Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 361 of 619

The grower measured the plums and named her days. Ajax had wine coming at last. But that same morning the leaf-skinned dryad walked through the canal with flowers in her arm, and Ajax knew she never came without a price attached to her gift. She set the flowers on the hall table. "You closed my doors," she said. "I owe you still. But I bring a warning with the debt." Her bark-skinned hand smoothed a leaf on her dress. "Three beasts feed in my far grove. Bigger than any you have hunted. Same as the ones you took before, but grown old and huge." Aldric leaned forward. "Which beast?" "The pale-fur," she said. "Three of them. Their hides would last four lifetimes. Their teeth are worth a healer's whole stock." Aldric turned to Ajax. "Three whole hides that size fill a ship's hold alone. No other port has them. One master buys the lot and tells every captain he knows." Rowan stood by the door, still as he always was. "Three big ones together hunt smarter," he said. "They hear each other. Kill one, the others go quiet and circle." "Can we take them?" Ajax asked. Rowan thought. "With the oil to hide our scent. And Chalam to slow them." He paused. "We kill them one at a time. Fast. Or not at all." The ship's sail sat two days out. Ajax weighed it. Fill the hold with common goods and look poor, or bring hides no captain had ever seen. "We ride at dawn," he said. "Rowan leads. Chalam and four hunters. Grayson holds the gate." They found the far grove by dusk the next day. Three great shapes moved beneath the dead trees, each twice the size of any pale-fur before. Rowan spread the scent oil and set the men in the pines. "I take the neck first," he whispered. "You take the mouth. We do it before the others wake." Rowan's arrow struck the nearest beast in the throat. It thrashed. Ajax drove his father's blade through its open mouth and the thing dropped. The other two turned toward the sound at once, low and circling, just as Rowan had said. Chalam raised his staff. Roots burst up and gripped the second beast's legs. It roared and heaved against them. Rowan loosed again, then Ajax struck. The mouth. The blade sank home. Two down. The third came fast through the dark. A hunter fell back. Ajax stepped into its charge and jammed the blade up as its jaws snapped wide. The beast crumpled at his feet. No man was lost. They skinned all three whole by torchlight. Ajax rolled the hides onto the horses, teeth and glands wrapped tight. He touched his father's chain and looked at the three great pelts. "These bring the first ship," he said. "And every ship after it." He rode home before dawn, the hold now filled, the house one hunt richer.