by Adam Browne
Passing said hole, the hyena sensed the wind blowing through a little harder, as if the air had suddenly found an outlet elsewhere in the carriage, like someone opening a window.
Or a door?
“Halt!” someone barked. “Or I’ll shoot!”
The hyena froze, save for his rounded ears that pricked and swivelled behind.
Uther looked past him. “Ivan!” he piped in a marriage of surprise and relief. “How’d you get over there?”
“I took the high road,” Ivan replied cryptically.
The white wolf looked rather windswept, his mantle soaked through and dripping. In his right paw he held his handsome silver pistol, aimed and doubtless ready to shoot.
“You all right, Wild-heart?” he asked Uther, those icy eyes piercing out from under his helmet.
“Yeah. All under control, sir, all under control. I was just about to finish this uh… Chakaa.”
With a surprised scoff, Ivan turned his voice, and his fury, on the hyena. “He is no honourable Chakaa, Uther, but a spineless assassin!”
The ‘spineless assassin’ turned his head and body slightly.
“Go on!” Ivan urged, stepping forward and growling, “Give me the excuse I need to execute you here and now.”
Inviting death, the hyena stood up straight and slowly turned around. “Better to die by your noble paw, Blade-dancer, than be thrown to the ants,” he reasoned. “That’s still the sentence for a treacherous Howler amongst the Bloodfangs, is it not?”
Ivan’s icy eyes softened. “Noss?” he gasped in what could only be recognition.
Uther stared, listened.
This ‘Noss’ raised his hefty chin. “Not a scratch, I see,” he said to Ivan, grinning toothily. “You ought to have more holes in you than a rotten log, yet here you stand.”
Ivan just stared in dumb disbelief.
“And Red-mist?” Noss enquired simply.
That snapped Ivan from his stupor. “Why’d you do it, Noss?” he snarled. “Don’t say it was money. You’d not do that for money; there must be a better reason!”
The big hyena shrugged his mighty shoulders, “A beast’s got to eat, Blade-dancer.”
Eyes narrowing, Ivan nodded but once. “I see,” he said, his voice quivering with rage. “Remember that when you’re staked out for the ants, won’t you? Remember as they carve your worthless carcass up and carry it away that ‘a beast’s got to eat’. I certainly will. I’ll stake you out myself if Rufus dies!”
Unable to suppress a gulp at the grim thought, Noss readied his spear. “You’d better kill me, Ivan; pray you’ve kept your pistol dry, because I shan’t hold back.”
The Howler lowered his pistol a little. “Death’s too good for you,” he seethed.
Crack!
From Uther’s point of view, Noss dropped his spear and bent double, falling in-between some seats with barely a grunt of pain escaping his lips.
He squirmed, alive still.
The train began slowing down underfoot; ash billowing past the windows in thick clouds as the driver commanded the engine to vent waste imperium before reaching the station.
Ivan let his pistol flop to his side. “Wire that wretch for me, Uther. I can’t stand to look at him let alone touch him. His stinking corona sickens me!”
“Yes, sir,” Uther said at length – orders were orders.
Striding down the carriage to where Noss lay, Uther peered between the seats, sword drawn just in case there was any fight left in him. “All right you ‘Chakaa’ you, don’t try anything funny.”
Noss rolled onto his back. “Too late,” he laughed, revealing a grey, metallic sphere about the size of a racquetball. He twisted the sphere’s two distinct, mechanically-linked halves in relation to one another. It began to click and whir, before Noss stopped it, holding the halves tight. “Hahaaaahaha!”
“Schmutz!” Uther yelped, stumbling back against a seat. “Ivan! He’s got a bomb!”
“Bomb?”
“Aye, sir! It’s thumpin’ live!”
Ivan zipped down the carriage and looked fearlessly down upon Noss and the bloodied grey sphere in his paws.
“I suggest… you stand clear,” Noss grunted from down between the seats, one paw grasping at his heaving, bleeding ribs, the other holding the bomb. “This will not be pretty.”
“Noss, don’t do this.”
“Better this than torture and the ants! It’s a black-imperium bomb, Ivan, so do not linger.”
“Black-imperium?”
