Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 6 of 619

They rode out at first light. The trail bent through low scrub and thin pine. By midmorning a man stepped out of the trees ahead of them, staff first, one hand raised. Blue robe open at the chest. Green belt. A satchel bouncing at his hip. He did not look armed and he did not look afraid. "Chalam Othworld," he said. "Wizard. I've been walking your track since the crossroads." Ajax pulled up. Grayson stopped a length behind him, hand loose near his belt. Marco stayed in the saddle. Tucker leaned on his pommel and grinned like a man watching a card turn. "Why our track?" Ajax said. "I'm hunting a god that went quiet three hundred years back. Someone keeps reaching the sites ahead of me. I thought it might be you. It isn't. But you're heading toward one of them." Chalam looked up at Ajax. "I'd rather walk with four men than alone. I can pay in work." "What work." "Wards on your camp. Clean water. Small things. Bigger things if the ground asks for them." Grayson said nothing. He wanted Ajax to run this. "Prove it," Ajax said. Chalam nodded once. He did not reach for the satchel. He lifted the staff and set the butt in the dirt. His eyes went to Tucker. "May I?" "May you what," Tucker said. "Take off your vest. Show the company your arms." Tucker laughed. "Ask me nice and I'll do it for free." "I'm asking the staff." Chalam spoke three soft words. Tucker's hands moved. He watched them move. The grin held but his eyes changed. He shrugged the vest off his shoulders and let it drop across the saddle. He pulled the shirt beneath it over his head. He raised both arms and squeezed. The gold chains swung against his chest. His biceps stood up hard. Nobody spoke. Chalam said one more word. Tucker's arms dropped. He rolled his shoulders and picked up the shirt. "Warn a man next time," Tucker said. The dryness was back but thinner. "I did," Chalam said. "I asked." Ajax watched Tucker pull the shirt down. He watched the wizard's face. Kind eyes. No smile. A man who had just showed what he could do to any of them, standing calm in the road. Grayson met Ajax's look and did not give him anything. His call. "You ride under me," Ajax said. "You don't put hands or words on my men without my say. You break that once and you walk." "Agreed." "Sworn until the walls go up." "Sworn." Five men now. Ajax kicked his horse forward. Behind him Tucker buckled the vest slow, jaw set. Ajax had a wizard. He also had a sworn man who would not forget being handled, and a road still two days from the coast.