by Adam Browne
Ivan tided up, coughed and sniffed and generally made distractions as Uther closed in.
“Gagh!”
“Gotcha!”
The bushes shook and rustled as a scuffle took place amidst their tangled leaves.
“Gerroffofme!” someone yelped.
“Shut up before I stick yer!” Uther snarled. “Ivan! I got him! ‘Gis a paw!”
Calmly drawing his rapier, Ivan moseyed into the shadowy undergrowth and found Uther kneeling on a yellow-cloaked Howler, one knee pressed into the fellow’s back the other pinning an arm.
“A Greystone,” Ivan stated, as Uther relieved the stranger of his dual pistols, tossing them into the bushes.
“I’m on your side!” the downed wolf complained.
“Oh yeah?” Uther scoffed.
“Flaid sent me!”
“Who?”
“Elder Flaid! He’s in with Amael! Right?”
“I dunno, is he?”
Ivan tapped his rapier’s fine point on the Greystone’s armoured nose. “We weren’t meant to meet with you until we got nearer the time.”
“I know. I’m early. I-I-I was just scoping you out.”
“Clumsily,” Ivan disparaged. “This doesn’t bode well for your usefulness to us, Greystone.”
“Yeah well, I-I-I underestimated you,” the Greystone excused nervously. “The great Ivan Blade-dancer; I should’ve known better-”
“Flattery won’t sway us!” Ivan warned. “What’s the password?”
“Password?”
“To prove you’re Flaid’s agent.”
“Uhm, yeah…uh… Wait, I-I-I know this.”
“Best get your thinking cap on, cub. I’m not letting you up without the word.”
“Not letting you live, more like,” Uther growled.
“Hang on, hang on! What letter does it start with again?”
“You tell us!”
Eyes darting about, the pinned Greystone proffered a hopeful guess, “Tree?”
Ivan said nothing, but looked at Uther, who cocked his head to one side.
“No?” the Greystone chirped, yellow eyes darting between his captors.
“No,” Ivan replied.
“No, no, it’s, uhm…. Stream!”
“Nope.”
“Forest?”
“This isn’t eye-spy.”
“No, no, I got it, I do! I just can’t remember! Give me a chance! I can prove it!”
Silence.
“Sky?”
Ivan sheathed his imperium rapier and stepped clear of the bushes, “Oh let him up, Uther; he’s embarrassing. Besides, nobody seriously trying to stop us would send such a buffoon.”
“Ohw!” Wild-heart groaned in disappointment.
With the password in paw, or not, Uther helped the Greystone up and dusted down his cloak.
“No hard feelings, mate,” he said, patting him on the back. “Had to be done; security n’ all that.”
“Yeah. Sure. No problem,” the Greystone puffed. “What is the password, by the way?”
“There ain’t one,” Uther sniffed.
“What?”
“Ivan were just ribbing yer. Hahahaha!”
Uther joined Ivan back at the campfire and pinned his cloak about himself, whilst the Greystone fished his pistols from the tousled bushes.
Once everything was in order the newcomer stepped into the light with an impressive rifle in both paws and aimed loosely at the Bloodfangs.
“Pow!” he joked, lowering the gun and sniffing, “I could’ve, you know.”
“You could’ve one of us,” Ivan corrected airily, “provided you can shoot straight; the other would’ve got you before you could reload that… ridiculous contraption.”
The Greystone slung his ‘ridiculous contraption’ over his shoulder and buckled it in place. “Yeah, well, I’ve a couple of pistols too for just such an occasion, and a sword. Still, we’re all friends here, eh?”
Ivan huffed, “Let’s not get carried away.”
Still a little uncertain, the Greystone joined the Bloodfangs by the fire and removed his helmet, revealing his light brown features. He had a friendly, handsome look, a robust face free of scars save for a nick across an eyebrow – the result of a bar brawl perhaps, or hitting one’s head on a cupboard door, there was no telling. His eyes were a translucent lemony yellow, like the yellow-imperium the Greystones coveted so jealously.
“I’m Gunnar anyway. Pleased to meetcha-”
“We don’t care what you’re called,” Ivan cut in, shunning Gunnar’s offered paw. “This is a marriage of convenience, Greystone, to be followed by a swift divorce once we’re done.”
