Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 160 of 619

Ajax led the horses out at first light. Grayson and Elara rode behind him. Marco and Asher took the flanks. Chalam kept the rear with his staff across his saddle. The road climbed toward the pines. Behind them, Tucker stood at the gate with Bran and Cody's men, a bow across his arm. Half a mile out, Ajax reined in. "The purse," he said. "We didn't finish with it." Tucker had ridden up with them to the first bend, meaning to turn back after a word. He pulled the woman's folded coat from behind his saddle and shook the purse loose into his palm. Coin spilled first. Then a small bone tube stopped with wax. Then a flat brass disc no bigger than a thumbnail, cut with a spiral inside a ring. "Held that back for daylight," Tucker said. He shrugged when Ajax looked at him. "Didn't want to open it near the fire last night. Some things don't like flame." Ajax swung down. Chalam did the same and set the items on a flat stone by the road. He passed the staff over the tube first. The blue tip held steady. "Salt of the seat," Chalam said. "Ground from the stone that sleeps under the last valley. A pinch on the seam and the seal opens without blood. She meant to open it herself if she took you alive." "And the disc?" Chalam turned it under the staff. The blue went dim, then bright. "A caller. Like the black candle, but keyed to the mother. Break it, and the Keeper hears her daughter's last hour and where it happened." "Don't break it," Grayson said. "No," Ajax said. He took the disc between two fingers and looked at Chalam. "Can she read it from where it sits now?" "Not while it's whole. Not while it's on you." Ajax closed his fist. "Then it rides with me. The salt too. We use it on the seam." Tucker counted the coin fast. Silver, some gold, a clipped foreign piece. He tied it back in the purse and held it out. "Split at the walls," he said. "After." "After," Ajax said. He took the tube and the disc and handed the purse back. "Ride to the gate. Hold it until we come down." Tucker nodded once. He looked at Chalam a breath longer than at the others, then turned his horse and rode back down the track. Ajax mounted. The salt tube sat in his belt pouch. The brass disc sat in his fist against the reins. He had opened five seats with his blood. The last one he would open without it, and he would bring the woman's own tool to do it. "North," he said. "We ride hard." The pines closed over the road behind them.