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Rockbreaker let his fingers cut into the soft stone. He breathed in the smell of the oerth, and let himself heal. Far behind him he'd left the mangled body of his rival within the chamber of the broodmother. Rarely did a mating challenge result in death, but Stonecleaver would not relent.
Long slashes showed through the thick hide of his back and arm. He'd been gored in his upper chest and the wound still bled, a thick blackish sludge like tar. The wounds would heal.
It would be months before the mating frenzy would overcome him again, but he regretted Stonecleaver's death. They had been crechebrothers, perhaps even born of the same litter. In the sprawling broodchamber, within the creche, it was hard to tell. A dozen broodmothers would raise their litters together. They knew which pup was theirs, but it made little difference to a male.
When a male was half-grown he would be exiled from the creche, never to return to that broodchamber again on pain of death. Females would stay till they were fully grown. The females never left the broodchamber, never fought among themselves, unless there was no more room, or if food was scarce. Then a new broodqueen would be chosen. An elder female would leave with her children and children' s children to form a new broodchamber. Only then did the females hunt and work the stone, leaving their scent among the rock for the males to find.
Rockbreaker had travelled for many years with his crechebrothers. They had formed a hunting pack, chased down the great worms, raided the bug nests and feasted on their young, even broken into the dwelling places of the spider-servants. One by one they had perished. Crystallover fell to the stonetwisters, the svirfneblin as they called themselves. Splintertongue was taken by the thoughtmasters, Illithids, as a servant. Now Stonecleaver was dead by Rockbreaker's own hand because the call of the mating frenzy had been too strong for both.
Alone now, he knew his time would come when the stones would have him and he would give his body over to the Oerth. Until then he would live as he always lived. Feast and fight, hunt food for the broodchamber where his young would be growing, and waiting, always waiting, for the frenzy to burn within him again.
