Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 230 of 619

The passage cut ten paces into the cliff and opened into a low chamber. Chalam raised his staff. The glow spread across worked stone. A dead man lay on a slab at the center, dry as driftwood, hands folded on his chest. Gold ringed his fingers. A heavy chain crossed his ribs. Coin was stacked against the far wall in short towers. Two iron-bound chests sat at his feet. A second doorway broke the back wall. Rowan held his arrow low and stepped in first. He circled the slab once and stopped. "No traps I can see," he said. "Air is dry. Been sealed a long time." Marco closed his eyes. "Nothing thinking. Nothing waiting." Chalam moved his staff over the slab. The wood dimmed above the dead man's chain, then above a ring on his right hand, then above a short rod tucked under his arm. "Three workings," Chalam said. "The chain hides the wearer from magic. The ring is a lockpick for iron doors. The rod I don't know yet. No binding signature on the body. He was a man, not a keeper." Ajax lowered his blade. "Then he's not one of hers." "No," Chalam said. "Older than her work." Ajax stepped to the second doorway. It opened on a smaller room. Bolts of oiled cloth, sealed jars, a rack of plain iron blades, and a low table stacked with silver bars. Enough silver to run the shelf through two winters. He went back to the slab. He lifted the chain over the dead man's head. The bones did not stir. He unhooked the ring and slid the rod free. He set all three on the stone at the dead man's feet. "Keep the loot together. We’ll talk when we return to Black Oak," Ajax said. Chalam wrapped the ring in chalk cloth and stowed it. He rolled the rod in lodestone wrap and set it beside the ring. "The chests," Rowan said. Marco knelt and worked the latches. The first held gold bars in rows. The second held cut coin and a folded oiled hide. Ajax opened the hide against his knee. A worn hide map, drawn in the same hand as the old woman's. Four new marks along the coast north of the shelf. Ajax folded the hide and pushed it into his belt. He looked at the dead man on the slab, at the wealth banked around him, at the four new marks he had not asked for. "Load the horses," he said. "Coin, silver, the bars. Leave him. We ride at first light." Rowan was already moving. Marco set his shoulder to the nearest chest. Chalam killed the light on his staff and followed them out with the ring and the rod against his hip.