by Adam Browne
No work, no imperium – that at least was the same everywhere.
Just as the flimsy barrier arm wobbled down and the Scarabs’ turn came, a black wolf in a green cloak and white Howler armour appeared in the wooden watchtower overlooking the checkpoints. He stood clasping the railing with both paws, his imperious eyes looking down upon the stripy masses below.
“The Warden,” Helmut whispered, as he and Madou slowly pushed the cart forward.
“He’s looking right at you, chief,” Madou said, head down.
“Don’t panic,” Rufus calmly assured.
“Can he sense it?” Helmut wondered, referring to the crystal in Rufus’s secret pocket.
“Give me crystal,” Tomek begged Rufus.
“Shut up, boy,” he seethed back.
“You’re needed more than me. I can take risk-”
“Shush!”
It was too late regardless. Some Gelb hogs approached and hurried Helmut and Madou along.
“Come on, you lazy sacks of maggot slime!” one said, slapping the back of Madou’s legs with his truncheon. “Move it! Move it!”
The guard stopped short of hitting Helmut, either because he sympathised with a fellow hog, or because Helmut was frighteningly enormous; it was impossible to know. Either way, hyena and hog pushed the cart to the barrier and stood by along with the others.
Rufus stood furthest forward, chin down, whilst the hogs rifled through the surface of the ore with their dusty truncheons, carelessly spilling some of the smaller lumps over the rusty lip of the cart. Contraband, such a pickaxe that would make for a good weapon, could only be hidden in the surface layers of the ore, any deeper and it would take too long, and be too obvious, to dig something out of the cart during the short and well-guarded walk from checkpoint to emptying.
Whilst the hogs searched, Rufus’s shoulders burned. He could feel the Warden’s eyes on his back, feel his mighty corona despite the imperious fog – he was quite the Howler.
The hogs frisked everyone, Tomek, Helmut, Madou and his silent hyena friend, each beast coming over more worried than the last for surely Rufus would now be discovered.
No, the hogs backed off, the barrier rose – Rufus went unsearched.
He chanced a subtle glance up and saw, just beyond the rim of his cap, the Warden turn away from the watchtower railing and disappear inside. Rufus smirked to himself, enjoying his triumph in the face of the hogs. They won’t touch me; the Warden has told them to lay off. But why? Is he an ALPHA agent or just naturally sympathetic to me?
“Move, it! Stir your stumps!” a hog snorted.
The barrier rose and the Scarab Gang continued on their way, stopping only to collect their reward from the hog nestled in the kiosk. He begrudgingly coughed up five white tokens, pressing them into Rufus’s expectant palm with special enmity. Beaming sarcastically at the kiosk-bound hog because he knew he could get away with it, Rufus passed the tokens around, taking special joy in seeing Tomek’s handsome eyes light up at the prospect of a square meal and an imperium fix.
Tokens in paw, and unbelieving of their luck, Helmut and Madou hurriedly pushed the mine cart past the kiosk and along the spaghetti-junction of twisting rails before someone back there changed their mind. Within a few yards the multiple rails joined to form just one snaking towards the mouth of the cave and the outside world. Hogs milled around, watching the teams filing past to make sure nothing was removed from the carts and occasionally earning their keep by shouting.
“Move it!” they bellowed, or, “Hurry up, you maggots!” and other such equally unimaginative insults; Rufus was all but deaf to them by now.
After hours in heat and darkness working by feeble imperium lamps, the dazzling daylight and sharp mountain air overwhelmed Rufus and his crew. Their world was smudged by stinging tears into a twisted canvas of dreamy ‘new art’. Slowly, and with much blinking, the camp proper came into focus; the long brown huts, the blasted erde quilted with lingering patches of white snow, the miles of grim fences and watchtowers, the high mountain peaks. Such was Gelb.
To the left an endless train of hundreds of ore-bearing hopper carriages waited, at once sparkling and dulled with streaks of imperium ash. The colossal locomotive coupled far ahead was already belching pollution, impatient to be on its way to Lupa with its much-needed load. Spread throughout the thousands of tonnes of ore were a few precious pounds of priceless white-imperium, which needed to be extracted, purified, diluted and packaged as venom stings for all the needy Howlers.
