Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 530 of 619

The Seraphine turned south at dawn. Marcus held the helm two days down the coast, then anchored off the burned house. Ajax rowed ashore with his crew. He carried his father's blade. Rowan Fisk, his tracker, sat at the bow with a bow across his knees. Chalam had the new staff, the one bound from Verath bone and grove wood. Kael Thorne came for the fight, a knife already loose in his belt. Elara Brightwood watched the shore, a gold band on her wrist that held her light magic. The house was a black shell. Fire had taken the roof and left the walls standing. Rowan stepped over ash and read the ground. "Two men came here before us," he said. "They dug at the floor and quit. Boots, not beasts." Ajax walked to the center. A stone slab sat sunk in the burned earth. Chalam knelt and set the staff against it. His face went tight. "The binding is old. Older than your father's other seals." He opened his satchel and drew powdered chalk. "Something sleeps under here. Whoever burned the house wanted it out." "Then we open it first," Ajax said. Elara studied Chalam's hands. "You're pale. Reading it cost you." "It did," Chalam said. "I'll hold." Rowan climbed a broken wall for a clear line. Kael took the slab's far edge. Ajax cut his palm and pressed blood to the stone, as he had at every seat before. Chalam burned dried grove flowers and spoke the words from the copied book. The slab groaned and cracked along its seam. Cold air rose from the gap. Something moved below. Six limbs scraped stone. "It's waking," Chalam said. "Fast." "Elara," Ajax said. She raised her wrist. Light burst white across the pit as the creature broke the surface. It reared, blind, six pale arms clawing at nothing. Rowan's arrow struck its throat and pulled it wide. Ajax stepped in and drove his father's blade through its open mouth. The creature shuddered and dropped. Kael put his knife through the neck to be sure. The pit went still. Chalam knelt at the edge and burned the last of the flowers into the seam. The stone settled. "Sealed," he said. "Nothing else below." Elara lowered her arm. Her hand shook. "That drained more than it should have." She looked at the ash around them. "But it's dead." Rowan searched the burned floor and found a hatch under fallen beams. He pulled it free. Beneath lay a small pit with gold bars and a leather sack of coin. Ajax took it up. "Whoever burned this place will come back for what they couldn't reach," Ajax said. He looked at the sealed slab and the dead thing under it. "They'll find it closed." He ordered the gold loaded and the crew back to the boat. The threat under the burned earth was ended. His men were whole, and his hold across the sea had one less door left open.