Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 242 of 619

The Verath went still after the second thrust. Ajax pulled his blade free and wiped it on the moss. The body sagged half-out of the hole, gray and heavy, longer than a man. Rowan slid down the pine. Chalam stepped off the log. Marco lifted his palm from the dirt. "Big," Rowan said. "Bigger than the print showed." Aldric knelt by the head and pried the jaws wider. He studied the teeth, the throat, the ridge behind the skull. "Intact. Rare. The book is worth its weight now." "We take it back," Ajax said. "All of it." They cut two pine poles and lashed the carcass between the horses with rope. It dragged heavy through the ferns. The ride south took most of the day. At the gate Grayson stared at the load without a word and stepped aside to let it pass. Ajax had them haul it to the yard behind the hall. Bran and Torren helped lift it onto planks. Aldric walked the length of the body twice, touching the hide, the tail, the four-toed feet. "I need my chest from the vault," Aldric said. "And the library table cleared." Ajax nodded to Grayson. Grayson opened the vault, and Aldric carried the chest across the yard himself, refusing help. He set it on the library table and unlocked it. Books came out first, wrapped in oilcloth. Then scrolls in tubes. Then a folded case of small blades and a set of glass jars. He laid each thing in its place without hurry. Ajax leaned in the doorway and watched him work. Chalam came in behind and set his staff against the wall. "What do we get from it?" Ajax said. Aldric did not look up. He unrolled a scroll and weighted its corners. "Hide first. Cured right, it turns most blades. Enough for two vests, maybe three." "The teeth?" "Needles for stitching flesh. They do not rot. A healer will pay for them." He glanced at Chalam. "Elara will want a full set." "The rest?" Aldric tapped a jar. "Gland behind the jaw. Oil in it deadens sound near the skin. Useful on a blade edge, on a boot. I need to draw it before it spoils." He set the jar down and met Ajax's eyes. "Bones grind fine. Mixed with salt, they mark a ward line that holds against sound-hunters. If more come, we lay it around the walls." Ajax pushed off the doorframe. "Do the work here. Take what you need. What is left goes to the vault." "Agreed." Ajax stepped out into the yard. The carcass lay on the planks under lamplight, already opened at the belly by Aldric's small knives. Bran stood watch beside it. The gate was closed. The walls were manned. A new thing lay inside them now, and Ajax owned every part of it.