Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 14 of 619

Chalam did not wake clean. By the second dawn he still lay against the inner wall of the stone house, gray at the mouth, breath shallow. Ajax knelt beside him and put a hand on his chest. The wizard's skin was cold. The staff leaned in the seam where he had driven it, and it hummed faint when Ajax passed near. Ajax stood and looked at Elara across the fire. "He should be up," Ajax said. "He burned more than the vial," Elara said. She did not look up from her satchel. She had been the group's healer since the coast road, and she took orders from no man here. "The working pulled from him. I can steady him, but I need herbs I do not have." "Name them." She named three. Two grew on the cliff shelf above the stream. One grew only where the salt could not reach. Ajax sent her up the cliff alone because she would not accept a guard. She came back at midday with her vest pockets full. She crushed the leaves on a flat stone, mixed them with water from the stream, and worked the paste between Chalam's lips. She set a hand on his brow and light ran down her fingers into his skin. Chalam's chest lifted. His eyes opened. "I am here," he said. Clipped. "The staff held. I did not." "Rest," Elara said. "Do not thank me. Drink." Ajax left them and walked out into the sun. Asher and Marco had stripped to the waist and were carrying driftwood up from the tide line for the fire. Asher dropped his load and rolled his shoulder, then flexed the arm for Marco to judge. Marco set his own load down and matched him, forearm to forearm. Asher grinned. Marco did not, but he held the pose a beat longer. "Mine," Marco said. "Yours today," Asher said. Ajax let them have it. Men who could joke on this shelf were men who would still be here in a week. Hooves came down the coast track before dusk. Tucker rode in leading a second horse loaded past the saddle. Grain sacks. Salt. A bolt of oiled canvas. A small keg. He swung down and dropped the reins to Marco. "Bought quiet, too," Tucker said. "Cost extra. Southern Oak thinks you rode east." "Anyone follow you?" "Not past the crossroads. I doubled back twice." Tucker pulled at his mustache. "One thing. A man at the inn was asking after a paw mark on stone. I bought him drinks. He bought the story I gave him. He left before me, north." Ajax looked at the stone house at his back. Walls up. Wizard breathing. Supplies in. And a stranger on the road who knew the sign. "Unload," Ajax said. "Double the watch tonight."