Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 555 of 619

At daybreak the split gate stood open. Chalam had rested through the night, and all three vials were full again. Ajax gathered his men at the stair's top. Kael checked his knife. Torren stood ready by the gap. Rowan tested the air with a slow breath and shook his head. "No rot," Rowan said. "No damp beast smell. This passage is dry stone, nothing living in it." Ajax looked into the dark. The passage ran straight, then bent left where the light died. He drew his father's blade. "We need light. Torches." "No dry wood up here," Torren said. "Rock and salt grass, nothing that burns clean." Kael turned toward the stair. "The reef throws up driftwood. I saw a pile at the water line when we climbed." He did not wait for the order. He went down the invisible steps by feel, one hand on the cliff. He came back with an armload of gray sticks, dry from months of sun and wind. "These will burn," Rowan said. He ran a thumb along one branch. "Old and light. They'll take a flame fast and burn hot for an hour." Chalam knelt and struck a spark from his flint into a bundle of salt grass. The dry driftwood caught at once. He held the first torch until the flame steadied, then passed it to Kael. Torren lit a second from the first. The fire threw yellow light across the split stone and the dark mouth beyond. "Two torches," Ajax said. "Kael leads with one. Torren holds the second at the rear. Rowan reads the ground. Chalam behind me with the staff." He looked at each man. No one argued. "We go in." Kael stepped through the gap first. The torchlight ran ahead of him down the cut. Ajax followed, blade up. The passage was tighter inside than it looked, the walls close and worked smooth by old hands. Their boots stirred no dust that hadn't already settled for centuries. They reached the bend. Kael raised his torch and stopped. The light fell into a wide chamber cut from the rock. Ajax came up beside him. Against the far wall stood rows of iron collars, stacked and rusted. Beside them lay a stone table, and on it a spiral token, the same mark Ajax had crossed off six times on his father's list. Chalam moved past Ajax and set his staff to the floor. His face went tight. "There's a binding here after all. Old. Under the table." He looked up. "The maker didn't seal the gate to keep men out. He sealed it to guard this." Ajax stared at the collars and the mark. He had thought this ground was empty, waiting to be claimed. It was not. It was another prison, and it belonged to whoever left the token behind. "Rowan," Ajax said. "Find the seam in that floor. We're not leaving until I know what's under it."