The Red Altar

Story by Catullus on SoFurry

, , , , , , , , , , ,

A commission for a very exciting buyer, Eludoria. A massive battle is waged between lions and hyenas. How exciting for all of us, especially those of us who like violence and death!


You couldn't ask for a more perfect field of battle. The two long-battling tribes, the lions and lionesses on one side and the hyenas on the other, were meeting on the wide-open savannah. The sun was high above their lines, and beat on them. It seemed to hang in the sky above the two mighty tribes, shining its light on the open grassland, where the two lines of warriors waited, holding their spears and staring each-other down. It was no coincidence this battlefield seemed so perfect and even, it hadn't been selected by mistake, nor by the random whims of fate and the movement of armies. No, instead this field had been chosen specifically for how even it was, and how well-matched it made the two sets of armies. Neither lion nor hyena would have an advantage from positioning. No mountains allowed for arrows to rain from above, nor were there massive boulders to prepare ambushes from. Tall grasses could hardly be avoided in the savanna, of course, and they lined the sides of the field of battle. A few scouting parties might be able to sneak around back, hiding in grass and perhaps finding a few rocky paths for cover, but to do so would be difficult, and there would likely only be one way to manage that. Even in the ambushes, they would have to be evenly matched. Not many warriors could sneak through around back without being noticed, the main force of the battle would have to be out in the open, between the two lines of warriors that stood ready to strike at any moment.

To the west stood the lions. Mighty, proud creatures in leather-wraps and loin cloths. The army was mostly female, though their leaders were male. Some used the straps and fabric to cover the most sensitive parts of the body, the ass or pussy, while others used them to highlight them, wrapped around breast to lift them, holding cocks tall and firm, or presenting a perfect target of a lovely open pussy, even as illustrations carved into the leather warned any males who dared attempt uninvited entrance of the danger they would face. Bracelets and bangles glistened in the sun, marking the status of their wearers, while mixes of tattoo and fur die marked the victories of the ferocious felines, chronicling in fur and flesh their histories of conquest.

A good 50 yards away from the lionesses, their opponents stood ready for battle as well. Hyenas, mostly male with a few females thrown in, though it could be hard to tell with the elongated psuedopenises of hyena women. They dyed their leathers black, strapped them tight and accented them with bone. Ritual scars counted their victories, their faces were marked with piercings, their clothes tied tight. They had nothing 'protective' in their costuming, no, it was all about intimidation. The leather straps across their chestr, that spread down and highlighted cocks and pussies, were carved with markings of rank, of victory, and illustrations of what they had done. Some wore capes from the flesh of defeated lions. Like the teams of a sporting event, the two sides waited, pounding on the ground with spears, waving clubs and knives, for the sun to reach its apex. They would charge together, and the battle would commence.

A singular stake stood at the center of the field, and the two sides watched as the shadow neared the stake's base. Once it disappeared entirely, directly under the sun, the two armies let out a mighty roar and charged at each-other, brandishing their knives, their spears, and of course their cocks and cunts, all the weapons they would use to ruin their enemies in battle. The lions were confident in their power, their size and strength, sure it would all be enough to easily overwhelm their inferior foes. The hyenas, for their part, were just as confident in their own skills, their own brutality, their own ability to overwhelm any who dared try to stand up to them. What they lacked in pure size and muscle, they more than made up for in cunning and brutality.

The sound of the lines crashing together shook the savannah, disturbing the birds and other beasts for miles around. The impact of two mighty armies coming together, clashing muscle and flesh, and a sudden flow of blood that, at first, it seemed impossible to determine the origin of. Both the lions and hyenas had every reason to believe in their own prowess, every reason to expect a victory in this battle, but neither one could truly claim superiority in numbers or resources. Despite the age-old advice of every strategist in history, that a battle is won or lost long before the armies meet, this time, the one thing that would separate the two would be skill in the moment. Tactics, not strategy, and even more importantly individual merit.