After a moment, Uther took Gunnar’s paw, “Uther, mate.”
“Yeah,” Gunnar gasped with awe, “I know.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Of course, I heard you talking. Anyway you’re the fastest wolf in Lupa. Everyone knows you.”
“Oi, he’s growing on me,” Uther told Ivan, before saying to Gunnar. “Sit down, yeah? We’ve got a lot of walking ahead, so best rest whilst you can, mate.”
Nodding, Gunnar scooted awkwardly round and sat in the grass beside Uther, giving Ivan a nervous glance or two.
Uther silently offered the guest an ember.
“Ta.”
Nothing set company at ease so much as a shared smouldering and soon clouds of different coloured vapours mingled happily overhead, much to Ivan’s displeasure.
“Come on,” he huffed, suddenly standing up and snuffing out the fire with a pan of water, “let’s go.”
“Already?” Uther woofed.
“The summit’s in a few days. We can’t muck about.”
Washing his cookware in the babbling brook and placing them in his satchel, Ivan struck off ahead following the flow of the water.
“He’s eager,” Gunnar joked quietly.
Donning his helmet as he walked after Ivan, Uther whispered, “It’s… personal, mate.”
“Vito?”
“Rufus,” Uther clarified. Then he asked Gunnar, “Here, how’d you find us out here anyway?”
“Tracked yer,” the youth beamed.
“Y’what? Like footprints ‘n’ stuff?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Puh! I’m impressed.”
“Thanks. I trained as a Watcher, but I switched to the Howlers to be where the action is. The Lupan Wall’s all checkpoints, guard duty, and one-sided conversations with gazers.”
“I hear yer. Welcome aboard anyway.”
With that, Uther and Gunnar followed Ivan deeper into the lush tangle of Everdor.
*
Madou flopped in the mud, a sodden heap of spotty fur and stripy prison rags. The feeble mountain sun overhead did little to alleviate his shivering, it only blinded him with its cold brilliance.
After a day in the freezing ‘Pit’, Madou hardly noticed the prison hogs kicking him in the side to get him moving, and it didn’t work for all that. They resorted to lifting the hefty beast by the arms and dragging him from the Pit’s mouth, across to the main compound, whereupon they dumped him on the unyielding erde, chin-down, his bound wrists bloodied from the Howler-wire which they at least had the courtesy to remove.
“Madou,” someone said, shaking the hyena’s shoulder. “Madou, come on, lad, you can’t lay here.”
Through his blinding tears, Madou saw a familiar outline.
“Helmut?”
“Aye,” the hog confirmed. “Come on, to your feet.”
Madou was about to ask after his cousin, but was at once relieved and upset to find Zozizou standing over him dripping wet and dishevelled, his magnificent mane flopping down, yet on his feet.
Not only has a lowly pig weathered the Pit better than you, Madou thought, as Helmut and Zozizou helped him stagger across the compound, but so has your skinny, imperium-addicted cousin who you were supposed to be protecting!
You must be further down the rot’s road than you imagine, Chaka
a Madou.
The group made landfall on their usual hut’s stairs and clambered inside. Lusting after a dry bed, however flea-ridden, Madou felt strangely gratified to see Helmut and Zozizou collapse about undesirable, ever-vacant bunks just inside the doors, shivering and tired after all. How perverse, Madou thought, wishing others harm to make yourself feel better.
Time passed. Nobody spoke. Too tired. Too cold. The other prisoners stared at them in silence, offering not a blanket or crust of bread. Gelb was no place for charity.
Some minutes later the sounds of many approaching footsteps crunching over Gelb’s gritty soil drew Helmut’s attention. He got up and looked out the door windows; a group of prisoners were striding this way, a rival gang by the looks, with a mighty and rather handsome hyena at the lead.
For a moment Helmut sensed trouble, until he spied a wolf amongst the gang, an athletic grey wolf wearing his stripy cap at a recognisably jaunty angle.
Helmut waved, “Tomek!”
Looking for himself, Madou immediately scrabbled out the door and down the stairs to prostrate himself on all fours in front of that big hyena!
“My prince,” he said.
