Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 307 of 619

Tucker rode out at dawn with the merchant orders and Ajax's silver. Ajax did not wait idle. Rowan had reported two more Verath feeding half a day north, and the vault held only two hides. If Black Oak was to trade, the holds needed filling. Ajax gathered his hunting party and rode to take the beasts himself while Tucker fetched hunters at the port. Both jobs, done together, would fill the bunkhouse and the ship holds at once. Rowan led. He read the ground where others saw dirt. Half a day north he stopped at a churned patch of soil and knelt. "Two of them," he said. "Both big. One fed this morning. The other's hungry." He touched a four-toed print, then a drag mark behind it. "Hungry hunts by sound. We keep quiet or it takes us from below." Chalam set his staff and opened his satchel. He drew the sound-muffling oil rendered from earlier kills. "Three vials," he said, flat. "Enough to silence our steps through the fight." He rubbed oil on each man's boots. Elara stood at Ajax's shoulder, hand on her gold band. "One shield," she said. "I'll hold it on whoever leads. Say the word." Ajax struck the ground with his father's iron blade and shouted. The hungry Verath came fast. Soil split. The serpent erupted, jaws wide, striking toward the sound. Elara's light flared over Ajax and turned the first bite. Ajax drove the blade into its open mouth. Rowan's arrow took its eye. The beast thrashed, then dropped. The second Verath fled into deeper woods. Rowan tracked it to a hollow and pinned it with a root Chalam pulled up through the soil. Ajax finished it with the bone knife through the mouth, then the iron blade behind the skull. Two beasts down. Two whole hides. They hauled the carcasses south on the horses. By the time they reached the gate, the sun was low. Tucker's horse stood in the yard, lathered from the road. He had returned with four men behind him, dusty and armed, each one Marco had already read at the road. "Four hunters," Tucker said. "Every one clean. Marco vouched for each." He looked at the two Verath slung over the horses and whistled. "And you filled two holds while I was gone." Ajax swung down. The bunkhouse was full now. The vault held four hides where it had held two. He had the hands and the goods both, gained in a single day. "Rowan," he said, "split the four across your lines tomorrow. North beasts and trap work." Rowan nodded once. That night the hall held more men than beds had held that morning. Ajax looked down the table at faces new and old. Black Oak was no longer a raiding camp waiting on empty rooms. It was a house of trade with the men to feed it. The next thaw would bring ships, and now he had goods to meet them.