In this moment, though, as the two forces clashed in the middle of the savannah, there was very little individual about the combat. Fur and blood and weapons flew, claws slashed flesh, teeth bit necks, a melee in which it was nearly impossible to determine which was friend and which was foe. Muscle clashed to muscle, tooth to claw, and the first clash began. It was a vital moment in the battle, one which would set the tone for whatever was to come. Unfortunately for the lions, then, the hyenas seemed to be the ones taking an advantage. Lionesses were being thrown to the ground, mounted from behind, their necks captured in mighty jaws, Their cunts were impaled with powerful, throbbing hyena cock, and shortly after that, they themselves were impaled with the mighty spears the warriors wielded.

The battle was, of course, not one-sided in the simplest sense. There were still lionesses capable of tackling the males, baring them to the ground, mounting their cocks or faces and clawing into their bodies. The blood that stained the savanah, dying the point where the warriors met red, was largely that of lions, but not exclusively. For the felines, at least those on the front lines of the battle, there was still something to be proud of.

For the ones in the back, though, it was more like something to be afraid of. The lionesses up front were too busy fighting from their lives to get a full view of what was happening, but from where they stood yards behind, the reinforcements could see that if the battle continued in the bloody melee upfront, it would soon become a massacre. They shuffled their feet, twisted around on their legs, antsy, eager to get into the battle if only to save their sisters. Their male officer, his proud mane braided with beautiful amber and ebony beads, held them at bay despite their burning desire to join the battle.

The lionesses gripped their spears so tight their hands made imprints on the wood. Their claws were instinctively extended, and, in their eagerness, cutting scores in the ground. At a single word from their leader, the army of lionesses would charge the lines, to protect their friends and drive back the cackling, spotted horde. Their muscles were tensed in anticipation of the order, and yet, for some reason, the order still hadn't come. The officer, charged with ordering the attack and committing when ready, was either so overconfident he expected the tides to turn on their own, so sure of some plot coming to fruition he saw no need to commit, or so shocked by the result of the front-line crash that he couldn't figure out how to react. Whatever it was, with every second that passed, the battle on the front became more desperate, and they could only watch.

At least... For a few minutes. If the back lines would not come to the battle, though, then the battle would have to come to the back lines. A flanking unit of hyenas had taken advantage of the pinned down front, and before the line of lionesses at the back were able to realize it, the horde of brown-and-black spotted beasts charged them, teeth and claws bared, cocks hard and on clear display. The reserve forces had been eagerly watching the battle at the front, and were too absorbed in it to notice the flanking maneuver. The hyenas struck like great boulders tumbling down a slope, rolling over the ground and crashing into the people below, sending them scattering aside like propped-up sticks.

In as much time as it took to take a single deep breath, the slaughter on the front line had come to the back, and the vicious hyenas were inflicting their assaults and depravities on the lionesses just as they had before. Hyenas, male or female, had rock-hard cocks (technically the women had clits, but it hardly mattered) and some of these had themselves been studded with rough metal or rock, so that that each thrust into a vulnerable cunt, ass, or throat pierced flesh in more ways than one. A dust cloud rose from the ground, the point of attack obscured but the events within still discernable from the feline screams, roars, the high hyena cackles, and the faint pink tint as blood splashed on the ground before being thrown up into the air with the dust particles.

While the front lines had been tightly packed, the formation in the back had been loose, and it hadn't been possible for every lioness to be attacked at once. Some, especially, had been positioned more like scouts, sent to the side to get a new angle on the battle and relay the status to the long-maned officers. For one, a scout fresh from the training fields being exposed to her first battle, she had been so absorbed in watching the front lines that she had failed to consider the possibility of combat in the back. It wasn't until she heard the screams from her sisters in battle that she thought to turn and look back, only to see the pink-tinged dust cloud and hear the cries of agony. She may not have been able to see what was happening through it, but she didn't need her eyes to know the depravities the hyenas would be inflicting on their victims.

