiled, sharp and pleased. "Now you sound like the man who pulled a sword from a stone." Zach swung his legs off the bed and reached for his jeans. The obstacle had turned. He no longer needed to march north blind, and he no longer had to wait. He had a plan and two places to build it. "Send word to Garrok," he said. "We leave for Black Hollow at first light."