Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 420 of 619

They rode home from the Crossing in two days. Ajax carried the merchant's deal in his head the whole way. He had an inland buyer now. What he lacked was a way to move steel and grain there without spilling everything from horseback. By the time the walls of Black Oak rose ahead, he had already sent word for Bran to start work. Aldric met them at the gate. He had a scrap of measured wood in one hand. "A cart," he said, before Ajax could speak. "You want one built for the Crossing run. I heard from Grayson." He laid the wood on the ground and drew in the dirt with his boot. "Two axles. High sides. Room for grain sacks or crated steel. It can make the run every week if the road holds." Bran built it in three days. When it was done, Ajax walked around it once, then loaded a test crate to test the wheels. They held. He had his regular shipment now. But a loaded cart on an open road, week after week, was a target no ward could cover. That was the question he brought to the table. "The Crossing has fighting men," Ajax said. "Sellswords with no lord. Should we hire from there to guard the cart? Or bring them here for the walls?" Grayson answered first, blunt as always. "No. We know nothing of those men. Marco can read them, but not from two days off. Bring in strangers from a town that stranger holds, and we hand him our numbers." Marco set down his cup. He had spent all week reading the merchant's mind at the Crossing. "Grayson's right. The gatekeeper watches who leaves his town. If six of his fighters ride to us, he knows where we are and how many we field." He looked at Ajax. "He already holds a piece of us. Don't give him our sword arm too." Tucker leaned back, chains loose on his chest. "I'll say the other side of it," he said. "We're short of men. Twelve sworn, and half are craftsmen now. If a load gets hit on that road, who rides it out?" He shrugged. "But I won't hire from a town run by one man. Bad odds. You'd be arming his people, not yours." Ajax listened. Every voice landed on the same ground. The Crossing gave him a market, not a garrison. He would not fill Black Oak with men who answered to the man who could sell him out. "No," Ajax said. "We hire no one from the Crossing. Not for the cart, not for the walls." He set his hand flat on Aldric's dirt-drawn plan. "We guard the run with our own. Two sworn men ride each load, armed, under Grayson. And we swear new fighters ourselves, vetted by Marco, from the port and the wild lands. Men who answer to me." Grayson nodded once. The cart would roll to the Crossing. But the swords that guarded it would be Black Oak's alone.