Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 99 of 619

The house went still. Ajax stepped back into the yard where the collared man lay on his side in the dirt. The iron ring around his neck caught the lamp light from the open door. Marco stood over him, one hand on the man's shoulder, breathing steady. Ajax could see the strain in Marco's jaw. Holding two minds at once — the woman inside and this one out here — was already pulling at him. "Tucker," Ajax said. "Collar. Now. We ride in ten." Tucker crossed the yard, wiping his blade on his jeans. He crouched by the collared man's head and studied the seam where the iron met itself at the nape. He drew a small hooked pick from his vest pocket and turned it in the lamp light. "Same as the last one," he said. "Give me a minute." "You have less than that." Ajax knelt on the man's other side. "Elara. Cover him." Elara came from the doorway. Her face was pale from the shroud she'd held across the field, but she lifted her hand again without a word. The gold band on her wrist glowed soft. A thin light spread over the collared man, dimming the iron. "Blocks the Keeper's eye," she said. "Not long. Work." Tucker worked. He set the pick against the seam and turned it slow. His mustache twitched once. Ajax watched his hands, not his face. Tucker's fingers were steady the way a gambler's are steady. "Marco," Ajax said. "Hold him under. Nothing gets out." "He's quiet," Marco said. "The woman is quiet. Something else is listening at the edge. Far off. Move." The pick clicked. Tucker exhaled through his nose and eased the iron open on a hinge Ajax hadn't seen before. He lifted the collar away in two halves and set it in the dirt like it was hot. Elara's light guttered. She caught the doorframe with her free hand. "That's all I have for it," she said. "Enough," Ajax said. He looked down at the man. A raw ring of skin showed under where the iron had sat. No brand. Not one of theirs. A hired man, then. Someone the Keeper had leashed. Ajax stood. "Bring him. He rides across Grayson's saddle. Marco keeps him under until we're a valley away." "And her?" Tucker jerked his chin at the house. "She stays bound. Chalam wipes her before we leave. We take the ledger and the hatch's contents. One name left on the list." Ajax lifted the two iron halves and dropped them into his coat pocket. "The Keeper felt the light break. He knows we were here. He doesn't know we took a man off his line." Grayson brought the horses up at a walk. Ajax swung the freed man across the saddle himself. The last name waited north. They rode.