Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 336 of 619

The two hearths ate wood too fast. Ajax stood at the woodpile at dawn and counted the split logs again. Half gone, and winter far from over. He could not spare a sworn man to swing an axe all day. He needed a hired hand at the port, one who would keep the racks stocked and ask no questions about the gate. Ajax called Tucker and rode for the port. "I need a woodman," he said on the road. "Strong back, keeps his mouth shut. Splits and stacks and does nothing else." Tucker nodded, gold chains bright in the cold light. "I know a place. Men there work hard and forget faster." He grinned. "Hire one for the winter, chain his tongue with coin, and your racks stay full." At the port Tucker found the man in a yard by the docks, a broad laborer splitting cordwood with a steady swing. Tucker bought him a drink, told a story, and by dusk the man had agreed. Ajax paid a month's wages up front and gave one rule: never speak of the estate. The man swore it and rode north behind them the next morning. While Ajax was gone, the Leafgift Dryad came to Black Oak. She walked the yard on bare feet, bark-skinned, wrapped in broad green leaves, carrying no gift this time but a fresh chisel of pale wood. She had marked Ajax's hall and Bran's table before. Now she went to the newest stone. Rowan met her at the bunkhouse door. He had lived among her kind since childhood, and he greeted her the way a man greets an old aunt, plain and easy. "You came for the carving," he said. It was not a question. "The wood must be bound," the dryad said. "The pact holds the timber that holds your men." Rowan led her through the walls. She laid her hand on the new bunkhouse beams and cut leaf and vine into the wood above the second hearth. She worked into the stable, the arms shed, and every bunk frame. She did not touch the bar, the baths, or the lodge. Rowan noticed. When she passed the bathhouse door without lifting her chisel, he stopped her. "Not there?" "Traders drink there," she said, and cut nothing. "I bind the beds of your sworn and your kept men. Not the rooms where strangers spend silver. It’s best that they do not know of dryad alliances here.” She moved on to the last bunk frame and finished before dark. Ajax returned with the woodman that night. The dryad was gone. The bunkhouse and stable beams bore her fresh leafwork; the bar and lodge stood bare. Ajax set the woodman to the racks at first light. By dusk the split pile behind the kitchen had doubled and would hold through the thaw. The Council would need to be stronger as Black Oak became known. Workers would need to be sworn. The thaw was coming.