Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 221 of 619

Ajax found Rowan still on the stump after noon. The pile of finished shafts had grown to his knee. Rowan was not fletching now. He held a shaft flat across his palm and drew a thin line down its length with a piece of charred wood. "What's that," Ajax said. "Yew dust in the pine glue. Ash for the nock." Rowan blew the black line clean. "I can put a hold on them. Not much. Enough that they don't drift when a wind comes off the water." "How long." "An hour a bundle. I finish the fletching first. Enchant tonight." "Do it." Rowan nodded and set the shaft aside. He did not look pleased or displeased. He picked up the next feather and split it. Ajax crossed the yard to the armory wall. Chalam had his staff laid across a squared block, one hand flat on the stone, the other loose on the shaft of the staff. He was not cutting. He was reading the book the reader had copied, propped open on a second block, weighted with a wedge of chalk. "You should be cutting," Ajax said. "Bran can lift what I've cut for another hour." Chalam did not look up. "I found something." Ajax waited. "There is a working in here for a threshold. Older than the ward Elara set. It does not burn. It holds." Chalam turned the page. "If a man crosses without a name spoken for him, his feet stop. He cannot lift them. He stands there until someone names him or until the working is broken from inside." "Cost." "Just the words and the use of my staff. My vials will stay full.” Ajax looked at the gate. Elara's ward would burn the Keeper if she came through unnamed. But the Keeper knew about wards. She would send a man first, or a bird, or a thing they had not seen. A burn told them nothing. A held foot gave them a mouth to question. "Set it under the ward," Ajax said. "Not over. I still want the burn if she pushes through." "Under is harder. It will hold until I lift it." "A day is what we need." Chalam closed the book. "Then I lay it tonight. After Rowan finishes the shafts. I'll want him at the threshold. Yew holds power. His hands know it." "He'll be there." Ajax walked to the smithery door. Vello was drawing an arrowhead from the heat, hammer steady. Ajax watched one head come off the anvil and drop into the water. Steam hissed up between them. "How many by dusk tomorrow," Ajax said. "Sixty heads. Maybe eighty." "Match Rowan's count." Vello nodded and turned back to the fire. By nightfall Ajax had his plan. Enchanted shafts on the wall. A held threshold at the gate. And one more day before she came.