“I will hold the timer awhile. Not too long mind. And if you kill me. Pow! Hahahaaahaha!”
“I don’t believe you!” Ivan seethed.
“Then stay and find out, Blade-dancer. We can r-reminisce before we rot together.”
Feeling the train braking underfoot, Ivan looked out the windows and saw the station rolling into view, the platform, the innocent citizens of Lupa, waiting to board.
“Noss, you insane fool!” he growled, as the train screeched to a halt. “There’s hundreds of citizens out there!”
“Then… you had best not let them in here,” Noss replied drily. “Go, do your duty, Howlers!”
“Leave him!” Ivan told Uther, reaching for the nearest door. “Come on, we have to evacuate the station!”
“A-aye, sir.”
With a glance back at Noss, Uther gladly followed Ivan off the train and onto the platform, making quite sure to close the door behind him. The nearest citizens were surprised to see a couple of Howlers, even more surprised when one of them started to address them.
“Back!” Ivan shouted. “Everybody stand back!” He grabbed a passing rat that was trying to board regardless and yanked him away from the door. “Citizen, don’t board the train. There’s been a chemical spill.” He raised his paws at a group of curious onlookers, “There’s no need to panic citizens, calmly leave the platform and go inside the station. There’s been an accident and we need you all to evacuate the area-”
“It’s black-imperium!” Uther shouted, waving his paws wildly. “Don’t get on the train!”
Ivan whirled on him, “Shut up, you fool!”
“Black-imperium, you say?” a well-to-do cat gasped.
“What?” snorted a hog. “Black-imperium!”
“It’s black-imperium!” a rabbit cried, running in circles. “There’s been a black-imperium spill! It’ll rot us all. Run for your lives!”
Word spread like a conflagration in a silk shop and within moments beasts of every kind and class were fleeing the platform and stampeding the station doors, pushing and shoving, leaving hats and umbrellas in their wake.
“Well done, Uther,” Ivan said, sarcastic at best.
“Worked didn’t it?” Wild-heart snapped defensively.
There was no time to quarrel, and Ivan didn’t. “I’ll go this way; you clear the carriages down that way. I’ll get the driver to move the train into a siding. If you see a black cloud, climb to higher ground. Black-imperium hugs the floor, understand?”
“Higher ground. Right.”
The Howlers parted company. Uther ran alongside the carriages, banging on windows and checking inside, Ivan the same, until he reached the locomotive at the head of the train.
The huge engine was a mass of pipes, funnels and fireboxes, twisting and turning over one another, with a dozen wheels running down each side. Every inch was coated with the shimmering, iridescent sheen of imperious ash, the same ash which polluted a Howler’s blood. And just the same, it contained traces of black-imperium. Luckily only minuscule quantities, for were it abundant, everyone here would be dead, every beast, every bug, every plant and bacterium, rotted, for black-imperium devoured everything that lived. It lingered for years, invisible, undetectable, which is what made Noss’s little surprise back there so deadly. That tiny bomb contained a marble-sized ball of black-imperium, enough to kill hundreds if applied correctly. The bomb would explode, dashing black-imperium everywhere, then this whole train would have to be pitched
into a hole and the platform decontaminated. Noss himself would decay in a matter of seconds, his flesh melting away. What a way to go.
“Driver!” Ivan called.
A badger appeared at the cabin, his spectacles and coveralls impregnated with a glorious sheen of ash. “Yes, Howler?” he replied, wiping his paws on a rag. “I got signalled to stop the train. What’s the bother, sir?”
“I need you to….”
Ivan froze, his paws grasping the rails of the cabin’s entrance as if to pull him up. He looked along the train and saw grey smoke tumbling rapidly across the platform, pouring from a carriage door.
Noss’s bomb!
Ivan staggered backwards in fear as the cloud advanced on him, a rolling wall of black death.
No, wait, the smoke was grey and light, not black and dense.
Steeling himself, Ivan started back down the train, slowly at first, but soon flying as his confidence grew. With a glance around the deserted platform, and a prayer to Ulf, Blade-dancer plunged into the billowing grey smog, climbed inside the carriage and ran to where Noss should be.
