by Adam Browne
Nobody moved.
“Go on!” the Howler snarled, grabbing the nearest terrified mouse by the scruff of his jumper and ejecting him down the carriage so hard his cap fell off. Uther obligingly picked up the floppy cap and threw it after him, saying to him and everyone else, “Stay outta the way! We could have a rogue Howler on board!”
The passengers filed down the carriage, past Uther, keeping their eyes averted. Once they had gone, Uther slowly started his way up the trundling train.
*
Linus made the platform just as the last carriage departed the station. As the ash clouds dissipated, Uther was nowhere to be seen, nor was Ivan, even less their quarry. They must all be on the train, Linus realised.
The Howler dashed back to a ticket office, cut to the front of the queue and flashed his brooch at the enormous hog behind the glass.
“Stop that train, citizen!”
The hog squinted hard at Linus’s brooch with his beady eyes, his porcine girth all but filling the window as he leant forth with painful lethargy. “I can’t,” he snorted at last.
“Can’t?”
“Not until the next stop. I’ll have to telephone ahead. Is that satisfactory, Howler?”
“Yes!” Linus panted. “Just hurry!”
The rotund hog slowly squeaked away on his seat and rummaged around somewhere. He glided back, still seated, and hung a sign up in the window that read, ‘No Service’, before fetching a stick with a hook on the end and pulling down the booth’s metal shutters – procedures, and all that.
Linus assumed the hog was on the telephone. The Howler felt useless waiting here. He agitatedly slapped his fingers on the booth’s desk a few times before it dawned on him what next to do. Speeding through the station foyer and down the steps, he went back to the main street. Arms waving, he flagged down the first vehicle he came across; in the event it was a rather fancy motor car, red and black with a soft top and big chrome wheel-guards. There was a handsome ginger cat at the steering wheel wearing a magnificent white coat, a scarf and goggles, and next to him a pure grey catess in a frilly white dress and bonnet.
“Stop in the name of the Republic!” Linus shouted.
“Golly, it’s one of them ‘Owler chaps,” the ginger cat said to his fellow feline, before leaning on the open window and loudly addressing Linus over the churning of the car’s imperium engine. “What’s the matter, sir, are you lost?”
“Citizen… in the name of the Republic… I need to requisition your vehicle!” the panting, dripping-wet Linus replied, flashing his glowing red brooch.
“Requisition, you say?”
Linus almost opened the front door, but upon seeing the long steering wheel jutting forth from a cornucopia of buttons, levers and dials, remembered he couldn’t drive.
“Please drive, citizen,” he said, opening the back door instead and sliding across the smooth back seat until he was in the middle. He pointed between the two cats, at the billowing locomotive chugging ahead. “Follow that train!”
“I say, how exciting, it’s like being in the pictures!” the cat laughed at the catess, crunching gears and tugging knobs. The car shuddered and coughed, disgorging clouds of spent imperium. “Hold on. Just a tick. Nearly there. Haha!”
For a horrible moment Linus thought he had requisitioned the one vehicle in Lupa that wasn’t going anywhere. Finally the red car took off with a mighty jolt, throwing the Howler back into his seat.
Vrrrrrooom!
“Clear a path here!” the goggled cat hollered, honking his horn at pedestrians and waving a paw out the window. “In the name of the Republic, clear off!” Glancing back at his wolfen passenger he cackled gleefully, “Did I say that right?”
“Uh… y-yes, citizen,” Linus gulped, hoping he didn’t end up going through a wall with this fellow at the controls.
“Citizen indeed!” the cat piped in amusement, driving merrily along the road and giving the train the odd sideways glance as he casually raced to catch up with it. “Penny and I are from Queens Town, actually, down on the Teich. We are but visitors to your fine metropolis, aren’t we Sweetpea?”
“Yes, dear,” the grey-furred catess said, calm as you like despite everything.
“Welcome to Lupa,” Linus said absently.
