by Adam Browne
“Gaaghfffgah!
Nurka dived on Themba’s back. “Stop it! Themba!”
Themba flicked his head back, chinning Nurka and shoving him away. The disturbed pepper moth took flight in a flurry of scales as Nurka stumbled and rolled across the deck, only to settle on him again once he came to a rest.
“Don’t worry, Nurka!” Themba claimed furiously. “You’re next! We’ll open that canister together! Haahahaaaaahaha!”
Grabbing the spluttering Uther under the nose of his helmet, Themba dragged him to the hatch. The chin-strap choked the already winded Wild-heart as he kicked and struggled to right himself, to fight back, get away, anything. He could see the bright blue of the sky through the hatch, the odd tall tree passing miles away. Soon he would have a fine view of the lake racing to meet him, and unlike a solid steel imperium flask he would break, even on water.
“Aaaagh!” he roared, the wind whipping at his ears. He looked up and saw the bloodied Themba looming over him, his wide eyes full of terrible, imperium-fuelled mania.
“Stop!” someone called over the windy tumult. “Stop, I say, or I’ll shoot!”
Deaf to reason, Themba didn’t even look up.
Ka-crack!
“Ungh!”
From down below, Uther witnessed Themba’s marvellous black and white cloak explode in red blood. The hyena fell instantly and heavily to his knees, his armoured legs rendered suddenly powerless.
Uther was free!
Making good his escape, the Howler rolled aside and searched the hold with his eyes, eventually spotting, of all the beasts gracing Ulf’s green Erde, Montague Buttle across the way with the Greystone rifle held firmly in his ginger paws.
Nurka stood up, stepped forward. “Themba?” he gasped.
Holding his mangled torso together, Themba looked across at Nurka and managed a toothy, red-tinged hyena cackle.
Slowly, he fell forwards.
“No!” Nurka rasped. “Themba!”
Closing the distance in a few short bounds, Nurka grabbed the back of Themba’s cloak. It was too much. Themba’s dead weight and Nurka’s momentum pulled them both off balance and into the blue void.
They disappeared, together, and in silence.
Everything happened so fast that Uther could scarce contemplate it. He and Monty peered into the hatch, the cat falling on all fours. Neither saw evidence of Nurka or Themba, only their pepper moth fluttering over the water, shedding scales that caught the sunlight like a shower of snow.
One thing was plain – the Nimbus was perilously low.
“The black-imperium!” Uther shouted at Monty, pointing to the corner. “We got to throw it overboard!”
Monty remained still, numb, long whiskers whipped by the ferocious wind.
Uther grabbed him, “Oi, wake up, Monty! Help me!”
“What? Yes! Right, right!”
Uther staggered over to the imperium and with Monty’s help rolled it to the hatch and into oblivion. Uther nearly fell out with it he was so bruised and exhausted, but Monty grabbed him firmly and pulled him back.
“Come on, Uther,” the cat said, tugging him along.
“Eh?”
“There’s a way off the old Nimbus yet. The others are waiting. Quickly now!”
Monty led Uther along the lowest level of the ship, down to the belly some way forward. The creaking and groaning was deafening, the smoke thick and choking. It was dark and baffling, but Monty knew the way by heart and led his Howler friend to another, smaller hatch.
Peering down, Uther saw a red, four-winged flying machine with a propeller in the tail, like the one Linus had found on the farm. It was attached to the underside of the Nimbus with a scaffold. There were two seats, one behind the other. Penny sat in the front, her paws on some control sticks; Madou was crammed in the back, holding Linus. Below them the waters and forests of Everdor passed, ever larger, ever closer.
“What in the name of Ulf is that?”
“A plane, me good ‘Owler. Penny was gonna drop it over Hummelton and whiz about in it for a surprise. Haha!”
“Monty, Uther!” a goggled Penny cried, starting the engine and beckoning. “Quick!”
“Coming, Sweetpea!” Monty hollered. “I’ll send him down!”
Uther looked at Monty, “We can’t all fit in that tiny thing!”
“You go!”
“Me?”
Monty pulled on a big beige backpack with countless strings and buckles rattling about. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”
Now Uther was utterly confused.