Ivan found only the hyena’s ‘black-imperium’ bomb discarded on a seat. A hole in the top was spewing a steady jet of grey smoke – it was just an ash bomb. If it was what Noss had claimed, Ivan wouldn’t have made it ten steps, as it was his helmet grille filtered out the mild pollution.
Exiting the carriage, he searched the thick, synthetic fog, turning up Uther taking shelter in a ticket booth of all places.
Ivan opened the door. “As if this would’ve saved you!” he woofed contemptuously, ash rolling in over his shoulders.
Uther fell backwards in a flailing panic, but soon realised he wasn’t dying, even less was Ivan. “Sir?”
“It’s just ash. It’s blocking Noss’s corona, but he can’t have gone far. Come on!”
“That lying, cackling hyena!” Uther snarled, extricating himself from the booth. “I’ll string him up!”
*
Opposite the station, Monty and Penny watched from within the trembling cabin of their sporty red motor car as Linus hurried across the broad rain-swept paths of Lupa to the foyer, shield at his back, boots splashing in puddles.
“Well,” Monty mewed, nursing the quivering wheel in one ginger paw, “now there’s a story to tell everyone when we get home. Haha!”
“Yes, dear,” Penny replied.
Monty marvelled, “That one on top of the train! Golly, would I like to shake that fellow’s paw. Never seen the like, not even during me military days.”
“Remarkable. What a brave beast.”
“I’d heard these ‘Owlers were all rogues, but Linus seemed a reasonable chap to me.”
Penny chided her husband, wagging a moon-grey finger under his pink nose, “You mustn’t believe Felician gossip, Monty.”
The cat nodded, “I suppose you’re right.” He licked his lips, “Do you think we can go now?”
“I don’t see why not. I’m sure Howler Linus and his friends have everything under control.”
“Right ho.”
Monty crunched the gears and worked the pedals, spewing ash in all directions, until he noticed strange goings-on out the corner of his goggled eyes. Hoards of beasts of every sort were hurrying down the station steps in apparent panic, whilst billowing grey clouds issued forth behind them.
“I say, what’s all that?”
“I don’t know,” Penny replied, leaning forward to see. “Is it a fire?”
“Looks like ash to me, Sweetpea.”
As the cats looked on, a cloaked figure in a helmet emerged from the crowd and hurried towards the road. He was leaning forward somewhat, his pace hampered by a serious limp, and he kept glancing over his shoulder.
“Look, Penny, another ‘Owler,” Monty pointed.
“He looks hurt,” Penny observed with a sympathetic gasp.
Monty cranked up the parking-brake, “Yes. Stay here. Won’t be a tick.”
“Monty, do be careful. He doesn’t look quite right to me.”
In one choreographed movement, Monty opened the door and popped up a white umbrella to guard against the rain. He intercepted the ragged-looking Howler just as he passed in front of his motorised carriage.
“I say, old chap, are you all right?”
The huge fellow turned to Monty in a start, then eyed up the fancy red motor car. “Yours is she?” he grunted, standing up straight, but nursing his stomach.
“What? Oh yes,” Monty replied. “Look, hate to be a pest, but you’re, uh… you’re bleeding, sir.”
“Am I?” was the reply. “So I am! Silly me.” The Howler cackled, spreading a bloodied paw and wiggling his thick, gory fingers at Monty, “Give me the keys, cat.”
Monty blinked, “Pardon me?”
The Howler, if Howler he be, produced a pistol from under his cloak and pressed it into Monty’s pink nose. Forcing the cat backwards over the bonnet, he repeated himself, albeit with further elaboration, “I said, give me the keys, else I’ll repaint your lovely car in shades of brain.”
“I say! Steady on. There’s no need for-”
“Keys, you pompous fop!”
“Well… uhm, actually, she’s already running, old chap.”
“So it is!” the Howler laughed. “Sorry, mind’s going.”
“Now look here, me wife-”
The Howler back-pawed Monty across the face, sending him down into a puddle and splashing his fine white coat with sooty water.
Penny opened her door. “Monty!” she screamed.
As she tried to escape the carriage, the Howler got in the other side, grabbed Penny’s dress and pulled her back onto the seat. “Oh no you don’t!” he growled.
