Gritch Bittlebones's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Gritch Bittlebones woke coughing blood into his palm, and the sight stopped his hands mid-shake. He was old. Older than his crooked shack, older than the trade he'd guarded for sixty years. Every recipe, every knot, every trick for taming a snapping garden lived only in his skull. No book held them. No student knew them. If his heart quit tonight, his craft died in the dirt beside him. He spat, wiped his hand on his tunic, and stared at the tangle in the corner. His prize plant snapped its toothy jaws at a passing fly. Vines curled and hissed. Gritch had raised the vicious thing from a seed, feeding it scraps and secrets. Only he knew how to keep it fed without losing a finger. When he died, it would starve or bite a stranger to death. Both endings shamed him. A fist hammered the wooden door. Gritch cursed and hobbled to open it. A young troll filled the whole frame, bald head nearly scraping the beam. Grok Stonegrinder shifted from foot to foot, holding a sack of turnips like an apology. "You again," Gritch said. "I told you no. Three times." "You told me four times." Grok didn't leave. "I brought food. And I can lift things you can't." Gritch had chased this boy off all season. The lad had no craft, no coin, no clan that wanted him. But he kept coming back, and he never flinched at the biting plant. Gritch coughed again, harder. Red flecked his knuckles. Grok saw it. The boy's yellow eyes went wide. "You're sick," Grok said. "I'm dying," Gritch snapped. "There's a difference, and I don't have time to explain it." He looked at the plant. He looked at the huge yellow crab dozing by the hearth, his oldest companion, who would need feeding after Gritch was gone. He looked at the boy who'd carried turnips up his hill for months. Gritch's whole life said trust no one. Guard the trade. Take the secrets to the grave. But a grave kept nothing. A grave just ended things. "Put the turnips down," Gritch said. "Wash your hands. Then come here." Grok obeyed fast. Gritch grabbed a fistful of dried meat from a jar and shoved it at the boy. "That plant eats twice a day. Never from your bare hand. Toss the meat sideways, so it snaps left and you keep your arm." He watched Grok throw. The jaws lunged left. The boy's arm stayed whole. Gritch let out a breath he'd held for sixty years. "Good. That's lesson one. There are four hundred." Grok grinned. "I'll stay." "You'll stay because I say so," Gritch grumbled. But his hands had stopped shaking. The secrets had somewhere to go now. Tomorrow he'd teach the crab's feeding. Tonight, he'd figured out the hardest part. He had an heir, and the heir had bad aim.