• The Arbiter- The Beginning


    A lone red and gold carriage comes strolling along a dusty road pulled by two fire horses each of their manes like a miniature sun and guarded by two knights in cold dark armor with the symbol of the wolf sprawled across their shields.

    The calm green trees seem to rustle without the wind as the carriage continues along its path. Suddenly as the carriage gets over a hill a large log swings towards it on two length of vines it crashes into the carriage sending it into the air before crashing down on its side.

    The two guards ran down to get to the overturned carriage just as they got there two people crawled out through a hole in the roof. One was a male wolf with gray and black stripes dressed in a large cloak and the other was a female brown wolf with wings dressed in a beautiful dress and was carrying a baby wolf with gray and black stripes the same as the father and was wrapped in a silk blanket with the name Shadow written on it in red letters.

    “Sir are you okay?” One of the guards asked.

    “yes yes I'm fine now go see what happened will you?” The male wolf in the cloak replied.

    “Yes sir” they both saluted and ran off to investigate.

    “honey are you and our son okay?” The cloaked man asked.

    “Yes we're fine but what happened?” She asked.

    “I'm not sure honey but lets just hope we get back to the palace safely”

    “Okay I just hope we'll be okay”

    “Don't worry I'm sure we'll be fine now what's keeping those guards?”

    Meanwhile the guards had walked up the hill to the very top and were eying up the large log that was still rocking back and forth on those large vines.

    “What do you think tied these ropes Alex?” One of the guards, a orange fox said.

    “I'm not sure Chris but be very alert I fear it might have been set here especially for us” Alex the anteater replied drawing his sword as he did.

    “Okay captain I'll go tell the king” He announced as he ran off.

    Alex just circled the log careful to avoid it as it was swinging trying to identify who and when it was put up by. He spotted claw marks along the trees nearby and the trees were still swaying as if they were alive but strangely without the wind. Just as he was about to climb one he heard screams from the bottom of the hill. He ran down as fast as he could to find a band of winged creatures all of them gray with stripes of black and each carrying the insignia of the demons, a pair of wings covered in darkness and in their hands an assortment of weapons.

    They began attacking the carriage which the king and his wife were resting on their only resistance was the lone fox Chris who was desperately fighting two of the Demons with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other.

    Alex was behind a rock with his bow and arrow ready to fire at the demons who had not yet noticed him when Chris cut down two of them at once with his sword but then three more took their fallen comrades place. The king was also fighting two demons trying to defend his wife and son who was being chased by a demon who had managed to avoid the two other warriors.

    Alex saw the queen running up the hill so he let loose his arrow which flew straight into the demon's neck, it flailed about then fell on the ground dead. The queen spotted Alex and was halfway too him when she was attacked by two more demons who started ripping her to shreds with their claws without remorse when Alex jumped down and chopped their heads clean off. He then pushed their bloody corpses off the queen only to find her bleeding from ten huge gashes on her body as she lay their dying still holding the little baby wolf in her hands.

    “Alex.. please take... him” she spluttered coughing up more blood as she held out her son.

    “Yes my lady I will keep him safe, is there anything I can do to ease your suffering?” Alex asked with sympathy for his queen.

    There was no response as she had died. Alex sighed as he took the baby in one of his hands and held his sword in the other. He looked back only to see his fellow soldier go down as he was swarmed by demons as did his king moments later. Then the the little wolf cub started crying almost sensing what had just happened. Unfortunately the demons had heard the little cub's wailing and immediately turned to Alex who knew he was no match for them.

    Just as the demons jumped into the air heading for Alex and the cub a large orb of dark energy surrounded Alex and the baby which seemed to erupt as the two disappeared from that place.

    Moments later Alex appeared on the outskirts of a town surrounded by a forest. He looked down at the now silent cub in his hands.

    “Did you do that little one?” he wondered as he straightened up.

    The little cub only cooed and made funny little noises at his question.

    “Well Shadow I guess we're stuck here for the time being so we'd better find a place to stay and start a new life” He sighed as he walked towards the large wooden gate of their soon to be hometown.

    ________________________________________________________________________________ Twelve years later....
    _______________________________________________________________________________

    “Shadow get on up it's nearly time for school” A voice drifted into the dark room. The curtains were closed to keep out the sunlight. A still figure was lying in the small bed in the corner of the room asleep but not very deeply. It twitched slightly upon hearing the voice call out but then went back to it's stillness soon after the bed covers drawn up over it's head.

