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Seth Black is back and off to war. As always, feedback is appreciated. :)

Chapter 2: When Ya Get Drafted

Lydia sat disrobed on the edge of her and Seth's bed, curled up in a ball and crying profusely and inconsolably. Seamus and Gwyneth had long since gone off to bed, but Lydia was in no position to sleep, or do anything but weep and moan, really. In her mind, she had lost her husband before they were even formally married, and frankly, considering the Timbrian Army's track record, that wasn't too far of a leap. Seth sat down on the bed next to his betrothed and wrapped both arms around her, kissing her forehead and telling her that everything was going to work out. "No," she choked out, "it never does. And I can't stand the thought of, after everything that happened when dad died, you getting-" She couldn't even finish the sentence before succumbing to another wave of intense sobbing. "I'm getting home. Safely," Seth declared confidently, "I can promise that there's nothing in Senkhar that can prevent me from coming back to you." "I'd do anything to make sure you deliver on that promise," Lydia wailed, burying her head in Seth's chest.

"While I'm gone all you have to do is live life normally, and I'll return," Seth told her, "That's all I need from you." Tears continued to flow from Lydia's eyes, soaking the fur of Seth's chest as she contested, "And how am I supposed to do that? How do you expect me to live a normal life when I'm going to try to sleep in this bed, our bed, by myself? Seth, don't do this. Don't go." "It's not my choice, you know I don't want to go," the male reminded her. "Think, Seth. Run away with me. If we leave tonight we can make it to the southeast where there are almost no foxes. We could find somewhere to hide," Lydia pleaded. "But then we'd be spending the rest of our lives running. If I do my time, when, not if, but when I come back we'll still have the rest of our lives ahead of us," Seth pointed out. "I don't care. I would happily be on the run for the rest of my life if it meant knowing you were alive and with me," Lydia persisted, prompting Seth to ask about the future of any children they might have even if they did run. "I suppose we couldn't have any," Lydia sniffled, "but I'd be willing to forego motherhood for this."

"That's a rash decision," Seth said, shaking his head, "You have to trust me. I WILL come back. But for now, please, just rest. We still have an entire week before I have to go anywhere. Let's enjoy the time we have." Lydia continued sobbing, but eventually fell asleep in Seth's arms.

The week leading up to Seth's departure went by exceedingly quickly, as these things tend to do. Seamus let the kids off work for most of the week, since he knew that they wouldn't work well with all the stress hanging over their heads, and plus, if that meant the rich fox soldiers would be getting their equipment slower, that was just perfect. It was their fault for conscripting his son in the first place. Lydia especially used this downtime to her advantage, trying to take her own mind off things. Namely, during that week she became sexually insatiable, since sex was one of the few things in which she couldn't think about Seth's departure, and focused solely on the wolf in front of her. Or on top of her, under her, behind her... You get the picture; they banged a lot that week.

Far too soon, however, came Seth's hour of departure. He almost wordlessly shook his father's paw and hugged his mother, then carried on a lengthy embrace with his female before reluctantly breaking away and heading down the road to Fort Wolfwind as his parents held each other and watched, and Lydia fell to her knees in despair. The journey was not very long, though in the beginning it felt like hours, leaving behind everyone he knew and loved, and he shed a tear as he contemplated whether the confidence he had shown Lydia was deserved, or if he actually might never see her again. Soon enough, though, he caught up to a familiar face on the road, "Richard? Richard, is that you?" The other wolf turned to face him, and his face lit up, "Seth! Reportin' for the army too?" Seth nodded, and the new wolf, Richard, mentioned, "Well now your bein' gone the past week makes more sense. Seems like I haven't seen ye in ages. Lydia not takin' it well?" "Nay, she's not. I'm coming back for her though. Nothing will stop me," Seth said, regaining some of his confidence. "Aye, Seth. I'm not dyin' for King Tailhole in the desert, either. My sisters need me to look after them, and I can't do that if I wind up in a bloody puddle in the sand."

Richard Forster was a wolf a year or so older than Seth who grew up on the outskirts of Seth's village, which was on the outskirts of Vulpinum. To make sense of this outskirt-ception, this basically translates into Richard growing up in the Timbrian equivalent of a trailer park. He had three young sisters, the youngest of which were twins, whose birth resulted in their mother's death from complications. Following that, Richard's father began spending just about all of his time and money on alcohol and prostitutes, which you might notice are not the markings of an exceptional father. So, since Mr. Forster was incapable of coping with life in his period of history, Richard took over as both the provider and caretaker of his family, taking more of a fatherly role to his sisters than their real father ever did. Unfortunately, the draft dictated that he had to leave them behind. He got some other families to commit to looking after the girls in his absence, but he hoped that the situation would cause his father to take a fresh look at things as well.

