Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 416 of 619

At first light they rode north off the burned grove. Rowan led, bent low over his horse, reading the ground. Chalam held the new staff across his saddle. Elara rode near the middle, her band charged full. By midday the trees thinned and the smell of rot grew thick. Rowan stopped at a low ridge and dropped from the saddle. He crouched and pressed his palm flat against the dead soil. "The prints end here," he said. "Everything ran from this place. Nothing walked toward it." He pointed down into a shallow bowl of land where the trees had gone black and bare. "That's the heart of it." Chalam dismounted and set the staff against the ground. He spoke three words. Light gathered at the tip and sank. He held it a long moment, then pulled the staff back and gripped it hard. "There," he said, and pointed to a split in the rock at the bowl's center. "The binding is under that seam. Iron rings, old ones. Three centuries of them. Two have already snapped." "How many hold it now?" Ajax asked. "Four. Maybe three." Chalam's voice went flat. "When the last breaks, it comes out all at once. Not a beast. Something older. It won't stop at the grove." Elara knelt by the seam and laid her hand near the crack. She drew it back fast. "Cold," she said. "Colder than frost. It's awake down there. It knows we're standing on it." Ajax looked at the split rock. He had killed six creatures under stones like this. This one was different, and every man there knew it. He could ride home and set his walls. Or he could open the seam and end the thing before the last ring broke on its own. "We don't wait," Ajax said. "We open it here, on our terms, before it opens itself." He turned to Chalam. "Can you cut the binding without waking it fully?" "Not cut it," Chalam said. "Reseal it. If I lay fresh iron across the seam and speak the old words, the rings hold again. Longer this time." He looked at his satchel. "I have chalk and lodestone. I don't have iron enough. And I need blood to close it. His blood." He nodded at Ajax. Rowan stood. "There's iron in the pack. The bone spears took iron hafts. We can drive those." Ajax weighed it. Kill the thing, or bind it shut for another lifetime. Killing meant opening the seam and facing what poured out. Sealing meant it slept, and slept far from his walls. "We seal it," Ajax said. "Drive the iron. Chalam speaks the words. My blood closes it." He drew his father's blade and set the edge to his palm. "We came to end the threat. This ends it." He named the plan, and they set to work before the light failed.