Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 494 of 619

The next morning Marcus sailed south for the twelve swords. Ajax stayed at the island to meet the new men when they came. He climbed the wall above the gate and watched the water. He had claimed this island fast, before the merchant house could stake it. Now he needed hands to hold it. The swords would arrive on the next run, and he meant to look each man in the eye before he took his oath. Marcus brought them on the fourth tide. Twelve men came off the ship in a line, packs on their shoulders, blades at their hips. Ajax met them in the yard. He walked the line slow, the way he always did. He gripped each man's arm and tested the weight of it. He told them the terms plain: wages, a bed, a share, and a wall to hold. They would answer to him and no one else. Each man agreed. That night he swore all twelve at a fire, one at a time, and hung a silver chain on every neck. When it was done, he set their orders. Six would watch the harbor wall. Four would hold the gate in shifts. Two would guard the grain store. He named the leaders and told them who reported to whom. The island now held a garrison that could stand without him. Bran came down the plank as the last chain was hung. Ajax had sent for his mason across the sea, and here he was, broad and scarred and squinting at the stonework. Bran ran a hand along a cracked wall and frowned. "This won't hold a winter," he said. "The rooms by the well are half fallen. Give me six days." Ajax walked him to the ruined quarters near the old well. Roofs gone, doors rotted, walls split. "Rebuild them for the swords," Ajax said. "Warm men fight better than cold ones." Bran spat in his palm and got to work. He set the hired hands cutting stone and hauling. Within days the walls rose square and true, the roofs went on, and the hearths drew clean smoke. The twelve swords moved into the finished rooms by the well. Grayson called through the caller ring that night. His voice came flat across eight days of sea. "Black Oak holds," he said. "Thirty on the wall. When do the brothers come home?" "Soon," Ajax said. "The island's manned. Bran's housed the swords." "Good." Grayson said nothing more. He never did. Ajax lowered the ring and looked out at the lit windows by the well. Twelve hired men slept warm behind good stone. The island was held. But every wall he raised across the sea pulled his sworn brothers further from home, and now Bran too stood eight days north. He had a garrison. He did not yet have his house under one roof.