by Adam Browne
“You’ve a big head.”
“It’s just the truth, mate, I always speak as I find.”
Ivan’s eyes narrowed further, until they were reduced to mere slits of ice deep within his helm. “Prove it.”
“What?”
“Show me your power, Prefect, if you even can.”
Time passed. The Prefect’s big brown ears twisted this way and that as he pondered the request.
“What for?” he scoffed, lowering his sword a little.
“I’ll surrender, naturally,” Ivan claimed ad-hoc, waving the tip of his rapier about as he constructed his terms. “If I believe I’ve no chance then I’ll give up.” He raised his chin, “Convince me. Or are you merely bragging after all, boy?”
That clinched it.
“All right, mate, you’re on,” the Prefect said, reaching for his brooch. He paused, ears pricked, “No tricks?”
Wondering what the brooch had to do with anything, Ivan confirmed nonetheless, “No ‘tricks’.”
Unpinning his ALPHA-marked brooch, the Prefect pulled his strangely hefty, leaden-looking cloak from his powerful, scar-flecked frame and tossed it aside, along with his sword belt. He stood, paws spread, the invisible tendrils of his imperious field striking through the woods and meshing with Ivan’s own in an instant.
“So… it is you,” Blade-dancer said, like a wolf unsurprised and unimpressed. “We meet again, Eisenwolf Rafe. Does Janoah go nowhere without her muscle these days?”
Rafe let his arms flop down, “Aye, and you are?”
“Ivan Donskoy. Don’t remember me? No, I don’t expect an imperium-fuelled mad-wolf to remember what he had for breakfast let alone who he’s met lately. Nor will you remember the promise I made, to kill you if we ever met again.”
“Just put your sword down, mate,” Rafe commanded. “Come quietly.”
“I think not,” Ivan grunted.
“But you said-”
“You believe I’m scared of you? That you’ll beat me? You’re nothing without Josef Grau’s contraption to protect you!” Blade-dancer growled. He pointed at Rafe’s crumpled cloak, “Now put that illegal black-imperium rag back on and let me put you out of your misery. If I’m going to do one thing worthwhile this evening it’ll be to rid Lupa of you before it’s too late.”
Rafe ignored his cloak – he had no need of it. “Fine, have it your way,” he growled, sticking his great sword in the ground – he had no need of that either.
Spreading his big paws he summoned the dormant power within him. Arcs of purple-tinged plasma trickled down his mighty arms and played between his scarred fingers, highlighting every muscle and sinew of his incredible body.
“I’m sorry!” he shouted, over the crackles and pops of his imperious fury.
In an instant, Ivan plunged a paw into his cloak pocket and cast a fistful of sparkling yellow flash-powder into the air. With a snap of plasma he ignited the cloud in a blinding white flash!
Fwoof!
“Agh!”
No sooner did Rafe flinch away from the searing light than the most fantastic pain shot through his guts.
“Unffgh!” he grunted.
With blinded, rot-laden eyes pulsing and burning, the Eisenwolf bent double to grasp uselessly at whatever unseen object was causing him such agony. Something hard, cold and metallic had pierced him in the stomach.
Ivan’s rapier!
The sword heated from ice-cold to poker-hot as Ivan channelled a torrent of energy down the hilt and into his impaled foe.
“Ooaaaagrrrfffgh!” Rafe cried, his back arching as rivulets of plasma danced all over his helpless body, as if he were being racked by Josef.
Ivan wasn’t done yet. Clapping a bare paw to Rafe’s helmeted brow he released a last thunderous snap of imperious power right between the Eisenwolf’s burning eyes.
Crack!
Head whipping violently back from the blow, Rafe slid gently from Ivan’s blade and collapsed. There he remained, a smoking heap of brown fur. Lifeless, Ivan judged, but for the odd twitch caused by residual plasma working its way through that great lupine body.
Ivan sheathed his beautiful, deadly rapier.
“No,” Rafe heard him sigh, “I’m the sorry one, Bruno Claybourne.”
Chapter 41
Casimir abruptly stopped in the midst of the passage with a paw pressed to his jacketed chest.
