The Saga of Ross

Tirruz was in no mood for the male's nonsense. She paced back and forth snarling and snapping her jaws angrily, as the male cringed and tried to look anywhere but near her. She could scent his fear, as he lowered his bushy tail and rested on all fours, attempting to not anger her further. His grey-brown coat, dotted with black spots, was covered in mud and blood as well as the tough steel cuirass her people had only recently begun to use. He was missing half of his left ear, and his shield was sheared in half. The damned fool had also lost his samosa'uxi. Indeed, young Kyrleez was in for a tongue lashing if not an outright dismissal from the Honored of Skana by his Matriarch, and Tirruz took a deep breath, stomping her left paw as she did so. Kyrleez winced.

"Well, what do you think I should punish you with, Kyrleez?" Tirruz asked, her green eyes flicking up to look at the cowering male, who she swore to herself looked like he was about to urinate himself. Kyrleez cleared his throat and responded, looking her in the eyes with his own amber eyes as he did so, "Whatever my Matriarch wills, so be Her decision." If Tirruz had been a cat, she would have purred. Whoever had been this cub's mother had whelped a fine male in terms of manners, to be so formal and reasonably terrified before a Matriarch. Her shimmering cloak, which seemed to be cut from the night sky itself, blew behind her as she moved closer to Kyrleez, who had shot his eyes back to the earth floor, his face a picture of uncertainty. She reached out her paw, stroking the head of the male with her claws gently. She could feel through his short-cropped black mane his uncertainty of her sudden shift in moods.

Kyrleez looked bewildered as she kept stroking his head, suddenly feeling his chest racing with cautious optimism and even a slight lifting of his lips into a toothy smile. Tirruz was now massaging her paw through his chin fur, rustling his whiskers ever so tantalizingly. Kyrleez rose, and acting on instinct, planted a kiss on the Matriarch's lips. Before much longer, they were passionately going about the act of mating, sighs, grunts and growls of pleasure peppered the rustle of clothing being removed or torn and the warrior gnoll's armor and damaged shield were dropped to the earthen floor like discarded trash. Kyrleez was going about his business with a furious passion. Tirruz did things to him he had never experienced with any other female before, and then some upon the Matriarch of Jikaln's Head bed of pony pelts, their multicolored hides making a soft backdrop to their acts. He felt as though, truly, this night had gone better than he had anticipated. Truly, his retreat from the Agate Hills would be seen as clever at the time, even though he had (truly) ran away as soon as the battle broke out as the wretched Injuvn, ancient enemies of the gnoll people, had leaped from the trees, and that damned Reefalt, the lion-eagle, had pounced on two of his fellow gnolls like a ferret on a mouse.

It was when he had just began to drift off to sleep, satisfied with his place in the world and spent from his love-making, when suddenly he felt a tugging sensation on his wrists. Then a sensation, like slugs made of living ice were crawling over his entire body, causing him to gasp in sudden horror and acute pain, his eyes bolting wide open in horror and astonishment. Tirruz was now dressing herself, her robe, the starry and glimmering darkness it exuded owing to it having been cut from the skin of a great Ursa Major, began to swirl even more about her on breeze of near impossible cold. As he was about to ask what was happening, she suddenly rounded on him. Her eyes were seemingly over flowing with a shadowy material, Kyrleez noted, as he was bound and struggling desperately from the binding spell the witch had cast, that Tirruz was drawing an ornate brass-handled obsidian dagger, a star garnet on the shining hilt.

There was only one reason Kirruz would use such a thing.

Sacrifice.

Kyrleez nearly screamed before the dagger found his throat expertly, his fresh corpse twitching as scarlet blood dripped on the ground after the first pumping spurts. Tirruz gasped in delight as she used her magic to tear though the male's rib cage with a wet crack!, the heart coming out after she snatched and slashed it out with her claws. Using her teeth, she shred the pericardium and swallowed it down, and ate at her treat contentedly, feeling to energy she had gathered from the oaf work through her body, making her dark magic work more efficiently within her, like adding oil to an already deadly war machine. She booted the now useless corpse away, licking blood from her claws and arms. A tap suddenly sounded at the door. Tirruz let her voice project with command. "Come in."

A female warrior dressed in fur and leather armor bounded in, saluting smartly and being careful to avoid casting her eyes on the fresh corpse. "The Lord Nauros and his allies wish to speak to you of their terms, my Clan-Mother." Tirruz daintily washed her blood-soiled lips with her long pink tongue and lapped at her paws. "So," she said finally, straightening up and crossing her paws across her chest, "he finally has deigned to notice the spoils available, and like the gigantic turkey vulture he is, has come in anticipation of the feast. Enough of that, soldier!" she snapped, noticing the female's jaws go slack at her Matriarch's seemingly insane accusation of a potential ally, "Nauros is well-renowned to be an arrogant bastard, even among his own kind, and that is saying something. Lead on... I didn't catch your name, little soft-pelt?"

"Uh, Garsa, my Matriarch." was the shaky reply.

Tirruz drew upon her best smile, "Then lead me to our newest ally, my Daughter-of-the-Clan, and let us see what Lord Nauros wants."

