Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 590 of 619

The pilot brought the Seraphine through the last white water at midday. Green over sand, brown over rock, and then a channel wide enough to slip through. The reef fell away behind them. Ahead, past a gray strip of shore, stood a walled town. Smoke rose fresh from behind its stones. On the wall, small figures moved and watched the water. Ajax called his crew to the rail. "Armed men on the wall," he said. "They saw us before we cleared the rock." Rowan crouched low, eyes on the shore. "Six on the wall. Two at the gate. Spears, not bows." He said it flat. "They watch the water, not the land." Aldric unrolled a scrap of hide and studied the town's shape. "No banner. No king's mark. A trade town, then. They fear the sea, not the road." He looked at Ajax. "They will not open the gate to armed strangers. But merchants they know." Ajax decided in a breath. "Then we go in as merchants." He turned to Chalam. "Does the wall carry any working?" Chalam set his hand to the staff and closed his eyes. He held it a long moment. "No ward on the wall. The binding is deeper. Under the town, or past it." He opened his eyes. "They guard against men. They do not know what sleeps below them." They anchored off the shore and rowed in with two casks and a bundle of pale-fur hides. Kael and Torren left their long blades on the boat and carried only short knives under their coats. Tucker went first up the strand, hands open, chains catching the sun. He raised a hand to the gate and called out that he came to trade fur for grain. The gate guards leveled their spears. An older man leaned over the wall and shouted down. He asked where they hailed from and why they crossed cursed water. Tucker laughed and answered easy. He said the water was not cursed, only badly charted, and that he had furs no northern house could match. He held one hide up so it caught the light. Ajax watched the wall. The men there wanted the fur. He saw it in how their spears drifted. Aldric murmured beside him, "They are hungry for trade. Hold your patience." The older man argued with the guards. Then he gave the word. The gate cracked open, wide enough for one man at a time. A guard stepped out and looked over the casks and hides. He touched the fur, felt its weight, and grunted. "Two at a time," the guard said. "Blades stay outside." Ajax gave his knife to Kael, who stayed at the gate with Torren and the boat crew. Ajax, Tucker, Aldric, and Chalam passed through the gap into the town. The gate closed behind them. They were inside the walls now, unarmed and watched, standing over a binding older than his father's line.