“Thank you, sir,” the ginger cat nodded. “We only arrived here via Hummelton yesterday. Staying at the Crab and Kettle, just down the way. Pokey little place, run by a couple of salty otter folk. They swear like sailors, but they’ve good hearts ‘en all. We wanted the authentic multicultural Lupan experience, didn’t we Sweetpea? Nothing too posh.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Montague Buttle, by the way,” the ginger cat declared, swerving round a bus and honking his horn. “Monty for short. That’s me wife, Penelope.” He winked at Linus via his mirror, “Ain’t she a beaut?”
Distracted by the train, and Monty’s driving, Linus eventually nodded, “I’m sure, citizen.”
“Well, perhaps not to a wolfen sort like you, eh?” Monty chortled. “What’s your label, sir, if I may be so bold?”
“Label?”
“Name, sir.”
“Uh, Linus… Linus Bloodfang Mills, Trooper First Class.”
“Pleasure, sir!”
Linus Mills shuffled across the back seat to see out the right window as the train slew round to that side.
“So, you’re one of them ‘Owlers?” the chatty Montague asked Linus, with a little uncertainty in his voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought so,” Monty said, adding tactlessly, “Got the rot, eh?”
“Monty!” Penny hissed.
“Well he has, you know, they all do, just like our Valours.”
“Yes, but mind your manners.”
Linus glanced between the bickering cats and finally answered, “I am afflicted, sir. It’s n-nnn-nothing you need be polite about.”
Monty spread a paw at Penny, “There, you see?”
Penny glanced piteously back at Linus, “Such a terrible disease, Mr. Linus. You bear it with great fortitude. I would never know to look at you.”
“Look at him? You can’t see his bally face!” Monty pointed out. “Surprised he can breathe with that ruddy great helmet on. Haha!”
“Monty!”
“Only joking, Sweetpea,” Monty guffawed. “All in good fun, eh Howler Linus?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“See? We understand each other.”
Linus tapped his paw on the door as the train started to pull away, “Sorry, but can we not go any faster?”
“Faster? But of course, my good wolf! This beauty packs a six-hundred ant-power reciprocating red-imperium engine under the hood.” Montague shifted gears and tapped his wife’s paw, “Hold on, Penny, we’re going for a spin. All in the name of the law, mind.”
“Do be careful, Monty, we can’t afford another prang.”
“Absolutely, Sweetpea.”
Hardly flush with confidence, Linus gripped the edge of his seat with both paws as Monty took him on a white-knuckle ride down the main street, dashing kerb-side puddles over unfortunate pedestrians and gassing them with noxious clouds of imperium ash. The grim towers and walkways of the local Howler Den passed slowly by on the left, far behind the rows of shops and houses whizzing past the window, whilst the train edged painfully back into view on the right, carriage by carriage.
“Oh Monty, look!” Penny gasped, pointing ahead.
“I say, how extraordinary!” Monty laughed. “Linus, there’s someone on top of the train!”
Linus shuffled back to the middle and leant between the front seats, “What?”
“There, look!” Monty said, pointing as well.
Sure enough there was a black figure crouched on top of a carriage. He was slowly creeping along the train, his cloak flapping and billowing wildly.
“Is that the rogue you’re after, Linus?”
The wolf squinted, “I-I-I don’t know. Just do your best to stay wi
th the train.”
Montague saluted, “Will do!”
Chapter 4
Uther opened the door leading to the next trembling carriage and stepped across the small gap between them, the grey cityscape of Lupa passing either side of him, rails screaming beneath. The wind and rain buffeted Wild-heart as he checked through the window of the next carriage, irises glowing like fireflies beneath the glazed eyes of his helmet. The passengers were seated in rows. All seemed to be in order, save for a flickering imperium lamp swaying overhead.
Entering the shelter of the carriage, Uther advanced with caution, armoured, gaiter-clad legs rattling. The feeling in his bones was strengthening.
“Did he come through here?” Uther asked the passengers, “A big beast, in a mantle? His armour were black and white.”
Little beasts of every kind averted their eyes.
“Well?”
Some nodding
“Anybody hurt?” Uther asked further.
Some head-shaking.
