Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  Finally the waiting was over.

  They gazed up at the menacing sky in silence, wondering which of them would survive the coming days.

  It took Joop’s agitated cry to tear everyone’s eyes from the storm clouds, but as Mico watched the young monkey scurry across the steelworks yard his stomach tightened. Joop had been on lookout duty on the synagogue tower and wasn’t due to return until the middle of the day—if he’d abandoned his post, something must be wrong.

  “The Barbaries…” Joop gasped when he got within earshot. “The Barbaries have gone!”

  “Gone?” exclaimed Mico.

  Joop started laughing as he scrambled up the ladder. “They moved out of the cemetery at dawn. All of them, the whole troop. At first I thought they were on a mission, so I followed. But they headed out of the city and just kept going!”

  Mico and Gu-Nah looked at each other, hardly daring to believe it could be true.

  “I don’t trust it,” Twitcher said with a frown. “They’re setting a trap.”

  “I swear! It was the whole troop. Even their young,” Joop retorted.

  “Barbaries never mobilize as a whole troop,” said Gu-Nah. “They prefer small strike squads.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” said Joop. “They were heading into the sunrise, pacing themselves for a long journey. I tell you, they’ve gone!”

  Mico looked at his troops; a fleeting smile passed across his face. “Then let’s go to war.”

  —

  By noon the whole sky had turned black, as clouds tumbled over each other in the race to deluge the city. Not long after, the winds arrived, great battering rams driving through the streets, forcing those with homes to flee inside, and those who lived in the shanty towns to pray their flimsy dwellings wouldn’t blow away.

  Cars put on their lights, confusing the street dogs, who howled plaintively; children dangled excitedly out of windows.

  Finally the deluge was unleashed with merciless ferocity, pouring off roofs in glistening sheets, overwhelming gutters, surging through every twisting street and alley, soaking rich and poor alike.

  At first, life in the city ground to a halt. People laughed and drank and celebrated the watery bombardment, but by the following morning the novelty had worn off; life had to get back to normal, rain or no rain…

  And the same applied to the langur.

  —

  Because Tyrell used food to underpin political control, he needed a plentiful supply regardless of the season. To help keep the langur storehouses full, he had instigated daily raids on the trucks that got stuck in the traffic jams gridlocking the city every morning.

  Langur elites would hide in the shadows, waiting until the traffic ground to a halt; then a scout would hurry down the line of trucks smelling for the juiciest produce, steal a sample and take it back to his commanding officer. If the C.O. deemed the food good enough, the squad would swing into action, pilfering and ferrying as much as they could to a temporary store until they were chased away by the drivers.

  The system worked well—by targeting a different approach road each day, the langur made sure that no individual truck was hit so often that it provoked a violent backlash; and by using a makeshift store they ensured that even if a mission was cut short, they would still return with some supplies. That was the crucial thing—if you wanted to have a future in the langur, you never returned empty-handed.

  It was precisely because these raids had become such an important part of Tyrell’s regime that Mico made them the target of his first strike.

  Scampering across the glistening rooftops, Joop and Jola made their way to the synagogue in the center of the city and clambered up the maintenance rungs until they were at the weathervane on top of the spire; from here they had a commanding view over the streets. They had brought with them a set of religious masks stolen from a street market a few days earlier; these were to be their signal flags, each mask representing a different approach road.

  As soon as the traffic started to snarl up, Joop spotted a langur squad moving toward Central Avenue—that meant Ganesh. Jola hung the elephant’s head mask from the weathervane and, across the city in his temporary command post, Mico saw it.

  “Central Avenue!” he shouted, and swooped down onto the roof of a ring-road tram, quickly followed by Twitcher, Fig and three of the strongest young rhesus. Speed was everything; it was vital they got into position before the langur started their raid.

  Mico’s team leaped off at the end of Madan Street; Gu-Nah, Papina, Cadby and the others who were riding the following tram stayed on for a few more streets. They knew that when the Central Avenue gridlock was targeted, the langur used a derelict bakery as their temporary store; Gu-Nah’s team was to surround this bakery.

  The monsoon floods had made traffic congestion even worse than usual, and many truck drivers had given up all hope of moving anywhere before lunch. Bunkered down in their cabs with newspapers and cigarettes, they paid little attention to their loads, which made the monkeys’ job a little less dangerous.

