Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 544 of 619

The cold hull held, and the western bay was Ajax's to work. But Rowan now ran a hunting crew west past Silvermoor on a set schedule, killing beasts by the river bay before thaw. The hides came home fast. Too fast. When Ajax reached Black Oak with the frozen haul, Aldric met him at the workhouse door with his ledger open and his mouth set. "The bay fills the ship," Aldric said. "The workhouse can't keep up. Rowan sends more hides than my men can tan." He turned the ledger toward Ajax. "Six raw pelts sit in the cold store now, unworked. In a week it's twenty. Then they rot cold instead of warm, and we've gained nothing." Ajax read the numbers. The hunt worked. The trade worked. The middle did not. "Then we build the middle," he said. "What does the bay need?" Tucker leaned against the workhouse wall, arms crossed, one gold chain catching the light. He'd sailed south with the haul and heard the same complaint at the dock. "It needs a station," he said. "Out there. Skinning, salting, tanning, all of it at the bay. Ship the finished goods, not the raw hides." He shrugged. "No sense hauling weight that spoils." Aldric shook his head once. "A station means men living there. Sworn men, or the hides walk off and our route talks at the next port." "Then sworn men," Ajax said. Chalam had come up from the dock, dull-eyed and slow from the hull charm, but he heard enough. "Cold," he said. "A skinning station needs cold stores that hold. My charm on a hut costs a day of my head each time it fails." Ajax weighed it. A tannery hut at the bay. Cold stores charmed to hold. Sworn men to work and guard it. Racks, salt, a hearth, a wall against beasts drawn by the blood. "One building," he said. "Skin and tan at the bay. Ship only finished hides. Chalam charms the cold once, deep in the wood, the way you did the hull." Chalam rubbed his eyes. "That I can do. Once. Not weekly." "Once is what I'm asking." They sailed within three days. Bran came to cut stone. Rowan chose the ground above the river bay, high and dry, sightlines clear. The masons raised a squat hut with racks along both walls and a hearth at the back. Chalam chalked the cold store, poured lodestone thick, and struck the charm into the boards until frost bloomed. Then he sat in the dirt and said nothing for a day. Ajax stood in the finished hut. Salt in barrels. Racks strung and empty, waiting. Four sworn men set to skin and tan and hold the ground. The raw hides would never leave the bay again. Only worked leather sailed home now, and the workhouse breathed. Black Oak had built its first outpost at the hunting grounds, and it answered to Ajax alone.