Nauros was growing impatient upon his stony perch. He was already rather angry he had to deign to deal with such lower creatures in the first place, and now that he and his stewards were here, they were bade by the little fools to wait. As though he were a mere rank-and-file grunt in their miserable little army, not a mighty Lord and his most trusted confidants! He felt the tips of each of his fangs with the end of his bifurcated tongue-tip, contemplating whether or not to merely burn the whole army down to cinders or to lay waste to them with tooth and claw. And then, as he was contemplating setting the whole forest up into a raging inferno of destruction and death, with not even carrion birds remaining in the area to clean up the remains of his rage, the gnoll leader stalked forward onto the ridge of basalt from the surrounding piney hills.

She could have fit into one of his great ebony-scaled paws with room to spare. She was wearing a cut of Ursa Major pelt as a cloak, and that lightly impressed him. Ursa were powerful prey, and for such mayflies to hunt such a creature was no small feat. His rage slowly won over to casual aloofness. "Finally, for a moment I had thought you were making sport of me and my generals, and that was making me... a bit upset" he rumbled in words soaked with honey with a slight touch of sarcastic venom, his serpentine neck gliding over the form of the gnoll female. The gnoll didn't even blink. More and more heartening signs., thought Nauros.

The gnoll spoke, her voice equally as sweetened and barbed, "Greetings, O great Chief of Wyrms. I hope you understand you could not very well meet me down in the village, as you and your warriors wouldn't fit." She spread her arms akimbo, indicating the great cliff they were all upon, above the village. Nauros heard Jaagon, his blue-scaled general, hide a hiss of disgust. Roaster didn't sound like he was too happy with the little bone-biter's words either, judging by the way his yellow paws were tightening into the stone like an owl's talons around a vole. And like that, she's earned little more than my typical contempt for her race. Not worthy enough to clean up my feeding cave, the impertinent little mayfly! Jaagon spoke this time, his deep resonant voice sounding out like a crash of thunder over the hillside. "We have come to treat with you as potential allies upon your own request, and this is how you repay my Lord, with your barbarous pettiness, you little primitives!? You slime are unfit for anything but a quick devouring, but I would fear I would be vomiting up your tick-riddled pelts for hours on end I do so right this second!" Twin bonfires lit in his nostrils as he snarled at the gnoll lead female, advancing forward on muscular legs the width of great pine trees to the witch. "Now have done with your insults, or I shall end you and your miserable fortification like the mere ants you really are."

Roaster had his wings already at half-mast, awaiting his Lord's orders to fall upon the foolish little gnolls like a lion among sheep. Nauros, while proud of his subordinate's quick defense of his honor, held a paw aloft, stopping both of them. They were full of fire and had magma for blood, but they didn't yet understand the way to deal with lesser beings. "I thank you, Jaagon and Roaster, my trustworthy commanders, for your defense, but I have decided we shall help these little beasts in their conquering. After all, their enslavement of the other races is to our advantage." Suddenly a gout of purple flame erupted from the great dragon's mouth, and he caught a scrap of paper in the palm of his right claw. He lowered his massive hand in front of the gnoll. "My terms, written by my trustworthy unicorn thrall Diction, to be read and agreed to by you." He reclined yet again, peering at Kyrleez with his eyes like coals as his two lackeys tried to copy their liege.

Tirruz read the fancy printing;

From the cave of Nauros the Black Lord,

This agreement is to lend to the gnoll people of Northern Aureus and Equestria the support and to be allied with the properties, entities and other owned objects of Nauros. In the event of gnoll victory over the nations of the Griffin Kingdoms and the Holdings of the Emperor and Empress of Diamond Dogs. Their nations shall pass into the holdings and under the banner of Skana, the Matriarch of Matriarchs of the gnoll people at this time, and in turn for the allegiance with the dragons of Nauros, they must agree to help, provide succor and support any and all dragons who ask for help/sacrifice/offerings to their person(s). Other negotiations are to be discussed with Quavaarik, Master of Law within the liege-ship of Nauros.

Tirruz felt like screaming at the arrogant dragon, telling him to shove himself and his slave-printed letter into the most demon-infested pit in Tartarus. Instead she smiled and nodded, "I'm sure Skana will agree." The dragons all nodded at once, their bright scales flashing in the moonlight as they agreed with the decision. Nauros yawned expansively, revealing massive teeth. "Very good, gnoll. I look forward to your answers. Try not to disappoint me." Then, in a sound like sails on a boat suddenly coming to meet a strong breeze, he and his commanders spread their wings, flapped so powerfully Kyrleez had to crouch and hold the ground with her fore-claws, and watched as the dragons flew against the night, Nauros especially nearly blending in save for blotting out the starlight with his immense body.

Tirruz stalked back to the village, slammed the door to her cabin and stared angrily at the walls from her pony-hide covered bed. She would give the message to Skana when she returned with new members of the Greater Clan, who would sweep over and take back from the Diamond Dogs, the griffins and their allies what they were owed by her kind for their evils. Now she just wanted, along the way, to see proud old Lord Nauros stumble and fall along the way. But not before serving the gnoll people as best as the old tyrant could.

She savored the thought as she went to sleep, dreaming of the great wyrm's pleas and screams for mercy among the usual chorus of piteous wailing she thought of every night.