Chapter 55

Ajax had been Nicholas' second-in-command for as long as he had been a soldier. He had been by Nicholas' side through every war, every battle and every conquest. They were quite close, even though this was not very known to outsiders. Some of the scouts that had gone outside of Linerdo to search for Nicholas had found his corpse by a bush in the woods. The finger marks on his neck and around his shoulders indicated that there was a struggle that ultimately led to him getting stabbed by his side. It was with his own dagger, and this caused some confusion amongst the scouts as they tried to ascertain the cause of death and put together the words to tell Ajax what had happened. Ajax had been with the soldiers in Linerdo searching for his superior. They had gone around, gone to taverns and bakeries and the church, the most unlikely of places to find a man like Nicholas. When they did not find him, Ajax ordered the men to do the most ridiculous of things — a door-to-door search