Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “My paws are tied, wife,” he observed.

  “Yes, husband. For your own safety.”

  “Hahaahah! Of course!” the prince chortled, then grunted in pain. “My back feels like… a bear stepped on me.”

  Arjana wetted the cloth and wrung it out. “Chakaa Madou had to hit you. I commanded him to. You were out of your wits.”

  Noss almost disagreed, but mentally trod on his tongue. “I was?” he said instead, playing along.

  “You said terrible things against me. You tried to incite everyone to abandon me. They almost listened, you being a Prince.”

  Noss looked away a little.

  Arjana smiled briefly, “It’s all right. It was just the madness. I forgive you, Noss; as always I must forgive and forget your antics. It is a wife’s duty, even a queen’s.”

  A grunt.

  Arjana slowly lay on the pillows beside Noss and placed an arm across him. “I missed you,” she whispered.

  Noss blinked his purple eyes slowly, “And I you.”

  “Truly?”

  “It’s what got me through Gelb, why I did not throw myself down a pit. All I thought of was you and the….”

  There was a long painful silence as Noss avoided mentioning his cubs. The tent fluttered overhead. Campfires crackled. It was peaceful.

  So peaceful.

  “They took our cubs,” Arjana reminded him.

  “Vladimir promised me. He promised me!”

  “His promises were lies, this wolf, as always they are. But now their rule is destroyed we will have more cubs. We will have many fine Princes and Princesses and marry them to the other tribes. We are still young.”

  “I’m rotting, wife.”

  “No. Not for many years.”

  “My mind burns. I… I….” Noss grimaced and breathed deep, trying not to weep. “Perhaps you should find someone with a clearer mind than I? Take Chakaa Nurka, since you two seem to agree on what’s to be done. He’s young and strong and… not nearly as useless as I.”

  “He is a great hyena, but no Prince of the blood,” Arjana dismissed, sitting up and looking down on Noss, a finger playing on his chest. “Besides, he’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Noss scoffed.

  “He will have rotted with the black rain over Hummelton.”

  The Prince frowned, “What? But why?”

  “It was the only way, Noss. Nurka always knew that was his fate. After him Themba will do the same over Lupa; Nurka will have instructed him what to do. As Chakaa they can survive the poison long enough to open the canisters, longer than those weakling Howlers who cannot even stomach the chunta. Just one of our afflicted is worth three of theirs. And you, my Prince, are worth a hundred more. We are the superior race. That is why they keep us in bondage still when all others they have conquered walk among them. They fear us.”

  Noss closed his eyes. “It’s… it’s all over then?”

  “Yes. The sun is setting, my Prince, you slept all day. The sun sets not only out here, but on wolfkind’s empire. I await Nurka’s message to confirm the fact. Then we will make our next move.”

  “And go where? Do what?”

  Arjana beamed, “To the Reservations, to free the tribes and leave for the wilds, as I have said. Once the Matriarchs know Lupa is finished they will sanction a revolt. It is assured. It is that or starve, the wolves will not be able to feed us.”

  It was all so plausible, so sensible, so clever, and yet Noss felt sick to his stomach. The cold-hearted murder of all wolfkind and countless innocents besides; was it a fair bargain for hyena freedom, would the ancestors look well on the achievements of THORN?

  Noss licked his lips as he remembered a friend. “What happened to Red-mist?”

  Arjana huffed and turned her face, “Your wolfen obsession? I knew you would not be long without mentioning the teacher who poisoned your mind against us.”

  “He made me, Arjana. He saved my life-”

  “Spare me your moaning, he is alive!” the Queen roared, then spoke softer, “Nurka begged me to spare him. Red-mist assisted you in the mines, I understand. You would be dead but for him, though it was all a ruse and not for our benefit.”

  “Can you blame him?”

  “No, he is cunning.” Arjana tapped Noss’s nose, “Perhaps, if you behave, my foolish Prince, I will find it possible to let him go. One wolf, however cunning, will be no threat to the Jua-mata in a post-Lupa world. Though without the blood of the Erde in his veins he will quickly rot.”

  “As will I,” Noss pointed out.

