Grimjaw Stonehide's Arc

Chapter 1 of 15

Grimjaw Stonehide ran his thumb along his left tusk and felt the crack. He wanted the champion's belt in the mountain clan's tusk-wrestling tournament. But a champion needed tusks that could lock and hold and shove. His were chipped and dull from years of hauling stone and chewing frozen meat. In three days, his first match would come. The first hard grip would shatter them like river ice. Inside his hide-and-tusk tent, Grimjaw lit a fat lamp and worked. He filed the cracked edges smooth with a whetstone. He rubbed rendered fat into the yellowed bone to fill the splits. His arms ached by dawn. He held a tusk to the light and pressed his palm against the tip. It flexed. A thin line spread up the length like a spider's leg. Fat and filing could not fix rot from the inside. He knew one troll who might help. He hated that he knew it. Grimjaw found Kragmar Stonefist behind the arena, splitting a mammoth thighbone across his knee. The ogre's skin was black as wet obsidian. His red eyes found Grimjaw before Grimjaw spoke a word. Years ago Kragmar had broken Grimjaw's grip in the practice ring and laughed while he did it. They had not shared a fire since. "Your tusks are dying," Kragmar said. He did not look up. "I can smell the split from here." "You cap tusks," Grimjaw said. "With bone and pitch. I need caps that hold under a champion's grip." Kragmar rose. He was a head taller and twice as wide. "I cap tusks for trolls I respect. You quit the ring for a stonehauler's life. Now you crawl back." "I need to fight in three days." Kragmar tossed him a shard of the mammoth bone. "Then earn the cap. Split this clean, hand to hand, or drag your soft body home." Grimjaw set the bone against his knee. He drove down with both fists. The shard bit into his palm and drew blood. He pushed until his vision swam, then heard the crack. Two clean halves fell in the dirt. He held them up, hands shaking. Kragmar studied him a long moment. "Sit," he said. For two hours the ogre drilled the cracked tusks hollow and drove in fresh caps of shaped mammoth bone. He sealed each seam with black pitch. When he finished, Grimjaw bit down on a wrestling grip-bar. The caps held. No line spread. No shudder ran up the bone. For the first time in years his tusks felt like weapons. "They will hold one match," Kragmar said. He wiped pitch from his fingers. "Maybe two. After that the caps loosen, and you must set them again. But you will not come to me." He picked up his tools. "Because in three days, troll, you fight me first."