Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 317 of 619

Ajax rode through the gate at dawn with the beasts stripped clean. The pouch of teeth hung at his belt, the glands sealed cold, the belly hide packed dry. He had killed three root-beasts and hauled home the parts two men named from behind the walls. Now those two men had to prove the parts were worth the ride. He called Aldric and Tarron to the smithery, where Vello kept the fire low. Grayson and Tucker followed to see the count. Aldric unrolled a cloth and set the teeth on the bench in a row. He held one to the light. "Good root," he said. "Clean at the base. These take a needle better than the Verath. Sharper hold in the eye." He turned it in his fingers. "A healer would pay a season's wage for a set." He set it down. "You lost none to rot. The cold mud held the glands." Tarron took the belly hide next. He rubbed it flesh-side, then grain-side, working it slow with his thumb. "Soft," he said. He pulled it taut and let it go. "Won't crack. Won't stiffen in salt air. Gloves from this last a life." He looked at Ajax. "I can cut ten pair. Maybe twelve." That was all he said, and he set the hide down as a settled thing. Vello took a tooth to the wheel and ground a point on it. The bone held an edge steel could not match. Aldric watched the shaving curl off and gave a short nod. "Needles from that," he said. "And knives from the bigger teeth. Nothing wasted." "Show me," Ajax said. He wanted a made thing, not a promise. They worked through the morning. Vello set a bone needle. Tarron cut and stitched a single glove from the belly hide, quick with the practiced hands of a man who once read fleece like a page. By noon he laid a finished glove on the bench beside the needle and a wrapped vial of the gland oil. Three goods from one beast, made real. Ajax carried the glove, the needle, and the vial to the hall table and set them down before Grayson and Tucker. Grayson picked up the glove and pulled it on. He flexed his hand. "Holds," he said. Nothing more. Tucker lifted the needle to the light and turned it so the point caught the gleam. He had sold cloth and rare goods to ship masters before. He knew what merchants talked about. "Healers will fight over these," he said. "And no port has the hide." He set it down. "You've got three goods off one animal now. Not one. Three." Ajax looked at the row on the table. Teeth, oil, hide, all worked into trade a ship would carry. The hunt had filled the vault. Now the vault would fill a hold. "Store the rest cold," he said. "When the ships come, we sell what no other coast can."