Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 421 of 619

The first cart rolled to the Crossing and back without trouble. Grayson's men guarded it, two to a load. But the trip proved Ajax's second lack. Vello, the grove smith, kept the forge hot, and the armory filled with plain steel week by week. Blades, spearheads, arrow points. Ajax stood in the armory door and counted racks that no one held. He had steel and no arms to swing it. "Weapons don't fight," Ajax told Tucker at the bar. "Men do. Twelve sworn, half of them craftsmen now. If a load gets hit, I need swords, not a shed full of them." Tucker turned his cup in his hand. He knew every dock and tavern on the coast, and he sold a plan the way he sold everything—slow, with the good part held back. "I know men at the port," he said. "Not the Crossing. Ours to swear, not that gatekeeper's to watch." He let it sit. "I bring you six. Marco reads each one before you say a word to him. Any lie, any mark, they never see the gate." Ajax weighed it. The rule held: no man from the Crossing. But the port was his own ground. "Six," he said. "Fit, no debts they'd sell us for. And they swear the Code or they leave with no memory of the road." Tucker rode out at first light and was gone two days. Ajax filled the wait by stacking the armory higher—Vello forged, and the racks grew, until the room held enough steel to arm three times the men Ajax owned. On the fourth day the watch signaled riders. Tucker led six men up the sea road, dusty and armed. He brought them through the gate one at a time, Marco standing at the threshold with his hand loose at his side. Marco read each man as he passed. A broad fighter with a scarred jaw. A quiet one who watched the walls. Two brothers who spoke like brothers. A man with fast hands. A strong red-bearded man who'd held a gate before. Marco gave Ajax the same small nod six times. No collars. No lies. No debts owed to men Ajax couldn't reach. "Clean," Marco said. "They came for wages and a wall to hold. Nothing under it." Ajax walked the line. He put a hand to each chest and felt for the strength Tucker had promised. It was there. He named the terms: wages, a share on the runs, the Code sworn at the fire that night or the gate closed behind them. All six said yes. Ajax led them to the armory and let them see the racks. Six men reached for steel that had waited for hands. Now the cart would roll to the Crossing under real swords, and the wild lands past Southern Oak held one more house that answered to Ajax alone.