Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 97 of 619

They broke camp before dawn and rode south under a low sky. The ledger sat inside Ajax's coat with two names still uncrossed. The woman was the nearer of the two, waiting in a stone house he had only glimpsed on a map. He kept the pace hard through morning and let the horses walk through the noon heat. By late afternoon the land opened into cut fields and the road bent past a low stand of oaks. Ajax raised a hand and pulled the group off the track into the trees. He turned to Marco, who rode two horses behind him. Marco was Ajax's sworn man, dark and tall, gold chain at his open collar, a bracelet on his wrist he never took off. He heard men's thoughts and could push his own into them. "Reach out," Ajax said. "House past the next rise. Tell me who's inside." Marco swung down and sat in the grass with his back against an oak. He closed his eyes. The others held their horses quiet. Chalam stood near him with his staff planted in the dirt, ready to steady him if the working pulled too hard. Ajax waited. He counted his own breaths to the count of forty before Marco opened his eyes. "Nine men," Marco said. "Six in the yard, three inside with her. One in the yard has a collar. He's listening for something and not hearing it yet." He rubbed his jaw. "She's not tied. She's sitting at a table with a cup. She's the one they're guarding, but she's the one giving the orders." "The collar man," Ajax said. "He calling out?" "Not yet. Waiting on her word." Ajax looked at the ground. Nine was too many to rush. The collar would shout the moment steel showed. "Anything else?" "She's thinking about a rider from the north," Marco said. "She knows we're close. She doesn't know we're this close." Ajax nodded and looked up at the rest of them. Grayson sat his horse with his reins wrapped once around his fist. Chalam waited. Elara stood by her mare with her hand on the gold band at her wrist. Tucker and Asher watched from the back. "Marco stays on the collar man," Ajax said. "The second he twitches to call out, Marco shuts him. Chalam takes the three inside with a vial through the window—sleep, not fire, I want her breathing. Elara shrouds us to the wall. Grayson and I take the yard from the west side. Tucker and Asher come in from the east and cut off the door." He looked at Marco. "You hold the collar until Chalam clears the room. Then we walk in and take her." Marco stood and brushed the grass off his jeans. "I can hold him." "Moonrise," Ajax said. "We move at moonrise."