Seth and Richard were friends. Maybe not best_friends or anything, but more like the guy you kind of hang out with every once in a while. Besides, Richard wasn't much for social gatherings like the ones Seth and Lydia attended. You'd never catch him in a dance hall; he was always too busy, and he was also secretly a hopeless romantic who hoped that someday he'd find love without having to go out actually _looking for it. In case you're wondering how that was going for him, by the time he and Seth were walking together to the fort, Richard Forster had never kissed a girl. All that was kind of irrelevant in the current situation since there's no difference between a socially awkward paragon and a suave womanizer in a brutal swordfight, but hey, backstory never hurts.

"Seth," Richard, a wolf very close in size and build to Seth, though slightly smaller, with dark gray, almost black fur and medium length unkempt brown hair proposed, "I think we should try to stick together through this. We both need to get home, and I think we can trust each other." "That works for me," Seth agreed, recognizing that having someone watching your back couldn't be a bad thing. Not too long after that, they arrived at Fort Wolfwind, which appeared to be as unimpressive as Vanessa Lightfoot's attempts at making out with Seth. The place was little more than an open campsite with a thin wooden palisade surrounding it, which suggested that it got little use besides a training ground. Which made sense seeing as it was a fortification in the middle of Timbria. Yeah, I don't know what we were expecting there, sorry.

Seth and Richard checked in at the gatehouse, handing their conscription letters to a soldier there, who in return gave them small wooden chips with a string through them that had their names, city, and province scratched into them before ordering them to move into camp. Yes, Timbria had developed dog tags by this point, less as a courtesy to soldiers' families and more just because casualty rates in the Timbrian Army were so high. Once inside the camp, they were each given a set of shitty armor, a shitty shield, and a wooden sword. The sword was for practice. The other equipment was what they were actually going into combat in. As I said, life expectancy as a lupine front-liner was low, so there was no reason to waste expensive gear on them. As for their training experience at the camp, there wasn't really much of one. All recruits at Wolfwind were lupine; all instructors were vulpine. The training lasted a week, with whirlwind instruction on basic use of swords and shields, as well as simple combat orders that they would be expected to learn. In the middle of the week, they were taught survival skills like how to make camp and find subsistence near battlefields (a useless training exercise considering the careless drill sergeants taught _Timbrian_wilderness survival, not Senkhari), and the second to last day consisted of a lengthy "examination" that covered all the skills they had learned that week. The quotes are there because you couldn't really fail; all the recruits were just meatbags in the eyes of the Timbrian command, so they weren't exactly going to send anyone home. If you couldn't handle the military, you were still useful as someone who could soak up fire that would otherwise be intended for a useful unit.

Both Seth and Richard finished the course with relative ease and watched most of the other recruits in progress. The majority could at least get through it reasonably well, but occasionally they could see a wolf really struggling, at which point they would exchange somber looks. They knew what the future of those recruits almost certainly held. Seth wondered to himself if any of the unfortunate, out of shape wolves had wives that cried when they left, and if any of them had promised to return. He closed his eyes and faced the ground. He decided he really didn't want to think about that. He knew there were going to be casualties, and as callous as it made him seem, which sickened him, he needed to think of those casualties as statistics. If he got bogged down in everyone's life story, he ran a higher risk of not coming home, and getting back to Lydia was his first priority. Everything else was unimportant by comparison.

The final day was mostly a day of ceremony, with all the new soldiers receiving their real swords (which were just as cheap as the rest of their equipment. Seth thought to himself that he could have brought his own and been much better off) and a cleric showing up to bless the regiment. Good time for a pseudo-side comment: magic is present in this world, though it was illegal for wolves to use it and foxes generally tended to be inept at it. Its use was much more prevalent in places like Senkhar, though it was also often used by Timbrian clerics and battlemages. To tie this back into the story, the cleric's blessing wasn't just a prayer; it created a weak protective aura around the troops. Of course, this would disintegrate by the time they arrived in Senkhar, but it was the thought that counted. Sort of.

