Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 28 of 619

They came down from the pool before the sun cleared the ridge. Chalam carried the pot wrapped in wet cloth. Grayson walked point with a bare blade. Ajax led them back to the seal at the tide line, where the stone block sat dark with spray and the paw mark still hid under Elara's working. Two days left. He meant to spend one of them setting the trap. Chalam knelt by the seam. He unstoppered the first of his three numbered vials and poured a thin line of it along the stone. The rock hissed and went quiet. "That's one gone," Chalam said. "It steadies the seal for a day. Not more." "Enough," Ajax said. "We only need it to hold while we bait him in." He laid out the plan on the wet rock with a piece of chalk from Chalam's satchel. He drew the shelf. He drew the gap in the wall. He drew where the hunter would come from, and where the hunter would stand when he struck his iron rod again. "He wants the thing under the stone," Ajax said. "So we let him think he's close. Chalam breaks the concealment on the paw mark before dusk. Just the mark. Not the plate. He'll see it from the ridge and come down alone or push his men ahead." Grayson set the point of his sword against the chalk line. "And when he's on the shelf." "Tucker's at the wall gap with the brew and a skin. He wets the ground where the hunter has to cross." Tucker rubbed his mustache. "Wet ground. That's my job." "Step on it and your arms slow," Chalam said. "All six of them, if the working holds." "I don't have six arms." "Then don't step on it." Ajax kept drawing. "Marco and Asher take the high stones on the cliff side. Grayson holds my flank. Elara stays hidden with the light. When the hunter's arms drag, I open the seal with my blood and my father's blade goes through the eye of the thing below. Then we drive the hunter into its reach." Grayson's jaw moved once. "You told me this before the group. Good." "I told you first." They worked through the afternoon. Tucker walked the crossing three times until he knew every loose stone by foot. Marco and Asher hauled sling rocks up the cliff side and stacked them behind cover, not speaking to each other except to name weights. Elara wrapped her light around Chalam while he scored a shallow channel in the stone for the brew to run in. At dusk Chalam raised his staff over the paw mark. The concealment thinned. The wolf print came back into the light, wet and clean. "It's set," Chalam said. "He'll see it inside the hour." Ajax looked north up the coast road. Somewhere on it, the hunter turned his horse.