She abandoned her position, her role in the battle rendered irrelevant by the assault on the reinforcements, and rushed to their aid. Her paws beat on the ground of the hot savannah as she rushed the ranks, gripping her spear in her hand and feeling her tail pulled behind her in the speed like the mane of a male.

Her rush to the rescue was interrupted by the body of a hyena slamming against her, knocking her to the ground, and she winced to hear a crack. At first she thought it was bone, but as the dust cleared, she saw the impact had snapped the spear, leaving the rock-tipped edge far away and only a half-spear of splintered wood even nearing her reach. She looked up, unarmed, to the man above her, and saw the sadistic smile on his lips, and drool dripping from then as he pinned her down, holding her shoulders in his grip.

As a scout, she had little more than a small skirt covering her lower body. It was little protection against the avarice of the hyenas. Like her, at least after the weapon had been knocked from her grip, he was unarmed. That, though, was only a technicality, as she realized when he thrust forward, under the lower body wrap, and his thick cock pounded into her pussy. The lower muscles had been trained, of course, but there was no substitute from live combat, and her instincts as a warrior fled her, replaced by the instinct to try to free her arms and push on the man above her, hoping to escape with no thought of the defenses that could be brought to bear on a man with his cock buried in you, the ability to crush flesh or weaken body through sex. Instead, she just pressed her hands to him, and tried to push.

It did her no good. It was like trying to push a boulder from her body, and even a boulder wouldn't be capable of repositioning so that a few mistaken assaults would end up with her crushed even harder, her arousal growing and her juices starting to flow. He leaned down, his head against her shoulder, and dragged his thick, soaked tongue over her throat. She had never before felt more like prey, or a sex toy, than she did under his avaricious attentions. She opened her mouth to do... Something, perhaps insult him, more likely just scream, and he took advantage them, driving his muzzle down and forcing her into a dominant, overwhelming kiss. His tongue slipped into her oral cavity and quickly took control. She tried to push him off, twist her hips to force him away, anything, but all she could manage was to seemingly exciting the malicious male that much more.

His tongue filled her mouth as full as his cock filled her cunt, she shuddered and felt saliva roll down her cheeks. She tried to reach up to push him away, and he easily brushed her hand to the side. Her arm flopped to the ground, but in doing so, it landed on the spear.

As he pulled away to utter some demeaning taunt, she gripped the spear in her hand, raised her arm, and twisted, driving the shattered wooden splinters into his throat. Whatever bile had been expected, blood fell from his lips instead, and he fell across her again, his cock stiffening and achieving in death what it had not in life, and shooting cum into her pussy, though not as a conqueror but as a corpse, a last creamy tribute to its superior. She enjoyed the feeling of her first kill for only a few seconds, before she grabbed onto his shoulders, twisted, and threw him limply to the ground, his crotch coated in his own shame, frothing at the lips and seeming to drip white flags of surrender from two ends at once.

She rose to her feet, and looked into the dusty melee, brushing the hyena's seed casually out of her cunt while she took in the view. There were little individual battles all over, lionesses pinned down and pumped, dripping blood or rolling their eyes, hard to tell which women were being beaten, which raped, and which nothing but limp corpses now being used by their conquerors. Her eyes were keen, though, necessary for a scout, and she managed to make out one specific conflict that most needed her assistance. The lion officer was on the ground, trying to fend off a horde of hyenas. They must have realized his status as an officer, seen the import he held for the lionesses, and targeted him specifically. Perhaps against one or two he could have held his own, but against the swarm that was mounting him now, men and women alike, he had no hope. It was only three or four, but must have felt like a thousand to the lion. She charged the fray, picking up the sharpened spear in stride, and rushing towards the melee. One of the hyenas pinning down her officer would find himself interrupted by a sharp spear in the back, the chipped rock tip bursting from his chest, before being thrown to the side and discarded.

