Travails and Terrors - Tales of Faerûn

In the ragged camp of the pack they gathered. High poles with grotesque totems silhouetted against the red sky like a crown of thorns. The smell would send a man to retching, the rot of bad meat warring with the smell of so much iron. Gnolls had a way of affixing metal spikes to more than their weapons and armor. Even the frames of their tents seemed weapons in their own right.

In the midst of these tents - stitched from flayed hides and staked with cracked bones - a gnoll scout slunk before Vrrithka. The fire spat embers into the night, casting shadows on the clustered hyena-folk who gnawed at scraps from the day’s kill. The scout bowed low, his muzzle twitching as he growled his report.

“Packlord,” he snarled, voice a guttural rasp. “Raid on frog-apes. Took hides, meat. But your oldest. Slain. Spear through gut. Others fled, lost weapons.”

Vrrithka sat upon a throne of piled skulls, her yellow eyes narrowing. She yipped once, sharp and dismissive. “Weak,” she growled. “All brood weak. Disappoint.”

For as much as a gnoll could, she seemed contemplative, clawed hand upon the iron belt-armor above her womb. “No matter. Replace. I ripen now.”

The pack shifted, ears pricking. She tilted her head, claws scraping bone. “Krr’vashk. Worthy? Come.”

Laughter erupted from the others, a chorus of high-pitched yips and cackles like at a fresh carcass. Jeers flew - snarls of envy, teeth bared in false mirth - as rivals eyed each other with sidelong glares, ever scheming in their petty wars.

Strong one calls. Must prove. Scent power, take place, thought Krr’vashk, his mind a hunt through the haze of instinct. He pushed through the throng, shouldering lesser gnolls aside, and dropped to one knee before her, muzzle lowered in submission.

“Krr’vashk,” snarled the alpha unto her champion. He raised his gaze. The bold demeanor enticed and irritated Vrrithka in equal measure. Her dark eyes grew wide, lips pulled back in a sneer.

She sprung forward as if challenged, pinning the warrior to the ground with a snarl. A fierce nip to the muzzle sent his ears to flatten back, legs sprawled in utter submission. It seemed she would take the mount before them all, and the gathered could be heard to yip and laugh at his humiliation. She had done it before, but rarely to Krr’vashk. Krr’vashk learned very quickly.

Vrrithka shoved off the bigger gnoll and returned to her throne of blood and rot. She waved a claw to the side, towards the only advisor she kept as packlord.

Krr’vashk regained himself now and stood with head lowered, no presumption of challenge in him. His gaze shifted to the hulking figure at her flank, where Grakk’thul the flind loomed, his bulk a mass of scarred muscle under darker fur, eyes smoldering with Yeenoghu’s fire. Clad in robes of tattered flesh etched with abyssal marks, the seer clutched a flail of chained skulls that dripped ichor, his presence a dread weight upon the pack. Though his speech held a sharper edge than the common yips, it carried the guttural snarl of the abyss, laced with ritual cadence.

Far bigger than Krr’vashk, flinds easily dominated most gnolls. Smarter too, were they. Grakk’thul easily sensed that Krr’vashk was exceptional.

Grakk’thul leaned forward, snapping his jaws inches from Krr’vashk’s ear. “Welp,” he growled, words clipped yet resonant. “You granted honor. Prove strength, or join the weak in the Demon’s Maw.”

The pack’s laughter faded into wary growls, eyes darting between the priest and the kneeling warrior.

Priest tests. Bite words, but blessing comes. Hunt calls stronger. Krr’vashk’s instincts coiled tight.

Grakk’thul raised his claw, talons gleaming, and raked a swift, bloody gash across Krr’vashk’s shoulder, the wound searing with infernal heat. “Yeenoghu blesses,” he intoned, voice rising in savage prayer. “Tear flesh, spill blood. Hunt true, or rot eternal.”

Krr’vashk endured without flinch, the mark burning as unholy vigor coursed through his veins, sharpening his senses for the raid ahead.

Vrrithka yipped approval, her muzzle curling. “Fight, Krr’vashk. Prove worthy. Frog-apes come. Five strong, armed with blades and bows, one in robes chanting fire, another cloaked in shadows. Raid their camp at dawn.” A flick of her wrist. “Bring heads, or die.”

The big gnoll strode away from the gathering, a dark specter against the reeking bonfire of peat and badwood. Already the lessers averted their eyes, tails and ears lowered out of the only sort of respect they knew - fear.

