Eight of us go fourth, not back, to protect our king from an attack. What are we?

If you drop me I’m sure to crack, but give me a smile and I’ll always smile back. What am I?

Today is a very icy and cold morning in Newcastle. Mr Shearer, an office bus driver arrived to pick up the employees from the last stop. Shearer suddenly remembers that he needs to pick a newly joined 4miles to the north. Mr Shearer lost his direction compass, a few minutes later Shearer is able to figure that he is moving in the correct direction i.e. north. How did Shearer know that he is moving in the correct direction?

I am a word that begins with the letter “i.” If you add the letter “a” to me, I become a new word with a different meaning, but that sounds exactly the same. What word am I?

Outside a tattoo artist's shop, there was a signboard which read 'I make tattoos on only them who do not tattoo themselves'.

Reading it what do you think, does the tattoo artist tattoo himself?

It is a six-letter word.
The first four letters are me.
The second and last letters are the same.
The fourth second and last letter is payment.

Who is it?

With pointed fangs I sit and wait; with piercing force I crunch out fate; grabbing victims, proclaiming might; physically joining with a single bite. What am I?

It is a nine-letter word.
The exact opposite of the phrase "friendly and outgoing"
It contains the word "over".
It starts will a vowel.

What is it?

I have nine bottles of wine and one of the nine bottles is poisoned.
I need to find the poisoned bottle with two facts
(1) Poison is deadly, only a sip will cost death
(2) I have two mice to do so.

How should I do it?

It spends most of its day eating white, but when it’s quick enough, it gets to eat fruit and sometimes some blue things. It’s in a dark room, where the walls are blue, it runs from a ghost that roams the halls and haunts it all the time. What is it?