  Mico’s team worked their way down the line of trucks, trying to decide which ones would be carrying delicacies that would be irresistible to the langur palate. Twitcher suggested a load of walnuts, but Mico shook his head. “If you could steal anything, would you choose nuts?”

  “We have to decide soon!” urged Twitcher. Further up the line he could already see two langur scouts approaching the traffic jam.

  “It has to be just right,” said Mico, “or there’s no point.”

  Holding their nerve, the rhesus moved to the next truck…and the next…until suddenly Fig froze. She breathed in deeply, savouring the smell. “Peaches. A whole truck of them.”

  “Now that is irresistible,” Mico said with a broad smile.

  The monkeys scampered up the sides of the truck, slid under the tarpaulin and hid between the crates of fruit.

  —

  It should have all been so routine for the langur—dive under the tarpaulin, smash the crates, grab some peaches and ferry them away.

  But then a primal scream tore out of the darkness.

  The langur scout spun round and saw a flash of teeth. A split second later they plunged into his neck and he felt the sticky warmth of blood on his fur.

  The others heard the grotesque gurgle from his punctured throat, reeled back, and were suddenly overwhelmed by rhesus fighters dropping down on them, smashing into their chests, twisting their necks.

  The langurs’ training kicked in immediately. They fought back, lashing out with fists, tearing into whatever flesh they could reach with claws and teeth.

  Trapped in the spaces between the fruit crates, it was an ugly fight, a raw, brutal battle for survival.

  In the mayhem, hidden from daylight, Fig unleashed her rage, pouncing on one of the langur troopers, battering his limbs and clawing at his face, venting her black hatred on his flesh like a monkey possessed. He collapsed under her relentless blows, but Fig didn’t stop. She hammered her fists down on his broken body, beating every last drop of life from him. Even when the bottom of the truck was slippery with blood, still she kept destroying until the pain in her own heart had emptied.

  It was Twitcher who reached out and grabbed her. “Enough. That’s enough.”

  Fig caught her breath, then gazed dispassionately at her ghastly handiwork. She looked up at the others and blinked.

  “What next?”

  —

  At the disused bakery the langur squad commander was busy organizing the pilfered supplies. So far this morning, they’d grabbed some sugared sweets, a sackful of cakes and some cartons of orange juice. They’d need far more if they were to impress high command, but the morning was young, the line of trucks long, and hopes for a bumper haul were high.

  Until one of his troopers ran into the bakery, breathless and frightened.

  “They’re dead!”

  The commander stared at the trooper in astonishment. It had been a while since he’d seen terro
r on a langur face; usually it was on the faces of their victims.

  “Something attacked them!”

  “Show me,” growled the commander.

  They splashed through the mud of the rain-soaked streets, back down the gridlock of trucks, until the trooper stopped at the entrance to a dark alley.

  “In there, sir,” he said fearfully.

  The commander strode into the alley…and stopped dead as he saw the broken bodies of three of his troopers, the blood pouring from their wounds, mixing with the rain that swirled down from the gutters.

  Shock. Then confusion.

  “How?”

  The trooper pointed fearfully to the peach truck. “Something in there killed them. Some…monster.”

  The commander hesitated. What could have cut his monkeys down with such ruthless force? Part of him wanted to retreat—whatever was in that truck clearly had ferocious power. But his orders were to steal a day’s worth of food, and if he returned without it he would be harshly punished. Circumstances may have changed but his orders hadn’t.

  The commander had no choice but to gather his entire squad, both the pilfering monkeys and the ones at the bakery, and marshal them into a ring surrounding the peach truck.

  “GO!” he ordered, and in one coordinated move, his troops scrambled up the sides and dived under the tarpaulin, swooping in from all directions so that whatever was inside had no chance of escape.

  The langur surged through the darkness, banging crates with their fists, driving their sticks into the gaps, ransacking every hiding place…

  And found nothing.

  No monster. No enemy. Nothing.

  —

  Keep moving, keep changing the parameters of battle—that was the key for Mico’s monkeys.

  No sooner had they dumped the langur bodies than they scurried away, letting the heavy rain cover their tracks and wash away their scent. Then, doubling back through the sidestreets, they linked up with Gu-Nah and Papina’s team.

