by Adam Browne
“What’re you gonna do?” Casimir butted-in.
“Fly.”
With that cryptic reply, Rufus started his way across just as Themba had done, the folds of his tatty red cloak hanging down like an old tablecloth drying on a washing line.
Surprisingly, the athletic wolf proved somewhat less sure-footed than the preceding hefty hyena and for a moment one of his legs twanged away from the rope, causing him to twist alarmingly in space and sending something of a heart-stopping wobble rippling through the audience.
“I can’t look,” Helmut squealed, covering his beady eyes.
Rufus recovered his grip and continued as before, outwardly calm, inwardly frantic. He kept going, paw over paw, until he all but head-butted the pillar to which the rope was tied. With a quick over-the-shoulder glance to check the ground really was there, he peeled his numb legs and shaking paws from the line.
“Well,” he woofed, dusting off his paws, “that’s that.”
Tomek hurried to greet him, tail wagging. After a quick embrace, which surprised Rufus no end, Tomek stood back and said bashfully, “Is good to see you, Rufus.”
“Mutually, dear Tomek,” Red-mist replied, setting Tomek’s cap straight.
“I thought you were a goner, mate,” Helmut whistled.
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“No I meant just now!”
Themba and Madou, meanwhile, saw to Zozizou. Themba scooped the wounded hyena up in his great, muscled spotty arms, scowling at the Warden the entire time.
“Did you do this?” he demanded pugnaciously.
“You’re lucky I didn’t tear his head off,” the Warden replied. “No tricks, hyena, or I will.”
Themba grunted, “I thought you were with Amael. We are too! We’re all on the same side here, so why don’t you let our Prince go?”
“Same side?” the Warden scoffed. “I’m on nobody’s side hyena, not yet. I don’t trust Amael any more than you do. He doesn’t even know Noss is here; he was sent to me to be hidden. Noss is my security, whatever happens, and a good miner in the interim.”
“You made him dig up imperium?” Themba snarled.
“Of course! What, do you think I’d let him sit on his rump being fanned by slaves? He’s not my prince.”
“Grrrfffg!”
Madou pulled the furious Themba away by the arm before the big hyena’s temper snapped completely.
“Come on, Themba. Don’t waste your breath on him. His time will come.”
They returned to the gorge, whereupon Themba took it upon himself to ferry Zozizou to safety, citing Madou’s weakened state and stifling collar. Tying Zozizou in front of him, Themba clambered onto the rope without further ado and whizzed across as before, the extra weight no impediment to him at all.
Passing Zozizou to his comrades, Themba went to cross yet again.
“No, Themba,” Nurka rasped, grabbing him.
“What?”
“Stay here. Leave it to Red-mist.”
“But-”
“Do as I say and be quiet! Please.”
Themba, slowly, released the rope and reluctantly stood down. To leave his Prince’s fate to a lowly wolf was a difficult thing indeed, but Themba bore the shame in silence.
“Get going, all of you,” Rufus urged. “Come on, Helmut, nothing to it.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. I must be bonkers.”
“It’ll be fine. You’re a big strong chap. Just do it like I did. Only… don’t slip like me.”
“Oh sure! Sound advice, Rufe. I feel so much better now.”
Leaving Helmut with a pat on the back, Rufus slowly turned to Noss who was standing some distance away. The Prince of the Jua-mata kept his gaze averted, down into the blackness, ashamed, if not afraid. He could feel Red-mist’s potent corona, sense those eyes burning unbearably into his thick spot-flecked neck, judging him for what he’d done in that backstreet café a year ago.
“How’re your legs holding up, Noss?” Rufus crackled suddenly. “Do you remember what I taught you?”
Noss’s rounded-off ears twisted. “What?” he sniffed.
“You’d better come with me,” Red-mist went on, looking left and right. “We’ll need a good run-up.”
At once mystified and brimming with mortification, Noss mindlessly allowed Rufus to gently usher him away from the cliff and towards the waiting Warden, who was already emerging from the caves with his two Howlers in tow, eager to take charge of his princely hostage.
“What’s he doing?” Themba growled, watching Rufus lead Noss away. “He’s betrayed us!”