Peeking outside, Zozizou hurried to join his cousin at the bottom of the stairs, nose in the dirt, and that’s when Helmut realised this must be a hyena thing. For his part the hog stood in the doorway, arms folded, and nodded once at Tomek, who nodded back.
Tomek was carrying a blanket, which he immediately draped over the bowing Madou.
At first Madou was glad, but when he saw who it was giving him the blanket he cast it aside with a vicious snarl and continued to grovel as before.
The impressive hyena stranger growled, “Tomek is my friend, Madou. You’ll accept his aid.”
“But my Prince-”
“Accept his aid as if it were my own paw! I understand he saved your life, and that of Rufus. If you spurn him, you spurn me. Do you spurn me, Madou?”
Silence.
“No, my Prince,” Madou conceded.
The ‘Prince’ nodded at Tomek, who placed the blanket over the shivering Madou a second time. The proud hyena left the blanket alone, even though it must’ve pained his ego no end to suffer its comfort.
Zozizou was given a blanket also. “Much obliged, Prince Noss… son of the Four Winds,” he rasped, adding with a smile and a nod, “Tomek.”
Smiling, Tomek tipped his cap in acknowledgement.
Helmut watched, baffled, but reassured by the way this was going. It all looked friendly.
Prince Noss turned his purple-eyed gaze on the hog. “Is this Helmut?” he asked Tomek directly.
“Yes.”
“A friend of Rufus is a friend of mine,” the prince declared, flashing a toothy smile and directing one of his followers to give Helmut a blanket too. “Even a furless hog!” he laughed, gesturing for Madou and Zozizou to rise, though they both kept their eyes respectfully down.
Despite the disparaging comment, Helmut accepted this hyena’s kindness. “And who’re you to Rufus, exactly?” he sniffed snottily, cloaking himself from the cold.
“An old friend,” Noss claimed.
“Old friend?”
“Rufus and I are very close.”
Scratching his head, Helmut gruffed, “You new in Gelb, then?”
Noss laughed, “New? My good hog, I’ve been in this dive almost a year now.”
“That long, eh?”
“Indeed. Seems… rather longer.”
Helmut smelt a rat, “Well if you’re Rufus’s friend where’ve you been hiding? I’ve never even seen you before.”
“We were on the night shift,” Noss explained, gesturing to his rough-looking crew. “I’ve passed you by many times during switchover, but I didn’t want Rufus to know I was here for… personal reasons.”
“Like what?”
Noss flashed his teeth, “I tried to kill him once.”
“Kill him?” Helmut huffed. “What kind of a friend is that?”
“Finding yourselves on different sides in a struggle is no barrier to friendship and respect amongst warriors. You desk-bound hogs don’t understand the refined nuances of warrior races like wolves and hyenas-”
Helmut brandished a fist, “You wanna be lamped by this desk-bound hog, mate?”
Silence.
“Hahahaaaahahaha!” Noss laughed, slapping Tomek on the back and making him stumble. “I like your pig, Tomek. He has spunk, for a curly-tailed truffle-sniffer.”
Tomek could but laugh awkwardly.
“In any case,” Noss sniffed afresh, “now Red-mist’s supposedly ‘gone’ I’ve been moved to day shift to plug the gap. I’m the best miner around now, so I suggest you all stick with me if you want to survive.”
Helmut looked to Tomek. “Lad, is this nutter for real?”
The young wolf explained. “I’m already in his gang,” he said. “You come too, please, all of you. We’ll make two new teams together.”
Helmut, Madou and Zozizou exchanged glances.
“All right, lad,” Helmut said, with obvious misgivings, “I go where you go.”
*
“Pfffcaaagh!”
Linus bent double from the punch to his gut, or as far forward as his bonds allowed. Any lesser wolf might’ve vomited there and then.
Elbows resting on the stark table in the middle of the bleak, off-white, windowless room, Doctor Josef rapped his grey fingers together in front of his dispassionate bespectacled gaze whilst Linus spluttered helplessly in the chair opposite.
One of the doctor’s two black-cloaked Prefects pulled the wheezing Howler upright again by the scruff of his neck, somewhat bending him over the back of the contoured new-materials chair to which he was tied.
“Are you a traitor, Howler?” Josef sighed. “Is that what I’m going to have to put in this report?”
“No, sir,” Linus vowed, nostrils flaring.