“Let me go, you brute of a wolf! Let me go, I say!”
“Wolf? You insult me madam!” the ‘Howler’ said, holding Penny with ease as she slapped his massive arm with both paws. “Brute I can live with, but I am no despicable wolf.”
He removed his dented helmet and threw it on the back seat, proving he spoke truly – he was a hyena.
“How do I work one of these infernal contraptions?” he demanded of his feline hostage, looking over the maze of controls and dials. “I’m a little rusty.”
“Monty! Monnnnty!”
“By the Wind, madam, cease your whining!” the hyena snarled, clutching at his painful wound a moment. “Aaagh!”
Penny watched as, bloodied paws trembling, her hyena captor produced a red and white cylindrical paper cartridge from his dripping-wet mantle. He bit off the white half, taking it into his mighty mouth, and poured glittering powder from the red half into the pistol’s breach chamber. He then spat the round pellet contained in the half of the cartridge he had bitten off down the barrel and pushed it home with the little attached ram-rod.
The pistol was now loaded.
“Don’t think… I won’t blow your pretty head clean off to shut you up,” its owner warned, wiggling it under Penny’s delicate nose.
“Oh!”
“Now, swap places. You drive!”
Penny haughtily turned away, “I most certainly will not! Don’t you know who I am? I am the Duchess of Felicia, cousin of the Queen herself!”
“Are you now?” he replied, pressing a paw to his vast cloaked chest. “Well I am Prince Noss of the Jua-mata Tribe, son of the Four Winds. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Penny squeaked in disbelief, “Prince?”
“I prefer it to ‘your highness’, your highness,” Noss cackled gruffly. “Never mind then, I will drive. How hard can it be? Hahahaaaahaha!”
Pushing the pedals and crunching the gears, Noss enticed the car to spew clouds of ash. Good! Confident of success, the Chakaa pressed the pedal right down – alas, the carriage jolted violently backwards, mounting the kerb, hitting a lamp post and throwing the passengers all about the cabin.
“Gfffgh!” Noss growled, falling over the unyielding wheel.
Nursing his throbbing wound he pushed himself upright agai
n, only to discover he was surrounded by on all sides by Howlers, pistols pointing at him through the rain-flecked windows, Ivan, Uther and even that short blonde one that Noss vaguely remembered shoving aside.
“Stop! In the name of the Republic!” he demanded.
In reply, Prince Noss levelled his pistol at the Duchess of Felicia. “Back off, Howlers!” he growled.
“Sweetpea!” the muddied Monty mewed, looking on helplessly.
“We’ll shoot!” Uther warned. “Don’t think we won’t!”
“Your pistols are soaked through!” Noss dismissed. “Do you think I’m stupid as well as mad!”
Knowing Noss was right, and knowing Noss knew he was right too, Ivan lowered his weapon. “Give up, Noss!” he shouted over the rain. “You can’t escape!”
“I will blow this pretty cat’s block off, Ivan!”
“No… you won’t!” Ivan replied, water dripping off his helmet and jaw. “If you were unwilling to poison hundreds of innocents with black-imperium, you’ll not kill one innocent either! I know you!”
“I’ve changed, old friend!”
“You’re a noble hyena warrior, not a lowly murderer!”
“Oh really?” Noss laughed. “Tell that to everyone picking imperium out of their bodies in The Warren!”
“Which you knew was empty?” Ivan countered. “You waited until almost everyone had gone! I saw you make a pass of the window, checking one last time before you committed. Even then, how it must’ve pained you, a prince amongst hyenas, to stoop so low!”
With a growl, Noss dipped his chin a little.
“What made you do it?” Ivan asked, more reasonably. “It wasn’t money, was it? Someone’s got you over a barrel, haven’t they? Tell me who it is! Let us help!”
“It was money, you fool!” Noss snarled. “Just money! You understand me? Money and nothing more!”
There was a pause.
Ivan nodded, “Fine then. As you say. But you can still die with honour. Let her go and face me. I’ll spare you the indignity of capture!”
“Truly?” Noss replied, his robust features softening. “You would… you would do that for me… my old friend?”
A nod.
Slowly, but surely, Noss lowered the pistol away from Penny, only to press it against his own head.
