FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chris stalked through the woods, hunched over he slipped through the shadows. He was glad to be outside the confining walls of the Castle grounds. Although he'd become more accustomed to his new life in the past two months of time, he still missed his carefree life among the Meeko. A life that now seemed distant. He shook his head to free himself of the thought and perked his ears listening intently. He heard the snap of a twig in the distance.

Silently he slipped towards it. He breathed deeply, his nose testing for a scent. He'd early on learnt that it was the most betraying factor and he himself took precaution against it. Having rolled himself in a patch of ground, dust covered his fur. The pack had taken to calling him little shadow.

His eyes easily pierced the gloomy light of the forest, a glint in the distance made him stop and crouch further into the brush.

Silently he slipped forward again, carefully watching where he put his feet and stepping as lightly as he dared. A rustle of leaves made his ears twitch. There. He thought, his lips peeled away from his teeth in a snarl. He sprinted quickly to a nearby tree and hunkered down beside it. He kept his eyes on the ground and waited. A shadow lipped slowly past. Patience he admonished himself. Now! With the thought he leapt around the tree, gloved paw outstretched. The Wolven jumped at the sudden appearance and the paw on its chest. A glow ringed the figure.

"Rats!" Tess snarled, staring at Chris. "How the bloody hell do you do it!"

Chris grinned at her and winked, then rushed off. Not wanting to wait around for another Wolven to tag him if he stood around talking with Tess.

This was his game, his element. It was a game they were taught to play, one he awaited with eagerness. He briefly brought Snow to mind and felt him at a distance. He and Snow had soon discovered while split out here in the woods, that they were able to find each other unerringly and had by silent agreement decided that they wouldn't hunt each other until everyone else had been tagged first. It had never come to that though. Although Chris had won this game quite a few times, Snow hardly ever lasted long. His big muscled body and white fur too quickly belied him to others. That and he was about as good at stalking as a enraged boar. Chris turned a circle and flowed from shadow to shadow back to where he had tagged Tess. More often than not if someone made a noise when tagged others would converge on the spot, hoping for an easy mark.

The game when explained to them the first time they had been brought out here seemed easy. All you had to do was hide yourself and touch others with your gloved paw. The glove contained some type of magic that would ring a person in light for an hour. When tagged you were to make your way back out the forest to the waiting instructor. Grev was invariably that instructor and was reputed to be one of the best stalkers in the pack. Grev had also taken quite an interest in Chris after the first few games and had started teaching him the ways of stalking and tracking when time permitted.

Chris stood still, ears perked and nose testing the air. The slight breeze would carry any scent to him from on ahead where he'd tagged Tess. A whiff of something caught his attention, he snuffled it in. Soap he thought to himself and chuckled silently. The loud rustle of leaves and a curse grabbed his attention. Whoever this was must have been lucky to make it so far in the game. Grevs' words came unbidden to mind. Patience is your ally in the hunt. Move slowly. Don't rush. Wait for the perfect moment. A grey Wolven stepped into view, Chris stilled his breathing. The Wolven was almost right on top of him, but Chris wasn't worried, he knew that he'd be almost invisible crouching as he was behind the brush and in its shadow. The Wolven took a step forward and Chris leapt, slapping his pads on the Wolvens arm. The Wolven near howled with the fright of the shadows seeming to leap up at him and jumped back, tripping himself and falling on the ground.

"Not again!" it growled. Chris merely grinned and turned to again disappear into the forest, but as he came around a paw tabbed him on his breast. Grev stood in front of him, his dark grey fur ruffled and dusty. Grev was a head shorter than him, sleek to almost the point of being thin. Scars criss crossed his arms and a long healed gash ran from his ear down his cheek.

He tutted at Chris. "Always keep your senses open, don't focus on your kill to exclusion of everything else" he said. "Come on now you two, games over. You win again Chris, well except if I were actually playing as well." he laughed, "Time to get back and for you lot to go to weapons training."

Chris groaned. He hated weapons training. He was constantly berated for not having any aptitude for almost every weapon. He had no finesse for blades, didn't have the strength for hammers and was more apt to stick the more exotic weapons in himself than the training dummy.

