Drakehound

The drakehound is a wingless carnivore about the size of a wolf, native to the mountain ranges of northern Noxus, where it shelters in cavern systems set into the high peaks. Sleek and heavily muscled, it is armored in a bony carapace, wears a bony mask over its snout, and tears with razor-sharp claws. Barely restrained violence seems to radiate from the beast, saliva trailing from its jaws as it growls, yet it is no mindless brute. Drakehounds are prized and highly trainable, and beyond their wild caverns they live among the people of Noxus, in its cities, villages, and tribal settlements alike. To the Noxians, a drakehound is both a treasure and a weapon. When the plains tribes were brought into the Empire, the chief of chiefs was honored with a single drakehound pup, a gift said to be worth more than three wagons of silver. In the capital, packs are corralled in iron-walled enclosures near the northern kill yards, where they howl at the scent of slaughtered livestock. Bound to a single handler as their alpha, a trained pack is fiercely obedient. The tracker Arrel keeps four, named by number from First through Fourth, and they orbit her at all times, carrying her helm to her hand, guarding the corners of a farmhouse, or answering a flick of her wrist. In battle they are lethal. At her command, First tackled an enemy and clamped down on the throat, shaking the body until it went limp before moving on to the next. The drakehound's relentless character has passed into Noxian legend and Noxian style. Ambessa, general of Clan Medarda and Matriarch of War, fights in a fluid, momentum-driven manner her people name for the beast, dashing after every strike the way a hunting drakehound presses its prey, an approach her empire prizes as constant, unyielding aggression.