Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 477 of 619

Marcus sailed south with JD's eight fighters and Bran's finished tools. Ajax stood at the island gate and watched the sail shrink to a dot. Eight men bound for Grayson's wall. Not enough. Aldric had counted the true need before they ever left home, and the number sat in Ajax like a stone. He found the scholar in the harbor hall, ledger open on his knee. Aldric had followed Ajax across a sea to keep this count, and he kept it now with grey hair in the wind and no softness in his voice. "How short is Black Oak?" Ajax asked. Aldric ran his finger down the page. "Grayson holds with twenty. He needs thirty to man every slit and gate through a hard season." He looked up. "Eight men close half the gap. You are still short six." Ajax pulled the caller ring from his cord and closed his hand around it. The gnome-forged band carried his voice south to Grayson across eight days of water. He spoke into it. "Grayson. Eight men sail to you with Bran. Read clean by JD. Swear them and drill them." The ring warmed. Grayson's answer came flat and short, the way he gave everything. "Eight helps. Still light on the west wall. Need six more before I call it held." "You'll have them," Ajax said. "I'll not leave your back bare." "Don't make promises to the wall," Grayson said. "Make them to me." The ring cooled. That was Grayson's way. He answered to the gate and shelf, never to a man, and he would say so to Ajax's face until the day he died. Aldric marked the number. "Six more for the south. And this rock still holds twenty who belong at home." He shut the book. "You are one force stretched across two lands. That is not a brotherhood. That is a rumor of one in two places." The words landed hard because they were true. Ajax had built a house that answered only to him. Now half of it sat on a rock in the north sea and the other half stood thin behind a southern wall. "Then we fix the count for good," Ajax said. "JD keeps recruiting here until the island holds with hired men only. Every sworn brother sails home. Grayson gets his thirty. My council gathers back under one roof." Aldric studied him. "That empties the island of your own." "The island is walls and grain. Hired swords hold walls." Ajax gripped the rail. "My brothers hold me." He raised the ring once more. "Grayson. Six more coming on the next tide north JD reads clean. Marcus runs two loads. When your wall's full, send my sworn men back to me one crew at a time." "Understood," Grayson said. "I'll count them at the gate myself and drill them daily." The ring went quiet. Ajax had chosen. Fill Grayson's wall first, hold the island with paid men, and pull his true house back whole. The count was set. Now it only wanted tides.