by Adam Browne
The moment Madou was in, the door was gently shut behind him by the enormous paw of a bear. The big, black beast hunched menacingly over the hyena, crouching with his rounded ears touching the ceiling. He filled a good portion of the space down here and for the life of him Madou couldn’t fathom how a bear had ever squeezed down a passage he himself had trouble managing. Smiling nervously, the hyena scooted backwards on his rump until he was sitting beside his wolfen friend. Rufus remained unconcerned as always, his muzzle slightly raised and graced with a confident smirk, one forearm resting on a knee.
“How are you, old chap?” he asked the bear, tipping his cap at him like a gentlebeast.
No reply, save a grunt.
“We’d like to see the professor, if he’s not too busy.”
As if on cue, a ragged green curtain behind the counter was whipped aside by a white cat without a collar. He peered in, his creamy face streaked with glittery imperium.
“You again?” he scoffed, disappearing at once. “Vhat do you vant now, Rufus? I am eeeextremely busy.”
Rufus stood up and fearlessly ducked across the ghostly green cave to the white cat’s wonky counter, whereupon he sat in a wicker chair nestled amongst the junk.
Giving the bear a glance, as if worried the giant might strike him down, Madou followed suit. He knelt upright beside Rufus, paws resting nobly on knees, as if posing for a traditional hyena portrait where the male knelt beside his seated and superior wife. The worldly Rufus noticed the chance similarity, but thought better than to point it out and offend Madou.
“Just a couple of things, Professor Tack,” Rufus said cordially, “if you can stretch to it.”
“Depends on vhat you’ve brought for me,” the cat said pompously, his voice echoing from the adjoining cave. “You’d better not be vasting my time!”
Rufus had no idea how large Tack’s secret abode was, but he supposed there was more to this place than two atriums. The white cat had been down here some years apparently, hidden from the hogs, the Warden and most inmates. Presumed lost in the endless mines by the official records, he had in fact faked his death and gone underground in a different manner to become the go-to beast for extra imperium stings. A once prestigious member of the Ark, Tack had been sent down for some illegal experiment or other, Rufus hadn’t managed to get it out of him during his brief visits, but the cat’s imperious knowledge meant he was one of the few beasts in Gelb able to distil imperium and bring added relief to those with the means to pay. Beasts brought him raw imperium, he took his share for his experiments, distributing useable stings and other commodities back.
“I found this little nugget,” Rufus said airily, holding the imperium crystal between a finger and thumb.
Tack peeped through the tatty curtain. “Ach!” he hissed, scrabbling to lean over the counter. “Wunderbar!”
Before the fumbling feline Professor could take the monocular magnifier from around his neck and get a better look at Rufus’s treasure, the wolf tucked it away.
“I want six stings,” he demanded.
“Six!” Tack squeaked.
“Yes, standard fifty minims each, no skimping. And a few packs of embers – good ones mind.”
“Impossible!”
“And a bottle of Hummel brandy. Oh, and chocolate.”
“Nein, nein, nein.”
“And I want them right now, up front, or I’m off to the hogs with this one.”
“They’d hang you, Rufus, vor sneaking it through the checkpoint in the first place!”
“No, I don’t think so,” Rufus chuckled. “Lots of beasts go to them instead of you. But… I would prefer to continue to use your services, Professor, rather than line the pockets of those interminable bullies.”
Tack’s ash-stained whiskers hiked as he smirked with sympathy, “Naturalig.”
“We’ve a deal then?”
“Ja, ja, all right. But you stretch me too var, Rufus. It’s only because you are a fellow enlightened beast of science and reason vat I tolerate your cheek.” Tack looked through Madou as if he wasn’t even there to the big black bear looming silently and menacingly behind. “Remember,” the Professor mewed with malice, “I could have Berg there snap your collared necks as easily as I snap mein fingers.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Rufus grunted back, rubbing said collared neck, which was tighter than usual, “providing the ambient imperium in here doesn’t throttle us first.”
Tack smirked, “You know, I could remove your collars and replace them with counterfeits… vor a price.”
Madou’s hefty face lit up, “You could?”
“Ja, ja.”