“Shh!” Nurka hushed. “Casimir,” he whispered to the white rabbit, “tell everyone to ready their rifles. Don’t make it obvious, just be ready.”
“Aye.”
Telling Noss to wait behind, Rufus walked the rest of the way alone and met the Warden, who stepped forward with his Howlers, leaving the Gelb hogs out of earshot.
“Rufus Bloodfang?” the Warden quizzed, unsure of his own senses in these imperium-laden caves.
“Hello again,” Rufus acknowledged at length.
A moment’s disbelief on the Warden’s part, before he snarled, “What’s going on? Amael’s associates should’ve taken you to a safe house by now.”
“These hyenas are Amael’s associates. They’re the very beasts he sent as part of our little… execution ruse.”
“But then why-”
“I would like it very much,” Rufus interrupted, playing the authority card, “if you’d accede to Chief Nurka’s wishes and release Prince Noss into THORN’s custody. Besides anything else Noss is a personal friend of mine.”
The hyena prince looked on from behind, ears twisting.
“Friend?” came the incredulous Warden. “I know you’re an associate of these… barbarians, Rufus, but didn’t that one try and murder you?”
Rufus reasoned soberly, “It was Amael’s signature on the bomb, amongst others. He bribed Noss to kill me to ruin the chances of the tribes being accepted into Lupan society, forcing them down a road of violent resistance and into his paws. It was nothing personal, just business. But you knew all that of course.”
“Of course,” the Warden said with a sniff, convincing nobody.
“It was a long time ago,” Rufus said magnanimously. “We have to move on and let bygones be bygones for the good of Lupa. Isn’t that so, Warden?”
No reply, save a noncommittal grunt.
“We’ll be going then,” Rufus declared, checking to make quite sure Helmut and the others had shimmied across the gorge to safety. “When the dust settles and I’m in the new government, I’ll be sure to send for you-”
“I’m not done yet!” the Warden growled. “Do you think I’m stupid, Rufus?”
“Stupid?”
“I know how Amael’s mind works. He’s trying to exclude me from Nikita’s table. Yes… he’s found out about Noss hasn’t he, and now he’s sent you to trick me.”
Nikita’s table, did he say?
Rufus dwelt on that even as his lips uttered, “Trick you, my dear Warden?”
The ‘dear’ Warden explained. “If I have nothing left to bargain with, Amael can deny to Nikita that I so much as lifted a finger to help the cause and hang me out to dry. The fewer wolves in the new order the bigger the portions each will receive. Well, I want my portion. I want a rich territory of my own. By Ulf’s fangs I’ve earned it! Ten years I’ve rotted in this dump, providing Lupa with imperium, turning the tap on and off at Nikita’s command, risking my neck for his cause.”
Casting a paw at the shining imperious atrium the Warden continued to rant.
“All this should’ve been mined out years ago, but it’s still here, waiting for the signal to start production again once Nikita has control of the city. If anyone of consequence knew of this place I’d be executed. As it is nobody dares to check up on the rumours because they’re afraid of being eaten by whatever Ulf-forsaken bugs crawl in th
e darkness! Bugs I will personally feed you too if you cross me again.”
The Warden clicked his fingers, bringing his two grim Howlers to bear.
“No,” he said sharply, “the prince stays with me. And tell Amael and Nikita I’ll use Noss to turn THORN against them if they don’t deal!”
Raising a calming paw, Rufus gently placed it on the Warden’s heaving shoulder. “My dear Warden,” he said, in his crackliest, most patronising tone, “I told you before… you’ll get exactly what’s coming to you-”
Pfffzzzzt! Crack!
With an incredible imperious blast Rufus sent the Warden tumbling and snarling across the atrium. His two Howler bodyguards followed suit, Rufus punching his right and left paws into each simultaneously.
Pfffzzzzt! Crack! Crack!
“Run!” Rufus snapped at Noss, tugging the hyena after him. “Come on, come on, come on!”
Noss picked his feet up and for the second time today did the most unnatural thing any beast, let alone a noble hyena, could do – ran headlong for a cliff!
“Stop them!” the smouldering Warden spluttered at his hogs.
Immediately the sound of pellets pinging off the rocks echoed around the atrium as several Gelb hogs drew pistols and opened fire. Nurka’s troops spread out either side of their fleeing comrades and returned a volley, transforming the caves into a shooting gallery.