During the night of that final day, they set off on a march to the coast, a journey that would take only about a day and a half. They marched in full regalia, only removing their composite wood and hide armor for sleeping and carrying their shields on their backs for the duration of the walk. Since the token foxes leading them to the water knew who they were shepherding, they didn't enforce strict marching discipline amongst the wolves, letting them walk in loose formation and talk to each other as long as they kept moving and didn't get too rowdy. Seth and Richard passed the time by people-watching while on march, and they noticed a wide spectrum of attitudes. They noticed the cocky males who repeatedly and obnoxiously expressed their excitement to see combat, the utterly dejected ones who sobbed as if they were being led to the gallows instead of a ship, and all the ones in between. Talking about those around him with Richard made marching easy for Seth. It wasn't hard work, and he was distracted all the time. It was the breaks that hit him the hardest. Every night in training and every time the unit took a rest on the road, his mind was consumed by the thoughts of what he was leaving behind.

At least to that point though, he was eventually able to steel his resolve every time and keep going. And then they finally got to the coast, and things got slightly more interesting. I mean, not that_much more interesting yet, but still. Once the regiment reached the port of Greenwater, they were divided into detachments of about 20 males each and matched with a wolf sergeant before boarding the ships that would take them to Senkhar. Seth and Richard were both sent to the second detachment, and at their meeting place they ran into a rather unpleasant sight. "Seth Black! Well, it looks like you're under my command now," the obnoxious voice of Andrew Lightfoot sneered, "What will you say about that?" "Well," Richard stepped in, "_I'd say that if you're going to lead us with that attitude, we're all right fucked." Andrew glared at Richard, "I didn't ask you, you backwoods-" "Shut up, Lightfoot," Seth interjected, "Richard's right. The only chance we have of surviving this is if we all work together. Gloating about your command of 20 untested grunts isn't going to get us anywhere except boxes, Andrew. Put your pride behind you and we might just make it home." Andrew prepared a rebuttal, but he was cut short by several vocalizations from other soldiers backing up Seth, so he backed off and ordered the detachment to the ship with clear frustration in his voice.

"Careful now, Seth," Richard joked quietly on the way to the dock, "Keep that up and the Senkhari army might be the least of your worries." Seth sighed exasperatedly, "Is it bad if I kind of hope he gets his arse shredded over there?" "Lightfoot? No, I don't think so," Richard scoffed, then changed his tone, "I'm worried about the others though. Having that jackass in command could get them all killed." "There's only so much a detachment commander can do in this sort of war, Richard," Seth sighed again, "They're probably already dead anyway. We'll try to keep them alive if we can, but _we_need to survive first and foremost so we can get back to Timbria." Richard looked away, then back at Seth, "I understand. But I just can't shake the feeling that I'll feel really guilty if we survive and they don't, and we could've done something to help." "We'll see when we get there, Richard. Let's just relax while we still can for now," Seth compromised. They boarded the packed ship and sat down next to each other, backs leaned up against a bulkhead. "Seth, the ride's going to be a couple hours right? I'm feeling pretty tired, thinking about nodding off for a wee bit," Richard informed his companion. "No problem. I'll wake you up if we have to move," Seth reassured him, and Richard dozed off before they even left port.

As the ship started moving, Seth thought about the total lack of fanfare they received as they boarded. As much as he opposed war, he always pictured a big spectacle at the departure port, but it was as if the whole town of Greenwater refused to even acknowledge the fleet's existence. Maybe they had just lost all faith in military action, much like the rest of Timbria. That thought quickly fell out of Seth's mind, however, as he drifted to other thoughts. He thought of home, yet again, and realized that he had never been away from Lydia or his parents for more than one or two days at a time in the last five years. The distance was already getting to him. He would have given anything to just hold his love's paw, twice that to hold her out by the lake and feel the soft fur of her neck on his lips... He leaned his head back against the bulkhead, shed a solitary tear, and became absorbed in memory.

*****

He had just turned 16 shortly before that night at the inn, almost two years before he would be shipped off to combat. It was kind of strange to think how everything happened so quickly. It started off as a normal night, with Seth leaving the forge after a hard day of smithing, Seth getting hassled by Vanessa about going to the dance that weekend, Seth telling Vanessa to piss off (yes, this was indeed part of a normal night. Girlfriend couldn't take a hint), and Seth going to the Greyclaw Inn to help out for a few hours. As previously mentioned, he'd been going there for years by this point, and it had by this time morphed into less "help the poor widowed Mrs. Greyclaw" and more "hang out with Lydia", who had become one of his closest friends. This, of course, is before they spent their free time crawling all over each other, and if you didn't know they were eventually going to be doing that, congratulations for jumping into this story in the middle of Chapter 2. I applaud your audacity, but question your judgment.

