FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I dry myself off with the cloth lying on the chair. It feels nice to finally get all the dirt out of my fur. I look down to see the wet bandage around my waist. I sighed in annoyance at my own stupidity for forgetting to take it off, but luckily the bandage is held together with a metal pin.

I put on my pants, shirt and vest with no issue. I look at the leather garb still hanging on the clothes line. Do I still need these, I thought as I look over the leather garb? Am I done fighting, should I still wear this?

I don't know what the future holds but like dad said it's better to be safe than sorry. I grab the leather garb and the belt while heading out the door. I pull the leather garb over myself all the way down to my knees and tightly tie the belt around my waist. I place my hand on the doors latch, then suddenly a sense of fear overwhelms me. With his heavy leather garb engulfing my body, brings back the memories of the battle. All those dead animals, all that blood.

No I can't stop here, I have to do everything I can to make sure mom and Sam are safe. With a deep breath I pull the door open and step in to the warm spring air.

Groups of animals are running around frantically, trying to get their things together. Their faces are covered with worry and fear. I look around, trying to find Peter and my cousins, but sadly there nowhere in sight. So I slowly make my way to the center of the town along the small dirt road. Everyone around me is scattered in the frantic search, but not to the point of what happened in Georgos, where everyone was scared for their lives. This looked more of a fear to possibly leave something valuable behind.

I stop to see the shrine of AUXANO in the center of the town. Everyone else is busy running around and no one stops to make a prayer to the shrine. Seeing this as a chance to make a quick prayer to my Goddess, I quickly made my way to the wooden relic.

I get up to the shrine and fall on my knees. I place my right hand onto the shrine while lowering my head. With a soft whisper I say "dear Goddess AUXANO, please take care of my farm while I'm away, so that when I return with my family we can grow food for the great kingdom you have given us". I look up to the shrine and slowly move my fingers along the markings. With a great big sigh I lower my head one more time and whisper "if I can beg for one more thing Goddess, it would be to let my father's body feed our great goddess Zoa so that my father may be one with her. For the mother and her children".

I raise myself off the ground while wiping the dirt off the bottom of my garb. "Made a good prayer"?

I look over my shoulder and see Peter standing behind me with a kind smile. I stand up to my feet turning to Peter and say "the best I could think of".

Peter nods and says "it's best to take care of prayers in the morning. Keeps one focused on what he has and less on what he doesn't". Peter pats me on my left shoulder while saying "everybody's almost ready to go. We've made fresh food for everyone down by the river". Suddenly hearing the idea of a hot meal sends an overwhelming burst of hunger over me. He turns around and points down a dirt path. "This path should take you to a clearing where everybody's eating. Me, Jess and James have already eaten. So were going to go and pack up our stuff before it's time to go".

I probably should ask if they need help getting their stuff together. Even though my stomach is fully protesting against this idea I say "Do you need me to help you with anything"? "No don't worry Marco we can take care of ourselves, just go and have a good meal" Peter says with a smile as he starts walking back to his log house.

I slowly start my way down the dirt path to the clearing. The path goes straight down to the river through the small town as if it was built around this very path. The wooden buildings that followed this path are covered in vines and surrounded by bushes. The town is starting to become less and less filled with the sound of animals running around in a panic and instead the silence that is making me think of terrible thoughts.

When this war ends, how many more towns will be left empty and forgotten? How many animals will lose their homes and maybe even their lives to this war? How far do we have to run to escape this war?

My pondering thoughts suddenly stop to the sudden smell of squash. I look up and see in the distance that I'm only a couple feet away from the clearing. The overwhelming smell of food sends my stomach in an uproar which pushes me to jog the last few steps to the clearing.

The clearing is basically a large grass field between the town and the river. On its left it has a large amount of tents sitting against the tree line. On the right there is a large wooden table with four large metal cooking pots and 2 cockier spaniel guard dogs standing behind them. The middle of the clearing is filled with almost every animal that left the city. Most of them has already eaten and were sitting around talking amongst themselves.