  Arjana shook her head, “Unlike the wolves we will take from Mother Erde only what we must, not more than we deserve. I will enforce our laws.”

  “I’m sure that’s how the wolves started, Arjana. We will become like them and grow with the eating. We will have to build a great city too, then an army of Chakaa, and enslave the little beasts to sustain us just the same, or be defeated by greater powers. It is the way of this cruel world.”

  Sighing, Arjana sweetly kissed Noss’s neck, “Do not talk of death and the past, but life and the future!”

  “I was.”

  “Everything is in paw, husband. You will see.”

  Noss nuzzled into his wife, savouring her warmth, her familiar scent, so long denied him.

  Can I go on? Can I love her, despite all?

  “Untie me,” he said, twisting his spotty arms. “Let me touch you, wife. Let us make love and cubs anew.”

  Arjana laughed, Queen no longer, but a girl again.

  Bvvvvvvpt!

  The white moth fluttered softly into the tent and settled gently on the Queen’s back, interrupting affairs.

  “Soon, my Prince,” Arjana said, extracting herself from Noss and the pillows. “Rest your poor back whist you can. We will soon be on the move again.”

  She leant down and kissed him firmly, parted slowly. He smiled a toothy grin.

  Falling back, the aching Noss watched his beautiful wife take the moth from her back and hang the trembling creature on the tent’s central pole. She removed the message box it was carrying and knelt before the low table where Nurka had shown Noss his maps and plans not more than a day ago.

  Arjana upturned the tiny message box in her paw and something small and shiny fell heavily into her palm; Noss didn’t catch what it was.

  The Queen stared at her palm for the longest time. Suddenly she emitted a snort of anguish and held whatever was close in both paws.

  Noss levered himself painfully upright, “Arjana?”

  “It is… over,” she snuffled, fighting to maintain her composure. “You have won, my mad, mad Noss.”

  “Won? Arjana, what-”

  “Guards!”

  Arjana’s four mighty litter bearers entered the tent and bowed low.

  “Escort our Prince from my presence,” she commanded them. “When I am gone, you will obey him. He is the best equipped to lead you in this wolfen world; he… knows them as I never did. Love him, as you have loved me. That is my wish.”

  “My Queen, please-” one rasped.

  “Silence! Go. Do not return, you must not gaze upon what is left. Leave me here… for the wind and… the rain.”

  Arjana placed something in her mouth.

  “No!” Noss snarled in realisation, tugging on his bonds as the guards descended upon him, pulling him away. “Spit it out! Spit it out, Arjana!”

  “Goodbye my sweet, mad Prince.”

  As Noss was barely dragged from the tent by the strength of four hyenas, he heard the terrible crack of glass, the fizzle of flesh and glimpsed through the flaps Arjana collapsing over the table amidst a hint of black vapours.

  “Arjanaaaaahahahaaaa!” Noss cried, falling to his knees in the mud. “Graaaaaghagh!”

  The white pepper moth burst from the polluted tent and over the prince’s head, thrumming into the twilight firmament.

  “Her spirit flies!” one of the guards wailed, drawing the attention of all who remained at Kambi Mata. “The Queen goes
to the Sky!”

  Hyenas raised their spears and uttered their terrible war-cry, resembling mad laughter, at least to ignorant Wolfen ears like Tomek’s.

  “What they doing?” the youth whispered, twisting in his bonds to look at Rufus, bound to the next stake along.

  “Seeing off their Queen,” Rufus replied.

  “She is dead?”

  “That moth carried Nurka’s news, dear boy. I think it was bad news.”

  Time passed, tears fell, until the Prince of the Four Winds felt his paws being untwined. Arjana’s guards then prostrated themselves before him, fully expecting death for the insult they had dealt Noss, even though it had been a queen’s command.

  Noss remained kneeling, without the will to stand, nor pass judgment. Everything was lost, Arjana, Nurka, Themba, Madou, the cubs, every last beast he cared about.

  Almost.

  Rising slowly to his feet, Noss said numbly, “Release the Howlers.”