The first part of the work at the inn was fairly benign, since both Seth and Lydia had tasks to attend to, but after the patrons shuffled to their rooms or out the door, the two wolves were more or less alone, which was how they preferred it, because they were in love but just didn't know it yet. This is fun, by the way, I'm really enjoying killing one of Seth's fondest memories for y'all. That friendship was what Seth was thinking about, though, as he unloaded crates of supplies for the bar while Lydia was cleaning off tables. Seth wasn't really short on romantic experiences, no sex, but more than one partner was rather uncommon for wolves, as tradition stated that one should wait until betrothal before starting any funny business, and even the extramarital stuff that happened was almost always prostitution rather than casual sex, mostly for the same reason. Virginity notwithstanding, however, Seth's tongue had boldly ventured into the maws of several females of the village, most often, and most regrettably, Vanessa's. He distinctly remembered more than one occasion on which she dragged him out of the dance hall and pinned him to a wall, which he didn't mind all that much. I mean, he got to feel up the most attractive female in the village. He felt like he needed to wash his paws afterwards, but still, that was an achievement. But the last time she'd done that, after she'd finished gnawing his snout off, she cuddled up to him and said something along the lines of, "Oh Sethy, our children will be so beautiful, my mate."

At that moment, Seth had a bit of a Come to Jesus moment, where he had to decide whether he really wanted to buy what Vanessa was saying. After negative four seconds of deliberation, he concluded that, no, he absolutely did not. That bitch was crazy. So he politely excused himself from her grasp, and less politely never allowed her to put her mouth anywhere near him again. Following that, he had tried some other girls as well, but he always felt unsatisfied by what he was getting. And then there was Lydia. This is the good part; you can start paying attention again. They had gone to dances, which, if you hadn't gathered by now, were the big social events for unmarried folk, together once or twice, but both of them had been hesitant to make the first move for various reasons. They had the same reaction to each other everywhere else, too, always attached but never attached, even pulling out some of the classics like "our paws just accidentally touched, let's both blush and look away." Yeah, that happened.

Back at the inn, Lydia asked him if he was planning to go to the dance that weekend as he leaned on the counter of the bar, having finished his task. He replied with a "yeah, I think so" and thought more intensely about the girl in front of him. Seth knew he liked her, (he did have _some_self-awareness) and that she was probably interested too, but he had some important things to consider, like could he face the repercussions if she said no, and did he like her enough to spend years with her. After some quick eternal dialogue, Seth deduced that if he was courageous enough to climb up to a castle and kiss the princess as a ten-year-old, he could probably handle whatever his best friend could throw at him, and that for four years he had seen her every day, and he couldn't get enough of her, so that wouldn't be a problem either. Finally, there was the problem of attractiveness: did she have the looks to keep him coming back night after night? A shallow question, of course, but nevertheless an important one. He looked her over and noticed her strong, full-figured body, her face, which may not have been as perfectly constructed as Vanessa's, but in which Seth saw nothing but beauty... And then the clincher came. She bent over a table she was cleaning off, and her dress pulled up tightly against her, showing off a clear outline of her posterior. Whatever the Timbrian version of "build a house up on dat ass, that's an ass-state" was went through Seth's mind as he confirmed that he would have no problem eventually taking her to bed.

After he rejoined the world around him, he heard Lydia trying to get his attention, calling his name, and after he responded she asked, "Are you drunk? You were just... staring at me." "No," he said sheepishly, "I was just thinking..." "Right. Thinking. That's something you do," Lydia sarcastically remarked, rolling her eyes and strutting up to the bar, leaning on it across from Seth, "So do you have a date or no?" Seth notified her that he did not, and she suggested, "Want to go with me then? I need somebody to make fun of the Lightfoots with." Seth smiled and accepted, then thought about mentioning what he was thinking about before getting cold feet and leaving it at that.

The rest of that night went as usual, leaving Seth kicking himself the next day, but everything worked out by the time the weekend rolled around. The dance had been going on for a good bit of time, and a slightly tired Seth and Lydia watched as other wolves dance in circles in the center of the hall, and some of the more obnoxious pairings made out along the walls instead of taking their business outside the hall, as was generally considered desirable. Seth and Lydia were making fun of the Lightfoots, as intended, when Seth suddenly gathered up the bottle to go through with his plan. Out of nowhere, he took hold of Lydia's paw and asked if she wanted to get out of there. Taken by complete surprise, she stammered out a "Y-yeah, um, sh-sure", and off they went. Seth led her by the paw out to a patch of forest behind the dance hall where they could be alone, and she asked him what exactly he was doing.