They were just pathetic wee beasts, Uther remembered, small and helpless. Even common wolves were frightening to them, let alone a Howler with the power of imperium at their fingertips. Some abused their right, but Uther liked to think he was one of the good ones.
“All right, everyone go back to the next a carriage,” he said. “Go on! I don’t want you getting under me feet.”
The Howler drew one of his short swords. Holding it loosely by his side he advanced up the carriage.
The next door. Uther passed between the carriages, the deafening noise and lashing rain attacking him once again. He peeked through the window.
The next carriage was strangely empty, save for one large, cloaked beast sitting halfway along the right row. He was facing in the direction of travel – away from Uther – with one leg crossed over the other and one arm slung across the back of the seat in apparent nonchalance.
That’s him all right.
Whipping open the door, Uther entered the carriage. He expected the felon to leap up in surprise, or at least look, but he didn’t even glance over his cloaked shoulder.
‘Arrogant son of a maggot’, Uther thought.
He approached, paw over armoured paw. The stranger was no wolf; his ears were erect, but broader and rounded-off. His shoulders and arms were massive, like a bear, but no bear had light-brown arms with dark-brown spots.
“Come to kill me, Howler?” it said.
Uther’s heart leapt in the face of that hair-tingling baritone voice, if only for a moment.
“Up to you, citizen,” he replied, in his own sandy tenor, albeit slightly muffled by his helmet.
“Citizen?” the stranger scoffed, turning his helmet-clad head a little, so that Uther glimpsed a bright and, he could swear, purple eye. “Since when are hyenas citizens in your glorious republic?” the stranger went on. “Are we not but a plague of savages and vagrants to be rounded up and squashed like locusts?”
Uther grunted, “Don’t be cute. Just drop your weapons and put those paws where I can see ‘em.”
“Who said I have a weapon, Trooper?”
“Call it intuition.”
The hyena, or so he claimed to be, laughed rather hysterically, as his kind were wont to do.
“Hahaaahahahhahaaha!”
When he’d finished, he sniffed, “I have no grievance with a wet-eared pup like you.” Giving Uther the once-over glance, he added, “You’ve twenty years before you rot, maybe more. Do not throw your life away on me, little wolf. Turn around and pretend you didn’t see me. Who will ever know of your cowardice? ”
Uther snorted simply, “Me.”
The hyena’s eyes narrowed and one could sense him smiling dangerously beneath the anonymity of his helmet. “Answered like a true warrior,” he said.
In the next breath, he jumped to his feet and whirled around with something in his right paw.
Crack!
The bright flash came the exact same moment Uther dived onto the nearest seat. The corner of the well-worn upholstery exploded as a pellet of imperium tore through it and ricocheted around the carriage. The hyena had a weapon all right; an imperium pistol!
Two could play at that game.
As he lay in the seat, Uther reached round his back and plucked his own pistol from its holster, nestled just right of his tail. Knowing his foe couldn’t have reloaded his pistol so quickly, but accepting he might have two on him, Uther prayed to Ulf, rolled forward and pulled the trigger.
Crack!
A flash and a puff of ash exploded from the end of Uther’s pistol. In the same moment, a colourful spark flared off the top of the hyena’s helmet and blood took fly.
A hit!
The cloaked hyena staggered down the carriage, but didn’t fall over. He gripped the chairs either side of him as blood trickled liberally over his helmet. The pellet had bounced off his forehead and gone through his ear, leaving a nasty dent in his helm and a tear in his ear.
“Hahahahaaaaa!” he laughed, pulling himself upright and shaking his head to dispel the dizziness. “Invigorating!”
Uther got up, said nothing.
The stranger removed his uncomfortably dented helmet and tossed it on the nearest seat, revealing the hyena he claimed to be. He had a broad, dark muzzle, glistening wide nose and a lick of a mane sticking up between his rounded ears. Those eyes, purple without a doubt and crowned with dark, thickset brows.
“Now we have dispensed with the formalities,” the hyena said, throwing his pistol on the nearest seat beside his helmet, “let us conduct ourselves as warriors.”
