The Cost of Loyalty

Grud was a beast among beasts. Always he was eating, stomping and crushing those who displeased his simple, yet cunning self.

Grud was a Grot and grot's were cruel, spiteful beasts. Blessed with an inkling of Aout intelligence they used such elementary knowledge to figure where best to start fires and stick their nails into squishy things to produce the most entertaining of squeals. Truly the Grot were a plague upon the Good Earth and the worst of that plague was truly Grud.

Inserting a hooked claw into his long curved snout Grud fished for the right amount of mildly flammable bile and mucus to start the roast of mannish things that he had caught two nights before.

Skeward and bound the small morsels wiggled and howled over their fateful predicament, but like a spice to his meal, their screams and pleas merely added flavor to the dish.

"Hum and `oller, ye little worms," roared Grud poking at them with a pointed log, "not a one can `ear yer blasted wailin', not less beat old Grud outta his well earned suppers," a sentence that was punctuated by the creature running his huge, fat tongue over his cracked lips all the while flapping his large, misshapen ears in delight.

The great, crooked monstrosity sat up from the fire place and leaned back against the wall of his humid and malodorous cave, once more seeking the right amount of secretions to fuel the cook pit.

That was until the mewling Herd arrived, carrying the twigs and strapped cloth that made up the grot standard of submission upon his warty and flea ridden back.

Grud eyed the tiny twenty five footer, the term used for runts and diplomats, in a less than pleasant way, "who dat here?," growled the beast swatting irately at the smaller grot, "old Grud asked for nottin' but time to chomp his supper!"

"Mercy! Mercy fearful one!," shrieked Herd shuffling away, "its be time for da meeting with dem der Droal.'

"Hum and `oller!," grumble Grud tossing down his pointed log and lurching to his full height of thirty five feet as he menacingly glowered over the cowering Herd, "Grud knows deals not best set on an empty paunch, mayhap's thems that steals his supper out from under his nose be the very sames that will fill his belly instead.'

Herd groveled in a mighty fear at these words and cast dirt all about himself and into the air, a sign to show he was submissive in all ways to the powerful Grud.

Disgusted by the creature's spinelessness Grud stalked off past the diplomat and made his way down the craggy mountainside to the putrid swamplands of the Droal-Ashtet.



The Droal from the Droal-Ashtet were a dower and serious lot. Death worshipers one and all the inky skinned humanoids and their gargoyle-like aids known as the Rhad stood impassively as the gargantuan Grud approached from on high. About them Grud's people crouched and feasted upon a banquet of fatty and slightly decaying carcasses that the emissaries from the east had obviously broughten with them.

In wicked glee Grud stomped and thundered down the hill side, shocking animals and smaller creatures into panicked flight before his impressive and oft time deadly descent.

The sheer terror his passing could invoke made him a happy grot, but watching the eerie way in which the droal stood and observed him as he grew closer generated within the beast a rare bout of concern and a great deal of anger.

By the time he had reached the edge of the caravan that awaited him the mammoth Grud was positively beside himself in rage over the listless, unconcerned attitudes on display by the tiny droal before him.

"Ye's be coming here to speak with Grud but ye be havin' only enraged him with yer foolishness!," growled the terrible beast in his deepest, most hateful voice.

Without a word the lead member of the featureless droal extended her hand and motioned for a group of Rhad behind her to move a large carcase forward.

Grud hesitated when he saw the giant feast they were presenting him. A Skald octopod, a behemoth of the dark and treacherous swampland had been laid before his taloned feet.

Greedily the grot dropped to his knees and began to tear the animal apart, slurping on its gristle and drawing off its flesh with the roughness of his bloated tongue and the chomping of his shark-like teeth.

Once sated the behemoth turned his dull and placated eyes to the wee droal before him, "Ay, ye be a decent enough lot to be feeding old Grud," he began, "but now that his belly be full ye should be leavin' right quick, lest he be looking for a game to entertain whilst digestin'."

"Mighty Grud," came the female droal's wispy and ethereal reply, "we have journeyed here for your services and have been instructed to provide you with whatever you desire in order to assure your loyalty."

"Loyalty is for dem's too weak to stands alone, girlie morsel," claimed Grud as he lean back against the mountain, "ye cannot have what ye cannot take."

"Then surely a mutual conclusion can be reached? Is there nothing else we can offer you? Nothing else your heart desires," her words were accented by the way her hand drifted toward the sloppy remains of the the Grot's latest meal.

"More food for old Grud eh?,' rumbled the beast eyeing the delicious corpse at his feet while he continued to belch foully, `ye make a strong point der morsel. Mayhaps we shall, if'n ye provide what ye says ye can, when we says ye should."

"My master would have it no other way," she proclaimed with a deep bow, "until we have need of your time and talents we shall leave you and your kin to your dining."


*****

As the droal left the range of the grot a tall Rhad approached from behind the swiftly departing female, "Augury, are we sure these beasts will be as effective as expected? With the way they eat they could possibly consume our resources faster than we could hope replenish them."

Augury waved her hand in a dismissive manner, "worry not Cad, our master has assured us their use will be strategic at best, let them sit and wait for us to come find them again. Once the war is in full swing we shall unleashed their primal fury against our enemies and watched in satisfaction as they grind the walls of Aout and Kynde to dust."

"Of course my lady, but the danger inherent to such actions-"

"Leave everything to our master Cad," replied the woman in a cold tone as she allowed a chilling and vicious smile to spread across her otherwise austere face, "when the grot have outlived their usefulness then we shall see an end to them as well."