The dozen hyenas following Nurka’s lead passed the little beast by with barely a glance, save for Themba, who was bringing up the rear with his kristahl hammer slung over a massive shoulder. “Casimir?”
“I-I’m fine, lad,” the white rabbit insisted, forcing a feeble smile. “It’s just a twinge in the old ticker. Was leaping about like a jumping bean there.”
“Do not worry,” Themba encouraged, his purple eyes alight in the darkness, “there are enough of us to fend off anything with more than two legs.”
It sounded to Casimir like Themba savoured the idea of fighting a wild bug. The rabbit didn’t, and hurried after Nurka and his lantern-carrying comrades for fear of left behind in the dark with who knows what lurking in the caves; spiders, centipedes, one’s imagination ran wild with grim possibility.
Nurka seemed to know what he was about; striding forth at the head, taking definite decisions to go left or right when the caves presented him with a fork. If nothing else he had faith in that map, and his hyenas had faith in him. Not a word was said, not a doubt expressed.
They’re devoted to their chief, Rufus realised, staring at the back of Nurka’s helmeted head as he walked. But is this chief devoted to his prince?
Provided Noss really is alive… and not mad.
What do you say to a beast who tried to murder you? What does he say to you?
I wonder how Tomek’s faring. Poor boy.
“Oop!”
Rufus’s armoured right foot caught on something firm yet yielding, like a giant water balloon. Nurka span round and steadied the stumbling Howler with the reflexes of an afflicted beast.
“Red-mist,” he said simply, with a nod of the head.
Assuming Rufus had merely tripped on uneven ground Nurka turned and made to walk on.
“Wait a second, Nurka,” Rufus beseeched him.
The hyena chief waited, curious. His line of followers soon caught up and bunched at the spot Rufus had tripped, Themba included.
“What’s the hold up?” the big hyena rumbled.
“Shh!” Rufus hushed, paw held up. He retraced his steps and crouched by a large white rock, barely discernable in the darkness. “Give us some light here.”
With Nurka’s silent nodding approval, one of the hyenas obliged the wolf, passing him a feeble imperium lantern.
Rufus held it up. With additional illumination the white rock took form in his light starved eyes, becoming an elongated, bean-shaped bag the dimensions of a pillow. It was somewhat translucent, like a glass of coconut milk, and its smooth surface glistened with a liquid glaze.
“It’s an ant’s egg,” Rufus claimed.
“Ant’s egg?” Casimir said.
“Shh. Quiet.”
Rufus stood up and cast his lantern and eyes around the passage, revealing a pile of eggs lying against the wall; the one he’d tripped over was just an outlier.
“There must be a nest here,” Rufus whispered, green eyes darting about as he theorised ad-hoc. “This warm and humid environment is ideal for raising young.” He whirled on Nurka, “We should move, quickly.”
With a nod and grunt the hyena chief beckoned his troops after him. Nothing more was said until the party had put some distance between them and the eggs.
“The map says nothing about ants,” Nurka insisted, flicking the paper with his fingers.
“Bugs do as they please, they don’t obey our maps and boundaries,” Rufus replied, glancing over his shoulder.
Casimir looked to his taller compatriots. “What do we do now?” he asked nervously.
“We press on,” Nurka replied with
out delay.
“But if they find us they’ll swarm us!”
With Casimir’s words ringing in the darkness the hyenas exchanged fearful glances.
Nurka instantly moved to rally them, “Dying by ant, by spider or hundred-legs, what difference does it make? We all knew something could be down here. I’m not about to abandon my Prince like a coward!” Casting his purple eyes over Themba and the others he rasped pugnaciously through his skull-helmet, “Are you?”
The hyenas stood firm. What other choice did they have? Peer pressure’s a terrible and yet effective tool in the right paws, Rufus thought.
“Red-mist,” Nurka said, somehow imploringly.
“Yes, Nurka?”
“What’s the best thing to do if we happen across an ant down here?” the young chief asked, guessing, “Leave it alone like before, yes?”
“That… and pray, my good hyena.”
*
After countless, winding, ever more claustrophobia-inducing passages that necessitated Noss and company proceed single file, even sideways on occasion, Madou for one was simultaneously relieved and surprised when the caves suddenly opened up into an enormous, high-vaulted atrium. The ceiling, some hundred feet above, was populated by so many stalactites that it resembled a petrified pine forest, albeit one turned upside-down.
