Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 602 of 619

Ajax knelt at the passage mouth while Aldric stripped the dead thing's hide behind him. The deeper cut ran black, and cold air rose from it. Below, the seer had said, living men waited in stone. But two of them could not fight a god that killed its own kind. Ajax pulled the bronze ring from his cord and turned it in his fingers. Marco held its twin, far to the east at the Crossing gate. One-way. He could speak, but not hear the answer come back. "Marco," Ajax said into the ring. He kept his voice low. "We found the valley. There's a god here, alive, and captives under the east ridge. I need swords and I need Chalam's makers. Send Kael's squad. Send the seer if she'll come. Come fast." He waited, though he knew no reply would reach him. The ring only carried his words out. Rowan came back from the far side of the chamber. He crouched and wiped grime from his knife. "Drag marks lead down," he said. "Not up. Whatever took them didn't bring them back." He looked at the black seam. "They're still alive down there. The god keeps them." "Then we hold here until the others come," Ajax said. They held two days. Rowan hunted and kept watch at the ridge break. Chalam sat with his staff across his knees, testing the dark seam, learning nothing. On the third dawn Rowan came in fast. "Riders on the ridge road. Kael leads them." Ajax climbed to the light. Kael came down the slope first, knife already loose in his hand out of habit, six sworn men behind him. Torren followed with the pack horses and the iron rods. Behind them walked two of Ajax's robed wizards, and last, the seer, small and gray-eyed, watching the valley the way a cat watches a hole. Kael reached the seam and stopped. "Marco got your words," he said. "He sent us the same tide." That was all. He looked at the black cut and said nothing more. Elara stepped down last, her band bright even by daylight. She had come by moonlight the night before to Silvermoor, then rode the rest. "I heard a god walks free here," she said. "I came to see one that no man sealed." Torren set the iron rods against the wall and looked at the passage. "How deep?" "Deep enough," Ajax said. "The captives are below. The god comes and goes. We don't wait for it to find us. We go down." He counted them. Kael, Torren, Rowan, Chalam, Elara, six swords, two makers, the seer. Not a scouting party now. A war band, gathered from three towns and eight days of sea, standing at the mouth of a living god's den. Ajax drew his father's blade. The waiting was done. "We open the door," he said, "and we take them back."