Duran, Dynasty of Running Wolves

The opening verses of the ancient folk songs of the Foxians and the Borisin both hum with nostalgia about the fertile soil and the mild climate of “the planet Verdantia”. But read them closely and the sharp-eyed will see that this is only the introduction to the eternal theme, “war”.

Thanks to their talent for farming and trade, the fox tribes built prosperous city-states beside the babbling rivers. And under the vast auroral sky, the sons of the wolf tribes hunted and herded across the boundless sea of grass, and from that formed tribes scattered everywhere. The merchants mocked the herders as barbarians, and the herders despised the merchants for their cunning. But all of them had to face the harsh torment of the natural cycle, “Fox Summer” and “Wolf Winter”.

In the bountiful summer granted by the Fox God, the two tribes ceased fighting and both were content. Once the Wolf God let the white frost fall and the tide of snow spread out from the poles, famine forced both sides into ceaseless war.

The folk song recalls that the endless season of “Wolf Winter” dragged on and on, though the sun of Verdantia had turned thirty-three times. Poverty and hunger fell upon their heads, and even the animals worshipped upon the totems had to be eaten to satisfy that hunger. After foreseeing an ending of white bones everywhere, a Savior climbed the highest mountain in the world... In the myths of the Foxians people call her Tushan. But in the folk songs of the Borisin people call him Duran. Yet whatever that Savior was called, that one prayed to the Lord of Longevity, begging to be granted food so that everyone might go on living. And then the mountain peak split open, and the sweet Crimson Spring flowed out from the crevice.

Those who drank the water of the Crimson Spring received strength, agility, and endurance from the beast flesh they ate. The wildness of beasts surged in their blood as well, and the shape of the beast grew clearer and clearer... The world changed from that time on, and could never return to what it once was.

With the Crimson Spring as the medium, every new implement the canine race needed was made from it... What was grown in the fields was no longer grain, but Viscorpus. What covered the body was no longer hempcloth, but placenta. Even the freezing snows that once terrified the civilization of Verdantia held no terror anymore, the canine race cultivated biological membranes in the polar regions and made warm domed tents, sealing the misery of Wolf Winter outside.

Afterward, the upheaval of Verdantia was no different from that of every Short-Lived Species that transformed into a Long-Lived Species... The population grew, the ecology collapsed, civil war and disorder followed... No matter how much the canine race prayed to the Lord of Longevity, they were never answered. And so they came to understand a truth, everything the Lord of Longevity grants is already there, and if you wish to live better you must seize it yourself.

Gathering around the great Godfather Duran, the canines lifted their eyes to the sky where the Lord of Longevity reigns. The shining stars were like grazing pastures eagerly awaiting the footsteps of conquest. They would bring “Wolf Winter” to the civilizations upon those planets.

Much later, their sworn enemies, the people of the Xianzhou, called them “the Borisin”, which in the tongue of Verdantia means “wolf”.

In the language of the Borisin, a bridle is also called “assa-chita”, which means “living book”.

At the moment when the two moons meet, when the night sky is at its brightest, the shaman of the hunting tribe gives a bridle to the descendants of Duran as a coming of age gift. This blank bridle will be the book that records the battles of their entire life.

As soon as the coming of age rite ends, a Borisin must walk into the weapon ranch and choose and tame his first war mount from among the mechabeasts selected and bred by gene sorcery. Those mechabeasts, which feed upon the conquered, possess a keenness and cruelty that appall the beholder... But compared with their future masters, the mechabeasts are no different from lambs. Moonlight rouses the wild blood surging within the body, and the young Borisin and the mechabeasts chase and fight one another. Some die from the kiss of a beast, that is the fate of the weak. Some kill their own kin, that is the way beasts divide the spoils... The young Borisin wrestles his favorite war mount to the ground and fastens around its neck the bridle inlaid with neural thorn whips... The animals are shaken by the psychic touch of their future master and become tamed beasts, as though they had taken a hundred lashes. When it willingly carries its master upon its back, that is the moment a qualified Borisin “sorya” (warrior, rider) is born.

From then on, the Borisin bridle becomes the teller of combat experience, and is gradually covered with scratches, knots, and ornaments.

Under the leadership of a “yonda” (the captain of a commanding army), the well trained sorya put on amnion armor that looks like jellyfish, set foot upon beast ships that can travel between planets, open up different worlds, and swear to turn the stars into grazing pastures in the name of Duran and the Lord of Longevity. Upon the bridle, shallow scratches stand for the number of enemies destroyed, knots stand for the great battles endured, and the ornaments hung on the strap are the spoils taken, the teeth of humans, the silicon cores of S-Robots... They are the resentment and the wailing of the conquered, and also medals displaying the personal strength of a Borisin.

When a mount dies in the fires of war, or when a Borisin wishes to punish someone, the bridle is taken off and wound around another living creature.

That target is usually a Foxian, the slave class culled from the race by the plan of bloodline selection and cultivation. They are weak but cunning, fit only for menial labor and lowly calculation. When individuals skilled at fighting appear now and then among the Foxians, the wolf-headed masters bind the bridle upon them first, making them war slaves so that they become the vanguard onto the battlefield.

If the slave dies and the weapon is ruined, the bridles with barbs set into the end can also be used as a whip. If the bridle snaps, if fang and claw are shattered, if the warrior leaves his corpse upon the battlefield, then this bridle becomes the epitaph and the surviving memorial of a Borisin...

An old proverb says, “In the forest, the places of hunter and prey are often exchanged.” After thousands of years of fighting the people of the Xianzhou, in this dark forest called the universe, the whips of the wolf tribe have been broken beyond counting. In the end the bond that linked the hunting packs was severed by the sharp arrow of the Hunt, and the Borisin too fell into the abyss of civil war and decline. The pride of the old days is now gone.