Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 479 of 619

The harbor shops were mending. Roofs went back on. Doors hung true again. But Ajax had held the front of the town and never walked its back. He found Aldric at the well with the ledger open and told him what he meant to do. "The front looks alive," Ajax said. "I don't know what's behind it. Rooms, stores, more homes. I hold walls I've never crossed." Aldric closed the book and stood. He was the scholar who had counted every shop and hearth for Ajax since they came ashore, and he counted this the same way. "Then we walk it," he said. "You can't defend ground you haven't seen." They went past the mended row and into the streets behind. The lanes narrowed. Aldric marked each door as they passed. "Store house here," he said, pushing a swollen door. Inside, sacks sat stacked to the beams. He pressed one and grain slid loose. "Full. Dry. Someone sealed it before they ran." Ajax looked at the piled sacks. "How long would this feed men?" "A season for thirty," Aldric said. "Maybe two if we ration." He wrote it down. "That changes what you can hold. Grain buys time. Time buys settlers." They walked on. The homes behind the store stood better than the harbor row. Fire had spared them. Aldric counted eleven with roofs, shutters shut, hearths cold but whole. He opened one and stepped inside. A table, two stools, a bed frame. "They left in a hurry," he said. "But they left it standing." Ajax ran his hand along the wall stone. Thick. Sound. "These are better than the shops." "Because the fire never reached them," Aldric said. He marked the last door. "Eleven homes ready now. No work needed. Beds for men tonight if you want them." At the end of the lane they found a wider building. Aldric stopped. "This was a hall. Look at the hearth." A great stone hearth filled one wall. Long benches lay overturned. "They gathered here. Ate here. A town needs a place like this to be a town." Ajax stood in the empty hall and saw it plain now. Not broken streets. A working town under the dust. Grain to feed. Homes to sleep in. A hall to gather. "Write it all," Ajax said. "Store, homes, hall. What holds, what needs mending." Aldric wrote. "Eleven homes sound. A full grain store. One hall wanting benches and a fire." He looked up. "You held a wall and a harbor row. Behind it you hold a town that can live." Ajax took the caller ring from his cord. "Bran. When the shops are done, set benches in the back hall and lay a fire in it." The ring warmed with Bran's answer. The inner ward was no longer a blank space behind his wall. He knew what he held now, room by room. He could move his brothers home and settle hired men in beds that stood ready. The town would hold.