Monty winked. “Trust me! Down you go; squeeze in with the wife!”
Reluctant, but knowing there was no time, Uther descended the wind-whipped ladder and manoeuvred into the front seat with Penny. It was a very snug fit.
No sooner had Uther glanced suspiciously back at Madou and Linus than Penny shouted, “Get the lever Mister Uther!”
“Lever?”
“That one above you. Give it a good hard tug!”
Uther located the lever, reached up and pulled. His stomach trailed behind as the flying machine nose-dived and dropped like a stone.
“Woooooooagh!”
Chapter 55
The Elder Train was picking up speed, perhaps from a slight decline in the gradient, or perhaps Amael had ordered the firebox stoked with more imperium to put distance between himself, Hummelton and any repercussions; Josef did not know the lay of the land, even less the lay of Amael’s mind.
Or was it the twisted geography of Janoah’s unfathomable mind everyone needed to worry about? What game was she playing now?
“It’s getting away!”
At Olivia’s urging, Josef changed up a gear and accelerated. Suddenly, the track and road that had run parallel since leaving Hummelton veered away from one another, thus did train and van part company. Olivia watched the Bloodfang Elder Train skew away across the fields of Everdor and through a forest, trailing plumes of ash.
“Does this road go back to the track?”
“I don’t know.”
Olivia turned in her seat and shunted aside a square flap in the partition between the driver cabin and the rear. “Bruno!” she called, then, “Rafe?”
The Eisenwolf’s grey metallic face appeared in at the face-sized aperture. “YEAH?”
“What do you need us to do?”
“WHATCHA MEAN? GET ME NEAR THE TRAIN.”
“Do you mean alongside it or what?”
Rafe paused, metal ears swivelling a bit.
“STOP ON A BRIDGE?” he suggested at length. “I CAN JUMP ON THE ROOF.”
“It’s going awfully fast.”
“I’LL BE FINE.”
Josef hissed, “I don’t think we can get far enough ahead, I’m having enough trouble staying with it as it is.”
“WELL PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN, THEN!”
“If we’re seen going too fast we’ll be stopped by Howlers and then what? They’ll see you!”
“SO WHAT? NOW COME ON, JAN NEEDS ME!”
“You assume, Rafe.”
“SHUT UP! I KNOW SHE DOES! NOW GET MOVING OR I’LL DRIVE!”
Josef scoffed, “You can’t drive, you fool!”
“I CAN! I USED TO… I THINK.”
“You did,” Olivia said, grasping the flap. “You used to drive your dad’s little truck.”
“MY DAD?”
Olivia chuckled, “Well… a sort of dad anyway.” She leant closer, “We used to know each other, you and I. Do you remember? You used to come to the Arkady University all the time to see Sar… to see me.”
“YOU?”
“Oh yes. It was getting serious-”
A violent swerve threw Rafe and Olivia about and put paid to their trip down memory lane.
“Pothole,” Josef excused, clearing his throat. He popped open the glove box and threw Olivia a hefty book. “Make yourself useful and find us a bridge.”
Olivia read the book cover; it was a detailed roadmap of Lupa. “This is for Lu
pa.”
“It has a Hummelton pullout in the back.”
“Right.”
Whilst Josef swung the ALPHA van round ever more quaint country lanes, forcing Rafe back there to sit down on his bench before he fell down, Olivia flicked through to the pullout of Hummelton. It was a small scale, charting only the main thoroughfares. Even so, roads splayed in all directions from Hummelton, resembling the legs of a spider squashed between the pages. Olivia quickly located the railway line and followed it east towards the edge of the paper. The railway shunted suddenly south and a road intersected it.
Olivia excitedly tapped the page, “Got one.”
“Where?” Josef demanded.
After a quick survey, his passenger nodded ahead, “Keep going straight on. The railway turns back into us in a few miles.”
“A turn? Good, the train will slow down a bit.”
Rafe came back to the hatch. “YOU GOT ONE?”
“Yes,” Olivia confirmed proudly.
As the van rounded a corner, Josef was presented with a long, if hilly, straight road, at the end of which was trouble.
“Checkpoint.”
“RAM IT,” Rafe said flatly.