  Surprised but obedient, his hyenas hurried to do their master’s bidding, untying the prisoners. Rufus and Tomek were starving, thirsty, filthy and battered, but they knew they were safe with Noss in charge. They shuffled slowly over to the prince, rubbing their wrists all the way.

  Rufus prevented the ever-curious Tomek from going anywhere near Arjana’s tent, both out of respect and because it was a death-trap.

  “I’m truly sorry, Noss,” he said.

  His cheeks and muzzle wetted, Noss smiled. “You have won, Red-mist. THORN is finished.”

  Rufus disagreed, “Nobody’s in any position to gloat, Noss. We’re all of us losers today.”

  *

  Brrrring! Brr-

  Werner snatched the phone from the bar, the only device still working in The Warren. The others watched his face twist as he listened, every rat, rabbit, hog and other conspirator, hanging on his word, to strike, or not.

  Werner shakily put the phone down. “Get out of here, lads,” he said. “It’s all over.”

  “What?”

  “It’s over! They’re coming. Get out whilst you can.”

  After a moment’s pause, the conspirators, with surprising calm and dignity, scraped chairs under the tables, grabbed their coats and filed for the door. Once on the dark Lupan streets they shook paws and split in all directions. The Politzi amongst them would not report for duty come tomorrow morning, or ever turn up in Riddle District again. They would disappear into Lupa’s underbelly, gain new papers, new names, new lives, whatever it took to escape the net and fight on for another day, for another little beast plot.

  Professor Heath remained, cradling the weak and wounded Howler Tristan.

  “Go on!” Werner snorted at him. “Take the cub with yer.”

  “I’m staying. I have nowhere to go.”

  “Puh! Suit yerself.”

  “What about you? Shouldn’t you go?”

  “I’m tired of running,” Werner sighed, leaning on the bar and inspecting his pistol. “Been running since the war, one way or another. I’m done with it.”

  Heath cleared his throat. “Does this mean the black-imperium wasn’t dropped on Hummelton?”

  Werner nodded, “Aye.”

  “It was no fit way to start a revolution. You would have regretted it, all of you.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  Shortly, a Politzi car pulled up outside The Warren. A uniformed brown rabbit hopped out and timidly opened the door to the dark, boarded-up property.

  “Chief?”

  “Borce?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s me, sir.”

  Werner gruffed, “Too late, lad, they’ve all gone! Come in, I won’t shoot yer.”

  “No, chief,” Borce replied, stepping nervously inside.

  “You found me fast.”

  “They’re arresting everyone back at HQ, sir, one of ‘em talked and said this was your hideout.” Borce looked to Heath and Tristan, then back to Werner. “I’m afraid I’ve got to take you all in, Chief. There’s some Howlers on the way.”

  “I know. It’s all over. I shan’t resist.”

  “I dunno what it is you got involved in and I-I-I don’t wanna know. Only, I thought you might want five minutes to, you know, hop out a window, like. You’ve always been really good to me and my uncle.”

  “Aye. Thanks Borce, I appreciate that.” Werner gestured at Heath and Tristan, “These two are innocent; they tried to stop me. They’re heroes. Put that in your report.”

  “Oh. Yes, sir. I will.”

  “Now scram before someone sees you. Go on.”

  Nodding, Constable Borce made to leave, but Werner kept him a moment longer.

  “Oh! Be sure to take The Warren back; you or Casimir are welcome to it. I’ve had it wrapped up in Politzi red tape since it got bombed out. I uh… I shan’t be needing it anymore. Files are in my desk, you can sort it out on the quiet.”

  “Thanks, sir, will do,” Borce said, with insipid cheer. “Good luck then.”

  “Aye, and you.”

  The Politzi rabbit shut the front door and climbed into his car, ostensibly to wait for backup. One puny rabbit couldn’t make such an arrest by himself – that was the excuse Borce had dreamt up anyway.

  The youngster looked to The Warren, took a deep, shaky breath and checked his pocket watch. Howlers would be here any minute. Grand Howler Boris had already been arrested by ALPHA agents swooping on Riddle, and the district itself put under temporary ALPHA control. Whatever was going down, it was massive.

  Bang!

  Blades of light cut through the gaps in the boarded up windows, partitioning the street for a moment.

