The red-eyed, utterly unhinged Chieftain of the Filthclaws rode his magnificent, snow-white dire wolf, leading his clan's elite warriors and the Rendingclaws' reinforcements toward the battlefield.
The chieftain was in a very bad state.
It stared fixedly at the handful of Transians still putting up a fight across the shattered ground before it, muttering to itself. It looked as if the pressure had finally driven it a little mad.
In other words, after a total mental breakdown came humiliation and rage, anger clouding its mind, and a complete collapse of its composure.
That was understandable.
Ever since Warden Hurley had "righteously" demanded that the Filthclaw Clan take Bloodbanner Heights, the chieftain—who had always prided itself on being cunning—had lost nearly two thousand elite warriors in this godforsaken place. Its clan had grown strong under the Rendingclaws' protection, but losing two thousand elites was still a painful sacrifice.
What made it worse was that the Filthclaws' elite warriors had to undergo secret gnoll techniques to temper their bodies. They cost far more to raise than ordinary elite brutes and hunters. The ambitious chieftain knew that every elite in its clan had to be put to good use if it wanted to seize more benefits and climb higher during this Black Calamity.
But its hard-earned warriors had been wiped out by one dishonorable lightning storm from Triss, sprung on them in a trap by those cunning Transians. No ambitious leader could accept that.
More than the loss of its own forces, it feared the death order from the Rendingclaw matriarch, who had always looked down on it. She had demanded that the Filthclaw chieftain eliminate the Bloodbanner Heights, which had brought shame upon the gnolls, and advance toward Blackflame Pass before the Rendingclaw army arrived. Otherwise, she would turn them into voodoo