Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 29 of 619

The hunter came down at full dark. Ajax lay flat behind the low stones by the seal, his father's short blade unsheathed on the rock beside him. Elara crouched at his shoulder, palms cupped around a bead of light no bigger than a coin. She held it under her vest so nothing showed to the shelf. "He's on the crossing," she whispered. Ajax heard boots on wet stone. Then a hitch in the step. Then a curse. The brew was working. The hunter's arms hung wrong at his sides, slow to lift, slow to swing the iron rod. Grayson moved once at Ajax's left, silent, blade low. He gave Ajax a short nod and held. The hunter reached the paw mark and stopped. He raised the rod. It came up as if through water. He struck the stone anyway. The block rang. Something under it answered — a shift, a scrape, a long slow breath from below the shelf. "Now," Ajax said. Elara opened her hands. The light spilled up and out and hit the hunter full in the face. He threw an arm across his eyes. Six shadows moved on the rock behind him — the shape the collars were made for, thrown by her light. Ajax dragged the blade across his own palm. He pressed the cut to the seam of the stone. The blood ran into the line Chalam had scored. The seal took it. The rock split with a dry crack, wide enough for a man's arm. Inside the pit, one eye opened. Yellow. Wet. Big as a shield. Ajax drove the short blade down through the gap. The wolf paw pommel caught his hand. The point went in clean. The creature under the stone made no sound at all. Its eye rolled once and stopped. The hunter was still blinded, still slow. Grayson stepped out from cover and shoved him hard between the shoulders. The hunter staggered forward, boots skidding on the wet, and pitched down onto the open seam. One of the six arms below came up through the gap. It closed on the hunter's leg and pulled. He went in to the hip before he found his voice. Then to the chest. Then he was gone. The stone settled. The light from Elara's hands guttered out. She sat down hard on the rock and pressed a hand to her ribs. Ajax saw her face in Chalam's staff-glow and did not like the color of it. Chalam came up with the flowers already burning in a clay dish. He tipped the ash into the open seam. The rock hissed and closed to a hairline. "It's dead," Chalam said. "The thing below. I felt it go." Ajax wrapped his cut palm in cloth. Somewhere above the shelf, a horse stamped in the dark. The hunter's eight men were still coming.