  Overcoming his natural rabbit timidity, Borce burst inside The Warren just in time to witness Werner Schwartz drop his pistol on the bar and collapse heavily behind it, trotters clutching at his chest.

  It was indeed all over, for him.

  Chapter 56

  The stiff-collared Meryl Stroud clopped through the shafts of morning sunlight in her practical footwear, breakfast tray in paws, flight-challenged bee trundling after her. ALPHA HQ never looked particularly marvellous, even with the lavender and spring sunshine, but with Rafe back everything was a little brighter again in the eyes of Meryl.

  “Miss Stroud!”

  Silvermane’s voice stopped the nurse, and Toggle, in their tracks.

  “Yes, Grand Prefect?”

  Silvermane stole across the hallway, “Miss Str-”

  Bvvvt!

  Almost stepping on the bee and being duly told off, Silvermane tugged his cloak and continued, “Miss Stroud, I’m just going to question Grand Prefect Nikita.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes… and again and again, until the Alpha is satisfied I’ve wrung every last name from him! Now, I need you to write down your statement, about the racking incident with Tristan and Maher.”

  “What for?”

  “To show Nikita we have him on something, even if it’s just murder. Something to make him deal.”

  “To break him, you mean.”

  “Yes, if you will.”

  Meryl grimaced and looked away. “I want no part of it if you’re going to rack him.”

  “Need I remind you,” Silvermane said meaningfully, “that Tristan escaped ALPHA custody under your watch?”

  “It was nothing to do with me! I went to the loo and when I came back he was gone. I’m not a guard, I’m a nurse! What difference does it make? He was being released anyway-”

  “To the Eisbrands, wolfess, not out the back door! Sign a statement and I will forget your lapse of judgement-”

  “Fine!” Meryl barked. “Fine, I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me take this to Rafe before it gets cold.”

  Silvermane saluted, ALPHA-style.

  Meryl had her paws full – a good excuse – and thus took her leave with only a nod, and Toggle.

  Whilst Silvermane went to the stark holding cells, Meryl made her way to ALPHA’s almost equally depressing infirmary wing and Rafe’s perm
anent private ward, with its tiny window, single lamp, and meagre accoutrements. Meryl had set spring flowers in the window to brighten the dingy atmosphere; Rafe could appreciate them, for despite his exertions his eyes were healthy. In fact he was doing very well.

  “Hey,” said the giant, sitting up in bed with a small blue book in his big brown paws.

  “Good morning,” Meryl replied. “Reading?” she chirped, most impressed. She glanced around, “Do you need more light? I can get another lamp.”

  Rafe set aside his book, making room for breakfast. “Nah, I’m done,” he said, rubbing his thighs.

  Meryl slid the tray onto Rafe’s blanketed lap and unfurled a napkin. “What is it?”

  “What?”

  “The book.”

  Rafe adopted a mock-scholarly air, “Ashes of the Gods, by Giacomo Valerio.”

  Meryl paused in mid-napkin-flick, then tied it around Rafe’s thick neck. “Where’d you get that from?”

  “You left it here on the table last night.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, I’m all over the shop at present,” Meryl sighed.

  “It’s really good, ‘en it?” Rafe said. “Well-written. Not too difficult to read.”

  “Yes, well, that’s because it’s Giacomo Valerio. He was an engineer who wrote for the common beast. The vocabulary is simple, but his writing is still magical. I must’ve read it… oh, ten times.”

  “Common beast, am I?” Rafe joked.

  “Most uncommon,” Meryl cooed, “as well you know.”

  “You’re rarer still, Miss Stroud.”

  Rafe pulled the giggling Meryl close. They kissed briefly.

  “I wonder what they’re like,” Rafe said, looking into nowhere.

  “What?”

  “Those Dead Cities, where Giacomo found the first monobike parts. Must be all kinds of things buried there. I know my eisenpelz comes from there too.”

  Meryl primly extricated herself from Rafe and picked up the book, slipping in into her apron pocket.

  “What’re you doing?” he complained. “Can’t I borrow it?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you’d read it ten times-”

  “You shouldn’t be seen reading this sort of thing!”