Others would follow in his footsteps, as she grabbed at their bodies and pulled them away, throwing them to the side. Some were stabbed, others slashed with claws, others having their neck snapped. For each hyena she pulled from the officer, another one seemed to arrive, only to be met with death. Soon the officer was joining her, as much as he could, pushing them to her from his back to be dealt with. She was like a whirling clawed ball of death slicing into the hyenas and sending them away, until she felt a moment of respite, the battle dealt with for now.

She stepped forward, reaching out to her officer, and offering to assist him to his feet. He grabbed onto her shoulders, letting her pull him upwards, looking in her eyes with a momentary look of grattitude... Which swiftly shifted to one of abject horror.

"It's okay," she started, "I'm here to help y-GAHHHHHH!"

The beast that had sparked the horrified reaction in the officer didn't give her the opportunity to finish responding. She was lifted bodily off of her male, completely into the air, like a kitten who had angered an older sibling. She couldn't see the size of the creature who had taken her yet, but the shadows on the ground gave her some perception of the size difference. The man was, and there was no other word for it, massive. He was like a mountain. She was no small woman by any means, and yet she looked like she was barely a teenager next to his silhouette. With one hand, he threw her to the side with all the ceremony she had allowed his kin. She was scattered to the ground, rolling on her back, before finally being able to look up and see the warrior who was coming to crush her.

If she had somehow survived the battle, words would have failed any attempt to describe this beast. His proportions exceeded those of any she had seen before. Some observers of the battle would have put him (or rather, her, not that it mattered to the helpless creatures crushed by her body and vicious psuedocock) at eight, or even nine feet tall, and she would have been unable to bring herself to disagree. Whatever the height, the cock matched it in proportion. He fell upon her, his whole body seeming to crush hers, blood coming from her mouth as the impact knocked out her teeth with his muscle. His shaft then entered her, and she would have sworn it was coming out on the other side as he assaulted her, pumping her with hips larger than most warrior's spears, and a cock that could dig deeper than a sword or axe.

She couldn't look up at the beast. Tons of musclebound hyena weight crushed down on her body and forced her to turn her head to the side. The spear was far out of reach, now, and the power of the body atop her prevented her from looking away at the horrific sight as the lion she had so recently come to the aide of was fallen upon by hyenas once more. They grabbed him, drove him to the ground, and began a horrific assault. There was no room for the sexually shy here, to bring an opponent to orgasm - Or to use one for the same - Was a mark of pride for lion and hyena alike. One set of jaws fell to his cock, not to bite, but to lick and suck, slathering him with hyena saliva and ovewhelming him with pleasure. A second pair came to his mouth, silencing any objection with a smothering tongue, and then a third sealed his fate by latching onto his nipples and suckling. His efforts to withstand the attack were heroic, but doomed to failure, and soon, seed poured from the lips of the first attacker. His body began to shake, struggles dying, and then becoming frantic. The question as to why was answered soon enough, as not long after the sticky cream started to drip from the lips of the hyena at his legs, thick viscious red blood poured from the one at his chest as she began to chew into his flesh.

The lioness felt her arousal spike and her hopes fall as her juices began to gather around the giant shaft of the crushing man above her. The monster reached down for her head, grabbing her skull in a single hand that dwarfed it, and looking down in her eyes. So her horror, she felt the shaft stiffening in her cunt, and herself drawn upwards inexorably... Only to be slammed to the ground again. Once, twice, and then on the third, her hopes were dashed as easily as her skull, as she felt the bones at the back of her head shatter, and could only wish it was the worst pain she was experiencing then, but it was dwarfed by the feel of an orgasming cock that seemed to shoot cum harder than bullets from a sling, as the man ground her unprotected head into the ground. Blood and other matter soon stained the savannah... Her senses went wild, seeing lights, smelling toast, hearing bells... Then feeling nothing.

