Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 151 of 619

The sun dropped behind the cliff and the crew came in from the wall. Ajax set the fire high and had Tucker pour from the good keg. Seven men sat on the stones around the flames. Cody and the two port men on one side. Grayson, Chalam, Marco, Asher, and Tucker on the other. Ajax stood at the head with his cup. "One more," Ajax said. "Then a face you know." He waved Bran in from the shed. Bran walked into the firelight in the same shirt he had worn that morning. The linen strained across the chest. Cody set his cup down. The port men stopped chewing. Bran stopped by the fire and looked at Ajax. "Take it off," Ajax said. Bran pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it on the stone. The firelight ran across him. Chest hair thick from throat to belt. Shoulders wider than any man at the fire. He raised both arms and made fists and held the flex. The port men whistled. Cody laughed once and slapped his knee. Asher put two fingers in his mouth and cut a sharp whistle across the yard. Marco leaned back and grinned. Grayson looked once, nodded, and drank. "That's the stoneworker," Cody said. "That is the stoneworker who came up the road three weeks past." "Same voice," Bran said. He turned and flexed the other side. The slabs stood clear. "Same name," Ajax said. "Bran. Sworn to the wall. He holds two sections alone now." The port men howled at that. Tucker stepped out from the barrel with a fresh cup and walked to Bran. He handed it up and looked him over the way he looked over a horse he meant to buy. "Sit with me," Tucker said. "I will show you how a big man carries a room without breaking the furniture." Bran looked at Ajax. Ajax nodded. Tucker took Bran by the elbow and steered him to the log by the fire. He poured him a second cup before he had finished the first. He leaned in close and said something low, and Bran laughed, a real laugh, the first Ajax had heard from him. "Chains catch the light," Tucker said, and lifted his own so Bran could see. "Yours will, once we get you one. Stand straight when the port men look. Do not duck the doorway. You earned the doorway." Bran nodded and drank. Ajax watched from the head of the fire. Six sworn men now, and the seventh was learning how to be looked at. Tomorrow the road would bring the woman. Tonight his crew saw what he had built. Chalam came to his shoulder with the staff. "He holds," Chalam said. "He holds," Ajax said. "And Tucker has him." He drank and set the cup down. The gate was hung. The ward was set. The team was seven.