Seth faced her, took one of her paws in each of his, and spilled his heart for her like a lupine Romeo, telling her about how none of the girls in the village could really compare to her and that she was the only one he really wanted and he hoped she felt the same way. She looked him right in the eye and told him, "Four years and you're still not sure if I have the hots for you? Look at you, I would've run off with you the day you walked into the inn. I just never thought you'd actually think about me that way..." He asked why not, and she explained, "Every male in the damn village chases Vanessa Lightfoot like she's the damn princess-" (that analogy still made a chill go down Seth's spine) "-and you have her on a silver platter, ready to spread her legs for you at your very command. Why would you ever choose me?" She didn't seem angry, just overwhelmed and surprised, so Seth explained his side of things, "All those males only see her from the outside. They don't know how crazy she actually is. You, however, are perfect. You're just as attractive, even if they can't see it, and you're so much smarter, wittier, able to survive in life without mummy coddlin' you... That's why I love you, Lydia."

Yep. Seth was goin' all in. Unlike the mess with Sasha, he knew what that meant this time, and Lydia was dumbfounded, barely whispering, "...L-love me?" "I do," he confessed, "you said it yourself, we've been close for four years now, I don't think it's that much of a stretch." "I... I guess not," she conceded, "I think I feel the same." Not knowing exactly where to go next (funny, that part didn't change from his last attempt), he restated, "So... I'm yours, if you'll have me..." Lydia laughed, causing Seth to blush through his gray fur, then joked, "You're burning so red right now that if you weren't being so sweet right now I'd mistake you for a fox. Of course I'll have you. You're Seth Black, what the fuck am I going to do, say no?" She took her paws out of Seth's and hung them around his neck while he moved his to her hips. "Seth," she urged quietly, "This is the part where you kiss me." Seth gladly obliged the order, and slid his arms around her back, then leaned in and pressed his lips to hers for the first time, though it certainly wouldn't be the last.

They broke apart, and Lydia asked how it was, to which Seth answered, "Fucking amazing. If I knew you'd feel like that I'd never have let myself even look at another girl." She laughed quietly, stroking the back of his neck, "So does that mean I get another one?" "Aye, dear girl, I think you're problem is going to be getting me to stop," Seth said flirtatiously. "I don't consider that to be a problem," Lydia countered before taking the initiative and throwing herself at him, a move which Seth soon mirrored, his greater size and strength pushing Lydia back into a tree, which did not faze the couple in the slightest. They explored each other for a decent amount of time before running out of steam and electing to sit down and catch their breath. Lydia wrapped her arms around Seth's torso and swung a leg over his before nestling her head by his neck. Seth draped one arm over her shoulders, let the other rest on the arm that was stretched out over him, and kissed the top of her head before looking up at the stars and thinking about how much brighter his future looked now that he had her.

*****

The sound and shaking of an anchor dropping tore Seth away from his reverie and reminded him that his immediate future actually involved much less frolicking through the forest with his girlfriend and more "hot, sweaty males packed together in a cramped ship on their way to the meat grinder". It's those moments in life when you really wish you were somewhere else. Richard woke up with a start, "What was that? Are we there?" Andrew Lightfoot proceeded to walk down the deck shouting, "Second detachment, we're moving. On me!" This prompted Richard to comment, "Guess so. Damn, I thought him being in charge might've just been part of a bad dream. Shall we, then?" Seth nodded and the pair got up and followed in the path of the arrogant wolf of questionable intelligence, while they noticed that the other 18 wolves in the group looked like they were following them. Seth shook his head and kept walking out of the ship and onto the desert beach, where Lightfoot was waiting for them.

This entry into a foreign land means it's time for your favorite part of the story... IMMEDIATELY RELEVANT EXPOSITION! Senkhar was a vast country that dominated much of the north end of the continent to the south of Timbria, and was covered in most places by mountains and desert. So why is this place dominant, you ask? Why do people even want to live there? Well, inquisitive reader, that was because Senkhar was everything that Timbria wasn't. They had forward-thinking institutions such as, but not limited to: RACIAL EQUALITY! A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT! PUBLIC SCHOOLS! JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR FEMALES! AN ACTUAL ECONOMY, WITH TRADE AND SHIT! NON-COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE!