Rufus wondered how many sick wolves the crystal stowed in his stripy breeches might tide over. How many lives could he save by giving it up to Gelb’s overlords as he ought to? How many Ivans, Uthers and Linuses will die because of your selfishness?
No, the hard half of his brain chided the soft, you have to survive first. You have to break Amael’s plot or thousands will die in his purge. Besides, the hogs would just flog such a crystal on the black market to line their own filthy pockets – it would never make it to the veins of a worthy beast like Ivan and the other boys.
Whilst Rufus pondered, Madou and Helmut pushed the mine cart alongside the train whereupon their duty was done. The cart was snagged by a motorised chain running along the centre of the track and jolted from their grasp with frightening force. Thanks to the immense power of a chugging, belching imperium engine turning said chain, the cart quivered up a steep incline like an amusement ride and, by some other clever mechanism, automatically tipped sideways at the apex of the hill. The glittering ore rumbled out into the waiting hopper carriage and the empty cart rattled rapidly down the other side into a siding, joining hundreds of its wheeled brethren all awaiting the next shift. Rufus and the others were part of Shift A; the Shift B prisoners would soon take over. In such ways Gelb ran twenty-four hours.
Passing one last lacklustre checkpoint, the Scarabs left the mines for the prison camp, a bleak wilderness of miserable long huts and wire fences, flecked with snow and ash. Stripy prisoners shuffled to and fro, some sicker and more wretched than others, nearly all of them more so than the highly successful, and therefore rather healthy, the Scarab Gang. Rufus could feel countless jealous eyes watching Scarab’s five-strong group cross the camp, wishing they were members instead of those hyenas, or that wolf, or that pig.
“Is lucky we get through!” Tomek whistled at Rufus, glancing back at the distant mouth of the mines.
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Rufus dismissed.
“What?”
“The Warden and I have an understanding.”
Tomek nearly went cross-eyed, “Understanding?”
Rufus explained what was apparently obvious to him, “Yes, I think so. You see he has his own quota to fulfil. He needs chaps like us to stay healthy and find imperium veins so he can stay in his cushy job. To punish us would be counterproductive. So… I think he’s marked us out for special treatment. Even if he suspects me of hiding the odd nugget down my breeches, he lets me go. The hogs will never search me, only you lot, just to maintain a front to the other crews.”
Tomek looked at the others and they at him. “What?” he squeaked incredulously for them all, walking briskly alongside the strident Rufus. “How you know that? Did hogs tell you?”
“Nooo,” Rufus woofed, pushing his cap back. “It’s just my intuition. The Warden and I have developed a… a mutual, tacit concord of self-interest.”
Tomek was mystified, perhaps mostly by Rufus’s lofty vocabulary.
“Trust me,” Rufus winked at the youth, patting his shoulder. “Now then, let’s have this crystal distilled by Tack and get you a sting, Tomek.”
“Is all right. I’m fine.”
“Really? No pain at all.”
Tomek shrugged. “I’m young,” he said, “rot come from time to time, but… not much. One day, yes. But not yet.”
“Wise words. Well in that case, young buck, you can exchange your share in the spoils for some embers, or whatever you fancy. As for me, I’m aching
all over after today.” Given a brief chuckle, Rufus turned to the other afflicted beast in the group, “How about you, Madou?”
The burly hyena glanced at Tomek, then pulling his cap down said, “I’m all right, chief. You can have my sting if you need it.”
“Oh, that’s very gracious, but-”
“And mine!” Tomek piped up, eager to match Madou’s patronage. “You can have mine too.”
Rufus glared at his fellow wolf.
“If you need it,” the youngster added guardedly.
“Well I don’t!” Rufus scolded, looking witheringly between Tomek and Madou. “I may be past it, but I’m not so far gone that I have to scrounge off you two!”
Paws rammed in pockets he stormed huffily ahead.
Giving the others a glance, Tomek hurried after Rufus. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he excused, gesturing with his paws as he fought to find the words. “You not, how you say, ‘past it’, Rufus, but… I’m not idiot. You older. Stronger. Everyone in Lupa know you are very powerful Howler. Real alpha wolf! You need more imperium than me. Is natural.”
