Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 67 of 619

Ajax rolled the folded list into his coat pocket and looked at the two hired men on the plank floor. They breathed slow under the cords. Renn lay between them with the collar still locked at his throat and the spiral burn dark under his collarbone. The barn smelled of straw and blood. Outside, the dry creek held no sound. Ajax could hear his own pulse in his ears. "The other two are a problem," Grayson said. He stood over the hired men with his blade low. "They saw Marco's trick. They saw the wizard. If we cut them loose they talk. If we kill them we leave two bodies for whoever comes looking." Chalam leaned on the cracked staff. His open robe hung damp against his ribs. "I can take it from them," he said. "The arrival. The names. This room. All of it." Ajax turned. "Take it how." "From the mind. A clean cut. They wake tomorrow and remember riding here with Renn and nothing after. No faces. No wizard. No boy who touched the neck." "On my men you asked leave," Ajax said. "On these two?" "On these two I do not ask," Chalam said. "But I tell you first. That was the rule." Marco crouched by the nearest hired man and set two fingers below the jaw. He held them there a breath, then looked up. "He doesn't know the names Renn gave us. He knows our count and our faces. That's what has to go." "Do it," Ajax said. Chalam knelt between the two bodies. He set the cracked end of the staff against the first man's temple and pressed his other hand flat on the chest. His lips moved without sound. The man's fingers twitched once and went still. Chalam moved to the second. Same press. Same silence. When he sat back his hands shook. "Done," he said. "They lose today. Nothing more." "Cost?" Ajax said. "Tired. Not empty." Ajax nodded. He pointed at Renn. "Him we take." Grayson cut fresh cord and bound Renn's wrists behind his back, then looped a lead from the collar to his own saddle horn outside. He hauled Renn upright. Renn's head lolled, then found itself. His eyes moved from Ajax to Marco to Chalam and did not settle. "Walk," Grayson said, and shoved him toward the door. Ajax looked once more at the two hired men on the floor. Their chests rose and fell. In the morning they would find a barn and no story to tell. He stepped over them and out into the yard where the horses waited. Marco swung up beside him. "They'll feel him move now." "Good," Ajax said. He kicked the horse forward with the leashed man stumbling behind Grayson's saddle. The trap was walking with them.