Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 161 of 619

They rode hard through the pines until noon. Ajax pulled up at a stream to water the horses. Chalam slid down and set his staff across a rock. Elara knelt at the bank and drank from her cupped hands. Marco stayed in the saddle a moment longer, head tilted, listening the way only he could. "Nothing on the road behind," Marco said. He swung down. "Nothing on the road ahead for a mile. The valley beyond the ridge is quiet." "The keeper woman?" Ajax said. "Not close enough to read." Marco pulled the gold chain out from under his open collar and let it settle. "Closer, and I will." Ajax squatted at the stream and washed his face. The brass disc pressed against his palm through the pouch. He thought about the woman they had burned and her mother somewhere south, waking to the silence where a daughter used to be. "How much light do I have left," Elara said. It was not a question. She was talking to herself. She pulled back her sleeve. The gold band on her wrist showed her at full power. "Save it for the seat," Chalam said. He opened his satchel and counted his vials with a finger. "Five. Full since the gate." "All five," Ajax said. "All five." Chalam closed the satchel. "I have not spent a working since the ward. I do not mean to spend one before the seam." Ajax stood. He looked at the three of them—the wizard with his full vials, the healer with her band full, the man who could hear thoughts on the wind. Grayson and Asher were watering the last two horses upstream. Six of them, and a road that ended at a stone that did not want to be opened. "Here's how we do it," Ajax said. He crouched and drew a shape in the dirt with his finger. A rough oval for the valley. A square for the seat. "Marco walks in first with me. He listens for the keeper. If she's there, we take her quiet and hold her. No blood. She's not ours to kill." "And if she runs," Grayson said, coming down the bank. "Let her run. We're not here for her." Ajax marked the square. "Chalam burns the flowers at the seam. I use the salt instead of my blood. The seat opens. Whatever comes up, I take with my father's blade. Elara holds a shroud on the ridge in case a rider comes down the north track while we're inside." "And the disc?" Chalam said. Ajax pulled it from the pouch and held it flat on his palm. "Stays whole. Stays on me. The Keeper does not hear this seat die until we're gone from it." Marco nodded once. "Ridge by dusk. Seat at first light." "First light," Ajax said. He mounted. The pines opened north.