Rufus stopped and looked at Tomek.
The handsome, aquamarine-eyed youth spread a grey paw and said with easy confidence, “I know this. You famous.”
“Flatterer,” Rufus snorted.
“Is not flattery. Is truth!”
Running a finger round the inside of his stifling collar, Rufus turned to Helmut and the rest, “You lot go and join the canteen queue, get yourselves something to eat. I need to be rid of this crystal before my infuriating collar chokes me.”
“I come with you,” Tomek offered at once, already making to walk ahead.
“No Tomek,” Rufus said.
“Someone should watch your back.”
“Madou will. You go eat.”
“But why Madou and not me?”
“Because he’s so mean and ugly that nobody will come near me, isn’t that right Madou?”
Madou grunted fondly, “I’m not as ugly as Helmut.”
“Yes, well, he won’t fit down Tack’s hole.”
“It’s true, I tried,” Helmut admitted, slapping his belly.
“Just tell me what you want,” Rufus said to Tomek, like a father to his cub, “I’ll get it off Tack if I can.”
The anger on Tomek’s hefty brows was plain, anger that he was being passed over for a hyena terrorist.
“Some chocolate perhaps?” Rufus suggested, slapping Tomek’s arm.
A shrug, a nod.
“Chocolate then,” Rufus decided.
Once the others had put in their own requests (embers for the skinny hyena who wasn’t a Chakaa but was addicted to the kick of imperium, and a bottle of brandy for Helmut who’s only addiction was a tipple) Rufus and Madou paired off and headed across to Gelb’s anonymous brown huts, paws crunching on the snowy soil.
“Tomek hates me,” Madou observed.
“What do you expect, you tried to kill him not very long ago,” Rufus snorted.
“Zozizou didn’t, yet Tomek hates him too!”
Zozizou – that tongue-twisting hyena name always made Rufus’s ears prick. The thusly named skinny hyena back there was Madou’s cousin twice removed, or some such, Rufus couldn’t quite remember, but after bumping into his distant relation Madou had promised him a place on the gang and Rufus couldn’t say no, even though he wasn’t much use.
“I see it in his eyes,” Madou went on. “He hates us for what we are, not what we do.”
Rufus had heard enough. “Tomek saved my life, and yours, so you’re going to look after him whatever he thinks of you. Is that clear?”
Madou grinned toothily, “It’s all right, chief. Our people are used to Wolfen hatred.” He spread a big paw, “But, if you could have a word with him. Make him see as you see.”
“That’s too dangerous.”
“Why? He could join us. Doesn’t he hate the Howlers for sending him down? Doesn’t he want revenge?”
“Of course not.”
“But he must-”
“No ‘must’ about it,” Rufus scoffed. “You give our people no credit, do you? Tomek’s still a wolf, loyal to Lupa despite his punishment. I don’t want to drag him down any further than I already have. There’s no way back for me, but he’s only received a short stint for a decision I foisted upon him. If what you say is true, if THORN really is poised to bring change, he’ll be safer here when the storm breaks. And if THORN fails, well, he’ll soon be back on duty. Either way, he’ll be all right.”
Madou pushed his cap back, “You care a great deal for him. Is he what you wolves call a… beta?”
“I owe him,” Rufus explained, pointing, “You owe him. Hyena honour dictates you pay back your debt.”
Madou could but nod.
The wolf and the hyena, a questionable pairing anywhere else but Gelb, tramped up the stairs into one of the camp’s fifty or so long huts. The draughty wooden structure contained rows of deserted bunk beds, with little square windows cut into the walls between them and a few naked gas lamps flickering overhead. Rufus and Madou creaked down the middle, homing in on two burly wolves sitting on opposite bunks, embers smouldering, cards in paws; a barrel served as a table between them. One was a scar-flecked grey fellow with rippling arms, the other a relatively chunky blonde chap, not unlike Linus, but with a healthy gut.
“Why if it isn’t the Scarabs!” the grey one woofed, without so much as looking up from his cards – no doubt he’d sensed the approach of a fellow, powerful Howler, and his afflicted hyena friend. “Darlings of Gelb!” he mocked.
