Good cinematic action! The fights move quickly with much at stake.
I did find a bit difficult, especially in the first few paragraphs, to form an image of what was happening.
A few words of description of Gnarl would have been nice, even just to know that he's not human. That all came out eventually, of course.
Good world building, though! And I lol'd at "he muttered a second curse about it's lack of a mother".