Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 253 of 619

Ajax stepped through the second doorway with the blade low. Chalam followed with the lit staff. The room opened wider than the first. Cold air met them from the far wall. More chests lined the shelves. Ajax counted eight. Behind them, two open crates held loose gold bars stacked in neat rows. A leather sack sagged beside the crates, heavy with cut coin. Silver plate leaned against the back wall in a short stack. "Rowan," Ajax said. "Doorway." Rowan stepped in behind them and set his shoulder to the frame, bow half drawn. Marco stayed at the plinth room with his eyes closed. His voice came through the opening. "Still nothing. Dead ground all the way down." Ajax cut the first chest open. Coin. He cut the second. Coin and cut plate. He worked down the shelf, chest by chest, and by the sixth his arm was tired and the count in his head had passed anything he had carried home before. Chalam stopped at the last two chests. He held the staff over each and waited. "Three workings," Chalam said. "One in this chest. Two in the next." "Open them." Chalam lifted the first lid with the staff. Inside lay a ring of dull grey metal, a small vial stoppered with wax, and a folded strip of leather with faint marks burned into it. Aldric came to the doorway. He looked at the strip first. "Read that when we are home," Aldric said. "Not here." Chalam bent low over the ring and the vial. He breathed out slow. "The ring stops a blade or arrow in the hand of the man who wears it," Chalam said. "Once. One strike, and it fails. The vial is a sight working. Break it, and you see what a man saw in the last hour of his life." Ajax set the ring on Aldric's palm. "Yours. You do not fight. Wear it when you ride with us." Aldric put on the ring, thankful for Ajax’s care for him. Chalam opened the second chest. Three rolled scrolls lay on plain cloth, tied with black cord. Beside them sat a flat iron disc no bigger than a coin. "Scrolls are workings," Chalam said. "Written, not spoken. One-use each. I cannot read them cold. Aldric can, at the hall." "And the disc?" Chalam turned it with the staff. "A key. It opens what the ring in the first room could not." Aldric took a breath. "Then the third door was locked for a reason." Ajax looked at the last black doorway in the plinth room. He felt the weight of what they already carried. Gold enough to feed the house through two winters. Wages for every sworn man. A ring, a vial, three scrolls, a key, a silencing knife, a bracer. And one door still waiting. "Load it," Ajax said. "Every bar. Every chest worth carrying. Rowan, Marco, help Aldric with the scrolls. Chalam, hold the light. Second room clear." He wiped the blade and turned toward the third door.