Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 469 of 619

The doors to the new bedrooms still leaned unhung when the ship came in. Ajax had thought the dryad's mark was the last work of the season. Then Marcus Tidewater walked up from the canal with something rolled under his arm. The captain who ran Ajax's ship north had been gone eight days. He did not smell of northern silver. He smelled of ash. "Found this on the coast," Marcus said. He spoke plain, the way he always did. "House burned to the ground two days south. Not a raid. Old fire. I went ashore for water." He held out the roll. "This was under a floor stone. Wrapped in oiled hide. The fire never touched it." Ajax took it to the Council Hall and spread it on the round table. It was a map. Two islands, drawn small and careful, sat off the coast a day's sail from the northern harbor. A hand had marked both with ink long dried. "Send for Aldric," Ajax said. Aldric came with his ledger and bent over the table. He did not touch the map at first. He looked. His finger moved above the ink, tracing the coast, then the water gap. "The line is a shore line," Aldric said. "This mark is not a warhouse. It is a town wall. A square that size holds people, not gold." He tapped the ring of dots on the second island. "This is unknown." "A city," Ajax said. "A city," Aldric agreed. "Small. Walled. And close to the northern market you already trade." He straightened. "The fire that took the house was old. Whoever drew this is likely dead. But the islands are not." Marcus leaned on the table. "I've sailed that water. Never landed. No banner. No king's ships." He looked at Ajax. "Same as the market city. No one to answer to." Ajax pressed his palm flat on the wolf paw carved in the table's center. The wood was warm under his hand. He thought of thirty sworn men and a vault that would fill before spring. He thought of walls that answered to no lord. "Then we know what it is," Ajax said. "Not treasure. Land. Unheld land with water and a wall already standing." Aldric wrote a line in the ledger. "You mean to take men there." "I mean to see it first." Ajax rolled the map and gave it to Aldric. "Keep this in the vault. Marcus, how many days to reach it and hold?" "One day there. One day back." Marcus did not soften it. "If the water's calm." Ajax looked at the empty chairs around the table. His brotherhood had a coast now, and a place beyond it that no one else claimed. Then we wait.