FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Finally got round to finishing it. Started a while ago so if any mistakes or inconsistencies let me know.

Enjoy

Also, merry christmas.

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Edit: Sorry bout the part order being wrong, fixed now

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The white wolf had some kind of powerful shield embedded in his skin preventing any of Dark Wolf's ice magic from penetrating. Apart from that he was very powerful. Judging from the stories he had heard he was probably more powerful than Dark Wolf was. And if he was who Dark Wolf thought he was he was certainly more experienced than Dark Wolf.

Whoever he was and however powerful he was, Dark Wolf needed to end it soon. The talisman on his wrist was hot enough to burn his skin. He had never thought he would have to channel so much energy through it at one time. If it endured much more it would break.

Red bolts of magic flickered across the white wolf's body and focused on the ice. It shattered. The bolts continued to flicker around him as he got to his feet. He watched Dark Wolf carefully, expecting another attack. "You... you have too much power, sorcerer. I did not expect to find one with this much power."

"I never expect to encounter another like me. It unsettling."

"Yes it is. But you young yet and have not gathered the power I have."

To prove his point he launched another ball of magic at him. Rather than shield Dark Wolf counters it with a blast of his own energy. He didn't try to match him force but instead knocked the red magic off its course before countering with another shard of ice.

When the white wolf dodged Dark Wolf formed several shards of ice and shot from different positions, most of them out of the white wolf's sight. He wasn't new at this though and his magical senses alerted him and he sent a wave of red magic to smash them all out of the air. Dark Wolf gathered a dense ball of water in his palm and launched it at the white wolf.

The white wolf returned fire with another ball of red magic. The two collided in a burst of hissing steam. What remained of the red magic broke apart and faded into nothing. Dark Wolf's ball of water, while much diminished in size, continued on with the force of a boulder from a catapult.

It gave the white wolf no chance to avoid it. He was forced to raise his shield. Shielding takes more energy than the force that it receives so in an extended fight people tend to try and avoid shielding. Dark Wolf's plan was to either strike a lucky blow or force the white wolf the shield often enough to use all his energy.

Unnoticed by either wolf the doorway had filled up with guard. Blade stood at the front of the growing crowd. Not one of them fancied their chances at getting across the hall with all the magic flying about. On the other side of the battle the king, prince and Lord Nightmare were still hidden behind the wall of ice.

The castle's High Priest pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He was the strongest priest in the castle and one of the top five in the kingdom. He watched the battle in horror, he could feel the strength of the magic being thrown around and it was far beyond him. The collective power of all the priests in the castle might be enough to suppress one of them.

Blade's voice brought the priest back to the hall."High Priest. This castle is supposed to be protected by Deus. Why was this warlock able to break through?!"

"Somehow they got into the basements and set up a ritual to desecrate this holy castle. Several of our servants are dead down there."

"Can you do anything?"

"Pray for a miracle. Without the intervention of Deus we have not the power to suppress them both."

"Both? Until I say otherwise assume the black one is on our side!"

"But he is a warlock! He serves the devil."

"He saved our king! He fights where we have not the power to do so. And remember, by our own scriptures he has no soul for the devil to influence."

The High Priest looked on the verge of condemning Blade along with the witches. Fortunately his loyalty to the king took priority. "Fine! We will discuss this later. With all the power of the priests here we may be able to stop him. That will give the black wolf the chance to kill him." The High Priest turned back to the corridor where the rest of the castle's priests were waiting. "Pray with me."

The battle was starting to unbalance now. Despite Dark Wolf's massive power and skill he had little experience in magic battles and no experience against someone who could not only match him in power but was far more powerful. Luckily for Dark Wolf neither of them was expecting to fight such a powerful foe.

Dark Wolf only had one advantage, his was more skilled than the white wolf but his skill was not enough to pierce the powerful shield built into his skin. Dark Wolf's hopes of draining his opponent's strength first were fading. He'd obviously stockpiled far more energy than Dark Wolf could muster.

