Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 404 of 619

At dawn Ajax rode north with Rowan. Tucker and Marco had already left for the crossing to hire fighters. The Verath hides waited half a day out, but the teeth on the hall table gnawed at Ajax more than the hides. Three beasts did not gather. Something had driven them. He meant to find out what. They reached the kill by midmorning. The three carcasses lay where Rowan had left them, coiled and stiff. Rowan dismounted and crouched at the deer they had been feeding on. He did not speak for a while. He turned the horse's bones in his hands, then pointed north with two fingers. "They came from there," Rowan said. "Fast. Not hunting. Fleeing." He rose and studied the tree line. "Verath dig. They don't run in the open unless something worse is behind them." Ajax looked where Rowan pointed. The woods stood too quiet. No birds. No wind in the high branches. He had learned to trust that stillness. It meant a grove gone wrong. "How far?" Ajax asked. "Follow the drag marks." Rowan knelt and traced a long groove in the soil where a Verath tail had cut the earth. "They lead back the way they came. An hour, maybe less." They quickly took the hides, teeth, and bones and returned to Black Oak to return with a bigger team.