The group of reinforcements at the back, though, were not the only members of the lion tribe posted away from the abbatoir at the front line. Far away from the heaviest parts of the conflict, a group of lionesses, four in total and lead by a young and inexperienced officer, were trying to perform a flanking maneuver. Here in the small path around the outside, hidden from the view of the slaughter by high grasses and a small slope, they had no way of knowing the specifics of the battle in the center. They had no choice, then, but to assume - Hope, perhaps more likely - That the battle was going according to plan, and their slow flanking maneuver would allow them to assault the hyenas at the front with a battle-ending surgical strike, instead of having accomplished nothing but pulling five elite fighters out of the battle, leaving the rest of the warriors helpless while the strike team prepared an attack, only to have them overwhelmed later when they emerged from hiding to have to fight a horde of hyenas. Of course, with the vicious assaults the hyenas were mounting throughout the battle, even that worst-case scenario would end up too optimistic. There would be no need to wait until the strike squad emerged from their path to slaughter them. An elite detachment of hyena warriors was already in their path, hiding, and preparing an attack that would destroy the tiny unit long before they could emerge from the bushes and attempt their planned strike to the back line.

The lion leader, the one male in his crew, was the youngest officer in the lion army. Of course to be an officer still required years of dedication, training, and experience, but he didn't have the history of tactical thought that most other officers had. Instead, he specialized in small groups, acting more like a friend and a fellow soldier to his subordinates than a commander. If he had walked ahead, perhaps he would have been able to spot the signs of a prepared ambush. If behind, he would have been able to take stock of the situation and react. He walked in the middle, though, shoulder to shoulder with his warriors, and as a result, had no clue what was about to happen until it was too late.

There was a sudden scream, a war-cry from the bushes, as the hyenas charged from the undergrowth towards the detachment of feline fighters. If his wits had been about him he would have seen that there were only a few, barely more than his own crew, and perhaps been able to think of a counterstrategy, he froze. Eight hyenas charged and slammed into five lions, teeth, claws, and spears were all turned on the fur of the foes, and a vicious bloody battle for survival began in the small shaded area away from the main battle, a seperate little skirmish whose results could impact the tide of the combat... But only if the feline fighters were able to fend off their foes.

Unfortunately, this part of the battle was starting to resemble the rest. The lionesses were brave fighters, and under a more skilled and calm commander, they might have stood a chance. Their leader, though, was a soldier at heart, and had absorbed himself too much in the immediate combat, slashing and tearing, staining his tawny coat with thick hyena blood, to be able to think his way out of the melee. Strong though the lionesses were, their poor leadership meant the minor advantage the hyenas held in numbers could be turned to a massive slope it was near impossible to climb. Whenever a lioness thought she had a hyena pinned, another one would arrive to pull her from her prey. While she fought that one off, the original recovered. It was a vicious cycle where numbers allowed dominance pure size did not.

The lioness's leader, though, was too caught up in a single combat with a hyena woman (hard to tell with hyenas, but he did feel breasts before he slashed them) and had his back turned to his fighters. The spotted bitch was his, pinned beneath him, and his claws were raised glinting in the sky, preparing to strike the killing blow... When he felt a hand on his back. Only his trained instincts in combat stopped him from turning on the lioness, thinking her another attacker.

"Leader!" She called out, "We have to go!"

"We're-" He started to answer, and then saw the carnage around him. Three of his lionesses were on the ground, struggling against the might of the spotted warriors. One was pinned on her front, held down with her own spear, while a vicious hyena male straddled her and used her pussy for his own pleasure, not needing to hold her down when her own weapon did it for him. A second was being held bent over but standing by her foe, as a stiff cock slammed into her pussy over and over in a brutal standing doggystyle hold. A third had been brought down and spitroasted, held powerless in the face of the thick cocked hyenas. As he watched, the two males withdrew their shafts, shot cum on her body... Then grasped their weapons and double-penetrated her with the wood spears, having had their fill of using the flesh ones. Blood spurted from her lips, and even a proud warrior like him could tell when a battle would not be won.

While he was staring at the carnage in shock, the last member of his squad was holding his arm and pulling him, urging him to retreat from the carnage, and, as the old expression said, live to fight another day. There would be no preventing the bloody destruction of their companions, but the least they could do was ensure enough lions and lionesses would survive the slaughter to mount a second attack when the time was ripe, and to drive back the hyenas. A reduced force could still be a powerful one, but it would need every possible officer, even the less experienced ones, to succeed.