“And yet you deceive me.”
“I do not.”
“You’re in league with Tristan and the THORN terrorists he’s working for; you’re helping them smuggle Olivia out of Lupa so they can use her. Yes… I see how it is now-”
“THORN? That’s insane! I hardly even know Tristan. He hates me!”
“For the last time, where is Olivia Blake?”
“As I’ve said,” Linus coughed, chest heaving, wrists twisting behind his back, “someone hit me over the head and they ran off. That’s all there is to it, I’m afraid.”
Josef nodded at his Prefects. One of them boxed Linus in the nose.
“Unfffgh!”
Whilst Linus seethed in pain the doctor sighed, “This is most tiresome.” Kneading his paws and fussing with his coat he waited until Linus had recovered, before continuing in a reasonable tone, “Just cooperate and you can walk, Linus. I’ve no interest in testing the physical limits of an ordinary Howler like you. I’ve serious work to do.”
Linus licked his bleeding nose, “I don’t know where they went. I wish I did, believe me.”
Josef sat back a moment, then leant forward again and shuffled his papers. “Well,” he said, smacking his lips, “we’ll see what you know on the rack.”
“R-rrr-rack?”
“Yes. You’ll last five minutes, if that.”
“You can’t!” Linus spluttered. “It’s not legal! The Bloodfangs won’t stand for it!”
“You’re in ALPHA’s paws now, idiot, and I can do whatever I want behind these doors!” Josef hissed, flapping his warrant about, as if it were the keys to Lupa. Calming himself he purred, “I could send you down for whatever crime came to mind, aiding dodgers, terrorists, even striking a Prefect. It’s not difficult, it happens all the time. Do you remember Rufus, how high he was before someone around here decided to get rid of him? His fall sent ripples across Lupa, but you? You’re nothing, a nobody Howler. You could be made to disappear and nobody would even look up from their breakfast!”
The bruised Linus gulped, hard.
Tucking his paper
s into a file, Josef made for the door. He waited a moment, one paw resting on its simple lever. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Your colleague Tristan is keeping the rack warm just down the hall where my expertise is greatly needed,” the cat said pompously. “He’s a strong one; a most impressive specimen. If I don’t get something out of him regarding Olivia Blake’s whereabouts I’ll come back for you. Consider that, Howler.”
On that ominous note Josef stepped out.
The metal door closed, sealing Linus inside with the two Prefects, who set about their work without delay.
“Gagh!”
Suffering through another stomach-churning blow to the belly, which made Linus glad he’d skipped breakfast, one of the helmet-masked wolves grabbed his blonde ears and pulled him back over the chair.
“Grrrfffgh!”
With eyes watering and ears burning, the gasping Linus couldn’t tell whether it was the torturer behind him or the one in front doing the talking.
“Come on, mate, where’s the girl?” they asked. “We’ll stop if you tell us, but not before.”
“I… don’t… know!” Linus seethed.
“Ah, but you do. You’re just being stubborn. Silly young thing, ain’t yer, eh? Do you fancy ‘em or something? Is that it, Howler?”
“W-w-what?”
“Ahhh… they’re not worth it, mate,” the Prefect sniffed, it was the one in front; Linus could tell now. “Wolfesses, that is. Those two’ll chew you up and spit you out; especially the little Hummel bitch. What? Think she’s gonna touch a rotting scumbag like you, do yer? You’re dreaming!”
Linus said nothing, but averted his eyes to the imperium light glowing overhead.
“Oh dear, he’s got it bad,” the Prefect tutted to his silent comrade. He looked at Linus again, “See, mate, the doctor ain’t very good at this… interrogation lark. He only knows how to stick beasts on his rack and fry ‘em. The rack doesn’t leave a mark of course, so its use can be denied, but it doesn’t get under a wolf’s skin half as much as I can.” The Prefect drew his sword and pushed its vicious point into Linus’s chin, “If you get through a racking it’ll be back to me. They’ll let me cut you then. I’ll take an ear, if I like, or a finger maybe. Do you like your tail?” The Prefect looked at Linus’s tail dangling through the chair’s tail-hole and lifted it with his sword. “‘Tis a fine bushy one, I see. It’ll look good pinned to my wall-”
