Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 450 of 619

The tapestries hung, but Ajax could not sit still beneath them. Trade had grown fat. Silver filled the vault. The city east and the red quay house north both took his goods and paid well. He no longer needed the northern port for cloth or grain. He called Aldric, Tucker, and Captain Marcus to the round table. "The ship idles at the dock," he said. "I want it hunting. Not trading. Sailing the coast for rare beasts to hunt and forage." Aldric spread a map across the wood. He traced the shoreline north and south with one finger. "We know the eight-day run north. Nothing else. No harbors. No landings." He looked up. "A ship that hunts must land where no chart shows a bottom. That drowns crews." Marcus said nothing at first. He was Ajax's captain, bound by silver chain, hard to read at any dock. He studied the map, then set his thumb on a stretch of blank coast a day south. "I've passed that water. Rocks under the surf. No dock. No safe run for a ship." "Then we do not send the ship," Ajax said. "We send men in a small boat from the ship. Land, hunt, return." Tucker leaned back, chains bright on his chest. He knew how to weigh a bad idea gently. "I've heard sailors talk. Coast beasts worth silver. Pale seals, oil beasts." He shrugged. "Also heard the men who go after them don't always come home. No walls out there. No gate to run behind." "Rowan can track on any ground," Ajax said. "Chalam can mask our scent. We hunted worse in the north woods." "On horses," Aldric said. "With a wall two days behind you." He folded the map. "A hull is not built to beach. Wreck it once and the northern trade dies with it. You'd trade a proven silver route for a guess." Ajax looked at the ship panel on the wall. The dark sail against pale cloth. He had wanted it doing more than carrying bolts of wool. But Aldric was right, and he had learned to hear it. "Marcus," he said. "Could a smaller boat do it? One built to beach. Not the hull." Marcus nodded once. "A shallow boat. Two men row. Land soft on sand. Leaves the ship safe at anchor." Ajax set his hand flat on the table. "Then the ship keeps trading north as it does. We build a beaching boat beside it. Small. When the coast is calm, Rowan and two men row in, hunt a day, row out. No risk to the hull." Aldric wrote it in the ledger without argument. Tucker grinned. "Cheaper than a wreck." Marcus stood. "I'll draw the boat. Flat bottom. Ready in ten days." Ajax had his answer. The ship would not gamble itself on blind coast. A second, smaller craft would hunt the shore. He had turned a reckless hope into a plan his men could survive, and opened a new coast to feed his brotherhood.