Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 313 of 619

The snow broke on a gray morning. Ajax stood in the yard with the dryad's pale flowers wrapped in cloth at his belt. The dryad who carves waited by the library wall, tracing a fresh leaf into the stone with one finger. She had walked through the gate again as if the ward did not touch her. Ajax had learned not to ask how. "I marked your book house," she said. She pressed her palm flat to the wall, then drew it back. A vine now curled across the doorframe, cut clean into the rock. "So the words inside outlast the burning. My kin will read here if the grove falls." Aldric came out with his ledger and stopped short when he saw her work. He set the book down and ran his thumb along the carved vine, the way he touched anything old and rare. "It's deeper than the wood carving," he said. "Stone holds longer." He looked at the dryad. "Thank you." She only nodded and stepped back into the pines. Ajax watched her go, then turned to the men waiting by the horses. "We ride north today," he said. "Three root-beasts feeding past the burned grove. We kill them, the grove lives, and we bring back hides no other trader holds." Rowan checked his bowstring with two fingers and slung a full quiver. "I found their feed sign last week. Cracked oaks, no tracks a man reads. They move under the ground." He nodded at the flowers on Ajax's belt. "Burn those first. It can't feel through smoke." Chalam loaded his satchel onto the pack horse. His staff was strapped across his back. "I have oil to muffle our steps," he said. "Enough for one night. After that, the beast hears us. My vials are full.” "Then we finish in one night," Ajax said. Tarron came from his shed with a bundle over his shoulder. He was not riding. He handed out coats to the four hired hunters, one by one, thick gray wool lined at the collar. "North wind cuts through anything thin," he said. "These won't fail you." He gave the last coat to Rowan. "Yours has an oiled shoulder. For the bow arm." Rowan pulled it on and rolled his shoulder. "It sits right." "It should," Tarron said, and turned back to his loom. The matter was closed. Ajax mounted. Grayson would hold the gate. Elara stayed with her herbs and Bran's sister. The four hunters swung up behind Rowan, warm in Tarron's cloth, and the party filed out through the gate. Ajax rode at the front with the flowers at his hip and his father's blade at his side. He had a beast no rival could offer and a warning paid in full. Come the hunt's end, he would have hides worth more than a season's wages, and a grove that owed him. His house would trade what other men could not name. That was how a brotherhood held past the thaw.