Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 528 of 619

The slab under the burned house would wait. Ajax loaded the two quilled hides and pushed the boat south again at dawn. The first beasts had filled less than half the hold. He needed the rest before he could turn back to the stone. Rowan crouched at the bow and read the shore. He raised a hand near midday. "Two more," he said. "One large. One young." He pointed to a gap in the rocks where a stream cut down to the water. "They come to drink there at dusk. The young one lags. The big one leads." Ajax ran the boat into a cove below the gap. They climbed the rocks on foot and found the trail Rowan had marked, worn smooth by feet that came the same way each night. Ajax set the plan the way he always did on this coast. Rowan would strike first from cover. Chalam would mask their scent and hold the young beast if it broke. Ajax would take the mouth with his father's blade. "Oil," Ajax said. Chalam pulled a vial from his satchel and worked the stopper. His hands moved slower than Ajax liked. The wizard had spent two days dull since his last hard working, and it still showed. "It will hold through dusk," Chalam said. He rubbed the oil along their arms and the rocks at their backs. "They will smell the stream. Not us." They waited in the rocks until the light went gray. The big beast came first, quills flat along its spine, moving with its head low. The young one trailed behind, exactly as Rowan had said. Rowan drew and loosed. The arrow took the big beast behind the front leg. It reared and screamed and swung toward the sound. Ajax was already moving. He came in under the swing and drove the blade up through the open mouth. The beast dropped and did not rise. The young one bolted for the rocks. Chalam struck the ground with his new staff and roots burst up and caught its legs. It thrashed and could not break free. Rowan put two arrows in its throat. Ajax finished it with the blade. Both beasts lay still. No man was cut. Rowan knelt over the big one and ran his hand along the fur. "Better hide than the last," he said. "Thicker. It will make a coat worth two." Chalam leaned on his staff. "That is the last of them on this stretch," he said. "I feel nothing else moving. The tracks north all point away from the water now." Ajax looked at the two carcasses, then north toward the burned house he had marked. The hold was full. The first two beasts were done. The trade was met. "Skin them," Ajax said. "We load tonight." He wiped the blade clean. "Then we come back for the stone."