Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 225 of 619

Ajax slammed the gate bar down. The iron rang. Outside, hooves scraped stone as the Keeper and her four remaining riders pulled up short of the ward line. Marco pressed his back to the gate beside him. Chalam was already moving toward the wall stair. "She stopped," Marco said. "She feels the threshold. She won't cross." "Then she stands there and dies," Ajax said. He climbed the stair two at a time. Bran, Asher, and Rowan held the slits. Rowan had three enchanted shafts laid on the stone at his knee. His hand was steady. He nocked without looking down. "The woman," Ajax said. "Not the riders. Rowan on her." "She's behind the gray horse," Rowan said. "I need her to step." Below, the Keeper walked her horse sideways along the ward line. She was reading the ground. Her mouth moved. Chalam reached the wall and set his staff against the stone. "She's trying the threshold," Chalam said. "Old words." A rider spurred forward at the gate. His horse's hooves hit the ward line and the horse screamed and folded. The rider went over the neck. He hit the dirt inside the arch and his boots caught fire from the knee down. He rolled. He did not get up. The Keeper watched him burn without turning her head. "Step," Rowan said under his breath. She stepped. She moved to the fallen rider's horse to catch its rein and her shoulder cleared the gray. Rowan loosed. The shaft came within a foot of her and bounced away, deflected by an enchantment she wore The three riders left broke. One turned his horse for the pines. Asher dropped him from the slit. Bran took the second. The third threw down his blade and put his hands up. Ajax let him live. Elara came up the stair behind them. She looked once at the woman in the road and then at Ajax. “She won’t stop," Elara said. "If she leaves she’ll come back with more men." Chalam approached with the book open in one hand, staff in the other and spoke ancient words. The Keeper froze in place. He continued walking toward her unafraid as his voice became louder with ancient words as she and her horse were slowly covered with frosty ice. Then he shouted, “Arrows now!” Rowan fired the enchanted arrow first, quickly followed by others. When they struck the woman, she and her horse shattered into thousands of pieces. Ajax had won. The Keeper was dead and her order with her.