“You’re insane, Red-mist!” Noss woofed with mad glee.
“You can do it!” Rufus encouraged, his armoured legs a blur of motion and imperious light as he sprinted with the speed of a true Howler. “Fly, Noss. Fly!”
At the last second, the final step before oblivion, Rufus bent his leading leg and with a blast of energy thrust himself into the air. His very corona reaching out like an extension of his being and pushing the erde away, rocketing him forward and across the yawning gap.
“By the Wind!” Nurka gasped, as Rufus bore down on the hyenas, cloak flapping like a flag in a gale.
“Mind out below!”
Landing heavily between Nurka and Themba, Rufus tripped and tumbled across the atrium like a Howler knocked from a speeding monobike, such was his velocity.
“Aaahaaaaahahaahhaaaa!” Noss yowled, kicking off the very tip of the cliff edge moments later, the ground disappearing beneath his flailing feet, replaced by the blackest of black pits.
He was airborne!
For a moment, as he sailed through space, Prince Noss was sure he glimpsed a glimmering white river meandering its way through the bottom of the gorge below, so many miles beneath it resembled a silver thread running through a cloak of black velvet.
White-imperium? Could it be the blood of Mother Erde herself, the very veins of the planet?
The wondrous sight vanished as quickly as it appeared, blocked by the rolling, uneven cliff faces of the chasm – cliffs off which Noss’s body would doubtless bounce and break as he tumbled to his doom should his leap fall short of Red-mist’s.
Alas, it did.
“Gaafffgh!”
The heftier Noss slammed belly-first into the cliff’s rough, stony ledge, legs dangling, the wind punched from him. He clawed desperately at the weak rock with his dark fingers, pulling loose chalky masses of pebbles, which tumbled past him in miniature landslides.
“Gaaagh!” he yowled.
Finding no purchase, Noss slipped helplessly backwards towards the chasm and certain death. To fall into the planet and mingle with her blood, would it be so bad?
“Gotcha!”
Someone grasped the back of Noss’s thick, furry, hyena neck, halting his slide.
It was Helmut.
“Oh no you don’t,” the big hog grunted, splayed on his front, teetering on oblivion. The cliff rapidly crumbled and shifted beneath his substantial bulk. “Woooagh!” he squealed, trotters kicking. “I’m slippin’ I’m slippiiiin’!”
Tomek dived on Helmut.
Madou dived on them both.
Casimir dived on them all, for what it was worth.
Whilst Tomek, Madou and Casimir held Helmut fast, pellets ricocheting all around them, Themba reached over everyone with his long hammer and offered its brick-sized, imperium-laced head to Noss.
“Take the end, my Prince!” Nurka instructed calmly, even as a hyena beside him was hit by an imperium pellet and fell wounded. “Themba will pull you up!”
Coughing and spluttering, the winded Noss latched onto the lifeline with both paws. Themba dug in his heels and heaved with all his might, every muscle and sinew in his awesome body straining against his dusky, spot-flecked hide.
“Rrrraaagh!”
With Themba’s help, Noss scrabbled up the cliff and made landfall, rolling to safety.
“Hahahaaaahaha!” he cackled. “Invigorating!”
Nurka barked, “Stay down, my Prince!” and drawing his bowstring back let an imperium-tipped arrow fly at the hogs on the opposite side. The volatile yellow-imperium missile exploded spectacularly on impact, sending the Warden’s forces diving for cover.
“Let’s go!” a panicked Casimir urged, tugging on his long ears. “Come on, come on, come oooon!”
“Cut the rope, someone!” Nurka rasped.
Howler Rufus obliged, slicing through said rope with a flick of his imperium rapier. Gathering their wounded, the hyenas and their allies fled into the caves, abandoning the Warden on the wrong side of the chasm, robbed of his bargaining chip and his dignity.
It was all over.
The Gelb hogs looked to the cheated Warden as he nursed his smouldering shoulder and ego.
“How’d they jump that?” one of his two Howlers whispered to the other. “I-I-I just can’t believe it. That Rufus is some kinda super-”
“What now, sir?” the other asked, elbowing his comrade into silence.
