Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 93 of 619

Ajax woke Tucker for second watch and lay back down, but sleep would not come. The scrying ring cooled his finger. Two names left. One day of cover. He turned the plain gray ring over in his mind, the one Tucker wore on a cord under his vest. A working that made a man appealing and loosened tongues. He had let Tucker keep it. He had not told the rest. He sat up. Tucker was on the rim, a dark shape against the stars. Ajax climbed out of the hollow and came up beside him. "Walk with me," Ajax said. They went twenty paces past the picket line. The horses shifted and settled. Ajax stopped where the wind would take their voices away from the fire. "The ring," Ajax said. "On the cord. Give it here." Tucker did not move for a beat. Then he lifted the cord over his head and held it out. The stone caught no light. "I haven't used it," Tucker said. "Not once since the house." "I know." "Do you." "Chalam would have told me." Tucker's mouth moved under the mustache. "So he's been watching me." "He's been watching the ring. I asked him to." Tucker let out a short breath through his nose. He handed the cord over the rest of the way. "Then why take it now." "Because I made a rule at the fire tonight. No working on another man in this camp. You wore a working on a cord under your shirt while I said it. Every man there was near you." "It only pulls if I turn it." "I don't want it turned. I don't want it near them. I don't want the next town to be another oil day." Ajax closed his fist on the cord. "You brought it in. You told Chalam. That's why you still ride at the front tomorrow." Tucker nodded once. "Where's it go." "Chalam holds it. Sealed. Until the walls are up and we sit down and decide." "Fair." They went back down. Ajax woke Chalam with a hand on his shoulder. The wizard sat up in his blue robe and took the cord without a word. "Wrap it," Ajax said. "Chalk and lodestone. In your satchel. Nobody touches it but you. Not me." Chalam took pressed chalk and powdered lodestone from the satchel and bound the ring in a scrap of oiled cloth. He tied it with green thread and pushed it deep in the bag. "It won't call from in there," Chalam said. "I'll know if anyone reaches for it." "Good." Ajax lay back down with the ledger under his head. One less thing to lose a day to. Tucker on the rim. Two names. He closed his eyes.