Slowly he edged his way back towards his sword. The bracelet on his right wrist was glowing white now and had been warped by the heat. The bracelet on his left had already shattered leaving only burnt fur and bloody furrows in its place. The left talisman was used to form shields and without it Dark Wolf was more vulnerable.

The white wolf sent blast after blast of red magic at Dark Wolf who was forced to shoot them out of the air with his water magic or dodge. He threw himself out of the way of one particularly large ball of magic and grabbed his sword.

Another blast of red magic was already on its way towards him and on the ground as he was he could not dodge it. Instead he drew his sword. The runes were already glowing as they were revealed. The slash produced a crescent blade of blue light. It sliced straight through the red magic and flew at the white wolf.

The energy of the crescent magic burned the white wolf's senses. Dark Wolf had put everything into that last bit of magic. The white wolf's eyes widened in fear. He had not the time to form an attack with the power to counter it nor the time to dodge. Instead he pushed every ounce of magic in his body into his skin shield and hoped he had the time to strengthen it enough.

Meanwhile Dark Wolf fainted. He'd left barely enough energy to keep his body working. The ice wall guarding the king, prince and Nightmare quickly melted in the wake of the crescent magic. In the short time it took the crescent to reach the white wolf he was screaming. It collided with him with a blinding flash of red and blue light. Loud hissing overrode every other sound in the hall.

When the light and noise died down the guards and priests rushed in to the hall. The white wolf lay by the far wall. The huge bricks behind him were all but shattered. His once white clothes and fur were covered in blood. His chest looked like someone had tried to cut him in half from shoulder to hip. His left arm, which he had thrown up to defend himself in panic, was severed near the elbow. He held the severed arm in his right hand and was using the bloody stump to draw a circle around him.

The instant it was closed red light surrounded him. A second later it disappeared, so had he.

For several seconds everybody just stood about in confusion. Once they regained their senses Blade rushed to the king and prince and led them from the hall surrounded by the guards and priests. The High priest and a few others stayed to investigate the disappearance of the white wolf.

Nightmare moved straight to Dark Wolf's side. The old wolf's body was bruised and burned. When he bent to lift him he discovered something that terrified him. There was hardly anything left. The huge demands of the magic had eaten away at his body. There was much more grey to his coat as well. The battle had aged him. Nightmare only hoped the damage wasn't permanent. He picked up his old teacher and friend and carried him back to his rooms.

***

It was three days before Dark Wolf regained consciousness. He spent the next week eating and sleeping. Pages were sent to summon Dark Wolf before the king every day but Nightmare turned them away with the excuse that he was not well enough yet.

On the eleventh day Nightmare brought Dark Wolf breakfast and found him sat on the edge of his bed. He was as muscled as he had been. A small patch of discolour fur showed where his head had hit the wall. A band of discoloured fur decorated both his wrists was all that remained of his two bracelets. The Silver Star still hung around his neck.

"Finally getting out of bed?"

"Yes. No point resting any more, I've had as much good out of it as I can."

"Good. Feeling up to talking to the king? I'm sure a page will be here to summon you soon."

"Depends. How badly does he want me burned at the stake?"

"You protected him. He's obliged to return the favour."

"Oh? So I get away with one of the biggest crimes in the kingdom?"

"Blade's building your support with the guards. The High Priest thinks you should be punished though. People are ignorant and most couldn't care but just want an excuse for a burning. Others feel you deserve better since you protected their monarch. Where ever you go people say you cannot go unpunished, you use the devil's magic."

Nightmare stopped there, unsure how to proceed. "What has the king decided?" Dark Wolf asked.

"I'm not sure. You look older."

Dark Wolf had to suppress a growl at that. "You really know how to make a guy feel good."

"Sorry." And he sincerely seemed to be. When he spoke again he sounded truly scared. "I... have you shortened your life to save ours?" He seemed like he had more to say so Dark Wolf waited. "You've always been around. I was afraid you'd been killed in the fight. Then I saw you were alive but you were so thin and..."

"Grey. I used the energy that the spirit uses to sustain me. It aged my body. I forced my body past limits and it ate away at itself as a result. I've spent the last week or so gathering energy to myself and rebuilding my body. I can make my body healthy again easily enough. Unfortunately I don't know how to change my fur back. It might be vain but I think there's too much grey in it now. I'll have to look into that sometime."