“Are you mad? They’ll send Howlers after us! No, we’ll talk our way through.”
“THAT’LL TAKE AGES. JUST KEEP GOING.”
“I’m not getting arrested, thank you!”
Suddenly Rafe’s right arm burst through the hatch and grabbed the Doctor’s coat lapels. “IF JAN IS HURT BECAUSE WE LOSE THAT TRAIN I’LL THUMPING STRANGLE YOU! I KNOW YOU HATE HER! I’M NOT AS THICK YOU THINK, YOU KNOW!”
“Strangle me? Without my expertise you’d die! Killing your saviour, that’s a pretty thick move.”
Rafe shook his doctor, “DON’T YOU STOP!”
“All right, all right!” the cat huffed. “Just let go!”
No sooner had Rafe withdrawn back into his cell like some circus monster than Josef put his foot down. The enormous ALPHA van accelerated along the lane, bearing down on the checkpoint and gushing a thick plume of ash. The pig in the little booth didn’t even look up from his novel and packed lunch until the barrier exploded!
Olivia flinched as bits of stripy wood flew over the windscreen; she looked in the mirror and saw the pig in the booth drop his sandwich in favour of a telephone.
“We’ve gone and done it now,” she laughed, turning to Josef. “Is it always like this in ALPHA?”
“More or less,” the cat said.
After another mile or so racing along the hilly straight road and feeling quite sick on the sudden dips, the ALPHA party spotted the promised bridge. It was a modest brick and mortar affair spanning a narrow chalk gully, the white rocks stained with telltale streaks of ash.
Suddenly a great plume of ash raced by, punching the trees and bushes that clung desperately to the rocks, their branches waving like rail side spectators.
“The train!” Olivia gasped.
Skidding to a halt atop the bridge, Josef almost fell out the van and scrambled round to open the back door; Rafe clomped down and round to the apex of the bridge. He stepped up on the low wall and crouched with surprising, sure-footed grace. The carriages of the Elder Train rumbled beneath him as he quickly reached for the red valve on his backpack.
“Bruno!” Olivia said, hurrying over and twisting it for him. “There.”
“THANKS.”
Backpack exhaust puffing merrily away, Rafe glanced back, gave a metallic thumbs-up, then pushed off the wall with an almighty, air-warping punch of imperious power that knocked Olivia back a step.
“Agh!”
Recovering her balance, the wolfess ran to the wall with Josef and saw Rafe land neatly on the very last carriage. He didn’t stumble, or even crouch; he just stood tall, arms down, cloak fluttering, tail ribbon trailing. Shortly he was lost to sight, vanishing amidst a sun-dappled collage of ash clouds and leafy branches.
“Magnificent!” Olivia heard herself blurt. “He’s like a… a jumping spider. How can someone that big and heavy move like that?”
Josef adjusted his tinted specs. “Because… he is a pureblood phenotype in an eisenpelz,” he said logically, turning to the wolfess. “You could be every bit as magnificent, perhaps even more so.”
Olivia looked to the cat, then beyond him, to some approaching bikes. Two Hummel Watchers sped to the bridge on tracked duos and hopped off with pistols drawn.
“Halt!”
Josef and Olivia turned around and raised their paws accordingly. The Doctor immediately set about explaining away the situation. “Don’t get excited, Howlers. We’re ALPHA agents on a mission of Republic security.”
“Aye! Like smashing up Howler property?” one replied.
“It was an emergency,” Olivia excused, turning a little and pointing below. “We had to get to the bridge and-”
“Shhshssh!” Josef hissed.
“ALPHA agents on a mission you say?” came the other, walking round to the back and pulling out some pipes and strange tools. “What’s all this?”
Josef raised a finger and went to move, “Don’t touch that!”
“Stay where you are!” said the first Watcher. “Turn around, paws on the wall!”
The Hummel pair set about frisking the criminals.
“Spread your legs!”
“No!” Olivia protested.
“Spread ‘em!”
“I don’t have anything to hide!”
“Och!” the Hummel cooed, leaning close and pinching Olivia on the rump. “Then you won’t mind me looking, will you mah lovely wolfess? Hahaha-gagh!”
Pfzzzt!
