Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 197 of 619

At first light Ajax walked out to the gate with Grayson beside him. The cart from the port stood outside, and beyond it a man waited on foot with a bow across his back. Rowan Fisk had ridden in with them from the warded house and slept two nights at the wall. He had not asked to stay. He had not asked to go. Ajax stopped ten paces short of the gate line. Rowan came up on the outside, thumbs hooked in his belt, mustache dusted with road grit. He looked past Ajax at the shelf, then at the iron. "You mean to leave," Ajax said. "I mean to hear you first." "I want you on the crew. Sworn until spring. You watch the road and you shoot what I point at. You keep your grove work on the side." Rowan looked at the ward line in the iron. "Your gate burns men who are not named." "Elara adds you tonight. You walk in on your own feet." "Wages?" "Same as the others. Room in the barracks. Share of what we take." Rowan was quiet a long moment. He touched the yew ring on his cord, the one he had taken from the old woman's chest. "Groves are going quiet two ridges out. I mean to find why." "Ride out when you need to. Come back through this gate." "Then yes." Ajax stepped aside. Grayson called the name to Elara at the hearth. Rowan crossed the threshold and the iron did not spark. Marco, watching from the wall, gave a single nod. Ajax turned to the yard. Bran was setting stone at the stable with Rell. Cody's men worked the well house. Ajax walked over and put a hand on Bran's shoulder until Bran set the block down. "I need you and the port men in the yard at noon," Ajax said. "Shirts off. Blades out." Bran wiped his hands. "For what?" "Grayson is going to teach you to fight. All of you. An hour a day, every day, until you can hold this wall without me on it." Bran's jaw set. "I lift stone. I do not know a blade." "You will." Ajax found Grayson at the vault door. "Noon. Bran, Rell, Cody, the four port men. Teach them the wall. Teach them the gate. Teach them enough that the next time I ride north with you, this ground still holds." Grayson thought about it. "Every day. My call on who stays and who goes." "Your call.” "Then it is done." At noon the workers gathered in the yard, shirts off, blades borrowed from the shed. Grayson walked the line once and stopped in front of Bran. Rowan sat on the north wall with his bow across his knees, watching the road. Ajax had a bowman at the wall and a drillmaster in the yard. The shelf could stand without him now.