Gnoll

 I've been easing myself back into fiction writing lately. Here's some "lore" (read: fanfic) about the goblin barbarian I've been playing in a friend's D&D campaign. Since the release of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, I've been really interested in the demon lord Yeenoghu and his twisted pack of freakish hyena-men. Sort of reminds me of the neglected Beastmen from Warhammer Fantasy. That scene in Baldur's Gate 3 gave me a lot of inspiration for this bit. I did, in fact, name Skarsnik after the famous goblin from Total War: Warhammer, too. Please don't sue me GW.

        He watched the grotesque thing change.

What had once been the lifeless carcass of some plains-scavenging canine twitched and spasmed before him. Its rotted tendons jolted subtly at first, disturbing the foliage around the corpse and sending slight rustles through the air. Then it’s jaw began to twitch. The half-gone tendons forcing the jaw to click slowly together, and apart. Together, and apart. Like some drowning fish gasping for water when beached or thrown into a fisherman’s net.

The full body convulsions that followed were startling. The corpse bent horizontally along the spine with such violence the thing leapt several feet into the air. It flopped once, twice, and then, in an explosion of gore, tore itself apart from the inside.

The sudden eruption of viscera put Skarsnik on the back foot, and he instinctively reached for the handle of his greataxe. Dropping low to the ground, he watched as before him stood the product of the cursed transfiguration; standing on two digitigrade legs a full seven feet up, a hideous humanoid warped beyond recognition. A body that appeared both toned and malnourished simultaneously was topped by a swollen hyena’s head, lips peeled back in a rictus grin. Its patchy and bloodsoaked fur gave way to spots of gray skin. A maddened giggle escaped past rows of needle teeth, rising to a shrieking cackle as it sniffed the air. 

Skarsnik was not phased. Through a combination of blind bravery and pure stupidity, he refused to let this abomination’s theatrics shake him. Where his lesser kin would run, Skarsnik would slay.

The beast, ostensibly sensing Skarsnik’s presence (or perhaps tasting his bravado on the quiet breeze) dropped to all fours and tasted the air, doing its best to suppress its constant laughter. 

Skarsnik was on the move, circling silently around to the thing’s flank. A goblin’s lifetime spent skulking through forests and hiding out in leafage had made him a master at slinking unnoticed. The Gnoll’s ears twitched about, but it did not turn its head in his direction.

He came within six feet of it before he struck. Drawing in a full breath, Skarsnik raised his ax above his head and charged. He shouted no war cry as he came on; Skarsnik was stupid, but he was cunning enough to execute an ambush.

The reward for Skarsnik’s guile was the satisfactory crunch that came from the gnoll’s back as the wide blade of the greataxe sunk into its flesh. The beast’s low giggling sharpened to a howling screech as it rolled away, dislodging the ax and a hunk of its own flesh to boot.

Now, with the pretense of stealth gone, Skarsnik bellowed a wordless war cry in response. Despite his relative size and lung capacity, his shout cut out above the gnoll’s panicked chittering. He charged again. He would not allow the thing to recover.

This time, though, the gnoll was ready. It spun to face him, channeling the momentum into a wide swing with its claws. The blow caught Skarsnik full in the chest and sent him careening into the trunk of a tree some distance away. He hit the ground hard, and heard the thing cackling at him as it approached.

Skarsnik rolled onto his belly, looked up, and saw two things that frustrated him. First, the gnoll’s dumb beginning to wear on his nerves. Second, in his short flight to the tree trunk, he’d dropped his ax some fifteen feet away. Just about equidistant between him and the gnoll. 

This was the only instant Skarsnik took. Immediately he was up and running as fast his goblin legs would carry him. At the same time he drew his handax from the leather loop that bound it to his hip. He raised his arm, and let fly. 

The ax flew end over end through the air, leaving Skarsnik’s hand at good speed. Had he the time to think, he would’ve admired this as one of his best tosses to date. In a fraction of a second, the blade was embedded in the gnoll’s chest, but the fur-covered demon came on, hardly stumbling and laughing even harder. 

They reached the greataxe in the same moment. The gnoll clawed out at Skarsnik as he dove and then somersaulted underneath it. 

He felt his hand grasp the handle of his weapon, his fingers sliding into grooves worn into the leather from years of wielding it in that exact grip. He knew he had no time to think. He swung the immense blade in a horizontal arc without standing, blindly hoping for contact.

Skarsnik’s swing was vindicated when he felt the blade collide with, and then pass through two separate objects. He didn’t stop to check, instead rolling over on his side two, three times to put distance between himself and the beast.

It was a good thing, too. As the adrenaline-fueled thumping in his ears subsided, Skarsnik heard the beast whining in pain. He’d cut clean through the creature’s legs and it thrashed about familiarly on the ground. 

Skarsnik felt no pity for the thing. A creation of pure evil and chaos, it cried out now only because it knew it would never wreak the wanton destruction it was obsessed with. It deserved no putty. Not that Skarsnik had ever been a merciful one. 

He crossed the several paces to the dying gnoll and unceremoniously brought his ax down on its neck. With a final sharp bark, it fell silent.

Skarsnik bent down and retrieved his throwing ax from the thing’s chest. Then he lifted one of its arms and hewed the paw from its limb at the wrist. He fastened it to to his belt, alongside three others like it, and set off into the forest once again.