Grendel Thornpaw's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Grendel pressed the wet clay into the arrowhead mold and counted three breaths before lifting it free. The shape held. That was enough. He'd made two dozen arrows since dawn, and if he kept working, he wouldn't have to think about the calendar or the fact that today marked three years since he'd stood at a gate while his wife died alone. But footsteps crunched on gravel outside his workshop, and Caius appeared in the doorway, already talking about an expedition to Nor and ancient knowledge and stopping The Red. Grendel set down the mold and looked past him at the shelves mounted on the brick wall outside, crowded with his journals and dried herbs and scraps of paper covered in curse signs he'd spent three years collecting. He'd told himself it was research to help others, but standing there with Caius waiting for an answer, he understood what it really was—a way to keep moving so he'd never have to admit that all the signs in the world wouldn't bring her back. He wiped the clay from his hands and reached for his coat. Caius talked about machines that still worked and knowledge that might save lives. Grendel walked to the shed where finished arrows stood bundled against the walls, hundreds of them waiting for threats that might never come. He'd made enough arrows to protect the village ten times over, but it had never been about the village. It had been about not stopping. He turned back to Caius and said yes, not because he believed ancient humans held answers, but because he knew what would happen if he stayed here counting breaths and making arrows until the day he couldn't remember why he'd started. The Red was a curse on all of them for sins they didn't understand, and maybe going to Nor wouldn't change that. But at least it was motion that meant something beyond staying one step ahead of grief. He locked the workshop door and walked past the moss-covered drum that had been his home for three years. The bundles of arrows leaned against the fruit box shed, bright fletching catching the morning light. Someone else would collect them if he didn't come back. Someone else would stand guard. For the first time since he'd left his post, Grendel wasn't running from stillness. He was walking toward something that might actually matter.