Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 548 of 619

With Silvermoor bound, Ajax turned his mind west. But Marcus brought word first. A drover at the harbor spoke of a large island beyond the bay, uncharted, ringed by cliffs, with fresh water and no lord's mark. Ajax called his council to the harbor hall to weigh it. Aldric spread a fresh sheet on the table. He drew the coast from memory, then left a wide gap. "That's all we know. Past the bay, blank. If the island exists, it sits in water no one has mapped. Rocks we can't see. Reefs that break hulls." He set down his pen. "I won't chart what I haven't walked." Chalam leaned on the bone staff. "I can mask us from beasts. I can freeze the hold. I can't push water off a reef. If the Seraphine strikes stone eight days out, no one pulls us home." Rowan sat by the wall. He spoke without moving. "Cliffs and fresh water. That means game comes down to drink. If the island's whole, the hunting's whole too. Untouched." Marco stood at the door, arms folded. "The drover wasn't lying. He'd seen the cliffs himself, from a fishing skiff blown off course. But he was scared of the water. Something about the crossing." He shrugged. "Fear, not knowledge. He didn't know why." Ajax weighed it. A whole island of untouched ground would feed his house for years. No lord, no council, no gatekeeper. It was the wild land he had ridden out to claim, only larger than any wall he had built. But the risk was the ship, and the ship was his trade route. Lose it, and the north closed. "We don't sail the Seraphine blind," Ajax said. "We scout small first. The coastal boat, oars and a short mast, four men. If it wrecks, I lose a skiff, not the trade." Aldric nodded once. "That I'll allow. Rowan reads the shore. Chalam sounds the reef ahead. I'll chart every rock we pass, so the Seraphine can follow the line later." "And if the island's empty and rich," Ajax said, "we hold it like we held Silvermoor. Small crew. Walls first. Then men." Rowan met his eyes. "When?" "Two days. Water and salt stocked for six. We row out from the bay at the falls and follow the current the drover named." Ajax set his hand flat on Aldric's map, over the blank gap. "Chart it as we go. This ground has no name yet. It will." Aldric drew a small square in the empty water and marked it with a question. "Then it's decided. We look before we leap." He closed the ledger. "But understand, Ajax. Past this line, if we run wrong, no ring reaches us. We'll be alone." "Then we don't run wrong," Ajax said. The scout was set. In two days he would sail past the last mapped water to claim what no man had walked.