Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 70 of 619

The six riders came in slow across the flat, casting for tracks. Ajax lay behind a low shelf of rock with Tucker on his left and Asher on his right. Chalam waited in the center with his last vial uncorked. Elara crouched above them on the boulder, one hand open, watching the ground. Behind the ridge, Grayson held Renn quiet on the lead. Ajax watched them close the distance. At two hundred paces they slowed. At one hundred they bunched, three abreast, the rider with the collar in the middle turning his head as if he heard something the others could not. "Now," Ajax said. Elara opened her hand. White light burst above the flat and broke against the riders like a slap. Horses reared. Men clawed at their faces. Chalam stepped clear of the rock and threw his vial. The glass shattered on the dirt in front of the lead horse and a wet green cloud rose. Four riders sagged in their saddles. Two stayed up, coughing, blind. Ajax was already moving. He came off the rock with his father's blade drawn and took the nearest rider through the ribs before the man's eyes cleared. Tucker cut a second down from the far side. Asher stepped in behind the collared man's horse and pulled him off the saddle by the strap. The man hit the ground and Asher knelt on his chest. "Alive," Ajax said. "Alive," Asher said. He pressed his blade flat under the man's jaw and did not push. The four Chalam had dropped lay breathing on the dirt. Ajax walked the line. He cut two throats without slowing. The last two he left. Tucker looked up. "Those two?" "Bind them," Ajax said. "Take their boots. We ride, they walk south and forget our faces." Chalam came down off the rock, staff braced. His hand shook once and stilled. "Vial's spent," he said. "That was the last." "I know." Grayson brought Renn around the ridge. He looked at the collared man on the ground, then at Ajax. "Two of them wearing the mark?" "One," Ajax said. He crouched by the man Asher held. He pulled the collar's chain up into the light. The iron was warm. He drew a token from the man's belt, stamped with the spiral, and pocketed it. "The other five were hired." Elara climbed down slow. Her wrist band was dim now. She did not speak. Ajax stood. He had two collared men on ropes and no wizard's vial left. The trap had closed clean. But every man he took alive was another mouth that could call out through iron, and Chalam could not silence what came next. "Mount up," he said. "We ride before the second one wakes something worse."