I quickly made my way over to the large wooden table; eager to fill up my belly with some sort of food. The 2 guard dogs put smiles on the faces as they see me running up to the wooden table. "Well good morning Marco... Your name is Marco right" says one of the guard dogs. I nod in response as I reach the table. One of the guard dogs grabs a bowl and starts filling it with soup that smells like roasted squash. The other guard dog grabs 2 slices of bread and places them on the plate while saying "the captain wants to talk to you". He points over to the tents and says "he is in the large red tent right in the middle, near the front".

I look over to the tents and see a large red tent twice the size of any other, set up right in the middle. "I wonder what he wants to talk about" I say while turning around, grabbing my bread and my bowl of soup. "Well he didn't seem angry but it's probably important, so I wouldn't keep the captain waiting" the dog says while stirring the large bowls of soup.

I sigh in irritation that I have to deal with a dog before I can even have my breakfast. I turn to leave when I suddenly hear a voice over my shoulder say "thank you for trying to save Mira". I turn around and look at the 2 cocker spaniels with a questioning look. "The dog you tried to save back at the city when we were running for the woods" says one of the guard dogs as she looks down with a depressed expression. "She was a very close friend of ours. Always so cheerful and always wondering when she would get a chance to fight for her kingdom" the other guard dog says while looking into his pot of soup. "Well she gave her life to protect this kingdom and now she's with Zao" says the guard as she looks up to me with a kind smile. I can tell there's a lot of pain behind that smile, but I simply nod and say "a lot of animals died in the city but they died so we could be alive, so our families could be alive". Both guard dogs look up to me with soft smiles and nod with what I feel is a genuine smile. I nod in response with my own smile and once more start my way across the clearing to the tents.

I slowly weave my way through all the dogs, rabbits, and hamsters that are sitting eating their meals and talking amongst themselves. As I pass through many of the animals look up to me with a smile and say "morning Marco". I quickly nod in response to keep on my path towards the tents. The thought crosses my mind and I look around to see if I can find Eros, but he's nowhere in sight. I should really thank him for all he's done.

I reach the line of tents and turnaround to see if I can find Eros anywhere in the crowd, but again no luck, with a heavy sigh I move in front of the red tent. The red tent seems to be the biggest tent of all them, but not by much. I take a moment to look around the tents and see that they look pretty worn out. There is weapons and armor placed in certain areas around the camp. A look back at the red tent and see a large opening on its left side. I take 5 quick steps towards the opening and poke my head in.

The first thing I notice is the bottom of the tent has nothing covering it but grass and dirt. Over to the left there is a small bed that consists merely of a pillow and a thick cotton sheet. On the right there is a small wooden table with an empty bowl sitting on top, beside the table there is a wooden chair facing away from the tents entrance. On the chair sits a Husky cleaning the dirt off his leather shoes with a cloth.

Palvet sits there only wearing his pants leaving nothing covering his chest. The first time I actually see what he looked like. His fur is completely black except for 3 long white lines going from his shoulders down to his waist. "How long are you going to stare at my back before coming into the tent" Palvet says as he places down the shoe and puts it back on.

With a deep sigh I slowly make my way into the tent. Palvet looks back at me with his yellow eyes and says "here sit down; I need to tell you something". He stands up and moves towards his bed. He sits down and gives a heavy sigh. He simply sits there staring at the ground with a frustrated look while paying attention to neither me nor anything around. My stomach growls of hunger which pushes me to finally sit down and start to eat my breakfast.

The bread is terribly stale, probably brought in from the city about a week ago, but the soup is quite nice, a broth filled with a mixture of herbs and spices to enhance the flavor of the roasted squash. About halfway through my meal Palvet looks up to me and says "you know, for someone who's spent his entire life working in a field, you sure know how to win a battle". I look over to Palvet with a mouthful and simply shrug my shoulders. Palvet sits there staring at me with questioning expression as if something is deeply bothering him.

