Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 17 of 619

At first light Ajax stood on the flat stone above the shelf and looked back at what he was leaving. The paw mark on the tide block. The iron plate over the pit. The walls Chalam had raised from the cliff. Any rider who came down the path would see the mark and know the builder. That was the whole problem. He turned to the door and called for the wizard and the healer. Chalam came out with his staff in one hand and a vial in the other. His face was still thin from the working that had cost him two days flat on his back. Elara followed, tying her vest. She had not sworn to Ajax and did not pretend to. She stopped a pace short of him and waited. "I need the mark gone," Ajax said. "Not scraped. Hidden. Anyone who walks this shelf sees bare stone." Chalam shook his head. "My vials are for the road. I will not spend them on paint." "Light hides things," Elara said. "If that is what you want." Ajax looked at her. "You said you would not follow orders." "I am not," she said. "I am offering." He waited. "A god hunter is coming," she said. "I would rather he walked past this place than stood on it." She stepped down onto the wet shelf. Marco and Asher were already at the horses, packing. Tucker was tightening a girth. They stopped to watch. Elara knelt by the tide block and set her palm flat on the paw mark. She closed her eyes. A pale light gathered under her hand and spread across the stone like water finding a low place. It ran to the iron plate. It ran along the foundation line. Where it passed, the marks were still there, but the eye slid off them. Asher walked over and stared at the block. "I know where it is," he said, "and I still cannot see it." "Good," Ajax said. Elara opened her eyes and stood. She was paler than before. She did not say it cost her. She did not have to. Chalam watched her with a long, careful look, the kind a man gives a debt he has not been asked to pay. "How long does it hold?" Ajax asked. "Until rain, or a hard tide, or a working stronger than mine," she said. "Days. Not weeks." It was enough. Ajax swung up onto his horse. "South," he said. "Crossroads camp. We ride hard." Grayson brought his horse alongside without a word. Marco and Tucker took the rear. Chalam rode near Elara, close enough to catch her if she swayed. She did not sway, but she rode with one hand loose on the reins and the other pressed flat to her ribs. Ajax looked back once from the top of the path. The shelf lay empty behind him. His claim was still there, and no one could see it. Now he had to reach the man on the road before the man reached the mark.