Pffzaack!
Josef flinched and ducked, thinking the bangs and flashes were shots were being fired. He soon gathered the truth, that the Hummels were lying about the road with Olivia Blake standing over them, her paws smoking and quivering.
Standing up and looking about, Josef said, “Now you really have done it.” He grabbed Olivia by the arm, “Come on-”
The frightened wolfess whipped her limb away.
Fearing the same fate as the Hummels, Josef raised his paws and backed off. “I get it; you don’t like to be touched,” he deduced, looking at the smouldering Watchers. “But I can help you. That’s all I ever wanted to do, you must see that now. Sara and that do-gooder Linus and kept getting the way, but they have me all wrong.”
Olivia dipped her chin and looked at her burning paws. “Can… can you stop the pain, Doctor?”
A nod, “Somewhat. In ALPHA, under my supervision, you will have all the venom you will ever need. And besides, you’re female, you will cope with the rot much better than Rafe.”
“I will?”
“You’re a trained imperiologist aren’t you? You know how it works. I taught you the latest theories myself.”
Olivia laughed a little, “Yes, I-I suppose you did.”
Beaming broadly, Josef Grau slowly, gently, placed a paw on Olivia’s back and marshalled his prize towards the ALPHA van. “Come along, my dear. We’re going to do great things you and I; great things.”
*
The embers and brandy were already out in the plush and distinctly Bloodfang-themed lounge car. Passing Janoah her drink, Amael sat opposite and knocked his back in a heartbeat.
It was not a celebratory drink, but a nerve-calming drink, and Janoah needed it just as much as Amael.
As everyone drank and smouldered in awkward, tense silence, the Everdor scenery rolling by, Janoah wondered if the other Elders, Den Guard and Howlers on the train knew what was being done in their name. I’m not even supposed to know the extent of it; rotting the Den Fathers and then taking control of Lupa during the subsequent confusion and power vacuum was all Amael had voluntarily revealed. When is he going to admit he’s having all of Hummelton gassed by a balloon? Indeed, has Nurka succeeded? Did he even take off? There’s no way of knowing until we come to a station with telephone or a telegraph.
“It must be nearly time,” Janoah said, fis
hing for info.
Amael broke from a trance and checking a clock on the carriage wall replied, “Soon, unless Nurka came early to eliminate me, in which case our hyena friend will be in for a shock come future negotiations.”
Janoah laughed a little, “My clever Amael.”
He smiled.
More fishing. “What’s to be done with Hummelton anyway?” Janoah asked.
“Done?”
“Who gets it?”
Amael smiled, “Why? Do you want it?”
“Hah! I’m no bumpkin.”
“Just as well,” the Den Father said, pointing with his ember. “The hyenas will turn the place over; probably loot everything. It’ll be a mess. They might even claim it for themselves, but they will be dislodged in due course.”
Janoah sat astonished by Amael’s consummate acting. Not a twitch, not a pause for thought, just a smooth, plausible response from this now seasoned liar who knew Hummelton would be a dead zone within the hour.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Linus and Uther are twiddling their thumbs in a farmyard, thinking what an idiot I am for sending them halfway across the country over some crazy hunch, whilst a mad hyena unimaginatively drives a truckload of black-imperium into Hummelton’s capital den and explodes, killing just the Den Fathers and their immediate entourage.
Perhaps Amael’s not what I thought he was.
Either way I’m helpless. I can’t even arrest anyone, not without Rafe. I’m trapped.
Screeeeee-e-e-e-e-e!
The breaks squealed, sending brandy slopping over tumblers onto waxed tabletops. Conspiratorial Elders clutched at the arms of their chairs and looked to one another in panic.
“We’re stopping!”
“Why?”
“Maybe it’s a Hummel blockade?”
Amael shot to his feet. “Shut up you cowards!” he snarled at them all, throwing his empty glass to the floor. “Probably a red signal, that’s all. There’s another train ahead that we’ve had to stop for.”
“There are no services to and from Hummelton today,” said Elder Duval. “It’s the Summit’s opening day, there’s no freight or passenger services allowed for security’s sake.”
Amael grunted, “Humph! Leaves on the line then.”
