Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 298 of 619

Tucker walked the ship master up the covered canal and into the yard. Ajax met him by the dock with the finished goods laid out on a plank table: boots, gloves, vests, folded cloth, and a row of blades from Vello's forge. The master ran his thumb along a vest seam and named a price. It was fair. But when he reached the pile of green hides at the end of the table, he stopped. He asked what else the beast had given them, beyond the leather. That was the question Ajax had not answered for himself. The Verath carcass still sat in the vault, half harvested. Aldric had spoken of teeth and bone and oil, but Ajax had never fixed a plan to it. He called for Aldric. Aldric came from the library with grey in his hair and ink on his fingers. He looked at the master, then at the hide. "Common leather," he said. "Ships carry a hundred of those." He did not soften it. "The value is not in the skin. It is in the mouth." He brought out a small cloth roll and opened it on the table. Inside lay three needles, pale and thin, cut from the creature's teeth. "A healer stitches a wound closed with one of these and it does not fester," he said. "There is no other source. One dozen exists in the world, and I made them." The master picked one up and held it to the light. His face changed. He asked the price twice, thinking he had misheard. Rowan came in from the pens with a sack over his shoulder. He set it down and pulled out cured hides and a coil of dried gut for bowstrings. "Traps gave us more than meat," he said, flat. "Fish, fur, sinew. Enough to fill his hold under the needles." He named what each was good for and stopped. Grayson stood at the gate with his arms crossed, watching the master's hands. When the man agreed to the full lot, Grayson gave a short nod. "He'll come back," he said. "And he'll bring others." Tucker counted the silver into the strongbox and grinned. "Boots make us a name," he said. "But the needles make us the only door on the coast worth knocking on." They loaded the ship by dusk. Needles wrapped in wool, blades oiled, hides and fish packed tight. The master paid in northern silver and swore he would tell no one but the traders he trusted. Ajax watched the hull pull back through the hidden gate, riding low now, full. He had his answer. The hide was common; the tooth was rare. Black Oak would sell both, and the beast's mouth had turned a raiding camp into a trade house. But Aldric had said one dozen needles exist. Eleven now sailed away. Ajax turned to the vault and thought of the tooth running dry.