FSE

Furry search engine

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I take my first few steps out of the large tent, looking over the empty field which once was filled to the brim with animals, but now is nothing but scatter remains of empty bowls. I look up and see that the sun has slowly risen past the trees and now glares down its endless heat, warming up my fur.

I slowly make my way down the clearing. Most of the guard dogs have already made it to the other side of the river, while there is just a few dogs running back and forth from the camp to the shore, carrying bags that smell of dirt and vegetables.

I look back at the village and see nothing but empty houses, left behind by their owners. Nothing moves except for the trees slowly being pushed back and forth from a small breeze of cold air that brings nothing but a quiver of cold to this endless heated spring. It brings a sense of sadness to me to think that this once lively village has turned into a ghost town, but for some reason it brings me a sense of ease. That I have not felt since I laid my back against the trunk of the tree next to my house. I wonder how long will be before I see my home again, hell I wonder if mother and Sam are still alive. Such an eerie thought sends a shuddering paint in my heart but I quickly discard the possibility. No, they are alive and I will do everything I can to keep them alive. With that I turn around and head down the path towards the shore.

As I get closer to the river and see a couple boats are coming back to grab more animals, so I quickly jog the rest of the way. I notice a boat sitting on my side of the river with five guard dogs staring straight at me. I feel a sense of unease coming over me as one of them waives me to come over.

I slowly make my way to the rowing boat, while a beagle stands outside of the boat waving me over. "Captain Palvet ordered us to wait for you, before crossing the river".

Well I guess Jedrick isn't too angry at me, but I'm sure that he doesn't trust me. I smile at the guard dog and say "lead the way".

The guard dog moves to the side of the boat with a smile and says "after you".

I nod my head and make my way over to the boat's edge. With one quick step over the side of the boat, I land on the nearest plank of wood that functions as a place to sit on. The boat is made entirely out of wood with the bottom soaked in water. There are three long planks placed along the boat for animals to sit down on. There are two Bulldogs sitting at the other end of the boat. In the middle sits a golden retriever and next to her a Rottweiler ho are holding onto paddles while waiting for the beagle to get into the boat. The guard dog standing outside of the boat puts all his weight against it and starts pushing the rowing boat into the river. Once it is freed from the shore he immediately jumped on to the boat and sits beside me. With that the two guard dog sitting in the middle start pedaling towards the other side of the river.

As we are making our way across I look around and notice that the river is actually quite large, it could probably take at least four large trading ships side-by-side. The river itself is quite calm and somewhat relaxing.

Suddenly one of the Bulldogs asks "hey, Ferris have you seen that rabbit walking around with the red ear". The Rottweiler turns his head round with a surprised look and asks "wait, are you saying that there is a Menelaus child with us"?

"It's true" says the beagle sitting beside me. "I saw him back at the city when we were running past all the other animals, chasing down the rest of those creatures".

I guess all the other dogs noticed Eros, but it's not surprising. If Menelaus children are that infamous in one of the most dog populated cities in all of Zao, then it would be quite surprising for a dog not to know about them.

The Rottweiler chuckles and says "So do you think that's why the captain is in a bad mood lately"?

I look over to the Rottweiler with a surprised look and ask "I thought all dogs didn't like Menelaus children"?

"Well most dogs used to really hate Menelaus children for their secrecy and hatred towards dogs, but nowadays were just happy to have someone to watch our backs". The beagle says while scratching the back of his head with a ponderous expression. "But that still doesn't mean all dogs are fine with Menelaus children. For example the captain has a true hatred towards them that I've never seen in any other dog".

"Why does the captain have such a hate for Menelaus children, did they do something to him to make him angry"?

The beagle simply shrugs his shoulders and says "no one really knows why he hates them so much, but truth be told that's not our problem. Guard dogs purpose is to guard Zao's borders and protect all her animals. What choices the captain makes is up to him and we guard dogs follow his ideas and beliefs like we are trained to, even if we do not agree with them on many points of view". All the guard dogs in the boat all groaned in frustration to this statement.

I sit there for a minute pondering what the beagle said. So maybe Eros isn't that bad of an animal. Maybe Jedrick is just blowing this out of proportion, but that's still doesn't answer the question, of why is Eros here by himself.