Not in the habit of discarding expensive Howler property for the benefit of some nutter’s games, Uther simply holstered his pistol. “How’s about you let me ‘conduct’ you to our Den for questioning, before I have to kill yer.”
The hyena flashed a mighty, toothy smile, “Do I look like the sort to just roll over, Howler?”
“Attacked Rufus, did yer?” Uther growled.
“Blew him up, yes.”
“What?”
“Friend of yours is he? Friend of mine too. It was just business.”
Slowly, the hyena reached round his back and under his cloak. Uther tensed up, ready to move in case of a second pistol, but he quickly saw his foe was reaching for a black stick, two feet long if that. The hyena pressed a button with his thumb and the pole extended many times its length, becoming a third as tall again as its wielder. A blade popped out one end, one made of shimmering imperium-strengthened metal.
A spear!
With a knowing look in his glimmering purple eyes, the hyena casually lowered said spear. As its tip touched the floor a bolt of imperious plasma arced forth and lit up the carriage, casting harsh shadows in all directions. The hyena gently tapped his weapon on the floor a few times, producing flashes of light and showers of sparks – the floor became blackened and blasted, with tiny craters blown in the smouldering metal.
“What’s the matter, Howler?” the stranger mocked. “Never seen a Chakaa before?”
Uther cocked his head to one side, “What are yer, some kind of wannabe Howler?”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Puh!”
After a chuckle, the hyena claimed, “I am of the Chakaa; what you wolves call Howlers we hyenas call Chakaa, we are cousins if somewhat... different.” He beckoned with his fingers, which were dark brown, as if he had dipped them in chocolate. “Now for the practical instruction.”
Uther drew both swords, one then the other. He tapped one on the nearest seat, sending a curtain of sparks across the cabin, just to prove he too had the strength and wherewithal to release the energy stored in his flesh and bones at will. With a sharp breath, Wild-heart advanced, twirling a sword round for show. There wasn’t much room to swing a blade in the narrow carriage, but there was even less room for that spear.
This’ll be a piece of honey cake.
Uther launched himself into battle. The Chakaa raised his spear to greet him, but Uther saw tha
t coming a mile away; he was counting on it. Smashing the spear aside with one sword he thrust forward with the other, to run this joker through. Alas, the hyena twisted his massive body to the side, leaving Uther’s shimmering blade stabbing vainly at thin air. With a snarl, the Howler slashed sideways, but his adversary’s spear shaft was already in the way. Sparks of imperium took fly as weapons and warriors met.
In that moment, that passing flicker of contact, Uther felt the warm crackle of another imperious corona penetrate him right down to the bone. What power!
Ducking and rolling backwards, Uther retreated and took stock of the situation. The hyena hadn’t budged an inch during the brief exchange, a veritable wall of muscle.
“Not bad, little Trooper,” he cackled, slapping a big paw against his cavernous chest. “I felt you. Right here!”
Uther didn’t admit to the same, but betrayed a gulp which he hoped his helmet disguised.
Suddenly, Wild-heart swore he felt a second imperious presence overhead. He glanced up at the carriage ceiling moment, but hadn’t time to contemplate for the Chakaa progressed between the seats, imperium spear held level.
“My turn,” he said, flashing another bold smile.
With that he thrust at Uther; the wolf weaved aside and slashed the spear shaft with a sword, hoping to cut it; but it was made of sterner stuff than that. Another jab followed, another dodge too, high, low, the slightly flexible spear bending and quivering as the hyena tried to stick Uther like a fish.
Then, with a snarl, the Chakaa whipped his spear up and away in a great arc. Barely clearing the rain-lashed windows as it went, the now hot, glowing tip swept round the cabin, over the tops of the chairs and down again, slapping the floor where Uther had been but a moment ago. Molten metal exploded in all directions, leaving a blackened crater in the carriage big enough to glimpse the sleepers whizzing by beneath!
Ears ringing from the blast, Uther glanced behind – he hadn’t much room left. He considered beating a humiliating retreat to the next carriage.
The Chakaa hyena advanced, spear tip low. The deafening wind whistling through the hole he had blown in the floor fluttered the looser folds of his cloak.
