Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 216 of 619

They rode west out of the basin at a hard clip. The clay track climbed to pine country by midday. Ajax kept the group tight, with Rowan on point and Marco at his shoulder. Chalam rode with the book wrapped in oiled cloth against his chest. Asher swept the rear, checking their back trail at every rise. At the second creek Ajax pulled up to water the horses. He unfolded the map he had taken off the old woman's floor. Six coastal marks, all closed. The seventh, now shut in the basin behind them. He turned the paper over and looked at the ridges between here and home. "Two days if we push," Rowan said. He knelt at the bank and cupped water to his mouth. "One and a half if we ride through the dark tonight." "Through the dark," Ajax said. Marco lifted his head. He had been quiet since the ring. "There's a man on the ridge north of us. One rider. No collar. He's watching the creek, not us." "Hunter?" Ajax asked. "Trapper. He's thinking about a marten line." Marco almost smiled. "He doesn't know we're here." "Leave him," Ajax said. "Move." They remounted. Chalam brought his horse alongside Ajax. His face was gray at the edges. The reading in the basin had cost him. "She'll know by nightfall," Chalam said. "Maybe sooner. The leash going slack is not a thing you sleep through." "How fast can she reach the gate?" "Three days at hard ride. Two if she has fresh horses staged." "Then we get there in one and a half." They climbed the long spine of the ridge as the sun dropped. Rowan found them a game trail that cut a bend off the road. He rode it without slowing. Ajax watched his back and understood again why he had sworn the bowman to the gate. Dusk caught them at a saddle between two hills. Ajax called a short halt to change horses to the fresher mounts they had taken off the woman's riders. Asher held the reins while Ajax cinched the girth on a bay. "She sends someone ahead of her," Asher said. Flat. Settled. "She won't come alone at us cold." "I know." "Grayson will see them first." "He'll hold," Ajax said. He believed it. They rode into the dark. Rowan lit no torch. He read the ground by feel and by the pale of the moon. Twice he raised a hand and the group stopped while he listened. Twice he waved them on. By the gray hour before dawn they came down off the last ridge and saw the sea. The coast road ran black below them. The shelf sat where Ajax had left it, walls up, gate shut, one lamp burning at the gatehouse slit. Ajax reined in and looked at his own walls. Home. He turned to the others. "Ride in," he said. "We have hours, not days."