Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 591 of 619

The gate closed behind them. Inside, the town pressed close—narrow stalls, low roofs, and men who watched from doorways. Ajax kept his hands open and his pace slow. He had left his blade at the boat. He had also left Marco outside the walls, and now he wished he had not. He needed to know the men in this town before they moved against him. He needed to know what slept beneath their feet. Tucker led them to a grain stall and haggled loud enough to fill the street. It gave Ajax cover to watch. He caught Chalam's eye and tipped his head toward the ground. Chalam walked slow, one hand loose on his staff. He did not raise it. He let its foot drag the packed dirt as if he leaned on it from age. Ajax knew better. The wizard was feeling for the binding. "Ajax," said a low voice at his shoulder. Marco. He had come through the gate on the last trade party, chain hidden under a plain coat, and Ajax had not seen him slip in. That was Marco's way—there, then not, then there again. "I told you to hold the boat," Ajax said. "You needed me," Marco said. He did not smile. He kept his eyes moving over the men in the doorways. "You wanted to know them. I know them now." "Then tell me." Marco spoke plain, watching the crowd, not Ajax. "Frightened men. They think we bring the sickness that emptied the last town down the coast. The old one at the wall is council. He wants the fur bad enough to take the risk. The two at the gate want us gone. None of them carry a mark. None serve a house. This is their own fear, not another man's leash." Ajax let out a breath. No collar. No spiral. No hand of the Keeper's kind reaching this far west. "And the thing below?" Chalam had stopped by a well cover set into the stones. He crouched, one palm flat to the ground, staff across his knees. When he rose his face was gray. "It is old," Chalam said. He kept his voice low and flat. "Older than the seats your father set. Older than his line. It does not sleep like the others. It waits." He looked at Ajax. "The binding above it was made to keep men out, not the thing in. Someone did not want it woken. They wanted it forgotten." "Can you open it?" "Not with what I carry." Chalam's jaw tightened. "And I would not, standing over it blind, with armed men at my back and no room to run." Ajax looked at the well cover, then at the wall, then at the frightened faces in the doorways. He had come to find the door. He had found it. Now he knew two things he had not known at dawn: the town held no enemy of the Keeper's making, and the thing beneath it was worse than anything his father had ever sealed. "We buy the grain," Ajax said. "We learn the way down. Then we go back to the boat and plan."