The Saga of Ross

One of the gnolls ran forward, waving a curved samosa'uxi in its charcoal-colored paw, cackling in the way that its kind did during battle. Aedan relished the opportunity, tightening his stance and preparing to send his sword through the repellent creature's eyeball. His chain-mail clanked about on his torso as he snarled in anticipation. Come, puppy-stealing bastard. Come meet one of the sons of Fenner and then go merrily to meet Death in his Dark Forest.

The gnoll leaped to the Diamond Dog's left, jabbing with his machete-like weapon. Aedan met the blade with his black and blue shield, barking his fury at the gnoll even as his sword arm near instantly sent a counter-blow, aimed for the hyena's eyes. It succeeded. Blood poured out over gasping mouth and ruined face, the jaws shivering for a moment as the beast's soul departed its mortal body. Aedan chuffed, a soft huh noise to the crisp taiga air, as he slashed forward to his Pack-Mate Laika.

"Took your arse long enough!" the white female spat in mock-anger, her blue eyes gleaming like a puppy's on Long-Night's Eve.

Good, Aedan thought in the back of his mind the blood-lust is on her, that makes the two of us.. Aedan smiled as he took her back, taking a moment to nod appreciatively at the slain gnolls he had left in his wake, all ten of them. "Bastards seemed to want to delay me, dovie!" he replied cheerily as he blocked a crossbow bolt with his shield. Laika snarled back as she shot off an arrow from her longbow, a gnoll aggressor falling to the ground struck dead with the arrow through his bone-and-leather armor and through his heart.

"Well, I can't take the blame for that can I fuzz-butt?" she cheekily replied as she lowered her bow and wagged her white plumed tail about. Aedan winced in mock pain. He hated when she called him 'fuzz-butt' in front of the others; what was said in a bed-room kind of needed to stay in the bed-room. Thank Vrik the Star-Pelted the rest of the pack were making short work of the rest of the gnolls.

"Anything else these fellows wish to throw at trained soldiers of The Balance?" he asked casually as he sheathed his sword, as he had just seen Fikkin slay the last gnoll, who, from the look of things was an old grizzled male. Aedan frowned. Where was Dorth?

The answer came quickly. Dorth had a prisoner in front of himself. It was a female, and probably the leader of the clan that had attacked the village. She was big, much bigger than the other gnolls.

Aedan smiled. A Matriarch. Ol' Jarvga is going to be happier than a wolf in a hen house when he hears this.

Suddenly Caelina landed, her light-leather armor and general griffin stealth making her land upon the fir-needle riddled earth with a minimum of noise. She slowly took off her claw-blades, all eight of them (One for each of her eagle talons) and stretched luxuriously as Dorth kicked the prisoner in front of Aedan.

He added as he panted from his exertions; "Captain, here is the clan's leader. I bound 'er jaws so that she couldn't do no spells now, did I do good?" Dorth wagged his blonde tail expectantly as he looked at Aedan with an earnest expression. Aedan nodded and gave the orders, as everyone seemed to be expecting them now.

Aedan gave a thumbs-up and a nod to Dorth, which made the blond smaller dog wag his tail so wildly it nearly hit his ribs. "Dorth, good job. Be sure the village is alright, I suspect Head Watch-Dog Orin is about to shit a wild boar if we don't tell him we're done here." A general round of laughter accompanied this frivolous statement to Orin "Hammer-Jaws" Tysun, Elder Magistrate of Agate Hills Watch-Dogs.

The Matriarch snarled through her bounds. Aedan wagged a knife-sharp pointer claw at the captive, tut-tutting at the creature as though it were a naughty pup. This also led to laughter. Caelina was there, in much the way that her kind could be.

"Is anyone hurt, Captain Aedan? I have my herbs and potions at the ready." The griffiness reached into her leather pouches, and scanned about with her keen eyes over the battlefield.

It was Laika who answered the herbalist. "When they first stormed in, Uden caught a bolt to the arm. He is going to need that removed." Caelina nodded and went to see to the young tyro, who was currently trying to laugh through tears of pain running down his muzzle, trying to be like the rest of the lads and lasses.

Brave little Diamond Dog, I'll give him that. Aedan cracked his shoulders after the thought, his chain-mail rattling as he shook out the stiffness from a hard battle.

As some of the other Diamond Dogs rushed over to assist Uden and Caelina with his bolt-removal, Dorth walked over to Aedan. The still bound gnoll had stopped snarling, and seemed to take in the dead bodies of her kith and kin in a detached sort of fascination. But then, thought Aedan, who under the stars knew what gnolls thought?

This helped distract him from Uden's wild yelping as Caelina drew the arrow out of his arm's flesh.

Aedan never liked being in Orin's office. The room was roomy enough, so perhaps it was just Elder Orin. Also, having to wear his clan robes and medals made Aedan feel ridiculous. Give me my chain-mail or just my civilian clothes any day. The medals are the real shits, though. All heavy and having to be pinned in, and blast it if I don't always prick a finger... The young dog's reverie was cut short by the heavy bass voice of Orin, who had gotten up to look out on the street, and possibly at the pyre where the gnoll invaders' bodies were burning, leaving the acrid-sweet scent of burning flesh and fur.

Orin motioned at the smoke as he talked, "How many of them came at us, this time?"

Aedan quickly got up to stand beside him, showing his throat submissively briefly to the Elder dog before standing by his side and answering. "About ten spear-wielders, a pawful of crossbow gnolls, maybe twenty of them wielding them funny curved swords of theirs.."