"So you can stop yourself getting old?" Nightmare's voice filled with desire. Dark Wolf knew from Nightmare's childhood that he greatly fear growing old and decrepit. "How long does it last?"

"Depends how far you're willing to go. Immortality costs more life energy than any one body can produce. In reality the only way to become immortal is to be a vampire of one kind or another."

"You drink other people-"

"No! I don't drink blood. At night I project from my body and enter people's dreams. I give them whatever they want and convince them to give themselves over to me. Once their barriers are down I can draw off some of their energy. I never take too much from one person but that makes me a weaker immortal. I have less excess energy. That white wolf was an immortal but I suspect he has no trouble drawing energy from people until they die."

Nightmare looked surprised. "You mean you know this guy?"

"I can count the number of immortals on one hand. Not including undead and non-human stuff. Two... no three of them can take the form of that wolf, that I know of. A fox and a tanuki from the Far East, and a white wolf that predates all records."

"It's him?"

"No, it's a she. She was a wolf originally. Wouldn't tell me how she learnt immortality or magic."

"You met her? Anything happen?" The way he said left no doubt in Dark Wolf's mind what he meant by that. Dark Wolf had always kept his sex life very private, especially from Nightmare and his other young masters.

"I meet the closest living thing to a god there is and you immediately jump to that?" Despite his best efforts he couldn't help but smile. "I'm a wolf, boy. I don't do one night stands."

Nightmare's face said he knew a secret. "The gossips on my father's estate say different."

"That was no one night stand. I loved her and was prepared to stay with her. It was her death as much as anything that led to me leaving."

"You didn't answer my question about this wolf girl."

"No, we didn't fuck. We ate, we drank, we talked."

"You're hopeless."

"She was a wolf remember. The instinct to mate for life is deeper ingrained in her than it is in me. Besides, she's thousands of years old. Imagine the wealth of knowledge. Our records only go back, what... twelve hundred years. Even the Witches' State records only go back reliably fifteen hundred or so. Beyond that there's only stories and legends. Just think of all the lost knowledge stored in her head."

Nightmare looked sceptical. "You think too much, granddad. You should enjoy life more."

"Good god, you remembered that? I'm not that much older than you are, you know. Besides I enjoy life. I just don't depend on sex for enjoyment, I enjoy other things like learning and travelling. This war will give me a chance to learn more and refine my magics. There's nothing like war for development."

On that note the conversation died out and Dark Wolf finished eating his breakfast before dressing in plain guardsman clothing that Nightmare had ordered during the week. Nightmare had replaced his leather armour but he left it sat on his chest. He did strap his sword to his belt.

The sword was his finest piece of work. It allowed him to channel his ice magic in many ways. Most talisman's could only do a very narrow range of tasks, Dark Wolf built most of his to let him do many different things which made them less efficient but more useful to him.

The sword had extra, more complex, features. It could store energy which wasn't an uncommon feature in talismans since most sorcerers were usually very weak in that area but most talismans acted as only a store or a channel. The sword's most powerful feature was its ability to constantly gain energy. Every living thing has an aura. That aura is the magical energy their body produces but cannot store. It is thrown out into the environment.

The sword was designed to be able to absorb that energy. The miniscule amounts slowly build up over time. Since the sword itself had no aura the extra energy would go overlooked and turn up as a nasty surprise in a fight.

The king's page arrived as usual. At this point he was bored with the pointless task and expected nothing once again. He had to turn back to Nightmare before the door closed and ask if he'd heard right. He seemed excited to be off to tell his king the wolf would see him. Dark Wolf supposed that most people must be looking forward to a burning.

If it came to it Dark Wolf could get out alive but it would effectively end his life in the kingdom and probably cause trouble for a lot of Anthros. His refusal to accept his own death would cause anger towards all Anthros. It would be just the ammunition that the High Priest needed to sanction the genocide of Dark Wolf's race.

The decision was easy. If his execution was ordered he knew exactly what he would do.