Shortly thereafter, Krr’vashk was already leagues from the gnoll camp. Clad in iron plates and straps, he bounded through the fields and forests of sparse, prickly black wood under low canopies. The Shaar was an unforgiving place, and Krr’vashk had grown hard not by the savage beasts of the land alone, but from a life of constant privation. Every muscle and sinew of his hulking, spotted body was a mark of a warrior who always ate first. The deep scars along his maw and under the iron face-plate he wore spoke to his many challenges over the years.

It was more than a day’s journey, even with Krr’vashk’s great speed and familiarity with the land. The big gnoll stopped his lopes abruptly and set himself down under the shadow of a cluster of thorntrees. He unslung a bundle of javelins and unraveled the long chain from about his torso. There was no road to be seen, but this was along the route where men often travelled in their expeditions into the great savannas.

Krr'vashk waited patiently, which was a great strength of him. Men come. Waystones guide…outlanders. His contemplative nature caused great rancor with others of his pack, but it made him useful beyond his warrior’s skills. He knew of the city called Innarlith. He knew the great wealth and the mass-submission that mankind called ‘order,’ borne of their love for wealth and comfort.

Only great caravans or the strongest of warriors came unto the Shaar…or great fools. Five hotbloods, but no fools. I think. The alpha would not have sent him for a trifle. It was not her way. She mocked her subjects not with runt-hunts but with abject humiliation before all.

Hours dragged on under the sun, but the five came at last. They walked north together, towards the great man city. Returning, presumed the gnoll. They did look burdened with baggage. Bearing treasure. Bathed in blood. Had these men laid low the alpha’s progeny, they were surely formidable…but they had thought the danger had passed, it was evident in the way they moved.

Leaving his javelins for stealth, Krr'vashk crept through the grass. His spots of black on yellow were natural for concealing within the dry yellow stalks, and he knew it well. He came as close as he dared. The scent of the men burned his nostrils. It was all he could do to wait til they had walked past.

The adventurers looked forward, oblivious to the seven and a half feet of horror that rose from the grass behind them. By the time they heard the rattling of chains, it was too late.

A figure in robes that appeared pale pink, like the belly of a fish, turned first. Krr'vashk had already marked this one as a mage, and with a quick loop above the head, he slung the chain forward. The scythe bit into the mage’s cranium, blood spurting free from that wizard’s cowl.

One of the warriors was truly quick, and her blade came free faster than Krr'vashk could draw it back. She chopped through the air and the chain wrapped round several times in the blink of an eye. Krr'vashk snarled, yanking with great strength. The woman did not turn loose, but allowed herself to be dragged forward. Not good.

Another man stepped to the side now, running a fletching along his tongue before nocking on his bow. Krr'vashk leapt into the tall grass, his grip on the chain abandoned. The shafts loosed and came close. Two bit deep into his long torso, although the gnoll in his bloodlust felt it not.

The four living chattered among themselves, plotting to some end. Krr'vashk hugged the dry ground and crawled through unseen divots, slow so as to not give away his position. The Great Hunter was with him then, for the winds blew over the fields and the grasses danced in response. He crawled on quicker.

The gnoll reemerged where the warrior woman had not predicted, eyes gleaming like two yellow lights within the black as he leapt, snarling. The woman was quick. She turned and stabbed. Krr'vashk caught the blade in his hand, bleeding freely and risking his fingers. The painful parry worked, and the steel grazed against his hide as he came in close.

The hook-spike of his off-hand shot up now, driving into the woman’s unprotected neck. No chain, no padding - this was the Shaar, where heat could kill as surely as any blade. She wore muscled cuirass and barbute. Much flesh was left exposed that she might sweat freely. Krr’vashk’s jaws clamped down on the muscular neck and tore free. He dropped the warrior dead at his feet.

Turning round now, head low and shoulders hunched, Krr'vashk watched as the remaining three fled into the distance. Not towards that man city they called Innarlith. No, they fled elsewhere. Garlask Rock, reasoned Krr’vashk. An ancient spire well known to him, and perhaps to these adventurers as well.

He opened his maw and arched back, giving the blood-curdling yowl of a gnoll of the Shaar - far mightier than their kin to the northern, greener lands. The adventurers surely heard it…the sound of their doom. They ran faster. Krr'vashk retrieved his weapons and pursued, his stride measured and comfortable.