“No,” Rufus dismissed at once, “we’re fine, thank you.”
“But, chief-”
“What’re we going to do, Madou, pretend to choke when the guards turn their little dials? We’d soon be found out.”
Tack disagreed, “You vould be surprised how many have had the procedure and yet go undetected. It makes one’s stay in this pit a little more… tolerable,” the cat finished, ending on a high note, as if asking a question.
Rufus nodded, but said, “I’m afraid without it I would be sorely tempted to turn my imperious fire on the hogs and go down fighting. As it is, the notion of choking to death stays my paw and keeps me alive. Ironic, I know.”
“Moronic, I fear; a most volfen trait I did not expect from a scientist like you.”
“I’m a Howler first, sir.”
“Ah. Then you are a fool.”
*
With a knock on the roof and muffled protestations over yet another card game being interrupted, the trapdoor was flung open and muted sunlight poured in. Unable to see, Rufus was pulled blinking from the darkness into the light and Madou shortly after. The planks and barrel were hurriedly replaced by the grey and blonde wolves and the game continued between them as if nothing had occurred.
“Don’t linger, you idiots,” the grey wolf growled at them, his snout studiously buried in his cards already.
Nodding and blinking, Rufus and Madou took their leave, walking swiftly round the far end of the huts where they stood in the shade whilst their eyes adjusted. With a glance around for guards, Rufus dolled out the goods.
“Here,” he said, passing Madou a sting, distilled and packaged by Tack; it almost looked official.
Madou gratefully received them. “Thank you, chief.”
Despite Madou’s earlier claims to the contrary, Rufus could see the relief in the hyena’s violet eyes; relief that he could at last quench the pain and stave off the rot another month. It was against his hyena philosophy to take white-imperium, an affront to the Sky, but there was just no fighting the rot’s agony. Madou was young and strong, but he and his fellow Chakaa brothers had been taking purple-imperium for years, drinking it in sacred chunta. They were as far gone as a Howler twice their age.
Well, at least now Madou was getting the good stuff, the best stuff. The poor boy will be all right.
By Ulf what’s wrong with me? He’s part of THORN. They’re planning mass murder! Get a grip Rufus, you fool.
“Chief?”
“Mm?” Rufus hummed, “Sorry, I was miles away. Thinking of… elsewhere.”
“I know the feeling,” Madou grimaced, looking around the bleak, yet beautiful Sunrise Mountains beyond the Gelb fences and watchtowers. “I was just saying; you go ahead and eat with the others. I’m going to go take this now,” he explained, flashing his sting a moment before hiding it again in his shaking paw. “I… I’m sorry, I-I-I have to.”
Rufus nodded, “There’s no shame in it.”
With a slight scoff, the stocky Madou dipped his dark muzzle to his tan chest, then raised it, “I am ashamed to admit my weakness in front of the others, even Zozizou, and he’s a mere addict! But not you, Red-mist; I can talk to you.”
“I’m honoured, Madou.”
“I trust you. I think of you as I do Nurka and Themba. You’re one of us.”
Rufus’s smile faded a li
ttle. “Best take it now,” he said, glancing around for guards, or anyone else for that matter, “I’ll watch over you.”
“No. I don’t want you to see.”
“See? But you just said you trust me-”
“Chief! Please, give me my dignity. You wouldn’t want to be watched either, not after starving so long.”
To that Rufus nodded.
The trembling Madou moved on, “I’ll… I’ll walk you to the canteen. I’m supposed to be watching your back-”
“Madou, I think I can make it to the canteen without being assaulted,” Rufus assured. “I’ll tell the others I ordered you to take your sting.”
With a grateful woof and much nodding, Madou took his leave and disappeared round the side of a hut. Fondling the precious sting in one paw and tugging at his collar with the other, he walked swiftly through the desolation of Gelb, past wretched, sunken-eyed beasts who would gladly kill him for what he had hidden about his person, but who were too weak to tackle a hyena of his strength, or too afraid of the repercussions to try – Gelb’s guards, despite to their own wanton use of their truncheons, looked unkindly on beasts who started fights.
