Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 228 of 619

The feast ran late. Ajax gave them the name Black Oak and watched the men lift their cups. One by one they went off to bed. Asher leaned on Marco’s shoulder as they left. Tucker walked out with Bran. Grayson stayed until the wine was gone, then set his cup down and went to the gate. Ajax banked the fire and waited for the hall to empty. When only Chalam remained at the table, Ajax slid the small iron key out from his belt and set it between them. "I need to know what it opens," Ajax said. "The rider it came off wore no collar. No spiral. Marco read him clean." Chalam picked the key up and turned it in the lamplight. He set it on his palm and passed his other hand over it. He shook his head once. "No binding on it," he said. "No maker's mark. Plain iron. Cut for a lock, not a collar." "Then why did he wear it on a cord under his shirt?" "Because it opens something he was told to keep shut." Ajax went to the vault and came back with the folded hide they had taken from the old woman's cellar. He spread it flat on the carved table and weighted the corners with cups. Chalam pulled the lamp closer. The hide showed the coast in brown ink, the seven marks he already knew, all crossed. But at the bottom edge, near where the coast bent south, a new mark sat in fresh ink. Not a spiral. A small square. And inland from it, two dots close together in the pine country west of the gate. "Fresh," Chalam said. "Weeks, not years. The old woman drew this after the rot began." "Treasure?" "Yes," Chalam said. "A square is a room. Dots are caves." Ajax set the iron key on the square. It fit the mark like it had been drawn around it. "Coast first," Ajax said. "Half a day south. Then the caves." Chalam took a pinch of chalk dust from his satchel and rubbed it along the key. The dust held. He brushed it off and set the key back down. "The lock is stone," he said. "Not a chest. A door cut into rock. She kept the key because no one else knew the door was there." Ajax rolled the hide and put it in his belt with the key. "Grayson holds the gate," he said. "You, me, Rowan, and Marco ride at first light. Two days out, two back." Chalam nodded. He closed his satchel and stood and left for his quarters.