Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 523 of 619

The engines needed hands, and the hands needed swearing. Ajax could not fill both problems with the men he had. He decided to recruit two ways at once. Marco and Chalam would ride the Crossing and the eastern city for fighters. JD would listen at the bars for loose men worth hiring. And whoever they brought would swear at Silvermoor, bound by charmed silver chains he could feel across the sea. Marco met him at the gate before the tide. Ajax had pulled him from the Crossing for this, and the reader still carried the road on him, quiet and sure. "The city buys men cheap," Marco said. "Some for coin, some for a wall. I'll know which is which." He touched the gold bracelet on his wrist, the one he never took off, and turned toward the horses. Ajax trusted him to hear a lie before it left a man's mouth. JD stood by the bar, half-buttoned green shirt open on his chest, watching the room the way Marco watched the road. He was Marco's brother, and he worked harder for the same catch. "I don't read the whole crowd," JD said flat. "I catch the ones who lie about why they came. Give me three nights. I'll hand you clean men." He did not soften it. He turned back to the drinkers and let them talk. Marco and Chalam rode east and worked the trader town for four days. Marco walked the market and heard which swords owed debt and which owed loyalty to no one. Chalam kept the horses and the coin. They came back with six men, each one Marco had read clean at the water. JD's three nights gave four more from the harbor bars, loose men with no port waiting for them. Ajax carried them north to Silvermoor on Marcus's ship. He gathered the ten in the drill yard by the grain store at midnight. He put each man's strength to the test with his own hands, then laid a silver chain on each neck. Chalam charmed every chain to the house before the swearing, binding it with lodestone so Ajax could feel treachery through his father's gold chain. The men spoke their oaths one at a time. Grayson watched from the gate, arms crossed, and gave a short nod when the last voice held steady. Ten new swords stood sworn at Silvermoor. Chalam's charm meant Ajax would feel it the moment any one of them turned. The drill yard would train them; Marcus would carry the ready ones south to work the engines. But now his brotherhood ran on chains he had to feel from eight days off, and every new man was one more link he could not watch with his own eyes.