Searching for a quiet corner free of prisoners and especially guards, Madou found a deserted spot behind a hut where not a soul was lingering. He ducked into the shadows, out of sight, and hurriedly tore open the cardboard sting. Asking for the Sky’s forgiveness and parting the fur at his wrist, he slid the needle into his veins and the life-extending imperium into his blood.
Here it comes, Madou.
Dropping the syringe in the mud, Madou grasped at his collar, sliding his fingers down inside the metal band in a vain attempt to keep it at bay as the imperium rush took hold. He fell, scrabbling about the slick mud, unable to breathe, unable to think, his body wracked by imperious fire, his mind starved of oxygen. The world melted into a daub of coloured blurs and darkness encroached from the extremities, as if Madou were peering down a kaleidoscope.
It’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon.
Someone appeared amidst the turmoil, a big beast looming large. In his feverish state Madou lashed out to be rid of the intruder, but the beast grabbed his wrists and held him firmer than anyone ever had in Madou’s young life. He kicked and snarled, but the beast simply endured the blows.
“Stop it Madou!” they growled.
Starved of air and sanity, the choking Madou fell back in the freezing mud, tongue lolling.
The world went dark and quiet.
Light returned and the world reformed; forlorn fields and wind-whipped tents, bare trees stripped of leaves by poisonous ashen rain.
I’m back home, Madou realised, looking all around the hyena camp. I’m on the reservation! He looked down at his little dark-fingered paws, his puny body, a mighty hyena male no longer, but a feeble cub again, twelve or so, he couldn’t quite tell. To his right stood Themba, tall and strong even for his age, and beyond him Nurka, his eyes tinged with more than imperium, with wisdom and foresight too.
“Madou!” someone growled ahead.
The youth looked up at the towering, powerful hyena in a fluttering vermillion red cloak, with his wondrous armour of black and white, shining spear jammed in the erde.
“Madou, stay with me!” he rumbled. “Be strong!”
“I am, my Prince!” Madou insisted, in his half-broken voice. “I am strong!”
“Madou! Madou!”
“I’ll save our people! I will-”
The cloaked hyena reached down and cuffed Madou across the muzzle. The fields and tents were dashed aside, replaced by the wall of the wooden hut. Madou stared unblinking at the planks and slowly raised his muddied paws. They were big again, his arms muscled and strong, his body that of a powerful warrior, a Chakaa, not some helpless pup.
“Madou,” someone said, in a hair-tingling baritone.
Madou turned to see, to confirm what he dared not yet believe his ears were telling him.
There he was, such a handsome hyena, so strong, so healthy, holding his head on his long, powerful neck with such grace and assurance even whilst kneeling in mud.
“Prince Noss?” Madou mouthed.
The hyena nodded, “It’s… good to see you again, Chakaa Madou.”
Given a moment’s eye-darting hesitation, Madou scrabbled to his feet only to dive forward in the filth to prostrate himself utterly. “Prince Noss!” he cried, his snout scraping the erde. “Wife of Arjana! Son of the Four Winds!” he spluttered, shaking his head side to side, “F-ffff-forgive me. I didn’t know it was you! How could I know? I thought you… I thought… Oh, by the Sky, I’m still dreaming!”
Noss laid a big paw on the back of Madou’s thick neck and stroked his coarse fur. “No dream.”
“Forgive me, my Prince. I didn’t mean to strike you-”
“There’s nothing to forgive, you were confused,” Noss hushed. “Now, calm yourself before your collar chokes you again.”
Gulping hard against his stifling collar, but remaining prostrated, Madou said happily, “Nurka said they’d murdered you. The wolves all said it.”
“Do I look murdered?” Noss grunted. “Well, perhaps I’m a ghost? Hahahahaaaa!”
Madou didn’t know what to say, so he refrained.
“It’s I who must beg your forgiveness,” Noss went on, suddenly sober. “You and… all my tribe-”
“My Prince, you can’t say such things!” Madou yelped.
“I can. I must.”
“But you’re a prince! You’re infallible.”
“Infallible? Yet you, a mere warrior, are telling an infallible prince of hyenas what to do, it seems.”