Suddenly a thought crossed my mind, why do the guard dogs not like Jedrick, did he do something to make the guard dogs dislike him? I was about to ask when suddenly, the boat stops and I almost fly off my seat, but I am grabbed by the beagle sitting beside me.

He pulls me back up to my seat and says "you should watch where you're looking my friend; do you really want your first memorable scar to be because you tripped"?

All the guard dogs laugh as they slowly make their way off the boat. I stand up feeling a bit embarrassed and slowly make my way off the boat trying not to get my feet wet from the shore. Once we all get off, the two Bulldogs grabbed the front of the boat and pulled it onto the shore.

I look back to the side we came from and notice that all the guard dogs have already made it off the shore and the last few are crossing the river. I feel someone tapping my shoulder and turn to see the beagle standing beside me. He puts on a big smile and says "Captain Palvet has already ordered everyone to start heading towards the city".

I look at him with a surprised look and ask "why, doesn't he wait for the rest of the guard dogs to get across the river".

The beagle looks over to me and says "one thing you should know about the captain, is that he doesn't have much patience". I simply nod and follow him up the path towards the edge of the forest.

We make it up to the forest edge and I notice a large gathering of animals put on one side of the forest. There were guard dogs pushing through a small path into the bushes and trees. As we make it to the group of guard dogs, I look over to the beagle and ask "why are the guard dogs the only ones going through". The beagle turns to me and says "the captain probably wants all the guard dogs to go through the path first".

With the beagle statement I nod my head and start heading over to the animals. A determined look crosses my face as I get ready to find Eros and ask him a question that has been plaguing my mind.

"Aaa, Marco where do you think you're going" the beagle asks as he stops me right in my tracks.

I look back at the beagle and say "well, aren't I supposed to..."

Before I can finish my sentence, the beagle interrupts me. "The captain wants me to take you straight to the general when we reached the city. So you'll be coming with me" he says with an innocent smile across his face.

I look at the beagle with utter surprise to the thought of why they would do this. The beagle notices my expression and says "the captain probably doesn't want to waste time searching for you in all these animals". He says this while pointing to the large crowd of animals behind me.

Suddenly the thought of mom and Sam crosses my mind and I say "but what about my family"? A sense of frustration starts to overwhelm me as my expression changes to anger. "I don't care what he wants. I'm going to make sure that my family is safe". I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look up to see the beagle stare at me with an expression of solidarity "listen Marco. I know how it feels to want to see your family safe, but like all guard dogs we must put the kingdom above our families because if we don't, there will be no kingdom for our families".

His words ring through my ears and slowly subsides my anger. He's right; I'm still protecting mom and Sam but this time it is not with swords but with words. I look back up to the beagle and simply nod my head. A big smile crosses his face and he immediately turns to head back to the guard dogs. I look back to the animals and try to see if I can find Eros in the crowd, but sadly it's just a mess of animals talking amongst themselves. With a big sigh, I turn back to the guard dogs and start making my way to them.

Once I finally reached the group of dogs the beagle looks at me and says "this way Marco" as he heads through the bushes. I quickly follow behind and push myself through the dense forest. Right behind the bushes there is a path that goes between the trees that is no different than the path we took coming to the small village. The path is formed from the constant footsteps of the animals which weaves through the trees and bushes. The beagle in front of me walks along the path watching for rocks and pushing branches out of his way. The forest is somewhat dark thanks to the trees forming almost a complete roof above us.

Once in a while I found similar symbols marking the path that I used to get to the village, like cloth tied around trees and markings on large stones. As we pushed our way through most of the guard dogs talked amongst themselves.

I thought crosses my mind and I tap the beagle's shoulder. He turns his head to the side as he asks "is something wrong"?

"No, I'm just wondering what your name is"?

The beagle chuckles and turns his head back to the path while saying "Cola Kedor".

"Nice to meet you, my name is Marco Volmet" I say while trying not to step on the rocks that suddenly appear on this endless dirt path.

"I would shake your hand but I don't really like the idea of falling on my back" the beagle says as he pushes another branch out of his way. I chuckle while saying "dammit, and I was looking so forward to it". Cola gave out a big laugh with a couple of dogs behind me also chuckling to what I said.

