Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 40 of 619

Before dawn, Ajax walked out past the picket line with Chalam beside him. The wizard carried his flute and his staff. Ajax carried nothing but the gold chain at his neck and the short sword at his hip. They needed marrowroot in quantity, and they needed a smith who would forge iron that could bite through spiral doors. Neither thing sat in a market stall. "Call her," Ajax said. Chalam raised the flute and blew a note Ajax could barely hear. He blew it three times. Then he lowered the flute and waited. She stepped out of a stand of birch as if she had been there all along. Bark skin, a dress of broad green leaves, flowers held loose in one hand. The dryad who had drawn the hall for him in the dirt. She looked at Ajax first, then at the wizard. "You came back sooner than I thought," she said. "I need marrowroot," Ajax said. "A double handful, pulped. Enough to sicken twelve men through one well." She considered him. "Marrowroot grows where my sisters keep the wet shade. It is not given lightly." "The man in the hall sent hunters into your groves," Ajax said. "He'll send more." "I know what he sent." She turned the flowers in her hand. "You will have your double handful by dusk. My sisters will bring it to your healer at the ridge." "There's a second thing," Ajax said. "Plain iron won't cut those doors. I need blades that will. The old smith in the deep grove won't forge again — my father's debt is paid." A rustle behind her. The gnome stepped through the ferns in his round glasses and green vest, boots muddy to the ankle. He had brought Ajax the seven blades at the shelf. He looked up at Ajax without surprise. "You want a second smith," the gnome said. "A quiet one." "One who won't send word south." The gnome adjusted his glasses. "There is a woman two valleys west who works iron in a shed behind her house. She took no apprentice. She takes no orders from the towns. She'll want silver and a reason." "She'll have both." "I'll walk you to her at first light tomorrow," the gnome said. "Bring your wizard. She will not shake a stranger's hand without a working laid on the door." Chalam nodded once. The dryad set two flowers into Ajax's palm and closed his fingers around them. "For your healer. So the pulping goes clean." She stepped back into the birches and was gone. The gnome tipped his head and followed. Ajax walked back to camp with the flowers in his fist. He had the poison for the well and a smith for the gate. He also had two more names who knew where he slept, and a hall two days southeast whose master already knew one of his hunters was dead.