So of course the King of Timbria decided "fuck all that freedom shit, let's invade and give their people's collective ass a whopping dose of fox dick", because that worked out so well the last time he tried attacking, and that was in the "middle of nowhere" part of Senkhar. On this occasion, he was attempting to go straight for the balls and take the capital, Peshakni, as quickly as possible. This would still involve slugging it out through several bastions of Senkhari defense before getting into the interior where Peshakni was located, but Alfred hoped that wouldn't be too much of a problem. He was counting on his massive, conscripted army and pawful of skilled generals to be able to handle a much smaller but more motivated volunteer army led by an abundance of formally educated, talented commanders. If you remember what I mentioned about Kar'gath earlier, you could see how this plan of action might be... problematic.

As far as the population of Senkhar went, it was about the same size as Timbria's, albeit much more spread out. The most ubiquitous races in the country were coyotes, jackals, fennecs, and hyenas (strangely the only non-canid race to emerge in the known world), though Senkhar also had a high number of immigrants due to its policies of tolerance and equality for all races and its trade connections with countries around the world. You could even find wolves and foxes in Senkhari cities, especially along the north coast, who moved there to escape Timbria's numerous issues. Less friendly creatures could be found in the wastelands to the east, and even in small doses in the west, but those are less relevant, so we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The second detachment of the Third Regiment of the Timbrian Army, Vulpinum Province landed on a Senkhari beach very close to the port of Kishath, which Seth and Richard correctly postulated that they would soon be attacking, as confirmed by Andrew. The sergeant gave the order to make camp with the rest of the regiment, as they would be assaulting the port first thing the next morning. The unit was glad to pitch tents and get rid of their armor as soon as possible, considering how rapidly they were becoming deep-fried wolves under the blazing Senkhari sun. The rest of the day progressed uneventfully, with the detachment getting to know each other a little better, and soon enough, night fell and Seth and Richard returned to their tents. Images of Lydia swirled through Seth's mind, but he willed himself to sleep, trying to conserve as much energy as he could for the next day. His return to Timbria depended on it.

*****

At the crack of dawn the next day, the Timbrian Army was already moving into position to attack Kishath, and they could see a strong force awaiting them outside the city. Evidently the battle would take place in the dunes outside Kishath. The general plan of attack was for the wolf regiments to attempt to envelop the Senkhari force with a frontal assault while fox archer units hung back and barraged the contained opposition. Once the Senkhari force was weakened enough, the elite fox cavalry would charge in from behind the Senkhari ranks and cripple the force. The strategy seemed to make reasonable sense on paper. Nothing fancy or world-shattering, just "flex your muscle and hope it works", which was honestly what most of Timbrian military doctrine consisted of. The second detachment wasn't in the worst possible sector of that plan, as they were near the northern end of the swarm that was supposed to overwhelm the enemy, so they could still feasibly be in a flanking position when the battle kicked off.

As they waited in formation, General Galahad Noblefur rode in front of them and personally addressed them, "Soldiers, fellow Timbrians, and most of all, comrades: Today you stand in the sand and dust of Senkhar, fighting a battle that many of you surely wanted no part of. But take note, young males, the task before you this morning is one of the most honorable you will ever partake in. By taking this city, you will help provide a safer, more prosperous and beautiful Kingdom for your wives, your children, and your friends and extended families. Not only this, but you are the backbone of this army, its spearhead, its mighty fist that the more privileged troops rely on. Without you, they are already corpses." Seth made no noise during this speech, nor did his expression change. What did this fox, wearing shiny plate armor and riding his big horse, know about walking right into death itself? Forget all this bullshit about honor, Seth thought, I just don't want to die here. Regardless of Seth's feelings, Noblefur carried on, "It is a fact that some of you will stain the Senkhari sand with your blood today, and I know that many of you fear death. But keep your hearts with you; only by staring death in the face can you truly overcome it, and shall you fail, your sacrifice will be honored by your brothers in arms who now surround you, and you will have proven yourself a noble soldier, and a nobler Timbrian, who stood ready to die for his country. Those of you that live, fight tenaciously. Avenge your brethren, and for every drop of Timbrian blood spilled in this desert, flood it with an ocean of Senkhari blood. Males, your mission is clear. Win. For wolfkind. For foxkind. For Timbria!" The crowd repeated "For Timbria" as Seth remained silent and focused on his task.

Seconds later, the regiment was ordered to march. About halfway to the enemy, Seth's mind drifted. He saw Lydia getting out of the lake by the village, water dripping off the unclothed fur of her luscious body as she lied down in the grass and beckoned him over... The order to charge took him out of his memories once again, and he hardened himself. If he had to cut down all of Senkhar to get back in her arms, so be it. He banged his sword against his round, wooden shield, let out a defiant roar, and joined the charge.

