Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 19 of 619

They rode south through open country until the sun stood high. Ajax pulled up where the road cut between two low ridges. He could see a mile in each direction. If the god hunter was on this road, they would find him from here. He turned in the saddle. "Chalam. Can you show me where he is?" Chalam swung down slow. He leaned on his staff and looked at Ajax. "I can try. It will cost me a vial. Half of what I have left." "Do it," Ajax said. Elara helped the wizard to a flat patch of grass. Beside them stood a bush thick with red and blue berries, the same kind that had grown at the last hollow. The leaves caught the light like wet glass. Elara looked at it a moment, then began picking. She dropped the berries into a pouch at her belt. "You know what those are?" Marco said. "Arcberries," she said. "They keep a working going longer. He will need them before this is done." She kept picking. The sun sat heavy on their shoulders. Asher pulled his shirt over his head and hung it on the saddle horn. Sweat ran down his chest. Tucker did the same, his two chains bright against his skin. Marco unbuttoned his shirt to the belt and left it open. No one spoke against the heat. Chalam took a small vial from his satchel and drank it. He set his staff point-down in the dirt and closed his eyes. His lips moved without sound. A thin light ran up the wood and thinned into the air above it. The light bent north, then curved, then pointed back the way they had come. Chalam opened his eyes. "He is not on the road ahead. He is behind us. Off the road. Maybe two miles east of the coastal shelf." Ajax felt the ground shift under him. "He passed us in the night." "He passed you," Chalam said. "He is at the shelf now, or close to it. Walking the tide line." Elara stopped picking. "The concealment holds for days. Not forever." "Long enough," Ajax said, "if we ride now." He looked at Grayson. Grayson met his eyes and gave one short nod. Ajax had told him first, in the saddle, an hour back. That part he had kept. "Mount up," Ajax said. Asher pulled his shirt back on as he swung into the saddle. Tucker left his off and tied it at his hip. Elara tied her pouch shut and helped Chalam onto his horse. Ajax turned north. The god hunter was at his walls. His men were behind him and knew it. He kicked his horse hard and did not look back to see if they followed. He heard them come.