The companions sought refuge in that place the cleric among them noted as the Rock of Garlask, and there they prepared for the defense against what they presumed was a great hunting party of gnolls.

The wind worried at the stones of the tower, a thin, constant sound like breath through teeth.

Algun kept his back to the broken parapet and did not look down again. He had already made that mistake once. The image would not leave him: the way the tall grass had parted, not rushed or thrashed, but opened, as if something beneath it had decided the moment had come.

He pressed two fingers into the holy sigil at his throat until the edge bit skin. Blood welled from the edges, answering his fervor. Through shut lids, he murmured the incantations. His eyes shot open and he halted his prayer. The light still answered him.

Below, something moved.

Not fast. That was the worst part. It did not skulk or rush or scrabble like an animal. Chains dragged behind it, iron rasping softly over rock. The sound carried, even through the wind.

It was taller than a man, taller than any man he had ever seen, and broader through the shoulders than the warhorses of the Shaar tribes. Yellow hide stretched over corded muscle, scarred and split in a dozen places where steel had bitten and failed to finish the work. A crude iron face-plate framed a muzzle stained so dark with old blood that it looked black.

Its eyes caught the torchlight. They did not burn with madness. Focused, they did not roll or dart about.

The creature’s head tilted slightly, as if listening. Not to sound, but to possibility. It lifted one clawed hand and tested the air, then looked directly at the tower’s shadowed ledge where Algun knelt.

At him.

His breath hitched. The prayer died in his mouth.

It smiled.

Algun understood then, with a cold clarity that hollowed his chest: this thing had been hunting as one of many. It had moved like it expected others to answer its call, to cut off flight, to fall upon prey from all sides.

And now…Now it hunted alone.

The chain slackened in its grip as it shifted its stance. Its posture changed. Cautious. Intent. The smile faded, replaced by something tighter, more focused.

Algun rose slowly, hands shaking despite himself, holy light gathering weakly around his fingers.

Below, the gnoll took one step closer to the tower.

Then another.

And in the torchlight, with blood still wet on its chest and the wind tugging at its chains, it looked less like a beast of the wilds and more like something that had learned - too late, perhaps, but thoroughly - how men fought when cornered.

The light in Algun’s hand flared. The dying light of day seemed magnified over the plains, and the stink of burning beast-flesh could be smelt on the air. Off the thing went, whimpering despite its great, lusty strength.

“Well struck, Algun!” The archer among them gave his sincere praise.

Their remaining warrior was less pleased. “We need to see to fortifying this place. What’ve you got, Sheldon?”

Sheldon’s smile vanished and he began to suggest how he might extend wires across any likely entrance into that place. The Rock of Garlask, so named for some ancient warlord who had extracted tribute from across the plains, likely possessed great dangers within its depths. Time had not been kind to what had perhaps been a tower of modest size, though it was still quite impressive in stature. Even more so, considering the ancient age in which it had been built.

Krr'vashk lowered himself among some of the outlying ruins of Garlask’s place, those that scholars among mankind referred to as the ‘slave’s quarters.’ He was an exceptional gnoll, Krr’vashk, and he was familiar with some of the musings of the scribbling races. The frog-apes thought themselves safe within those confines that had claimed hundreds more just like them, fools in search of treasure who lacked the might to claim it.

He laughed to himself in private, and the hunt resumed.

The shadowed figure stood at the highest intact section of the parapet, one gloved hand resting on the broken stone while the other kept loose upon the hilt of the blade at his hip. The weapon itself seemed reluctant to catch the light; even under the full moon its edge drank the silver rather than reflect it, as though the steel remembered darker places. He was lean rather than heavily built, the kind of man who moved like he had learned early that bulk was only useful if you intended to stand still and die. A deep hood shadowed most of his face, but the lower half was clean-shaven and hard-set, the mouth a thin line that rarely softened. When he spoke, the voice was quiet and precise, the tone of someone accustomed to being obeyed without needing to raise it.

“This place is older than any of the maps claim,” he said, not looking back at the others. “Garlask was no simple warlord. He bled the plains for tribute and stacked the bones of those who refused in the lower vaults. The upper levels are unstable. Look at the way the masonry settles after every strong wind. The stairs that still stand are narrow and deliberate. One man with a spear could hold the main ascent for a time, but the side galleries are another matter. There are openings in the outer wall that a climber could use if he is patient enough. And the lower chambers…they were never meant for the living to linger in. Whatever the scholars write about an ‘opulent palace,’ the old blood remembers.”

