Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 539 of 619

The new captain was sworn, and the second hull was rising on the ways. But a bigger ship needed more hands than the wharfs could spare. Ajax needed men who could pull an oar and swing a blade both, and the rich bay west of Silvermoor held thirty-one beasts waiting. He called Rowan, Chalam, and Kael to the hall at dawn. Rowan came in dusty from the ridge, his bow across his back. He set a pale hide on the table without a word. "Southern ground's picked clean," he said. "The new bay carries the season. But two crews can't hunt and load it with the men we have." Chalam leaned on his staff, the hybrid one of bone and grove wood. His eyes were clear again, no longer clouded from the last hard reading. "We need six who can hold an oar and hold a line," he said flat. "Hunters that double as sailors. Fewer mouths, more work from each." Kael stood by the wall, knife already turning in his hand. He judged men fast. "I'll test them," he said. "A sailor who can't gut a beast is dead weight. A fighter who spews over the rail is worse." Ajax set his hand on the table. "Then that's the man we want. Both, in one skin." He looked at Rowan. "You ride the wharfs with Tucker's word. Find six who've worked a deck and drawn blood. Kael tests each hand and each blade. Chalam strips their charms and reads them clean before any oath." Rowan and Kael left on the morning tide. They came back on the fourth with six men, salt-cured and hard. Kael had them wrestle on the quay and cut rope one-handed. Two he sent home before the boat left. The other four held. Rowan brought two more from a fishing crew whose captain had drowned, men who knew both net and knife. Chalam took each one in the yard. He rubbed pressed chalk on their necks and stripped what silver they wore. "Clean," he said, again and again, until the sixth. That one carried a charmed cord under his shirt. Chalam broke it in his hand. "Merchant work," he said. "He'd have hidden a lie." Ajax sent him off with coin and no memory of the canal. Rowan found one more to fill the sixth seat, a quiet man off a wrecked hull. Kael tested him twice. Chalam read him twice. He held. At midnight Ajax bound the six with charmed silver chains, linked to the gold at his own throat. They swore the oath in the drill yard, blades in hand. Each knelt and rose sworn. JD reads his thoughts them all as clean.