Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 411 of 619

The men hauled the dead beast's parts back to Black Oak by dawn. Ajax laid the hide, teeth, and bones on the workhouse floor. He had killed the thing at the grove line and filled his ship's hold with its skin. Now he wanted the rest worked into something his men could use. He called for Aldric Thornwick, the scholar who knew every creature in his books, to say what the parts were worth. Aldric knelt over the pile. He turned a tooth in his fingers and held it to the light. "Sharper than steel," he said. "These take a fine point. Needles, if you want them. The bone runs long and hard. Weapon shafts. Spearheads." He set the tooth down. "Nothing wasted here." Ajax nodded. "Then work it. All of it." For two days Vello ground the teeth into needles at the forge. Aldric fitted the long bones into hafts and edged them with iron. The bones made spears that would not snap. The needles filled a padded case, each one worth a healer's season. Ajax watched the pile of raw parts become a pile of made goods. It was the thing he wanted, a house that turned every kill into arms and coin. On the second dusk, the sea watch called down from the blind. A sail. Ajax knew it before Grayson said the name. The ship was home. Tucker came through the canal ahead of the crew. He had ridden north with the captain and the gold. Ajax had not seen him in a fortnight. Tucker still wore his two flat chains and his easy grin, but his boots were caked with harbor salt and his eyes were tired. "Miss me?" Tucker said. He looked at the case of needles on the table. "You've been busy." He picked one up and turned it, the way he turned everything, weighing what it would fetch. "The red house will take these. All of them. And they'll ask for more." "The gold?" Ajax asked. "Sold. Steel and grain in the hold." Tucker set the needle down. "Marcus held to his word. So did I." He said it plain, no apology in it. Ajax turned to Aldric. "Case the needles. Crate the spears. They go north on the next run." Aldric closed the padded lid. "That's the whole beast accounted for," he said. "Every part. Nothing left to rot." Ajax looked at the goods stacked for the ship and the fighters filling his walls. He had come here alone to build a warrior house. Now his men made weapons from monsters and traded them across the sea. But Tucker's news sat heavy. Something in the north woods had driven the beast south. Whatever it was still waited there. And now Ajax had a proven route, a full hold, and men enough to go looking for it. "Load the ship," Ajax said. "Then we ride north again."