Grelmar Zarpahumana

They took Grelmar alive. That was the first thing that caught Tharion's interest.

Golems of pure stone do not think. They obey, they carry, they crush. But they do not think. And Tharion the Eternal Maker wanted something the world had never seen: a golem with a soul. One that would know who had made it.

For that he needed someone alive. And whole.

He strapped him to a stone table in the deepest part of his workshop. He explained, very patiently, that he was going to be his most important work. He told him his name three times, so he would not forget it.

He started with the hands.

"What does the work comes first," he said.

It took days. Maybe weeks. Down there, there was no light to count them by. The flesh turned grey, then hard, then cold. The fingers grew longer until they ended in claws of stone. Tharion carved a rune into each palm and began writing his name in them.

He never got to finish.

No one knows what broke the ritual. Grelmar does not tell. All anyone knows is that the chains were iron and the hands no longer were. The first thing those claws ever did was disobey the one who made them.

He walked out with both arms turned. And half of Tharion's signature in each palm.

But the stone did not stay still. It keeps creeping, slowly, like moss up a castle wall. First the shoulders. Then the back. Now, part of the chest. Under the robe there is more construct than anyone has seen. That is why he stays covered up to the brow. It is not because of the cold.

He no longer feels the cold. Or fire. He can plunge his hands into embers and pull them out as if from a bucket of water.

He does not feel it either when someone shakes them.

In the Order of the Dawn they call him Zarpahumana. It is not mockery. It is the only human thing left in those claws: the will to use them.

The Order took him in knowing what he is. They gave him a robe with the cross, a cot and a place at the table. No one asked where he came from.

He would not have said.

Grelmar has no family name. Or he has one and keeps it to himself. Somewhere there is a village, and a family that buried him in their minds long ago, and he would rather keep it that way. Let them mourn a son. Let them never have to look at what comes back.

The Order's register says "Grelmar". Nothing more.

He carries an axe because that is what people expect of a barbarian. Against men, it is enough. But when there is a construct in front of him, he drops it. No blade splits stone the way stone does. Blow for blow, as equals, his fists do what steel cannot.

And when the one in front of him is Tharion, he no longer fights for the Order. Or for the Light. He fights for what was taken from him.

Hatred weighs more than any axe. Grelmar carries it without complaint.

He stands one ninety-six. Two arms that are not his own and a debt to collect.

He is in a hurry. So is the stone. One of them will get there first: him to Tharion, or the stone to his heart.

There is a question no one in the Order dares to ask him out loud.

Tharion says all his golems obey. That he only has to call them by name.

If one day he calls Grelmar... will the stone obey?

Grelmar does not know either.

That is why he clenches his fists.