The strange part wasn’t the size of the space Madou found himself in, but rather that Noss’s feeble lantern should reach so far as to light every facet of the translucent, white rocks this natural wonder consisted of.
“By the Wind,” Madou mouthed, joining Prince Noss in the open. “It’s so bright in here.”
“Imperium veins,” Noss explained simply. “The walls are glowing with ore.”
“It’s… beautiful.”
“Why Madou, I never had you down as a romantic!” Noss cackled, slapping the stocky Madou’s chest with the back of a hefty paw.
Tomek, Helmut and Zozizou took in the spectacle themselves.
“Would you look at that,” Helmut whistled.
“Is amazing,” Tomek seconded, removing his stripy cap, as if in respect of nature’s wonder. “There must be enough imperium down here to feed the Howlers for months! No?”
“Aye, lad. Makes me wonder why they abandoned these caves in the first place.”
“They can not know about it.”
“Maybe… or maybe the Warden’s been holding out on his superiors.”
“What you mean?”
“He could be sitting on this for a reason, though I wouldn’t like to guess what.”
Madou was so preoccupied by what was above he failed to notice what lay ahead. To his horror he quickly realised the way was barred by precisely nothing – thin air – for a yawning black chasm cleaved the whole glittering atrium from one side to the other!
Walking tentatively to the edge of what he hoped was a mirage or trick of the light, Madou looked disappointedly down into a sheer black void. Gulping back primeval fears he searched left and right, up and down, but saw no bridge, no slither of rock breaching the gap, and no other passages to follow. There was no way to jump across; it was simply too far, even for an imperium-fuelled athlete, surely.
“Which way now, my Prince?” Madou asked, searching Noss’s hefty features for answers.
“That way,” Noss replied calmly, tipping his snout at the chasm.
“What?” Madou half-laughed.
Helmut joined in, “Oi! Whatcha mean?” He trotted as near to the frightening gulf as he dared, before drawing back with a gulp, lest the blackness sucked him down. “We can’t get across there! Isn’t there another way around?”
Noss flapped his map about, “Even if there is, I don’t know the way out. This is as far as Tack ever got. So it’s as far as I can take us.”
“Then what do we do? I don’t understand.”
“We wait for help, hog.”
“Aye, outside help?” Helmut guessed.
“That’s right.”
“From who?”
Noss beamed amiably, but vaguely, “Friends.”
The prince’s little party exchanged incredulous glances, all except Tomek, who remained strangely unconcerned in Madou’s judgement.
Before Madou could question Tomek’s behaviour of late, the sound of dozens of trotters clacking on stone echoed around the caves.
“Halt!”
“Stop!”
Several Gelb hogs hurried into the atrium armed with lanterns, truncheons and most dangerous of all their correction collar boxes.
“Hahaaa! Found yer!” the lead guard snorted, raising the box dangling from his corpulent neck. “My nose never fails me. Paws on your heads, scum! Hurry up!”
Declining to put his paws anywhere particular, the impressive Noss pushed his way to the front of his frightened comrades. “Amazing, some Gelb hogs with guts!” he cackled. “I thought the spider skins at the door would’ve scared you cowards away.”
“Paws on your head or I’ll drop you!” the lead hog threatened them.
“Go ahead,” Noss goaded toothily.
“My Prince, you can’t fight them alone!” Madou pleaded.
“I won’t be alone, Madou.”
Whilst Madou and the others placed their paws on their heads, Tomek stood silently with Noss. Together they advanced on the little hog army.
“Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter to us!” the lead hog warned. “Nobody escapes Gelb!”
No reply. Just a knuckle-crack or two.
“Right! You asked for it!”
The hog cranked his correction box up to maximum. The device emitted a piercing hum and the caves lit up, the very walls glimmering with ripples of light as the imperium responded to the correction device’s manufactured field. The imperium-collars responded too, throttling three out of five prisoners into submission – Helmut, Madou and his cousin Zozizou were downed in an instant.
Noss and Tomek remained strangely unaffected.