As the pair retreated, the tall grass shook, and a new hyena emerged from the bushes. It was hard to see if he had been at the previous chaos and abandoned it, or if the clear lion blood that stained his coat had come from their companions in another part of the battle. However the male had come to be coated in the blood, though, he had bathed in so much lion gore that his coat seemed entirely without spots.

"Back off, hyena," the lion growled, "There's two of us and one of you, your little numbers tricks aren't going to help, or are you too stupid to count? If it helps, two is the number of lion balls on the cocks your mother choked down!" He unsheathed his claws. His younger subordinate, though, was less sure of the wisdom of engaging. A hyena should be frightened to fight two lions, or failing that he would be feigning eagerness. This one, however, seemed entirely unfazed. Confident, but not excited.

"Wait!" She called out before the officer struck, "Something's wrong. You go on and return to the forces."

"I won't abandon a fight," the officer responded.

"If I can't outfight one hyena, I don't deserve to survive this battle anyway. Now go!" She didn't know if it was a tone in her voice, if the officer had somehow forgotten his rank in the chaos, or if perhaps he simply agreed with her assessment of the situation and was willing to back off. Whatever the reason, she heard her leader back away from the pair, closer to the lion camp, while she faced down the hyena and put her body between them.

"You're smarter than your officer," the hyena said, lion blood dripping from his lips as he spoke.

"Keep your vile jaws shut about him, you canine cast-off, that man one of our best fighters," she retorted.

"Oh?" He asked, his voice calm, "No wonder your kind is so easy to kill."

Like lightning, the hyena struck. The back of his hand caught her cheek, and sent her sprawling to the ground, but she wouldn't have been worthy of being part of an elite strike force if she hadn't been able to recover from a blow by a mange-ridden mongrel like the hyenas. She rolled instantly up to her feet, and charged at him, claws out and ready to slice deep into the flesh and muscle of her foe. Whether he had been part of their previous ambush or not, he was covered in the blood of her sisters, and she intended to force him to wash it dry with his own.

They met, claw to claw, arm to arm, hand to hand, tooth to tooth. Her attacks were vicious, her skills great, and in truth her body probably larger than her foe's, but while her skill and power held strong, her spirit was already suffering after escaping one vicious, bloody assault and smelling evidence of hundreds more wafting from the battlefield. She began to falter. For every blow she struck, he struck too. For every cut sliced open on his flesh, his claws slashed a second, larger one on hers and then matched it with a bite from his bloody jaws.

Soon, the simple laws of anatomy would not let her support her body, and she stumbled. He grabbed her, and threw her to the ground, his hips pressing to hers, and his cock penetrated her cunt, staining her insides with the blood of her sisters. She felt his jaws around her neck, but still managed to make out the words of a threatening whisper.

"You are mine, little cub," the hyena snarled, "Now watch as your leader learns what happens to kittens too stupid to know their place.

His jaws clamped down, and then his head yanked up, forcing her to watch down the road. Despite her cry to her leader, he had stayed to watch the battle, knowing the folly of joining but unwilling to abandon his subordinates. Only now, with her defeat certain, did he seem to be able to snap out of his reverie. Still, clearly aware of the danger of turning his back on a foe, he only backed off rather than running, keeping the lioness in his sight as she was pinned to the ground, and felt the muscles of her cunt tear. Unfortunately, keeping one warrior in his sight had meant turning his back on another... Not that he would likely have stood a chance against the beast that arose behind him like a demon in a dark dream.

She was a giantess, scarcely seeming like a creature of the same realm of existence as her fellow hyenas, or even the mighty lions. The scouts sending intel had thought her a man, so unaccustomed was she to the idea of women of this size. Only the creamy pink tinge along her thighs, a sign that what had once been proud lions had been swallowed up by some hidden hole, and had first their cum torn from them, and then the cocks themselves crushed to a fine paste or pulled like toys from their sockets off of the lion's bodies. Only once warriors were no longer men had the sadistic bitch finally slaughtered them.

