In order to get some short measure of relief from the jungle's humid heat, Gallus began to strip out of his mail armour. "Fortunately, none of us took hits. Maybe a few bruises. In the dim light it only had eyes for me while I had the torch, so I was doing most of the evading." Gallus removed his tunic so he could soak some water over it and revealed a massive, blotchy red welt on his chest. He was surprised by the mark it made, but not overly concerned, "Oh, I suppose there is this, too."

Ahnasha's recollection made Tzirret somewhat bashful about answering. [i]I just stabbed it once,[/i] he thought. He angled his ears and scratched behind them nervously. "Err, it was luck, I think," Tzirret said.

"Tell us what happened," Sabine appeared behind Peiter with a curious smile.

"Well," Tzirret thought for a moment and concluded that it would probably be easiest to start from the beginning. "We found a cave sloping into the ground and moved to see what was inside." Tzirret wasn't used to telling stories, so he was stilted about it. He tried to play down the actions in an effort to not sound egocentric. "Gallus lit a torch so we could see better. There was blood smeared on the ground like kills being dragged. A fork in the cave saw the blood go in one of the two ways. We could not smell anything except blood and death. Gallus thought that if there was something dangerous, he did not want it cutting us off, so he told us to come with him to follow the bloody path. The path ended in a chamber with many carcasses and a little minotaur." Tzirret pointed to the kill Gallus brought with him, "That one, but alive. We didn't get a chance to do anything before it screamed in alarm and hid. Then its mother came." Tzirret put down the horns and started using his arms to show size, "It was...about as wide here...and had arms twice as thick as Tzirret's..." Tzirret failed to measure the last figure with his arms, "...and was twice as tall as this one. Gallus shouted to get out of the way. It charged out at him. He distracted it with the torch, but it was very powerful. Gallus couldn't hurt it with just his hammer. This one was so scared that he thought he would transform, but Gallus told him to flank it and kill it." Tzirret took on a minor look of worry as he remembered Gallus being struck, "This one tried to get into position while it was distracted, but Gallus got hit. The minotaur was about to charge him and kill him, but its side was exposed, so this one..." Tzirret took his spear in both hands and casually poked it forward, "...got it between the ribs. It was a lucky strike, but he didn't know that he could do it before." Tzirret held his spear vertical again and pointed out where the dried flecks of blood ended on its haft, "This one pushed it up to here. The minotaur threw him off then, it was very strong, but it was choking. I could see it dying. It backed away, but Gallus walked up and stabbed its heart with his hammer hook when it was too weak to strike back. It died very fast then."

Tzirret became awkward as he picked up the horns again. "It was lucky and I had help. Gallus should have these horns, really."

"Pish and posh, Tzirret," Gallus called out, "you were the one who defeated the minotaur, but you also showed real courage." He pointed to the horns, "You will keep them and that is my order to you as Alpha."

"That is amazing, Tzirret!" Sabine said with an impressed smile. Tzirret was the last person she had expected to pull something like that off.

Even Janius gave a smile. He was listening in as well, "Good job, Tzirret."