Grimjaw Stonehide's Arc

Chapter 15 of 15

Grimjaw pressed his jaw where the bone still ached from Ugral's grind. But the fight in the ring was not his worry now. Vorgath Ironpelt had shouted his challenge across the whole clan. He named the socket weakness aloud, for everyone to hear. And now the advisors who had guided Grimjaw through every bout were slipping away. He walked to the tusk-fitted castle where his counsel gathered, and found the great hall half empty. The wise ones would not meet his eyes. One old fighter packed his kit. Another turned his back and studied the wall. "Vorgath will win," the old fighter muttered. "No sense standing beside a broken jaw when the belt changes hands." They feared backing the loser. If Vorgath took the belt, any troll who had helped Grimjaw would answer for it. So they scattered, and left him with no plan and no voice to trust. Grimjaw stood alone under the bone rafters. His hands trembled. He had beaten every opponent with borrowed strategy. Now the mouths that fed him strategy had gone silent. He did not know Vorgath's angle. He did not know how to guard a jaw a warlord had already studied. Heavy feet crossed the hall. Krugg Bonecrusher came in, an elephant warrior with two curved white tusks and a white ridge of hair between his ears. He carried an axe in one hand and a hammer in the other. Grimjaw had watched Krugg wrestle years ago and never spoken to him. Krugg had tusks of his own, real ones, and he had faced grinders before. "They ran," Krugg said. He looked at the empty benches, then at Grimjaw. "Cowards count the winner before the fight. I do not." He set the hammer down on a table. "Vorgath studies your socket. Fine. I studied his grip forty years ago, before you were weaned." Grimjaw's throat tightened. "They all left. Why stay?" "Because a man who fights alone loses alone," Krugg said. "And I want to see the warlord humbled." He tapped his own left tusk. "Vorgath grinds slow, like Ugral, but he shifts weight to your blind side first. He makes you turn toward the steel you cannot feel. Then he sets his angle." Krugg leaned close. "Do not turn. Keep your right tusk facing him. Force him to grind where you feel every twitch." It was one voice. But it was a voice that knew Vorgath's habits, and it had not fled. Grimjaw gripped Krugg's thick forearm. His trembling steadied. "Then you are my counsel now," Grimjaw said. Krugg picked up his hammer. "The others will crawl back if you win. Let them." Grimjaw walked out of the castle with a plan again, and one advisor at his side. Vorgath had emptied his hall. He had not emptied it fully. The warlord had built his challenge on a lonely, counsel-less troll. That troll was gone.