Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 148 of 619

At dawn Bran came to the wall with his shirt already off. He did not put it back on for the cup. Chalam met him by the coals and poured the second measure. The liquid was the same pale gold. Bran drank it in one pull and set the horn down without a cough this time. "Sit," Chalam said. "Count of fifty. Then work." Bran sat on the cut blocks. Ajax stood over him with the pot. In the morning light the change from the first dose was plain. The dark line down the center of the chest had thickened. Hair spread across the plates of muscle. The shoulders sat wider under the skin. Bran's neck looked heavier where it met the collarbone. "How do you feel," Ajax said. "Warm. Awake." Bran flexed one hand and watched the forearm bunch. "Heavier in a good way." "Get to the wall." Bran climbed the course. He lifted a block Ajax had watched two men carry the day before. He set it in one motion and reached for the next. Cody looked up from the mortar and then looked away. The port men on the south end stopped talking for a beat and then went back to their stones. Ajax found Chalam by the coals. "He is bigger already." "A finger's width in the shoulder. Half that in the arm. The second dose is where the frame sets. The third fills it." "Any risk of him breaking his own back with a stone he cannot judge." "He will judge. The working teaches the body its new weight in a day." Chalam tapped his staff. "Watch his eating. He will need twice the meat." Ajax told Tucker to double Bran's portion at supper. By midday the north wall had gone up another course. Bran did the work of two men and did not slow. He never reached for his shirt. When the sun hit high he stood on the wall with sweat down the hair on his chest and looked out over the shelf. He looked like a man who had grown into ground he already stood on. At sundown Ajax called the crew off. Bran came down and walked to the water bucket with the shirt still balled in his fist. He did not put it on to eat. He did not put it on to sleep by the fire. Ajax watched him bank the coals bare to the waist and understood he would not wear one again while the work stood. "Tomorrow," Ajax said. "Last cup." "Yes." Ajax walked the wall in the dark. Two days until the woman came. The north course stood chest-high and closing. He had a stoneworker who moved like two men and would move like three by the morning after next.