What the hell is his problem, what did I do to get on his bad side?

"You understand when I get back to general Jeval I have to tell him of what happened. After all we've never had any other animal than a dog or ferret give any sort of military command". I get a slight sense of fear from what he said. "Will I get in trouble". Palvet chuckles for a couple minutes and loosens his face to a slight smile "you're probably the only animal that has won a battle against our enemy, so I won't be surprised if he gave you an army to command". I start chuckling but Palvet returns back to his glare.

"So when we get back to Georgos, I'll have to ask you to come with me to see general Jeval". I get up from my chair and say sarcastically "well he seemed like a nice dog; after all, nothing says I'm a great friend like a two-handed hammer". Palvet stands up to me with a shallow grin "well Marco, your tactics saved our fur so I will give you all the respect I can". He raises his hand "Captain Jedrick Palvet of the Georgos guard". I step forward and shake his hand. I look up and only now do I realize that he's at least 2 feet taller than me. "Marco Volmet experienced farmer and part-time general".

Once more Jedrick chuckles under his breath while heading towards his bed. He reached behind his bed and pulled out his breastplate.

Suddenly a thought crosses my mind and I ask "So wait, that whole time you're sitting there staring at me while I was eating my breakfast. You were worried on how I would react to what you were going to say".

Jedrick stops putting his armor on and looks up to me while returning back to his frustrated expression. "Do you by any chance know the rabbit that has a red ear"?

Wait a minute, is he talking about Eros. "Now I don't know him. Why do you ask". Why the hell did I lie, am I scared of him or something?

"Well he is one of them" Jedrick says while putting on his leather chest armor.

"Them"? Jedrick looks over at me with a questioning look and then suddenly his expression changes to a frustrated look. "Sorry about that Marco, all dogs know the story of those rabbits, especially the dogs ho trained in the city of Polemos".

"The city of Polemos, wait I member my aunt talking about this city". I remember my aunt talking about this city and how she spent the first few years of her guard dog training there. "She said that it's one of the most northern cities of Zao and where the majority of dogs go to get there training. It sits above a frozen lake and she also told me that its walls are so thick that they have buildings built right against them to reinforce the walls. Everything is made of stone and it sits between the 2 twin walls that hold the passes into the north".

Jedrick nods his head while putting on his metal chest armor "Yes I remember that city, filled to the brim with dogs trying to be better than the other, so they could be chosen to become Grimsson guards. The captains always believed in good old-fashioned competition; hell, you notice real quick who was going to become a captains and who were going to become a guard dog. There was that dream back then to be picked so you can become a Grimsson guard. Be trained to turn into the most skilled fighter in the entire kingdom and get the legendary relic of DUNAMAI. To sit upon one of the 2 twin walls and keep guard from any invader that dares try to get past you, but the worst problem wasn't the training or the constant humiliation from the captains, no it was the unbearable cold. That freezing wind which always was digging deep into your fur, so no matter how many layers of clothes you would put on, it always found its way through. I spent 3 years of my life up there training to become a captain but tell you the truth. Everything became a haze after the first year. The monotony of the whole thing could drive a dog mad, but the one thing that always took you out of that sense of familiarity was a random group of rabbits. They would creep through our buildings and structures like the freezing wind either coming in for the night of going out for their patrols".

Jedrick finally finished putting on his armor and gets up to move his body around, so he can see if it properly fits. "I'm guessing that you probably don't know, but red is not a natural color to rabbits. If you ever do see a rabbit walking around with red on his fur, that definitely means they are one of Menelaus's children".

"Menelaus's children" I say with a questioning look while Jedrick walks over to the opening of the tent. Beside the tent I notice his shield and a sword lying against one of the wooden poles. Jedrick pics up his sword and places it into its sheath. He takes his shield and carries it back to the bed where he once more sits down.

