Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 473 of 619

Six days later the ship rode low in the canal at dawn. Marcus Tidewater stood at the helm, the sea captain Ajax hired to sail his hull north and back. Twelve men waited on the wall to load. But when Ajax counted his crew for the island, he came up short. Two of his best fighters had cracked ribs from drill. Another burned with fever. He needed men who would hold an empty town across eight days of water, and he did not have them. "I sail with nine," Ajax said. "That's not enough to man the wall and look like more." Marcus wiped salt from his hands and said it flat. "Nine men on that wall looks like nine men. A merchant house counts. They'll land the second island and wait us out." Tucker leaned on the rail, turning a gold chain in the light. He worked rooms by buying drinks and listening, and he had run more towns than any of them. "Then we don't fill the wall with our men," he said. "We fill the town. Take me to the port. I'll read for warm bodies today." Ajax weighed it. Hired men meant loose tongues eight days away, past any ward. But an empty wall meant losing the town before he held it. "Marco reads them or no one boards," he said. Marco Valentino rode in from the Crossing gate at noon. He was the one man who could hear a lie in a stranger's head, and he did not soften what he heard. He and Tucker went to the port together while Ajax held the dock. They worked the harbor bars through the afternoon. Tucker bought rounds and talked. Marco sat quiet at the end of the bench, listening past the words to the thoughts under them. By dusk they had five men who wanted wages and a bed and carried no allegiance to any harbor master. But Marco stopped Ajax before the ship. "The tall one lied twice," he said. "He's owned by a captain at the north quay. He'd sell the island the day he saw a rival sail." Ajax cut him from the crew. That left four clean men. Four hired, plus his nine, plus Rowan to hunt. Fourteen on the wall. Rowan Fisk came aboard last with his bow, the tracker raised by dryads who could feed a garrison off the land. Chalam laid his hand flat on the deck and spoke over it. "Both islands marked," the wizard said. "I'll know if either falls." Ajax stood on the dock as the crew swore silence on silver chains. Fourteen men. Enough for the wall to look held. He had gone to town for warriors and come back with a crew that would sit in the town before a merchant house could. "Sail on the tide," Ajax told Marcus. The hull slid through the canal toward open water, carrying the men who would hold the far island for Black Oak.