The second detachment was a few rows back in their loose rectangular formation, so they weren't the first ones to enter the bloodbath. Seth could see the first line guys going in, though, and it didn't look good. He clearly witnessed one enthusiastic wolf jump at the line of mixed furs, all covered head to toe in shining white armor, only to be instantaneously impaled by a gleaming Senkhari sword, blood shooting out of his back and being coughed out of his mouth from the impact. To his front and right he saw a wolf's head one second, and by the next it was just... gone. In the front row he saw a wolf who panicked when his neighbor's blood sprayed onto him, and was cut down by a Senkhari soldier before he could compose himself, his corpse falling out of sight. He could sense that the males of his own detachment were already wavering before they even saw action. Some of them called out to Lightfoot to ask what to do, and he stammered and stuttered but provided no response.

Richard looked over at Seth, then the blacksmith's apprentice took a deep breath and shouted, "We fight as one! Stand together and they can't break through us. Underneath that shining armor there's a fur, flesh and blood just like all of us, and if we can counterattack, they can be killed just as easily. Stand firm. Do not falter, and do not charge ahead like an idiot. We will live through this day, for the wolves of Vulpinum!" The battlefield was already pure chaos by the time the detachment entered the fray, with lines starting to blur into a mess on both sides. Within seconds of coming face to face with an opponent, the top of Seth's shield was chopped off by an incredibly strong swing from a scimitar. Instinctively, Seth used the follow-through of that swing to his advantage, lopping off the attacker's sword arm before finishing him off with a swift decapitation. He dropped his shield, and as he saw another Senkhari running towards him, dropped to the ground, picked up another sword from a fallen comrade, and thrust both blades up through the gut of the aggressor before standing and kicking him off of them. Apparently Richard had been battling just as well, if the scarlet sheen of his sword was any indication, as well as the several dead enemies already piling up around him. Seth cracked his neck and roared once again as he deflected an incoming sword before smoothly flowing into yet another liberation of the assailant's head from his shoulders before shooting his other sword into the throat of the Senkhari next to the one he had just beheaded.

After several more kills, and watching a Timbrian next to him actually get his snout removed before he was finished (the Senkhari who did the deed didn't last much longer), the Senkhari actually started backing away from Seth and Richard, fearing them to be some kind of demons or angels of death. Seth wiped a dripping of blood away from a relatively small laceration on his face and told his detachment to regroup, but Andrew, like the true idiot he was, refused and charged the dazzled Senkhari force, screaming "For Timbria" as he went. "You've got to be shitting me," Seth mumbled under his breath before Richard, whose face was so covered in blood and dust that he was hardly recognizable anymore, got his attention, "We can't just let him die." Seth heard a horn signal that meant his detachment was supposed to rally to a different location, "Yes we can. We need to move to the rally point," he argued. "There's no time for this, Seth! If we save Lightfoot, we make sure the second detachment gets to that rally point safely and with some kind of leader, even if he's a shitty one. I need to get home just as badly as you do Seth. Trust me, we can do this," Richard pleaded. Seth growled and kicked the sand out of frustration, "Fine! We'll save Andrew. Second detachment, move your arses to the rally point, go! We'll cover you! NOW! I'd better not regret this, Richard."

The two wolves ran headlong into the enemy mass, where they found Lightfoot down on the ground with a Senkhari soldier over him, ready to deliver the finishing blow. Seth charged the soldier, running him through with one of his swords and delivering him to the ground in a puddle while quickly reacting and parrying another soldier's attacks. "GET UP, LIGHTFOOT," Richard commanded with a booming yell. The sergeant stood, oozing blood from numerous cuts on his arms and chest, though he could've been far worse, openly crying from the pain. The two wolves, whose kill counts must have been enough to at least have earned them a care package or something by now, sliced a hole in the circle of soldiers beginning to develop around them, and Richard ordered, "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU HAVE AN OPENING, GO REGROUP WITH THE REST OF THE DETACHMENT!" Andrew scrambled out of the scrum as fast as he could manage, and Seth and Richard stood back to back, circling around each other eyeing the hesitant Senkhari troops.

"Hey Richard," Seth hailed his partner through gritted teeth. "Yeah, Seth?" "You know how I said 'I'd better not regret this'?" "I recall you saying something like that, sure." "Well I'm regretting this. If we make it out of this, you owe me more than one beer." "And if we don't?" "I'm gonna fuck ya up in the afterlife for not letting me see Lydia again." "Eh... That's fair."