“What the-?” the lead hog snorted. He desperately twiddled the correction box’s dial at them, but was deprived the sadistic pleasure of watching them writhe in agony.
“What’s the matter? Is it broken?” Noss mocked. “Let me take a look at it.”
With a flash of those mad eyes and mighty teeth, the hyena prince snatched the device from the fumbling hog, and with a blast of imperious energy sent the cruel machine out of the world.
Fzzzt! Bang!
“Oops, clumsy me,” he said, dropping the smouldering box at his feet and dusting off his smoking paws. “Mother always told me I didn’t know my own strength.”
With that, Noss and Tomek set about the hogs, their bare paws weapons enough as they channelled blasts of imperious energy into flabby bellies and crooked snouts, sending the half dozen Gelb guards scattering and rolling in all directions. Truncheons or not they were no match for beasts marked by the rot.
With the correction box destroyed, Madou quickly recovered and joined the fray, snatching a discarded truncheon and braining every yellow-capped, pig-shaped head that crossed his maddened path.
“Aaahaaaagh!” he cried, chasing the fleeing hogs away into the caves.
“Madou!” Noss barked. “Let them go!”
Madou reluctantly obeyed. Panting and cursing and tugging at his stifling collar, he rejoined Noss and the others. He was chiefly interested in Tomek – the wolf stood shaking his smouldering, doubtless throbbing paws, but remained unaffected by his collar.
“Why… weren’t you choked too?” Madou snarled with suspicion. “Answer me!”
Tomek glanced at Noss, then shrugged, “I do not know. My collar must be broken-”
“Don’t lie!” Madou accused, poking Tomek’s chest with his truncheon. “You had it replaced by Tack. Who paid for it? Who’re you working for? Tell me!”
“Madou!” Noss barked for the second time. “That’s enough.”
“My Prince, he couldn’t afford to get his collar removed, not without help-”
“I paid for i
t.”
Madou was silenced by surprise.
Noss explained, “I needed at least one beast who could fight besides me. Tomek is a Watcher, he can fight. So… I told him my plans and got his collar off.”
Madou’s rounded ears drooped, “But w-www-why not me? You picked a stranger – a wolf pup – over a brother warrior like me?”
“You were in the Pit at the time, Madou. Tomek wasn’t. That’s just how things fell. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be hurt that I’d confided in him first.”
“But-”
“That’s the end of the matter!” Noss growled. “Accept it.”
Tomek tried to paste over the cracks in Madou’s hyena pride. “We get your collar off soon,” he said, placing a paw on the warrior’s huge, rounded shoulder. “Though you fight as good with it on as off, friend.”
Madou pugnaciously shrugged him off and stomped away towards the chasm. Noss shook his head a little, conveying silently ‘ignore him’, but Tomek persisted, joining Madou in the open and looking up at the glorious imperium-laden rock formations sparkling overhead.
“I would be dead without you,” Tomek said. “I would have drowned in Pit back in Gelb. Whatever happens I always remember you, Madou.”
Madou grunted noncommittally and folded his mighty arms. It was his stubborn hyena pride, and he knew it. He’d suspected Tomek of hiding something, yet it was nothing malicious or spiteful.
Still nursing his throat, Helmut turned to Noss and demanded with his usual lack of reverence for a prince that wasn’t his, “Who’re these outside friends then, hyenas or what?”
“Does it matter?” Noss replied brusquely.
“Aye, it does. Are they THORN?”
“What’s it to you? You’re getting out aren’t you?”
“I’m just thinking of Tomek. You’re putting him in an awkward position. A Watcher hanging out with THORN terrorists, how’s that gonna work? He was only a few months short of freedom anyway.”
Noss’s purple eyes flitted just a little. “Tomek knows what he’s getting into,” he whispered.
“Does he now?” Helmut whispered back. “And what exactly are you getting him into, eh?”
Rubbing his nose, Noss brushed past Helmut and changed subject before the pig could probe further. “We shouldn’t stand around here,” he said, loudly enough for all to hear. “They could be back with reinforcements, let’s at least find a place to hide.” He flicked a paw at Madou’s cousin, “Zozizou, grab those truncheons. We may need them.”
