Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 187 of 619

They rode north through pine country and reached the ridge above the hollow by late afternoon. Ajax pulled up under the last stand of trees and dismounted. The others followed. Below them the ground sloped into a bowl of grass with a spring at its center and the stone seat set beside it. No smoke. No keeper's hut. Just the stone waiting in the open. Marco stood with his eyes half closed. "Nothing living within a mile. No men. The stone itself hums. Loud." "How loud," Ajax said. "Like it's already scratching at the lid." Chalam set his staff against a trunk and knelt with his satchel. He pulled out the pouch of salt and the wrap of dried flowers and laid them on a flat rock. He touched the staff with two fingers and closed his eyes. "The binding is thin," Chalam said. "Thinner than the last one. A day, maybe two, before it breaks on its own." "Then we open it now," Ajax said. "On our terms." Grayson looked down at the bowl. "No cover between the trees and the seat. If it comes up fast, we fight in open grass." "Then we don't let it come up," Ajax said. "Blade in the eye before it clears the seam. Same as the others." Asher unslung his bow and checked the string. "Where do you want me." "Ridge line. High angle on the seam. If anything moves that isn't one of us, put a shaft in it." "Understood." Ajax turned to Marco. "You stay ten paces off the stone. If something reaches for my head, I want to know before it lands." Marco nodded. "I'll hold." Chalam wrapped the salt tight. "I burn the flowers at the seam. You pour salt across it. No blood this time. The salt should be enough with the binding this thin." "Should," Grayson said. "Should," Chalam said. He did not soften it. Ajax pulled his father's blade from the sheath and checked the edge again. Clean. He slid it back. "We go down at first light," he said. "Cold hands, clear eyes. Not now. The horses need water and we need the ground read before we walk it." Grayson grunted once. "Good." They tied the horses back among the pines and set a cold camp under the ridge line. No fire. Asher took first watch on the high point with the bow across his knees. Marco sat cross-legged with his eyes half closed, listening down into the bowl. Chalam laid the salt and flowers by Ajax's roll where he could reach them in the dark. Ajax sat with the blade across his lap and watched the stone below catch the last light. The plan was set. The ground was chosen. At first light he would open the last seat and end it.