"In the early days of the Zao kingdom where not even Georgos had been started as a settlement, the northern cities were trying to start mines along the northern mountain ridge and were constantly attacked by lynx and Wolf raiding parties. Thanks to this constant attack the city Polemos was created so that the majority of our soldiers would be closer to the front line while they trained, but no matter how hard they tried to hold them off it was impossible to without the twin walls holding the 2 passes into our land from the north. Without the walls the wolves would constantly attack small groups of guard dogs patrolling the northern border, killing and feasting on their flesh like some form of a monster beyond your wildest nightmares. The lynx though lacking the thirst for dog meat would attack the northern cities, stealing and looting everything they could get their hands on, including any animal they wanted to keep so their beds could stay warm during their cold winters.

Suddenly a guard dog runs through the tent opening and says "captain Palvet everyone is ready to get across the river, when do you want us to begin"? Jedrick looks over to the dog and says "I want you to take the villagers across first, once they've all gone across the river, tell me and we'll get the rest of us across". The guard dog nods his head and runs back out of the tent.

Jedrick once more turns to me and says "the interesting part about the origin of Menelaus's children is that the Grimsson guards originated with them. You see, there was a forward medical camp built to help with the construction of the first northern wall. It was there to make sure that there were trained rabbits ready to help if anyone got injured. This medical camp was actually built inside a deep cave which to this day is still use as the most northern medical camp in the entire Zao kingdom. This was dangerous because it was very far from Polemos, but this was the shortest distance between the 2 mountain bridges so instead of safety they saw efficiency, and after all the more in danger you are, the harder you will work to get out of that danger".

Jedrick takes a deep sigh and walks towards the tents opening. He stands there, looking outside the tent, the wind has slowly picked up and the fur on his face moved back and forth. For a couple minutes he stands there looking out to the sunlight with his back to me. I stand up and slowly make my way up to him when he suddenly says "what happened next was one of the most disgraceful things we dogs have ever done".

Once more he takes a deep sigh and turns back to me. "Everything was going better than expected. They were building up the wall with no major issues, hell their even wasn't any sign of any northerner. Then suddenly a disease spread through the ranks of the workers. Before they knew what was happening, over half of the workers were infected. Luckily the disease didn't seem to be killing anybody off, so there was no big worry. Not until their scouts had returned telling them that over five hundred wolves were coming straight to the camp. There was only two hundred guard dogs and by the size and ferocity of the wolves, you would at least need two or more guard dogs to take on a fully grown Wolf. So the captain ordered a retreat back to Polemos. There sadly was a big problem; the captain knew that if he tried to take all the sick workers with them, they would be attacked before they could reach the city gates. So the captain ordered to leave them and make a full retreat back to the city. There were fifty two rabbit herbalists that demanded the captain take the sick with them or they would stay behind and protect them themselves. It is said that the captain laughed at their faces and said "fine, die here for a few measly workers after all there your problem, not mine". With that all the dogs and remaining workers who weren't sick ran out of the camp, heading towards the city".

"Wait, they just left them there to die" I ask surprised of what he just told me. "Aren't guard dogs supposed to protect all animals of Zao"?

"Like I said, it wasn't one of our most proud moments, but yes they left them and ran back to the city. When they did finally make it back to the city and told them about the attack, they sent 2000 guard dogs ready to take back the camp, but when they finally made it back what they found was considered impossible. The camp was ransacked but what was amazing was when they reached the entrance to the cave, they found nothing but corpses upon corpses of wolves. Some say there were so many corpses that they had to dig them out just to get through the cave, others say it was just a couple of them and the rest had chosen to run away when they heard the Army of guard dogs marching up the path to the camp. It doesn't really matter what story you choose to follow but one thing is for sure. They found fifty one rabbits that laid dead at the entrance of the cave, caring the few weapons they could find. What they found inside the cave were about fifty dead wolves and a single rabbit on his knees covered completely in blood. All the workers that were sick were pushed all the way to the end of the cave and actually survived the attack. The only thing we know about the rabbit that survived the attack is his first name, Menelaus".

