Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 314 of 619

The party reached the burned grove by dusk. Black stumps marked the old fire line. Rowan dismounted and pressed his palm to the ground. He held it there, still, reading through his hand. "One's close," Rowan said. He pointed north with two fingers. "Feeding on a live oak. The other two are further." He looked back at Ajax. "We take one tonight. Learn it. Then the pair." Ajax knelt and unwrapped the pale flowers. He struck a spark and lit them. Smoke rose thin and sweet. "Chalam," he said. Chalam opened his satchel and drew a vial. He poured oil across their boots, one man at a time. "This holds your steps quiet for the night," he said. "After that it hears us walk." He capped the vial. "Stay close. My cover is small." They crept toward the oak. The ground bulged ahead of them, then split. The root-beast rose. It was longer than two horses, hide like knotted bark, a mouth ringed with root-teeth. It swung toward the smoke and stopped, blind and confused. Ajax drove his father's blade at its mouth. The iron bit deep. The beast thrashed and threw him back. Rowan loosed two arrows into the soft flesh behind its head. It kept coming. Ajax rolled up and struck again, aiming for the same wound. The beast crushed a hired man against a stump before it died. They stood breathing hard over the carcass. The hired man clutched a broken arm. Elara was not here to heal it. Ajax bound it with cloth and turned to Rowan. "It came at the smoke," Ajax said. "Not at us." "It hunts sound and heat," Rowan said. "The smoke pulled it. But once it's up, it hits whatever it touches." He nudged the dead mouth with his boot. "The teeth guard the throat. One strike won't reach. You have to hit twice, same spot." Chalam crouched by the wound. "The second one taught us that. We keep the smoke ahead and to the side. Draw it away from the men." Ajax looked north, where the pair still fed. "Next time we place the flowers wide. It rises there, not on top of us." He wiped his blade. "Rowan hits the neck first to slow the swing. I take the mouth twice." "Then we don't lose a man," Rowan said flat. They skinned the first beast by torchlight. The hide came free thick and whole, worth more than any coat in the port. Ajax rolled it and lashed it to the pack horse. One down. Two left, and a plan that would hold this time. The night was young. The oil still held their steps. Ajax slung his father's blade and started north toward the pair, his men falling in behind him. He had a hide no rival could offer and a way to take two more without bleeding for it.