"Samosa'uxi, they're called." Orin corrected gently, his yellow eyes taking in the smoky skies and cobblestone streets in a wise and contemplative air.

Aedan nodded. They stared out at the street, still collecting their thoughts. Then Orin turned to Aedan and smiled, revealing old and worn teeth, and few that had been capped with the same steel used to make the typical Watch-Dog uniform of bluish-black chain-mail. He clapped the younger Diamond Dog upon his back, nearly earning a surprised yelp from Aedan. "You did good, son."

Son!? Aedan ruminated on that with an air of wonderment. Within the pack hierarchy of a typical Diamond Dog village, for a non-related dog to call another 'son' or 'daughter' was incredibly high praise.

The old dog, his eyes smiling along with his mouth, sat back down in his chair, motioning Aedan back to his chair with good-natured humor. Once Aedan had sat back down in the briefing chair, Orin continued on, "The gnolls are growing increasingly bolder. They are beginning to move more and more about. Why do you think this is, Captain Aedan?" The Elder Magistrate then looked at him expectantly, like a teacher expecting an intelligent pup to answer a history problem.

Aedan cleared his throat and voiced some ideas. "Well, all we know for sure is that they typically don't bother us at this time of the season. Winter is coming up, and by then they typically have moved further south after the caribou, wherein they occasionally molest the ponies' caravans and plundering the country side for game." Aedan noticed Orin nodding, as though this were expected.

He then leaned over his white fir wrought desk and asked Aedan a fairly simple question, "Aedan, you have any idea how long I've been a Watch-Dog?".

Aedan fumbled about in his brains' filing cabinet for the proper answer and then spoke "Nearly sixty-three years, by the Emperor's tail I think."

Orin nodded, his golden fur shining in the sun's dying rays before night was upon the Earth. "Yes," the old dog said, his steel-capped fangs clanking together audibly "and for much of those years I was fairly good. Wasn't as swift as those Ikulas dogs from farther south, wasn't as big as those Rock-Gnashers who look like a gnoll painted by Vrik in Diamond Dog colors. But I was smart, kept my mouth shut even when when some screw-dicked Captain told us to do something stupid. But," Orin sighed wearily, his erect brownish-golden ears emanating his tiredness, "I have never seen gnolls in these numbers. Ever." Orin pulled a map out of a drawer in his desk and pointed at it. "I have gotten messenger eagles from everywhere; from Hilldenshire to even the Everfree Forest Outpostings. The gnolls aren't just attacking willy-nilly, lad, they're trying to make us go to war."

Aedan was shocked. "But what of our allies, the griffins? And those bison tribes?"

Orin shook his head again. "Same. Even worse. Bison calves taken in the night, whole litters of griffin cubs slaughtered. Food raided, good warriors left half-eaten and for the vultures and ravens." The Elder snarled, "But it isn't the savagery, lad, 'tis the tactics. Where once all you had was some savages in leather and bone armor, now they have steel." Wherein they worst they had were those wood arrows, now they have siege weaponry. I tell you lad, the marauding gnoll tribes have finally banded together, and Larka the First-Mother help us, they're trying to wipe us all out."

Aedan was silent, his green eyes blazing in wonderment at this. Those Darkness-worshiping bastards. His voice cracked slightly as his confidence tried to regain a paw-hold. "Any reports from anybody in Equestria?" Since the return of the Crystal Empire, the Diamond Dogs of the northern Cities had tried to gain the Crystal Princess's favor. Trade with ponies was always lucrative, and the worked jewelry, wrought metal and of course their gems gave the Diamond Dogs quite a good reason for having trade with the ponies.

Orin snorted, clearly agitated at the mention of the word 'ponies'. "Well, as Emperor Ralkuh and Empress Frelki continue to try and shore up our 'appearances' to that Crystal Princess and her stallion, it seems that other Watch-Dogs, Wise-Nobles and even some Imperial Corps members been hearing how the shit is rolling merrily down the old fucking hill. As far as I know, the gnolls are pretty yellow-piss afraid to incur the wrath of the Moon Goddess and the Sun Goddess, and if I were some bone-biting hyena I'd be in the same way." He shifting his weight and pointed at the map again. "Gnolls compete with us because we got resources and we're close. To fight the ponies? What for? Ponies don't have rabbit warrens, pheasant farms and tasty farm-fat mammoths and boars to eat. We do. Ponies have a military mighty enough to level a good-sized dragon flock like a couple of drunken ducks against a couple of falcons. Gnolls want the easier target; we're the lemmings and they're the foxes. Equestria is one big old surly mastodon cow, angry as hell once you try to mess with the calf."

Aedan gulped, "Well in that case I guess we need a miracle." he deadpanned. Outside he heard a nightingale begin to sing. It was already nightfall.

Orin got up and showed Aedan to the door. "Well, an old dog has kept a young dog far long enough under a tirade of pseudo-intelligent musings, eh? Go now, lad. I'm going to go home and eat some good boar and tomato stew, and I suspect the rest of you ass-biting mutts we are forced to call 'Watch-Dogs' are down at the The Lonely Oak". And with that and a cheery laugh, Orin was out in the red Mage-Fire lit roads, as well as Aedan with his stark blue and black robes and gray pelt being brushed softly by the cool night air. Aedan walked with his head craned downward in thought.

Wonder where a miracle can be found... Frik and Larka, Gods of my Fathers and Mothers to the First Wolves of the Ice, please send us a miracle. Never being the sort to make such a request of the gods, Aedan shook his gray pelt out and snorted, heading over to The Standing Oak with a cross expression on his lupine face.