Grimjaw Stonehide's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

The bear was gone, but the caps worried Grimjaw more than any beast. He knelt on his packed floor at dawn and pressed a thumb to his left tusk. The bone-and-pitch cap shifted under the pressure. Kragmar had set it himself. Kragmar knew exactly how much force would crack it. Tomorrow the ogre would grip that tusk and squeeze until it split. Grimjaw needed to know if the cap would hold before the match, not during it. He found a stranger camped past the drift. A moon elf sat cleaning a green sword, its blade glowing faint in the cold. Ash-gray skin. Yellow eyes that did not blink when Grimjaw approached. The elf had drifted into the clan's hunting grounds days ago, chasing something only he could name. Grimjaw did not care why. He cared that the elf's blade was harder than any stone he owned. "I need to test something," Grimjaw said. "Strike my tusk. The capped one. Hard as you would strike a man." Wolfaen looked up. "No." "I fight tomorrow. If the cap breaks under a real blow, I want it to break now." The elf studied him a moment. He rose and set the flat of the emerald blade against Grimjaw's left tusk. "Brace," he said, and swung. The blow rang through Grimjaw's skull. His teeth clacked. Pain shot down his jaw. But the tusk held. He worked it with his tongue and felt no give, no crack. He grinned through the ache. "Again," Grimjaw said. "Twist it. He will twist." Wolfaen hooked the blade behind the tusk and wrenched sideways. Grimjaw heard a dry snap. He spat. A chip of pale bone landed on the snow. The cap's outer edge had sheared off. The tusk underneath still stood, but the smooth surface was gone. A rough ridge remained where the pitch had held it. "It broke," Wolfaen said. He wiped the blade. "But not through." Grimjaw ran his thumb over the ridge. The core held. The cap had cracked at its weakest seam, the exact seam Kragmar had built. But it had not shattered. It had chipped clean and stopped. He understood now. Kragmar could break the surface, but not the tusk itself, not in one grip. The rot inside was capped deep. The outer layer would take the first strike and hold the rest. He stood. His jaw throbbed. The chipped ridge was ugly, but it was his to fight with. "Thank you," Grimjaw said. Wolfaen sheathed the sword. "You should not trust a thing another man built into your body." He turned back to his fire. "But it is done now." Grimjaw walked back to his floor. He knew the truth at last. The cap would crack tomorrow. He would feel it go. And when it did, he would keep his grip anyway, because the tusk beneath would still be there.