Overview
The Fang-Hound is the broad, loyal beast the hold keeps for the word. It stands 65 cm at the shoulder, it moves through the black stone with a slow, deliberate way, and it considers the bond a promise rather than a chain. Where the fang-hound stands, the band knows it is kept, and the keeping is the whole of the hound's own, because the hound that keeps the bond keeps the band, and the band is the hound's own.
Habitat
The Fang-Hound keeps the black stone of The Fanghold — the iron and the cold air and the long, unbroken line of the hold. It is the fang's own, and the fang is the hound's, and the hound keeps the fang the way the fang keeps its word. It needs three things: stone that will hold the long stand, an orc war-band honourable enough to keep the bond, and a ground of the hold's own scrap that will not fail. It is settled with the Orc who keeps the hold — the hound is the hold's own word, and the orc that has not kept its hound in a season is called the one who forgot the word. The hound moves with the season the way the orcs do, deeper in the cold months, to the upper fang in the green, because the hound that has not moved with the stone has moved without the stone, and the moving without the stone is the whole of the hunger.
Appearance
The fang-hound is the broad, strong shape — broad through the chest, heavy through the rib, with the head set forward and the whole of it reading as one low line from muzzle to rump. The male stands 65 cm at the shoulder and carries 55 kg, broad through the chest and heavy with the bond; the female stands 60 cm, 44 kg, finer through the neck, with the longer nose and the better word, because the word is the whole of the hound's own. The coat is short and dense, grey-blue over the body where the fang sun has kept it light, darkening to a soot-black at the ear-edges and the back of the leg; the chest and the jaw carry a clean bone-white that reads as a flash in the stone, and the belly fur is a faded, honest straw. The eye is deep-set, pale amber, set wide in the broad face to see the band in the dark between the stone, and it does not glow. The ears are short and set high, turned the way a dish is turned, because the bark that is heard is the whole of the word. The hound carries the line in the jaw and the nose; the hound that has lost its bark to the cold is called the quiet one, and the quiet one is not counted. Elders are marked by a coat gone pale silver-blue and a nose that finds the band a full day before the band does — an old fang-hound stands no new band, and the band that loses the old hound is called the lost line.
Behaviour
The fang-hound does not hunt the way the warm prey's own hounds hunt — it keeps. It takes a position at the band's own stone and it stays, because the hound that moves the stand has moved the word. The word-bark is not a bark in the way the lowland hounds bark; it is a short, low sound that the orcs answer without the orcs knowing they answer it, and it keeps the band, not the prey to the hound. When the band takes, the hound does not eat first — it lets the orcs take the scrap, because the scrap is the word and the meat is only the meat, and the hound that eats the word eats the fang's own. It is patient with the orcs, loyal as the orcs, and it will hold a stand through the whole of a frost because the stand that leaves the frost has left the fang. The young are raised in the den with the orcs' own loud ones, and the young that bark a true word before the first frost are called the fang-kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The weapon is the bond — the short, low bark that sets the band before the blow, and the broad, strong chest that stands the blow after the band has moved. The defense is the stone: the hound is never where the band is, it is where the band can see, and the stone that holds the stand holds the hound. It has no other defense and does not need one, because the beast that owns the loyalty owns the band, and the band is the whole of the fang's own.
Magic Alignment
The fang-hound carries the hold's own quiet magic — the hold-sense that reads the loose stone a step before the foot lands, the long-loyalty that holds the stand through the frost, and the word-bark that the orcs answer without knowing they answer it. It is not spell-work and it is not the gods' work; it is the hold's own, and it is kept the way the hold keeps its word.
Society
The fang-hound bonds to one orc war-band — the same band, season after season, and the bond is the whole of the hound's own. The hound that has not kept the same band for a season is called the loose line, and the hold does not count it. The young are raised in the den with the orcs, and the hound that has raised a fang-kept is honoured the way the hold honours its best orc: the stone is left open for a day, and the open stone is the honour. The band that has lost its hound is called the lost band, and the lost band is kept in the hold's own scrap-stone until it finds a new bond.
Culture & Lore
The Orc of The Fanghold keeps the fang-hound the way they keep the word — as the hold's own loyalty, not as a beast. The old orcs say the first fang-hound stood the stone and the hold heard the bark before it saw the hound, and the hearing was the whole of the first keeping. The hound is never killed for the meat, because the meat is the meat and the word is the word, and the orc that kills the word kills the fang's own. The stone that a hound has kept for three seasons is left open for a day when the hound dies, and the open stone is the whole of the honour the hold gives.
Home
The fang-hound is the own of The Fanghold — the high fangs, the black stone, the cold air. It is settled with the orcs who keep the hold, and the hold that loses its fang-hounds loses the word before it loses the war, because the war will come back when the stone warms and the word will not.
Relations
The Orc keeps the hound as the word and stands by its bark. The Goblins of Goblin Warrens know the fang and do not enter it, because the stone that is honest will take the goblin as well as the hound, and the goblin that has been taken does not come back to the warren. The Ogres of The Mire Barracks respect the bond the way they respect the barracks — they do not cross it, and the holding of the bond is the whole of the respect. The warm prey of the high ground does not know the beast at all, and the not-knowing is the whole of the word's own.
In the Story
The fang-hound has not yet come to the six, but the stone it stands on will — the hold is the first strong ground the Legacy of Steel ever met, and the meeting was the whole of the first war. The bark that keeps the band at the hold's own stone is the bark the six will hear when they hear it, and the hearing is the whole of the story's own, because the story that hears the bark hears the stone, and the stone is the fang-hound's own.