Rolf knew the ax was a magical weapon, but he was not sure how to summon its magical property, so he assumed that the magic effect would take place once the ax bite into the Yeti's flesh. He was quite satisfied with the results of the last strike after all.
Taken over by a rush of adrenaline, Rolf hurried up the bone hill toward the towering giant. The bones were slippery, a few times Rolf almost fell, but he managed to maintain balance and arrived at the top of the hill with the battle ax raise high up in the air aiming at the Yeti. It was a foolish move as it had given the Yeti ample time to react.
The monster raised a limb and blocked the attack with its claws, stopping the ax cold in its track. Rolf noticed that he didn't even make a dent in the monster's three inch long claws—the magic battle ax wasn't so magical after all.
Thinking the magic might have failed because he didn't use enough force in the attack, Rolf pulled the ax back, held it in both hands and raised it even higher than last time and then he bore it down on the claws at the same spot.
Clank!
The impact numbed Rolf's palm, but the ax still did nothing to its enemy.
Rolf had been fully confident in the battle ax's power as he had grown up listening to tales about this legendary weapon. But why the battle ax failed him now?
Suddenly lost his confidence, Rolf's eyes betrayed a tinge of fear and that was his second mistake, for a Yeti could smell fear miles away.
At the corner of Rolf's eyes, he caught a glimpse of the Yeti's another hand sweeping toward him. He hurried to block the attack with the battle ax.
He heard a snap and then he was swooped up by the Yeti's giant claw. His body flew over the edge of the bone hill and a million bones jabbed at him as he rolled down the hill.
The Yeti had cut four deep wounds in Rolf's side. Despite the pain, Rolf gathered himself quickly and was about to make his way up the hill once again. That was when he noticed that the handle of the ax had been cut in half by the Yeti's blow and the top half, the ax, was missing.
As the reality set in, he panicked. "Shit shit shit! Kram is going to kill me!"
The Yeti didn't allow Rolf too much time to reflect what had happened, and it charged at Rolf with a deafening roar from the top of the hill.
Rolf leap out of the Yeti's way. Carried by momentum, the Yeti rammed into a wall, breaking a couple of stone stalactites in the process.
The monster turned around to looked at Rolf, panting heavily from its wide-open mouth, a plume of misty breath was visible against the moonlight.
Rolf started to search in his memory for the weakness of the Yeti. As if the Yeti was able to read his mind, it charged at Rolf with abandon, trying to interrupt the young barbarian's train of thoughts.
Rolf dodged again, but the wound had slowed him down, so he was knocked to the side by the rampaging monster and then he heard the crispy crunches as the Yeti drove himself into the pile of bones.
"Concentrate!" Rolf told himself, holding back the pain. The answer was right there in his brain, he was sure of it, but wading through the flow of memory in such a tumultuous circumstance was no easy task.
"Concentrate!" Kram's voice appeared in his mind again. "Goblins's weakness is fire, Frost Boars's weakness is its eyes, and Giants' weakness is —"
A deafening roar and the tingling sensation of danger interrupted Rolf's mind as he registered that the Yeti was about to charge at him again. He looked to the direction of the Yeti and saw that the monster was already right in front of him. Rolf dodged to the left, but it was already too late as the sharp claws were only a couple inches away from the nap of his neck.
Rolf's first step to the left landed on something wobbly that made him slip, and he collapsed onto his ass. However, the fall was not only comical but had also accidentally saved the young boy as he missed the deadly claws by a hair. It was such a close call that Rolf could feel the claws sweeping through the air against his scalp.
The monster was infuriated by his miss, he roared again, releasing a putrid stench from its blood-stained mouth.
Right beside Rolf, he saw his savior. It was a human leg he had stepped on. The meat on the calf had already been chew off, exposing the white bones, a foot was still attached to the other end of the leg although one of the toes had already been nipped off.
The Yeti pounded his chest and raised both fists into the air to hammer the barbarian boy into a pulp.
"The toe! Giants weakness is the toe!" the young barbarian screamed in his mind as his eyes flashed in the moment of epiphany.
With a newfound vigor, Rolf quickly rolled onto his side and got up into a kneeling position. From the reindeer boots, Rolf unsheathed a six-inch long dagger.
The Yeti missed its target, and it stumbled pass Rolf as the attack had thrown it off balance.
Rolf squeezed the dagger tight in his hands, whitening his knuckles and then he threw himself at the monster's feet with the dagger tip pointing at the thick trunk of the monster's left toe.
The dagger stroke home as it cut through the white fur, into the flesh and then eventually sever the toe at its joint.
Already losing balance, the yeti dropped to the ground instantly. Seized by the agonizing pain, the monster howled and shrieked as it failed its arms wildly, one foot kicking the frozen ground.
Rolf used to think Kram was pulling his legs when the chieftain told him that he toe was the most sensitive part of a Yeti's body. But the scene of the yeti being paralyzed by the pain suggested that Kram was right after all.
Rolf closed in on the Yeti, circling slowly from its feet to the head. The pain was visible on the yeti's face: its brow furrowed, mouth drooped down, and its eyes held tears. For a brief second, Rolf felt pity for this grotesque monster, despite the hundreds of innocent lives it had taken for its perverse pleasure.
Rolf conceded that all he could do then was to end its misery as quickly as possible. Both hands and a knee pressing down on the pommel, Rolf drove the tip of the dagger down into the Yeti's eye socket, and then he jerked the handle abruptly.
The Yeti stopped moving instantly.
Although gravely injured, Rolf picked up the severed toe in glee. Finally, he had earned a hunting trophy and a big one! (not in terms of size of course) He imagined the surprised look on Hoder and other bullies' face when they saw the Yeti toe and the scene filled him with delight.
"If they still call me a rat boy, I will threaten to chop their toes off!" Rolf thought to himself, all the while, he wore a smug on his face.
The smug quickly faded away after he remembered the broken battle ax. He eventually found the missing ax on top of the bone piles.
The handle was done for, so much for a magical ax.
He lamented over the fact that the battle ax had become a hindrance rather than help to him. Rolf had planned to secretly return the battle ax once he had finished using it as if nothing had ever happened to it, however, at its current state, Rolf found it hard to convince the chieftain that it was just one of his mushroom episodes that made him believe that the ax was gone. No mushroom episodes would break a magical ax permanently.
Although deeply worried for his safety after he returned the camp, Rolf conceded that there was no use in overthinking in the stinky cave, so he pocketed the Yeti toe and picked up the two sections of the broken ax and exited the lair.
It was midnight; the moon shed its light generously over the flat expanse of the tundra. Standing on the hill where the cave entrance was at, Rolf could see things miles away.
In between some red dogwood shrubs, he saw a caravan weaving in and out on the trodden path. Rolf narrowed his eyes, trying to identify the rider, and he saw a small but bulky figure wrapped in a green wool cloak. The distinctive features made Rolf recognized the caravan master right away.
Rolf smiled and then said to himself. "Looks like I have found a solution already."