"Look out!" She cried, but it was too late. Arms larger than even the most powerful warrior's thighs wrapped quickly around the officer's head, and a look of shock and what may have even been confusion crossed his face as he struggled to comprehend what had grabbed him. His body would be letting him know it was another hyena, and one with a massive shaft at that, but his mind and instincts would be telling him there was no way such a degraded beast could stand to such a height.

He didn't have too much time to think about what was happening, though, before she twisted, and threw him to the ground. His feet had been dangling off the ground at the height his needles had once been, and after she crushed him to the ground, she reached out, raised his head, and forced him to stare at his subordinate as her pussy was crushed... And his own ass was soon violated by a shaft that had torn apart the intimate holes of male and female alike throughout the battle.

She reached out, grabbed his head, and lifted it so he could watch the rape of his subordinate... And her breath caught in her throat as she saw the results of being crushed by such a beast, his proud body and muzzle seemingly crushed flat and bleeding copiously, staining the sand a deep red. He looked some ill-tempered god had found his muzzle too ugly, and simply flattened it to the rest of his face, though the fact that this anatomic reconstruction had been done without magic meant that all the blood and flesh that such an act would require shrinking was instead shattered and hanging limply off of crushed bone. The little hyena woman he had been bullying before, meanwhile, approached and slid under his body while his conqueror held it off the ground. The two elite warriors were raped like toys by their spotted superiors. It was the lioness who came first, the sensation of pleasure in her loins eventually overwhelming the agony and horror of what she was witnessing. She felt a claw slash at her throat, slice through flesh, a blow that by all rights would have killed... But the bloody beast behind her wrapped his hand under her throat, and forced her to survive to witness the death of her superior officer. Soon, his shaft surrendered cum... And while the cocksucker below him removed seed from his lower head... the beast above simply dug her hands into his neck, and with one mighty pull, removed the head itself, tossing it at the lioness. Only now did the man behind her release her throat, letting her collapse to the ground, and watch the life fade from her officer's eyes in the last moments before her own.

The battle had been unworthy of the name. It was a slaughter, a series of brutal executions disguised as combat. The hyenas had lost some soldiers, lions were mighty warriors, but for every hyena lost, ten lions would meet their ends at the thick shafts (male or female) of their conquerors. Pounded from behind, necks snapped, choked, crushed to the ground... For generations to come, the stretch of savannah where the battle had been fought would be known as The Red Altar, in reference to the blood that had been spilled upon it, and the countless lion lives sacrificed in a fruitless battle against the hyenas.

Of course, if their deaths had been sacrifices and the ground an altar, than the eight-foot beast had been the goddess the sacrifices were given to. From the first moment of the battle, she had been like a living weapon of war. The lions may have been outfought at nearly every turn, but she had singlehandedly ensured that hope of grasping victory from the jaws of defeat was dashed like the skulls of the lions she threw to the ground. As long as memory of the battle remained, so too did the image of the beastly woman who coated herself in blood and cum like it was rain from heaven. Her memory lived on in legends and myths, to hyenas as a hero and image to emulate, and to lions as a boogeyman used to keep their cubs inside lest she come by and crush them to paste like she had their ancestors.

The tribe of the lions did live on, of course, though its numbers were depleted after the battle. Without some formalized concept of land and territory, a nation could not be crushed in a single battle, and the brutal slaughter had only stoked the flames of the lion-hyena conflict rather than settling it. The Battle of the Red Altar didn't end a tribe, a nation, or even a rivalry. Instead, it simply added to them, and ensured that as long as a single hyena or lion could find the slightest quarrel with each-other, the hyena would always have a weapon the lion could not - The memory of one of the most violent and brutal defeats the savanna had known... And the image of the woman who had sealed it.