Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 142 of 619

Ajax walked back to the gate with Marco and Asher a step behind. Elara stood at the threshold stone with her satchel open and the clay bowl set on the flat top of the iron. Grayson, Tucker, and Chalam waited inside the arch. The crew had been sent back to the wall. Six men, one healer, and the raw gate between them. "All six here," Elara said. She looked at Ajax. "Palm on the threshold. The rest of you stand where you can touch the iron. I need a hand on it from every name." Ajax knelt and pressed his palm flat to the stone. The others set hands on the gate. Tucker on the top bar. Grayson on the hinge side. Chalam near the weld. Marco and Asher on the far post, shoulders almost touching. Elara took a small knife from her satchel and nicked her own thumb into the bowl. She poured a slow line of water over the blood and stirred it with a sliver of iron. Then she began to speak the names. She said Ajax first. She said Grayson. Chalam. Marco. Tucker. Asher. She said each name twice and touched the wet iron with her thumb after each. The gate went cold under their hands. Ajax felt the stone under his palm draw at him, not blood, only pull, like a rope tightening and then slack. The cold rose through the iron and moved along the weld line. Chalam's staff hummed once against his boot. Then the pull stopped. Elara stepped back. Her face was pale but her hand was steady. She wiped the bowl with a cloth and set it down. "It's set," she said. "Anyone not named who crosses this threshold burns. You six pass clean. Anyone you permit to pass through the gate does so safely. No one else." Ajax stood. He watched her. "You're on your feet." "It took the power in the band," she said. "Not me. I'm tired. I'm not sick. I'll sleep and I'll be fine by morning." Chalam ran a hand near the iron and did not touch it. "It's holding. Deep. This is not a working that will fade in a season." Ajax stepped through the gate himself, then back. Nothing. He walked out onto the road side and turned. "Grayson." Grayson walked through. Then Chalam. Then Marco and Asher, one after the other. Tucker last, with a slow grin, tapping the top bar as he passed. "Cody stays outside until we bring him through," Ajax said. "Bran too. Every hire individually or they burn. Grayson, you carry that rule. Warn them.” "I carry it," Grayson said. Ajax looked at the empty road. Six days until the woman came. The gate would hold. What came behind her, he did not know yet.