Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 316 of 619

The three hides lay skinned and rolled by the time the smoke died. Ajax stood over the two carcasses and thought of the meat and bone left behind. Verath came apart into more than hide. Teeth for needles. Glands for oil. Bone for knives. But Aldric was two days south behind the walls, and only Aldric knew what parts held worth. Ajax pulled the bronze ring from his cord. The ring sent one thought at a time, one way, to Tucker at the gate. Ajax had used it before for supply runs. Now he pressed it and shaped the message plain. Two beasts down. All hides taken. What do Aldric and Tarron want kept from the carcass. Wake them. He held the ring a moment longer to be sure it carried, then let it drop against his chest. Rowan crouched by a beast's jaw. "Teeth are the money," he said. "But I don't know which cuts spoil by morning." Ajax nodded. That was the trouble. Without word from home, they would haul dead weight and lose the good parts to rot on the road. He waited. The men set the last hide on the pack horse. The night stayed mild. Then the ring warmed against his skin, and Tucker's answer came through in a run of words, blunt and quick. Aldric says teeth first, all of them, pulled whole. Cut the two throat glands, wrap them cold. Tarron wants the belly hide off the second beast, it's softer, good for gloves. Leave the rest. Ride home before the glands turn. Ajax repeated it aloud. Rowan went to work with a bone knife, prying teeth from the jaw and dropping them in a pouch. Chalam split the throats and drew out the pale glands, wrapping them in oiled cloth pressed with cold stream mud. The healed hunter freed the second beast's belly hide, careful the way Tarron would want. The ring warmed once more. Tarron's own words this time, flat and short. Roll the glove hide flesh-side in. Keep it dry. Ajax turned the belly hide and packed it as told. They worked fast. Teeth in the pouch. Glands cold and sealed. Three full hides and the soft belly piece lashed tight to the horses. Everything of worth, named by two men who never left home, carried now on Ajax's word alone. "That's all of it," Ajax said. He tied the pouch of teeth to his own belt. The bronze ring had held. His men at the walls had answered, and his men in the woods had done the cutting. Black Oak reached from the gate to this burned grove now, one house working as one. He swung up on his horse. "We ride," he said. "Home by dawn." The party turned south with the beasts stripped clean, nothing valuable left behind, and the trade stock riding home in the dark.