Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 518 of 619

The northern quarrel was working. But one house door stayed dark, and Ajax could not sleep on a thing he could not see. At dawn he called Aldric and Chalam to the hall. He needed a plan for the third house before it woke. He also needed to decide his next move at home. "We have the north bleeding itself," Ajax said. "Now I want to know what to build here while it lasts." Aldric set his ledger on the table and opened it flat. He was the scholar who kept every count for the house, the man who caught what others missed. He ran a finger down the page. "Silvermoor holds. The island holds. Black Oak's wall is full at thirty men." He looked up. "You have no gap to fill. You have coin to spend and nothing that needs it. That is its own danger." "Idle silver rots a house," Ajax said. "What do we lack?" Aldric turned two pages. "Needles. The red quay buys every one we make. We're out of Verath tooth. Rowan reports no beasts near the coast." He closed the book. "We don't need a building. We need stock. Building more storerooms won't fill them." Chalam stood by the hearth, staff in hand, robe open. He had scried the four houses the night before and spent the last of the red thread doing it. "The third house," he said. "It's still dark. I can't reach it now. The thread's gone." He said it plain, no softening. "That's my failure. I should have held one look back." "You told me three of four believed," Ajax said. "That's enough to work with." He turned to Aldric. "So we build nothing new here." "Nothing," Aldric said. "Every wall you raise brings a mason who sees the canal. You have enough eyes inside these walls already." He tapped the closed ledger. "Send Rowan north with hunters. Fill the hold with hides. That's the move. Not stone." Chalam set his staff against the wall. "And the dark house," he said. "If they didn't take the bait, they may see the letters were false. Then they warn the others. The quarrel dies." Ajax weighed it. Aldric was right that Black Oak needed no new building. The house was whole. The work now was goods, not walls. But the dark house was a knife at his back. "Then we split it," Ajax said. "Aldric, ready the ship for a hide run. Rowan hunts. We fill the hold and keep the quay fed." He looked at Chalam. "You sail with Marco to the north quarter. Read the third house before it can speak. If they know the letters were false, we deal with them there, quiet." Chalam nodded once. "Then I leave on the next tide." Ajax closed his hand on the table's paw mark. Black Oak needed no more stone. It needed one dark door opened before it opened on him first.