That and he had no wish to train in weapons. He didn't want to learn the art of killing. His years among the Meeko had instilled in them their peaceful ways. Now here he was, on a different planet turned into a fable used to scare children, recruited into a war he knew little about and had no wish to fight.

They made their way out of the forest and to the waiting group of Wolven, the last few tagged still with the ring of light around them.

Snow ruffled his hair and grinned at him. "Well done again little shadow" he said teasingly. "Now we're off for some real fun!"

"For you!" Chris huffed at him, batting away his paw. Snow excelled at weapons the way that Chris excelled at stalking. He was almost a natural with most, but favoured the heavier hammers and had a passion for fighting with a stave. Snow laughed at him, "You'll find the right weapon yet, probably whilst sticking it into yourself" The rest of the younglings joined in.

"Well at least I don't make enough noise to wake the dead when we're playing tag!" Chris shot back, turning the tables as everyone laughed at Snow.

The younglings gathered around the training circle, Grev moved to stand by the other instructors and leaned on the wooden fence. Chris noticed that there were no training dummies set out, but instead a man stood in the middle of the circle. His blond hair near glowed in the sun and his piercing blue eyes looked over the Wolven gathered before him. The man wore a simple rough spun white shirt and a brown trousers cut off at the knee.

"Who's the best among you?" the man asked, a grin splitting his face.

Almost everyone pointed at Snow. "Pick your weapon and come at me." The man said.

Snow stepped over to the weapons rack and hefted a war hammer. He swung the weapon up, letting the broad head rest on his shoulder as he regarded the man.

"Your unarmed." Snow said to the man.

"Yes, I am." The man said nodding his head. "Now, come at me and you'd better do it with the intent to kill." The grin reappeared on his face.

Chris didn't trust that grin, it seemed to him that this man was laughing silently. Must be insane, he thought silently. The man just stood there, waiting to see what Snow would do.

Snow shrugged his shoulders and said "Your funeral"

He rushed forward at the man, his long powerful strides carrying him swiftly. He swung the hammer from his shoulder till the head pointed to the ground and then with muscles rippling with force brought it round in a arc as he closed the distance. The man didn't seem to move, his arm shot up and suddenly Snow was flipped over, the hammer flying from his grasp. Snow himself landed on his back. The man just stood grinning.

Chris watched Snow clamber back up to his feet and shake his head groggily. He tottered a step before regaining his balance.

"Next?" the man inquired as Snow made his way back to his fellows.

So it went one by one. The younglings would charge in with weapon held and strike and the next moment find themselves either disarmed or lying on the ground.

Chris watched in awe. Finally his turn came, Chris walked over to the weapons rack and looked them over. He shook his head to himself and walked toward the man unarmed.

The man raised an eyebrow, the disconcerting grin still on his face.

Chris stopped two paces away and stood quietly.

"Not going to attack me?" the man asked. Chris said nothing, Grevs' words again running through his head. Patience. The man's grin changed to a smile and he stepped up to Chris. "Well done!"

As the man stepped past him, Chris spun his arm coming round in a fist. The man ducked down as Chris's arm flew over him, the force of it almost spinning him around. Time slowed and Chris's eyes shot downward, he saw the man lift his foot and kick out at his legs. Using his own momentum Chris lifted his one leg and pivoted on the other, sweeping his leg around. The man stepped back onto the leg he'd kicked out, still low to the ground. Chris watched the muscles tense and the man kicked off with his front leg, flipping over the incoming shin Chris had aimed at the man's rear. The moment of slowed time seemed to burst like a soap bubble and Chris found himself lying flat on his stomach, his back felt like a sledge hammer had connected with it.

"You, I will train" the man's voice said as Chris felt himself being helped up, "well done youngling."

When Chris was on his feet again the man held out his hand. Chris noticed the twin teardrops tattooed on the man's palm before he enclosed it with his own paw and shook the proffered hand.