Sheldon the archer crouched near the widest gap in the ruined stair, already uncoiling thin, taut wire from a leather case. “I can span the main approaches and the two side clefts. It will not stop something that size if it is determined, but it will slow it and tell us exactly where it comes.”

The archer checked the fletching on his remaining shafts and grunted. “We should cache the packs. If that thing is still hunting, better the gold and the plates stay buried than end up decorating some fiend’s neck.”

Algun looked up from where he sat against a cracked pillar, the holy symbol still pressed between his fingers. “And if we are forced to flee? We leave empty-handed after everything it cost to take them?”

The shadowed leader turned then, the moonlight catching the edge of one pale eye beneath the hood. “We argue about the weight of coin while something that already killed two of us walks the grass below. Hide half. Mark the place. The rest stays with us. If we live, we return for it. If we do not, the dead have no use for either.”

A short, sharp silence followed. Sheldon nodded first. The archer spat once over the side and began unstrapping the heavier satchels. Algun rose without further protest.

They worked quickly under the bright moon. Wire was stretched low across the most likely climbing points and the broken stair. Loose stones were piled into crude breastworks. The remaining warrior took the highest vantage with bow ready; Sheldon claimed the central stair with a short blade and a handful of caltrops. The shadowed leader moved between them, quiet corrections and short orders, the dark blade never far from his hand.

When the last wire was set, Algun stepped into the open space at the center of the ruin. The moon stood high and clear, flooding the plains in silver. He lifted the symbol and spoke the old words, not the formal temple liturgy of the cities but the shorter, harder cadence used by those who walked the open lands:

“Selûne of the bright face, lady of the night road, look upon these few who stand between the dark and the next dawn. Guard our sight. Steady our hands. Let the light that finds us also find whatever stalks below, and let it know it is seen.”

A soft, cool radiance answered, not bright enough to blind but enough to touch the edges of the stones and the wire. The four of them stood a moment longer, the plains spread wide and empty beneath the moon. For the first time since the chain had sung in the grass, the air felt almost clear.

Then, from somewhere deep beneath the oldest foundations, came a slow, deliberate stirring…stone shifting against stone, followed by the soft, purposeful rasp of iron.

Something like the terrible cry of wind could be heard to come from beneath the three, and Algun spoke about it being no sort of wind. The shadowy warrior snorted once. “The tortured and the damned…perhaps they will claim this wretched gnoll and save us the trouble.”

And it seemed as though he spoke truly, for there was at first a terrible clamor. Yips in the dark intermingled with the scraping of iron on stone. Then, without warning, it stopped.

The three stood, weapons ready, Algun murmuring a prayer, Sheldon flexing his normally steady fingers.

It was the warrior among them who saw it: two eyes peering from a gap between the stones. “Ready!” he began to shout, and raised his dark blade to strike the instant the first adversary rushed on them.

Sheldon gurgled something incoherent from an overwhelming fear, and he quickly drew and loosed. The arrow sailed wide and struck the old stones, gaining them nothing but a brief spark. The goddess did not favor his courage, it seemed.

The gnoll roared mightily, and shoved his way forward, the decrepit stones crumbling before him.

Only one! The warrior among them realized that the lot of them had been hiding from a single gnoll, and his pride got the better of him as he swung with a great fury.

The blade was expertly swung, meant to cleave the monster’s head from its shoulders in one move…but the gnoll was far too fast. It shot under the dark blade and barreled into the trembling archer, taking him down to the ground in one savage leap.

As the warrior turned round, it was just in time to see the terrible visage of the gnoll rise from the gory mess of Sheldon’s entrails, black blood coating the iron face-plate. The thing’s eyes fixed upon his sword, the scent of desire as overwhelming as its blood lust.

Algun struck down with a heavy staff, shouting a sort of righteous curse. “Amalakan!”

The gnoll turned to the side and raised its vambraces to absorb the blow, and the staff snapped to a stop. It was then that Algun’s courage faltered as well, the middling cleric tripping over himself in haste to begone from that intimate killing space within the old palace that had borne witness to centuries of untold horror.

It was then that the warrior might have laughed, as Algun darted directly towards the moonlit terrace where Sheldon had affixed a length of wire. The cleric tripped and fell hard, head bashing into the stones and rendering him unconscious.

