[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Thank you all for your most cordial welcome. As a humble student in the lore of Wargs, I can only echo the off-the-record words of Pengolodh the Wise of Gondolin: "Let none, whether Elf or Man or indeterminate squishy thing, be held in awe. For the mighty Warg, noblest of Eru's creatures, hath taught us how unworthy are we of any such honour."

Your story is one to harrow up the doughtiest soul, Diamond, and it is not the only account that exists of the meetings betwixt Warg and human in the chances of the world. Recently I had occasion to visit a shop that deals in rare and antiquarian books, for I was in search of a copy of Professor S. Bickerstaff's watershed treatise, A Paleontological History of the Wargish Species (Ottle University Press, 1873). Since there are only eight known copies in existence, I held scant hope of laying hands on my prize; but in glancing through a disorderly collection of writings on Wargish matters, I was fortunate enough to discover the extremely rare A Conversational Dictionary of the Wargish Tongue by Major C.E.V. Forbes-Clithering, M.C., the noted Victorian adventurer. I'm sure that you will share my joy and excitement that this copy had belonged to none other than the Major himself, and that within the weighty tome I found what appears to be an account of his celebrated discovery of the Greater Sub-continental Hirsuit Warg.

This earth-shattering event, from which the field of Warg studies is still recovering, occurred while Major Forbes-Clithering was serving with the Seventeenth Bengal Lancers, in which he held a commission from 1868 to 1874. He and several other officers had organised a tiger-hunting party, and had established their hide in a clearing that bore the distinct signs of habitation by a large carnivore; but what began as a simple hunting trip was soon to catapult these men into the public eye with breathtaking force. Major Forbes-Clithering takes up the tale.

"Having awaited our quarry for some six hours, we had begun to consider the removal of our hide to another clearing some four and a half miles to the north-east. No sooner had we had reached a consensus, however, than our attention was diverted by the distinctive sounds of a large animal in the brush at the edge of the clearing. Believing this to be the rogue Bengal which was our principal game, Lieutenant Fitzmorris and I aimed our rifles at some undergrowth, in which we had noticed the signs of movement. At that moment it burst forth upon us, snatching up the goat and devouring it in a single snap of its prodigious jaws. This beast was greater by far than any tiger yet recorded; swathed about with thick, sleek hair of astounding length. Its eyes burned with a feral intelligence that caused us all to imagine that at any moment it might speak to us and bid us depart from its domain.

Indeed, the creature had divined our presence. Our treetop hides were no more a mystery to this lord of the jungle than had we been standing directly before it. Lieutenant Fitzmorris, who had marked himself out to me on prior occasions as a man of limited foresight, fired directly at its head at a distance of not more than twenty-five yards, and yet his shot had no visible effect. Instead, rearing upon its majestic hind legs, the creature, which can only have been of the genus Vulpus Nobilis Sapiens, slashed through the bole of that mighty tree with one blow of its great talons, causing the men who were at that time hiding within it to fall to their deaths. Lieutenant Fitzmorris it picked up and flung against my own tree, treading his broken body into the earth where it fell in evident contempt. Then it stared directly into my eyes, and I seemed to hear words as though spoken from far away:

'Do not wander in our domain with such toys as these; for only harm will befall those who seek to pursue the Wargs into their hidden fastnesses. The great cat you seek has displeased us and is dead. We have no use for its body, which you may do with as you will: it lies to the south, at the borders of our country.'

I stood as one palsied, unable to speak. I lowered my rifle in something akin to awe, while majestically the great Warg turned and strode back into the jungle. I have never seen before or since a sight of such awesome grandeur as I was vouchsafed that day in Bengal; nor would I trust my life again to such a tenuous thread of goodwill as then preserved me from destruction. I have heard it said that of all creatures, Man alone has the power of speech; and yet I swear that on that day I encountered a being that surpasses us in wisdom and spirit as completely as it does in strength and speed. Since that day I have hunted for pleasure no more, so deeply was I impressed."