He dealt a card, flicking it onto the barrel between him and his friend. The card depicted a lovingly-rendered, anatomically accurate ‘Queen of Bees’, her six legs spread symmetrically astride a rich, warm, golden honeycomb. The blonde wolf responded by placing down a more modest ‘Seven of Bees’, the bees being arranged neatly in formation – modest, perhaps, but it still made his grey wolfen counterpart grunt in annoyance and scrutinise his own cards more closely.
“Whatcha found down there this time, oh master of miners?” the grey wolf asked Rufus, aggressively slapping down a nine of bees and waving a paw about. “The tomb of Ulf? The secret of eternal youth? Pray tell!”
Meanwhile, with a mischievous smile, the blonde wolf gently laid a ‘Drone of Wasps’ on the deck, similar to the Queen of Bees, but with a papery backdrop. The grey wolf grumbled and growled and tugged at his collar, but there was no way out. He picked up five cards from a second deck and added them to his growing paw, as the obtuse rules dictated.
“Well?” he snapped tetchily at Rufus, giving him a quick, pugnacious glare. “Hurry up; your hyena lackey is stinking up my air!”
With a glance at his hyena lackey, Rufus reached into his breeches and produced his catch. The pure, white-imperium crystal lit up the faces of the players. The blonde wolf’s smouldering ember tumbled from his lower lip as he gaped in wonder, whilst the grey remained outwardly composed, just about.
“Well, lah di dah,” he mocked, making a special effort to concentrate on his game as oppose to the fabulous chunk of life-extending imperium, “That doesn’t impress me.”
Rufus pocketed the gem. “I’ll take it elsewhere then,” he said, making to leave, “Come on, Madou.”
“Chief.”
With an eye-roll, the grey wolf stood up. “Wait, wait, wait,” he sighed.
Rufus did so.
Without further fuss or mockery, the grey wolf cleared the cards away.
“Oi!” the blonde wolf piped in dismay.
“Clients, mate, can’t be helped,” his companion said, pocketing the decks. “Stand guard, yeah?”
Whilst the blonde wolf did so and went to the door to keep watch, his grey companion twisted the hefty barrel aside. He crouched down and hurriedly lifted the floorboards to reveal a wooden trapdoor. Lifting it by a rusted ring and opening a hole in the ground, he ushered his ‘clients’ inside.
“Quick!”
Rem
oving his cap and tucking it down his shirt, Madou squeezed his powerful hyena frame through the orifice feet-first. The more svelte Rufus followed with relative ease. The trapdoor was immediately slammed behind them, plunging them into a damp, erde-reeking blackness. The scraping of wooden planks and the rumble of a barrel followed, as well as some muffled complaining.
“You could’ve left the cards on top.”
“I didn’t want ‘em falling in the mud. Do you know how much they cost me? Ten meal tokens. Ten!”
“Just ‘cause you were losing.”
“Oh shut up and deal, you big baby. They’re gonna be down there a good twenny minutes.”
Leaving their fellow inmates to their distraction, Rufus and Madou crawled down the steep, pitch-black passage, heading for a dim light ahead. After months of mining, they were becoming accustomed to such claustrophobic spaces.
The way was barred by a rough, round wooden door with no external knob. Streaks of green light streamed through cracks in the wood, dividing up Rufus’s wolfen face. With a glance at Madou, he rapped on the door.
“Password?” someone grunted from beyond.
“Caste,” Rufus replied.
Given a brief pause, the door creaked open revealing a small, low, natural cave complete with well-worn stalagmites, some of which were sheared off altogether. Lighting came not from any lamp, but the slick, undulating walls themselves. They were laced with glowing veins of green-imperium, providing illumination enough to read by, if not comfortably. Nature’s radiant marvels jostled for space with an invasion of dull, beast-made objects; boxes, barrels and burlap bags, some piled high in the corners. Wonky shelves crammed with bottles and trinkets lined the damp, dew-laced wall at the far end, behind what resembled a shop counter.
Rufus clambered into the cave on all fours. The ceiling was too low for him to stand. Preferring not to stoop, he instead sat against the nearest wall whilst Madou squeezed his mighty shoulders through the entrance and shuffled awkwardly into the cave.