    “Shadow for the last time GET UP!” The voice shouted the last two words obviously wanting to get the figure in the bed up.

    Footsteps were heard coming closer to the room before it stopped right outside it. The door flew open as the light flooded in through the door, filling the room with it's light. An antro anteater stood in the doorway, a pail of water in his paws. He walked across the now bright room in a few strides, the brown and green earthen floor dulling the sound. When he stood at the side of the bed he tipped over the pail he was carrying all over the bed but mainly aimed where it's head should be. The water flowed out of the pail and landed all over the figure under the covers, it quickly soaked through them leaving the covers wet and a darker red than they originally were.

    “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” The figure jumped out from underneath the covers and landed on the floor, revealing himself to be a well built gray wolf boy around twelve years old but at the moment he was completely soaked to the bone his red and black shorts sticking to his fur.

    “Arrrrrrgh” He shook his whole body trying to rid himself of the water but only soaking the fur next to him.

    “Thanks Shadow that really helped” Alex groaned sarcastically.

    “Me? What did I do? You're the one who soaked me!” The black and gray wolf argued back.

    “Oh quit being a baby and get downstairs after you get a shower, its almost school time” Alex walked out the door after he said this before Shadow could respond.

    “Great another chance at hopelessly trying to fit in with the humans, why do I even bother?” Shadow asked himself as Alex left the room.

    Shadow went over to his drawer which was in the other corner of his room and took out his school clothes along with a towel and walked out of his room and closed the door behind him.

    Ten minutes later Shadow emerged from the bathroom with his fur all dry and fluffed up from the water of the shower and wearing his red school shirt and his dark brown school trousers and as usual for him he was barefoot as the shoes they made in the village were made for humans and not for demons which as the humans often pointed out Shadow was.

    Shadow quickly walked downstairs after making sure his fur was back to its normal ruffled and fluffy state, into the earthen floored hallway and after a few steps was in the kitchen which was the most appealing room as the walls were covered in many different colored crystals each one depicting the source of magic it represented, there was the purest white which was for the angels and their holy magic, yellow was representing the sun gods and their power, the darkest black was for the much hated demons and their dark magic and finally there was the red crystal which was for the fire wielders the lesser beings of the sun gods, of course there were many more crystals but these four were the main powers of the world and were the most powerful.

    Alex was sitting at the ebony table, slurping up the vegetable and herb soup that was in front of him, occasionally glancing at his son who was in his high chair and was the spit image of his father and even carried the same name as him. Shadow stepped into the crystal room and crossed across it to the fridge which he opened and took out a plate holding raw meat on it and quickly walked to the table the two Alex's were seated at and took a seat opposite baby Alex and was soon lost in thought as Shadow watched him eat his food.

    It had been twelve years since Shadow and Alex had arrived in the village called Ristiga which when translated into common english meant Night's door. The name was taken from the Demon kingdom which was led by the royal family, the Night's who were all demons but were different from their evil counterparts by the simple fact that they were all loving and very kind people. They had created an empire of soldiers and rangers from the villages nearby their castle which was in a large forest slightly east of Ristiga. This forest which was known as the Forest of Shadows was filled with many dark creatures such as Howlers, a dark and evil form of wolf that were used often by the evil demons as instruments in their attempt to rule the world, and Narls, another evil creature which was a crow in shape and guise but was four times the size and its talons often pierced the flesh of many kind creatures that also lived in the forest. In the very center of this forest there was or used to be an ancient fortress where the Night's and they're army and people lived, though ever since the loss of the king,queen and they're only living heir, who were assassinated by a rogue band of demons, the fortress had fallen into ruins and the people who lived there were never seen again and no explorers that went into the forest in search of answers, as to what had happened to the civilization that had lived there, had ever came back from they're search alive and so the old fortress was left to become a legend which then turned to myth in only twelve years and now no one ever went near the forest as it was believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the past.

    It took only a short while for Alex and Shadow to settle in with the locals and even though they were treated as strangers Alex quickly became popular among the locals although Shadow who Alex treated as his own son, was shunned by everyone because of what he was and for all Alex had done to prove he was a good kid, the humans still treated him as an evil being mostly because many of the inhabitants in the village had all lost loved ones in the ongoing war against the demons.