"Wait... hi killed fifty wolves by himself"?

"Well that is how the story goes. You can choose to believe in whatever you want".

I stand there confuse for a minute and then aske "So wait how did he create the Menelaus children"?

"I'll tell you if you just give me a minute here" he says with the sound of annoyance coming through his tone. I once more sat back on my chair and quietly waiting for him to continue. Jedrick nodded his head and once more continued his story.

"As the guard dogs slowly started taking out the sick workers, Menelaus simply sat there staring at the ground while sitting as stiff as stone. Once all the sick workers were slowly carried out the cave and down the path to the city, Menelaus silently followed behind. Some of the dogs tried to get a response out of him, but he wouldn't talk. They say that his eyes looked like they were as dark as a cave and his expression had no emotion. After it took them a good couple hours to get back the city Menelaus simply watched as all the sick workers went through the front gate, while paying no attention to any that dogs around him. Once all of them have passed the front gate Menelaus turned around and headed into the wilderness. No dog was going to follow him into the woods, after all he was covered from his muzzle to his feet in blood.

"And what happened next" I asked starting to be enthralled into the story. Jedrick simply shrugs his shoulders and says "you should ask one of Menelaus's children because the only thing us dogs know is that, after a couple years, suddenly groups of ten or more rabbits started patrolling the northern border".

"Have you ever ask them"?

"Let's just say they're not that friendly to dogs".

Suddenly I start getting the picture and nod my head in response. Then a thought crosses my mind "what about Grimsson guards"?

Jedrick nod his head and says "Aaa yes the Grimsson guards. Well you see". Suddenly a guard dog marches himself into the tent and says "captain, all the villagers have been taken over to the other side of the river". Jedrick turns to the guard dog and says "all right get everyone else across the river now". "Captain should we be taking any of the camp equipment with us"?

"No it will only slow us down; we need to move quickly to help reinforce the city. The guard dog simply nods his head and quickly turns around to run back out the tent.

Jedrick turns to me and says "sorry Marco, but it seems where out of time. I'll continue the story later, but now we need to get to the city". Jedrick turns around and starts heading out of the tent, when a thought crosses my mind and I say "wait, you never explained why the rabbit bothered you".

Jedrick stops and turns to me while saying "well if the children of Menelaus move in groups of ten or more back and forth on the northern borders. Then why is there a single child of Menelaus doing in the most peaceful city of Zao? I simply cannot trust that". Slowly a frown spreads across his lips "and I know he's your friend".

I stand up and slowly back away as Jedrick takes a couple steps towards me. "How would you know that he is my friend" I ask as I start to shake in fear.

"Because Marco, I saw him patching you up after the battle as I was running back to the barricade".

"But he's a rabbit, all rabbits are herbalists".

"Yes that is true but the children of Menelaus have herbalists with them to heal the wounded while they fight the battle. With my experience I've only seen or heard that children of Menelaus heal only their closest friends". I slowly pressed my back against one of the beams that are holding up the tent while Jedrick stand just a couple feet in front of my muzzle, his eyes digging through my skin, as if trying to find some hidden secret. "Remember Marco we choose our friends, but they choose our enemies".

With that Jedrick turns around and storms out of the tent leaving me there to ponder what just happened. I sit back down the chair looking down at the ground while my mind is racing with thoughts.

Did I just make an enemy? Wait, is what he's saying true, is Eros someone I shouldn't trust, but he was the one who saved my life. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead. Did he do that to gain my trust or does Jedrick not trust any rabbit that is part of the children of Menelaus. Dammit! What the hell do I do? Who do I trust?

Those thoughts kept repeating in my mind, until I had enough. I stand up and quickly start hitting out of the tent. I won't get any answers by sitting here doing nothing. If Jedrick cannot ask Eros the question, then I guess I have to.