“No, my Prince-”
“Be quiet, you disrespectful whelp! I’ll have this out before the unbearable shame kills me.”
Madou bit his tongue.
“I did what I did for my wife and cubs,” Noss said. “I never wanted to kill Red-mist, but… they offered me a fortune. I didn’t think of the consequences. It never even occurred to me that the wolves would use my ‘treachery’ as a stick to beat the tribes with. I thought it was about bumping off Rufus, not blackening my own people’s reputation.”
“My Prince-”
“I’m truly sorry for my stupidity,” Noss went on. “I’m sorry that I abandoned you all. I don’t deserve to be your prince, but-”
“Prince Noss, please stop-”
“But!” Noss over-talked the mortified Madou, “I know you won’t accept anything less, because I know unlike me you honour our traditions, as a hyena should. So here I am, contrite but willing to serve. Though fat lot of good I am to you all now, eh? Hahaaaahahahahaa!”
Madou gulped back his many questions.
His laughter subsiding, Noss posed his own, “So, how did you wind up in Gelb, Madou?”
“Captured, my Prince. I was bitten by a sewer centipede and… well… taken by the Bloodfangs. Nurka and Themba only just escaped themselves, from what I hear.”
“Why weren’t you executed?”
Madou shook his head, “I wish I had been, but a wolf called Vladimir went out of his way to send me here. I tried to get myself killed but he spared me… twice. It’s like he wanted me to suffer.”
The taller Noss grasped Madou’s muscled shoulders and raised the stocky fellow up, so that both were standing. The lower-ranking Madou kept his teary eyes averted down, as hyena etiquette dictated.
“Vladimir’s got a use for you,” Noss growled. “Perhaps he even falsified your death, like mine.”
“My Prince?”
Looking around, Noss explained, “I’m only alive because of what I know. Vladimir thinks he can use me to bring Amael Balbus down someday, so he hid me away here. Since I haven’t been sent for yet I assume Amael and the wolfen conspirators are merrily chugging along?”
Madou confirmed. “They grow stronger every day, my Prince, as does THORN. In fact, I… I may have been spared because Amael arranged it.”
“Amael? Why would he save a hyena?”
>
“Because, we’re allies now!” Madou woofed, his claim punctuated by a deep yet quick and giddy hyena laugh. “Haha! Can you believe it? Wolves and hyenas working together.”
Noss snorted, “What do you mean?”
The Prince sounded displeased, but Madou confidently enlightened him, “Amael came to us alone, soon after your arrest and… well, execution. He apologised for what was done to you and bowed before Nurka, on his knees! I’d never seen a wolf do that before.” Madou shrugged and chuckled, “Themba wanted to cave his head in of course, as did I, but Nurka was wiser and struck a deal with the wolfen conspirators.”
“What kind of ‘deal’?”
“To take over Lupa, together,” Madou all but whispered, as if someone might overhear and scupper THORN’s plans. “Amael’s provided us with everything; we have kristahl weapons now, and even ancestral Jua-mata armour. He stole it from a museum. It was wonderful to wear, whilst I had it.”
Noss grunted, “I dread to think where mine went.”
Madou continued, “Amael’s supplied information too. Train schedules and details of sting shipments, even routes in and out of the city. It’s taken us this last year and many hyena lives, but now everything is in place. Lupa’s white-imperium stocks are low, but Amael has hoarded his own private cache. All that remains is the final blow to initiate the takeover.”
The Prince hiked a thick, dark, hyena eyebrow. “Final blow?”
“At the Pack Summit. It’s being held in Everdor this year, in Hummelton Town, far away from Lupa. Nurka’s going to kill the Den Fathers whilst they’re there, all of them in once. Then, whilst the packs are confused and panicking back in Lupa, Amael will return to seize the city and use his sting cache to outlast any resistance. We’ll make a new government with him, wolf and hyena alike.”
“You trust Amael after what he did to me?”
“No… but I trust Nurka. He’ll see through any wolfen trick, I know it.”
Noss grumbled, “And how does one kill all the Den Fathers when they’re guarded by countless Howlers? The Pack Summit will be impossible to penetrate, even in pokey little Hummelton.”