Indeed, silence prevailed.
At last the Warden spoke. “I’m not finished yet,” he growled at nobody in particular. “That hyena was Nurka; he’s the one they’re relying on to bring down the Den Fathers. If I can catch him I can bring down their whole conspiracy instead. Yes. I’ll be a hero. The Den Fathers will reward me well enough, better than those treacherous worms Amael and Nikita.”
He suddenly whirled round, cloak billowing.
“Cancel all mining operations and gather as many hogs as we can spare to keep order. We’ll head them off at the exit.”
Chapter 42
Saluting the ALPHA Prefects standing guard either side of the door, Janoah stepped across the precarious gap into what was fast becoming known as Josef’s carriage – the cat hadn’t left the windowless last car to so much as put in an appearance at dinner, so busy had he been working on Rafe’s suit. He was nothing if not dedicated to his work, but nobody had expected Josef to have to repair the Eisenwolf himself.
“How is he?” Janoah demanded, looking down upon her wounded champion.
Rafe lay on a metal operating table in the midst of Josef’s mobile garage, which reeked of imperium fuel and disinfectant. The big wolf’s mighty chest heaved beneath a single, swaying imperium lamp. He had a respirator strapped over his thick, twitching muzzle and bandages binding his muscled midriff. The table and floor beneath him were smeared with his rich red blood, as were Josef’s rubber gloves, though the latter wasn’t a particularly unusual occurrence. The black ALPHA van which smuggled Rafe about Lupa loomed silently behind, like some giant, sad beetle mourning her partner’s condition.
“Alive,” Josef scoffed, peeling off his gory gloves and adding, “Just about. He’s on enough stings and taubfene to euthanise an imperial centipede, though.”
“He’ll make it?” Janoah all but demanded.
“His wound was cauterised,” the doctor explained curiously. “Whoever ran Rafe through inadvertently saved his life by burning many of the severed blood vessels closed. I assume they meant to kill him outright with an imperious shock, but they underestimated our Eisenwolf, as ever.”
“It was Ivan,” Janoah grunted.
“How do
you know?”
“I know.”
Josef hiked his whiskered brows.
“It’s chaos out there,” Janoah went on. “Amael’s threatening to detach our carriages and strand us in a siding.”
“He’s behaving like a Den Father already!” Josef mewed with apparent delight. “But I suppose he’s greased all the paws necessary to make it a done deal.”
“He wants Uther, but the Alpha’s not giving in.”
Leaning on Rafe’s table, Josef said guardedly, “The Alpha will have to interrogate Uther, if only for appearance’s sake. He shan’t do it himself, he never does.”
“I know.”
“Uther might break under torture. He might reveal to Horst or Duncan that you helped arrange Vito’s murder-”
“Yes.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then we are undone, my good doctor.”
“We? You mean you!”
“Not at all,” Janoah chuckled, leaning on the table as well, Rafe lying unconscious between her and his doctor. “Even though the Alpha knows how deeply I’ve had to involve myself with Amael, he can’t be seen to condone my inaction when I could’ve warned Vito he was in danger. The Den Fathers would never understand the bigger picture; that to move now would be to send the conspirators to ground and endanger the whole Republic for some useless old drooler who was as good as dead anyway.” Huffing, Janoah pushed off Rafe’s table, making his mighty body wobble a bit. “The Alpha will throw me under the bus to maintain his position,” she said resignedly, “And if I go, Rafe goes… then you, Doctor.”
Josef cleared his throat. “What if we push to do the interrogation? I could kill Uther; a simple overdose.”
Janoah entertained the notion. “Taubfene?” she assumed, raising her slender, ruddy chin.
“Two-hundred minims. He’d slip into a coma and die. Quite painless.”
“No.”
“Nobody would know. Uther swallowed a suicide capsule. Who’s to contradict me? The Alpha will protect you from Horst and Amael will be glad to be rid of Uther; that’ll calm him down too. Everybody wins-”
“I said, no!”
Josef’s whiskers twisted, “Then what do you propose?”
Janoah thought for a moment, green eyes blinking once and slowly. “I’ll ask the Alpha if I can interrogate Uther by myself. He should allow it. I can then guide his testimony and have him confess only what’s expedient.”
