Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 409 of 619

By midday the creature was close. Chalam stood at the grove line, his new staff in one hand. In the other he held a small clay jar. Ajax watched him unstop it and dip two fingers inside. He drew out dark oil and rubbed it along the staff's shaft, from the head to his grip. "What is that?" Ajax asked. "Grove oil," Chalam said. He worked it into the wood. "The dryad gave it with the staff. It hardens the grain. Holds a reading longer. Makes it slower to crack." He did not look up. "Last one broke when I read this thing at distance. This one should not." Ajax nodded. He had lost his eyes into the ground once already. He would not lose them again in the fight. Aldric came from the hall with the copied marks. He watched Chalam finish the oil. "You are certain it holds?" he asked. He did not soften it. "If the staff fails when the beast surfaces, we are blind and it is on us." "Certain of nothing," Chalam said. "But the oil is meant for this. It is my best chance." Aldric accepted that with a short nod. "Then it is what we have." Elara stepped past them toward the line. She had ridden beside Ajax since the coast road, a healer who took no oath but fought with light when it was needed. She pulled back her sleeve. Her gold band caught the sun. It had been drinking moonlight for many nights, and it sat heavy on her wrist now, brighter than Ajax had seen it. "I have a full charge," she said. "More than full. It has been filling for weeks with nothing spent." She turned her wrist so Ajax saw the glow. "When the thing breaks the surface, I can burn its eyes and hold its head still. Long enough for you to drive iron into the mouth." Ajax studied her. "That empties the band." "It does," Elara said. "But a blind beast is a dead beast. I would rather spend it than save it and lose men." Ajax weighed both offers. A staff that might hold a reading through the fight. A band that could blind the creature at the moment it surfaced. He had come to the grove line with iron and a pact. Now he had eyes underground and light above. "Then we set it," Ajax said. "Chalam reads the ground and calls where it rises. Elara waits for the surface, then blinds and holds. I strike the mouth." He looked at Aldric. "Clean terms. Everyone knows his part." "Clean," Aldric agreed. Chalam turned his staff to the soil. His face went still, then tightened. "It has stopped," he said. "Under us. Feeling for the trees." He gripped the oiled shaft. "It comes up now." The ground swelled beneath the grove line. Ajax set his feet and lifted his father's blade.