The line of soldiers started closing in on them, forcing them to end their banter and get ready to fight back. One courageous Senkhari sprinted toward Richard, earning him a shield in the face and a sword in the gut, while behind him Seth simultaneously skewered two enemies who got too close. They continued to defend themselves for a minute or so, but the situation seemed hopeless. That is, until several Senkhari were distracted by a wolf that looked like the lupine take on the Incredible Hulk, a bit bigger than Seamus Black, wielding a two-paw sword and tearing through enemy troops like they were weeds in his backyard. Seth and Richard used this timely diversion to go on the offensive, shredding a pawful of opponents like the nameless extras in the story of their lives that they, well, were. Before they could even get a chance to get swamped again, a series of arrows in quick succession removed another chunk of the circle of enemies, and Richard noticed what seemed like an orange flash slipping from enemy to enemy, slitting throats with infurry speed and precision. Seth was a little baffled by all the help they were getting, but shrugged it off, growling at the enemies in front of him and slashing into the nearest soon-to-be-corpse into oblivion. Most of the Senkhari force that was in Seth and Richard's immediate vicinity realized that this was really not the place they wanted to be and wisely started running the hell away. The ones that stayed were either blasted into the afterlife by Seth, Richard, Hulk-dude (who seemed to be enjoying it too much), the archer, and the orange blur, or got their shit together and followed their smarter colleagues in running away to a place where they could just sit and weep for a while and clean the shit out of their armor.

When the dust settled, Seth and Richard observed their surroundings and found that the rest of the battle was _waaaayyyy_over there and that it looked close to being over. They also saw that they were standing in a sea of mostly Senkhari bodies, and that there were three other figures working their way over to them. "Good lord, Seth," Richard asked in unrestrained disbelief, still trying to catch his breath, "Did we do all that?" Seth took a knee, also completely exhausted now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and replied, "Shite, Richard... I dun' remember anythin'. 's all a blur... Though I think these gentlemales might have helped." "Well aren't we an odd menagerie of a group here," a distinctly vulpine-accented voice commented dryly. "Well, I dinna have a soggy clue wot ye mean, but all o' ye fight like the craziest lil' fuckers I've ever seen," the huge wolf with the broadsword complimented everyone, heartily laughing despite the blood and guts smeared on his armor.

"You don't seem so weak yourself," Richard returned to the brute, earning him a nod in return, "But who are all of ye?" "I be Harold Wood," the hulk introduced himself, "I come from Browngrass, in the southwest. My detachment got wiped right out, so I went on mah own lil' rampage to make their lives worth it." The three wolves then looked in the other direction and saw an average sized red fox and a smaller, much thinner one, both garbed in vulpine archer armor. "Well," the larger one, who had well-kept blonde hair and looked about 20 or 21, explained, "I'm Cyrus Fox, and the little runt here is Alistair Stalwart. We saw the big goddamn bloodbath the three of you were sculpting over here and decided that we'd come and help you out. Left our unit technically not under orders. Once they see the mess we made, I think they may let that slide. How _did_you start this anyway?" "Right," Seth gathered himself, "our detachment leader had an arse for a brain and ran straight into an enemy wall. We pulled his tail out of the fire so he could get everyone else to the rally point. By the way, I'm Seth Black, and this is Richard Forster. We're from Vulpinum. You from there too? Fox is a big family name." "I am indeed," Cyrus sighed, "and how I wound up here is more than I can explain in a few seconds, so how about we start heading back to the Timbrian lines, and we can be further acquainted along the way?"

The others agreed, but before they got too much further, and long before they could get the conversation going in earnest, they came across a fallen Senkhari soldier still gasping for breath. Normally this wouldn't have mattered, but this one was different. Specifically, he was a wolf. Richard faltered and knelt beside the soldier and simply asked, "Why?" The dying Senkhari wolf choked out, "Moved here... with family... Escape op...oppression. Fight for Senkhar... Defend wife... and pups... most important in... world." "Rest, fellow wolf. Your mate will be a proud wolfess because of your courage and bravery, laying down your life for her," Richard tried to console the dying male. "I'm... no fellow... of yours," he sputtered, before using the last of his breath, "My mate is a vixen, you son of a bitch." And with a gasp, the Senkhari soldier passed. Richard closed the soldier's eyes with his paw and whispered "Go with God" as he placed a paw on the fallen male's chest, then stood back up to join the rest of the group, who stood looking at the ground, the emotion of the moment striking all of them.

They silently resumed their sojourn to the Timbrian lines.