Grendel Thornpaw's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The road to Nor stretched ahead in packed dirt and cracked asphalt, and Grendel walked at the rear of the group where he could watch all of them. Caius led with his glass shard wrapped in cloth, Foxface kept pace beside him studying the horizon, and Oswin moved ahead of Grendel with his pack riding high on his shoulders. Grendel noticed the limp first—a slight drag in Oswin's left foot that hadn't been there at dawn. The mole-kin adjusted his pack twice in the span of twenty paces, shifting weight away from that side. Grendel kept his distance and said nothing. By midday they reached an old bus lying tilted in the weeds, its yellow paint buried under layers of graffiti and paw prints. Caius called for a rest, and Oswin sat on the bus steps with his pack still on, one hand pressed against his ribs where no injury should be. Grendel set down his own gear and watched Oswin's breathing—too shallow, too controlled. The mole-kin's fingers trembled when he reached for his water flask. Grendel walked to the front of the bus and leaned against the rusted hood where he could see Oswin without being obvious about it. Three years of standing watch had taught him what people looked like when they were hiding pain. Oswin's hand kept drifting to his side, then stopping halfway as if he'd caught himself. The tremor in his fingers spread to his shoulder. Grendel knew what a scratch from The Red looked like—he'd read enough reports, collected enough witness accounts. He could walk to Caius right now and say the words that would protect everyone. Caius would know what to do. Caius always knew. But Grendel had spent three years learning every sign of every curse, and it hadn't saved anyone. He'd memorized the symptoms his wife had shown in those final days, and he still couldn't name them aloud because naming them wouldn't bring her back. He'd stood at his post doing his duty while she died, and afterward everyone had told him he'd done the right thing by staying where he was assigned. He looked at Oswin sitting on those bus steps, alone with whatever was eating him from the inside, and he thought about all the times he'd chosen duty over the person right in front of him. Grendel pushed off the hood and walked to where his pack lay in the grass. He pulled out a water flask and a strip of dried meat, then carried them to Oswin and set them on the step beside him. Oswin looked up, startled. Grendel met his eyes and saw the fear there, bright and desperate. "You need to eat," Grendel said. "We've got another six hours before dark." He didn't ask about the injury. He didn't press. He just stood there long enough for Oswin to understand that someone had noticed, and that someone wasn't going to force him to name it yet. Then he walked back to his pack and positioned himself where he could keep watching, because if Oswin turned, Grendel would see it coming, and this time he wouldn't be standing at a gate pretending duty was the same thing as protection.