"My name is master Klain" he said to the younglings. "And except for this one, you are a sorry lot" Klain laughed at them. "Now, who can tell me what they you all did wrong?"

Tess's voice piped up. "We got our tails handed to us?" Everyone sniggered at her remark.

"Yes, exactly, but who knows why?" Klain inquired.

"We underestimated you" Chris muttered. Klain beamed at him.

"Exactly! Don't assume that because your enemy is unarmed, alone or even injured that you have the upper hand. If I were a mage, I could probably have knocked you all senseless with a simple spell. If I had a weapon hidden, I could have gutted you when you rushed at me. Even the ground around me could have been trapped and I was just the bait to lure you in!"

"Now, who can tell me what this youngling did right?" Klain asked, he was greeted by silence.

"He waited patiently for his moment to strike!" Grev's voice bawled as he stepped up to them

"Right, the lot of you, off to your separate instructors."

Grev pulled Chris back as he made to follow the others. "Except for you, Klain will be your instructor." Grev moved away and left the two of them alone.

"Do you dance?" Klain asked him. Chris stared at him for a moment baffled by the unexpected question.

"I know the dance of growth?" he answered, his head was still ringing slightly and his back still hurt.

"You were a Meeko?" Klains voice had a strange quality to it.

"I, I was brought up by them. I was orphaned and they took me in." Chris answered quietly.

"But then you would have been taught how to fight barehanded." Klain mused. "Which clan? Where are they roaming?"

"I don't know anything about a clan. Aren't the Meeko just the Meeko?" Chris said baffled again.

"Ah, you must be from those that left to be free of the war. No matter, you know the dance, so this will be easier than I anticipated." Klain said, seeming to speak more to himself than Chris. "Grev said you were absolutely useless with weapons, is that true?"

"Yes" Chris answered miserably. "I can't get the hang of any of them and..." silence stretched.

"and you were taught that violence and the shedding of blood should be avoided at all costs." Klain finished for him finally. "I'm also of the Meeko, the twisted tree clan. I think that your people must have taken that saying further than it was meant to go in the time they've been away. You see, even though violence and bloodshed should be avoided. One must be able to protect yourself and your loved ones. Peace is a noble ideal, but without being able to defend it, you will only become a slave to new masters or find yourself slaughtered on the end of a weapon held by someone that doesn't care about your peace."

Chris mulled these words over in his head, at the same time amazed that Klain was also a Meeko.

"You see, we teach all our young how to fight without weapon, how to put an opponent down without shedding his blood. I think me and you have some things to discuss first though. Come along." Klain grabbed him by the paw and led him out of the training circle.

He asked Chris to tell him about his life and of the Meeko who had chosen to leave this war torn world and find a life of peace. Although the memories were painful and speaking of his father brought fresh tears to his eyes, Chris told him of how they'd travelled across vast open grasslands and along the borders of sprawling forests. He described the beauty of the places they'd come upon and of the people and villages where they would stop and trade. How he had been taught that to harm another was to harm his own soul and to value peace above all.

When Chris came to the end of his tale, he felt better, as if a weight had been lifted off him and the pain of his past had been leeched from his body.

Klain had sat silently listening to it all, he nodded his head at Chris and patted him on the leg.

"I am glad that they hold still to some of our traditions and especially that the song of growth is still sung. I'm happy they found the peace that they so longed for and I'm sorry that you had to be dragged from it. I truly hope that their peace will last an eternity, but I fear that they may in time find themselves on the end of a sword they cannot defend themselves from. Peace has made them soft. Were something to threaten it, they would be unable to stop the peace they cling to so fervently shattered around them. That's why we teach our children how to protect themselves and each other and that is why I'm going to teach you. Come on there's still some time left to this day, lets' make a start."

The next few weeks was spent in training with Klain or out in the forest playing tag.

Klain would teach Chris movements and stances, some of them he realised were the same as in the dance that accompanied the song of growth. His hours were spent flowing from one stance to the next, interspersed with strikes and kicks only to return to the flowing movement and the next stance. Chris found an inner calm settle through him at times and time would become distorted and disjointed, the next movement the only thought in his world.