The gnoll turned back and readied its chain. It was nowhere near as clumsy as those terrible fiend-spawn were noted to be. The warrior had struck down countless gnolls over his years as an adventurer. It moved with a certain grace, more like a werewolf than the cursed hyena creature that it was.

Suddenly, the thing stopped. It brought a hand to its throat to help work the chords beneath, rasping out an ugly approximation of the common tongue. “Name. Yours.”

The warrior would give no salute for the hideous beast, but it satisfied him in no small extent that there would be another to mark him in the hells he would soon banish it to. “I am Skunna of Hillsfar…you stinking beast.”

A short grunt escaped the gnoll then in what might have been laughter. Skunna’s blade thrummed with a dark energy then. His other hand extended forward and he beckoned the gnoll to try his prowess.

It proved to be a mistake, to lower one’s guard and to taunt so dangerous an adversary.

Krr'vashk returned with heads in tow, their eyes rolled up their sockets. The mage and that first warrior from the road had already begun to putrefy, maggots dropping from the jagged neck-scar with near every step. It drew less attention than the dark blade the victorious gnoll carried in his other hand.

Ripper, he decided. A good name for the blade. It was what the hairless ones called any of his own pack. They had to give them some distinction, so great was their power compared to other roving, mangy omegas. Sunset gnolls. Weak blood. Weak flesh! I go, dominate.

Krr'vashk made his determination easily, knowing well he was alpha. Male, yes. Alpha, soon…

The throng of his war pack cleared a wide path, those on the watchtowers looking back over shoulder to see the returning champion. Most raised high their glaives, that weapon used by gnolls wherever they were to be found. Gristle for war path. MY gnolls.

One seemed to think otherwise, snarling almost furtively, refusing in his pride to give Krr'vashk respect. The bigger gnoll saw from the side of his eye. Krr'vashk lunged at him, arms low and unneeded. The gnash of his teeth, the slavering of his jaws - these sent the proud one back, ears flat as could be. Krr'vashk lingered a moment, pleased when the defeated male curled low to the ground, a dark puddle gathering beneath.

Krr'vashk turned his back on the sneers and darkly delighted yips that followed. They would all follow him, this he knew.

He strode past the flind without a thought. He would get a proper blessing, and the priest would learn his proper place. Without word, Krr'vashk tossed the bundle of heads at the feet of Yeenoghu’s chosen. He walked on, no concern for what reaction it would elicit.

The skull throne limned the pack lord in shadow, the red sun quickly descending behind her. Shadows from the iron spikes and wooden barbs fell long towards Krr’vashk, casting lines across him like a pain cage. Vrrithka leaned forward. “Warrior, victor. Adequate.”

She meant to continue but halted, ears pricking forward at the refusal to supplicate. The already hushed gathering now grew silent, the chirping of insects from the vast Shaar the only noise besides the grinding of the big gnoll’s paws.

He came to a halt, eyeing the pack lead, and then raising the sword for all to see. It burned red and black, awakened by spilt life blood. The chorus of infernal cheers and laughing noises swelled upwards, and then fell silent again as Krr'vashk lowered the blade.

He did not sheath it, nor did he claim leadership by base killing of the pack lord…he let it stand as a symbol of his power, his free hand reaching across to drop his iron armor from his mid. Quick as it fell, he let the sword drop onto the metal pile. None would dare to touch it, but he would dare all he pleased.

Dominant, yes. You did so before. Krr'vashk had been on the receiving end of the ritual more than once, but less than other males. Once was more than enough, and his pride demanded requital.

Krr’vashk’s clawed hand lurched forward, grasping Vrrithka by her own spaulder-strap. He brutally jerked her off her throne, down to her knees before all. She made to leap back, intent upon the grapple. His snarl came close, low. Fresh blood spilled fueled his black soul, even telling in his eyes - in his very aura! ‘Ripper’ manifested itself in the new leader of that pack known to men as ‘The Ripper Clan.’

Krr'vashk would go on to use that name on his own terms, and the name would precede him when he went to ravage the lands west. He had no such forethought at the moment. His eyes, red and black, darkened with intent as Vrrithka’s head lowered to the dirt, resigned now to one mightier than herself. He would make the lesson before all…and if those offspring proved weak? The new master of the Ripper Clan would find a mate more suitable and strong.

Mastery, humiliation, ruthlessness. Thus was the way of the gnolls, and a terrible new alpha took the mount before all. And woe, now, woe to the realms of man!