---

It's been a while now and the path seems to be endless. It appears that this side of the river there is a much larger forest than on the other side we came from. Suddenly I hear shouting from the front and the guard dogs in front of me including Cola start jogging at a faster speed. I followed quickly behind, a sense of worrying overwhelms me to the thought of what might be going on.

Light starts to flicker through the forest in a much greater amount as the trees seemed to become more sporadic. Then the path opened up to a hill in front of us wear it appears most of the guard dogs are standing on top. We quickly follow up the hill which was quite steep to the point that rocks jag out of the ground.

I reach the top and look off to the direction of where the guard dogs are looking. On the right side of the river where we came from, the city is on fire as smoke bellowed out into the sky. Luckily the left side of the city doesn't seem in any sense of danger, but a sense of fear still consumes me as the thought of mom and Sam crosses my mind.

I push through to the front of the columns of dogs and I see Jedrick standing in front looking at the city with the determined look. He turns around and says "I want all the guard dogs here to move as quickly as possible to reinforce the city's defenses". Jedrick points to a single guard dog and says "I want you to tell the rest of the guard dogs to wait for all the animals to get through the forest and then get to the city". The guard dog nods his head and immediately turns around heading back down the hill.

Without a second thought Jedrick starts running towards the city. I slowly follow behind knowing that Jedrick would also want me to get there as soon as possible, but knowing that I don't have any weapon to protect myself with, brings a sense of unease while heading towards the city.

The city is quite far and thanks to the sun rising to its highest point, the heat bears down on my body. I start falling out of breath and once more my leather garment becomes heavier as my sweat soaks it, but the thought of seeing mom and Sam again and knowing that they're safe brings an overwhelming hope to my mind, which pushes me to keep going.

As we make it towards the city I notice a small village right before the front gate. It has wooden houses sporadically placed around the main road that heads into the city. I can't see any animal moving among them, which is not surprising. Most of them must be inside the city by now, hiding behind the walls, like what we did on our side of the river. A sense of dread fills me as the thought of what happened the last time I was in the city.

After what felt like hours we finally made it to the village, but none of the guard dog stopped in front of the village and instead kept moving towards the main gate. All of them had passed me and are running far too fast for me to catch up, but that didn't stop me from trying.

I look around and notice how deserted the buildings really are. Most of the doors left wide open with farming equipment and even fruits and vegetables scattered around the road. About halfway through the village there was a large cart filled with hay, covered only with a single cloth that is trying its best to keep the hay from falling out.

Once I finally reached the edge of the village there was only a couple meters before reaching the front gate whereby now all the guard dogs are standing in front of it, talking amongst themselves. I look at the walls and notice that there's no different from the other side of the river. There are still lacking in repair and I can obviously see huge cracks along the walls filled with fines from plants that have scaled the entirety of the wall.

I finally make it to the front gate and fall to my knees as I try to catch my breath. My lungs start to hurt as sweat soaks my fur. I look in front of me and notice all the guard dogs looking at one another with confused expressions.

I get back on my feet and make my way forward through the group of guard dogs towards the gate. In front I see Jedrick standing there confused. "This doesn't make any sense. They should have seen us long before we got to the gate". Jedrick says as he paces back and forth staring at the gate as if there is something hiding behind it.

One of the guard dogs steps forward and says "what if the city was abandoned and right now those creatures are standing behind the door waiting for the right time to strike"? The guard dogs start talking amongst themselves with worried looks. Jedrick says nothing and simply keep staring at the gate while his expression changes to troubled.

Suddenly there is a small amount of movement that can be heard behind the gate. Jedrick quickly raises his sword and waves it into a circular motion. All the guard dogs quietly start moving around. I feel a hand on my back as it grabs my leather collar and drags me all the way behind the guard dogs. Once the animal released its grip I quickly turn around to see Cola standing there with the determined expression. He simply places one finger against his lips and I quickly understand what he means, so I respond with a simple nod of my head. With that, he nods back to me and quickly starts going back to the other guard dogs.

I slowly start to notice that without speaking to one another, the guard dogs start forming a wall of shields and swords in front of the gate. It's quite amazing how they can simply just move into the proper position without talking amongst themselves. It's somewhat awe-inspiring, but my thoughts are quickly diminished as I hear the front gates slowly open.