  With the bakery now unguarded, the rhesus formed a chain to whisk the food away to a distant rooftop, where they enjoyed a celebratory feast.

  Day one of the war, and first blood had gone to them.

  Shock punched through the langur troop.

  The squad commander was disciplined for incompetence, and the whole attack made to look as if it was his fault. It had to be, as the only alternative was to admit that someone out there could mount a lethal strike against the langur. Which was unthinkable.

  Secretly, however, Tyrell was reeling.

  It had been a bad time for the lord ruler—the shock of the Barbary desertion had hit him hard, and it took all his wily cunning to make out that it was actually part of his strategy. Langur commanders were hastily promoted to fill the gaps, and extra food was distributed to reassure everyone that all was well.

  But Tyrell was tormented day and night by one question: why had his trusted Barbaries abandoned him?

  As if struggling with that wasn’t bad enough, now Tyrell had to deal with a direct attack on his troops. It wasn’t the loss of food or the death of the monkeys that worried him; it was that someone had dared to raise a defiant fist against him. Worse still, the attack had been executed in such a mysterious way that none of those involved had any idea who was responsible.

  Determined to get a grip, Tyrell threw force and rhetoric at the problem.

  “Whoever has provoked us will find they have woken a vengeful monster!” Tyrell boomed. “We are the greatest troop monkeykind has ever known. We have the strength to crush anyone who opposes us. In the future, every food snatch squad will be protected by six guard patrols!”

  —

  Which was exactly the response Mico wanted; the more reinforcements, the better, because the rhesus had no intention of hitting the same target twice. Unpredictability was one of their key weapons.

  They waited until there was a particularly intense deluge, then leaped onto a set of trams heading downtown to the old cemetery.

  Lying flat on the slippery tram roofs, they looked down on the streets speeding by and could see that, despite the atrocious weather, langur patrols had been stepped up all over the city. Tyrell was obviously rattled.

  Once at the cemetery, the monkeys divided into three units under the commands of Mico, Gu-Nah and Papina, as their inside knowledge would be crucial to the mission’s success.

  With all the flooding, the drinking pool had turned into a churning drain, channeling a fast flow of water under the wall.

  “Ready?” Mico asked.

  Silent nods as they steeled their nerves. But Mico could sense something wasn’t right. He studied their eyes: Fig met his gaze with unblinking determination; the younger monkeys were tense and excited, eager to get started; but Papina looked down briefly.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

  Papina hesitated. “How many do we have to kill?”

  So that was it—the bloodshed had got to her. The attack on the food snatch squad had been brilliantly effective, but the sight of the twisted, smashed bodies had sat heavily on her conscience. And now they were going to kill again.

  “We’ve only just begun,” said Fig, cold as steel.

  “I know,” Papina whispered.

  Mico looked at the two monkeys thoughtfully. Despite all that she had lost, Papina still had compassion.

  The problem was, right now, compassion had to be smothered.

  “Remember, it was Tyrell who waged war on you,” Mico said, addressing them all. “Tyrell who drove you from your homes, who herded you into an alley and slaughtered you in cold blood. But he didn’t act alone. Ordinary langurs helped him, cheered him, struck the blows on his behalf. They didn’t have to follow orders; they could’ve chosen resistance.”

  He pointed at the cemetery. “Every monkey inside those walls has chosen to stay, chosen to accept what’s going on, which makes them all guilty. Even my own family.” As Mico’s words sank in, he saw Papina’s expression change, her resolution harden.

  “We didn’t start this,” he said grimly, “but we are going to finish it. We have to finish it.”

  He looked at Papina, stretched out his hand and stroked her head gently. “Now do you see?”

  Papina nodded.

  “Then GO!”

  One by one the monkeys jumped into the swirling pool and let themselves be sucked through the water flume. They bobbed up on the other side of the wall, and were carried along the torrent inside the cemetery, grabbing hold of roots sticking out of the banks to steer themselves.

  Everything seemed eerily deserted—the langurs were all huddled inside their homes, sheltering from the rain, which fell heavily on the tombstones and made huge, muddy puddles of the paths.

  Silently, swiftly, the rhesus floated undetected toward their target: the Great Vault.

  They arrived at the back wall and, with the help of some wild ivy, scrambled up. Looking across the courtyard and the pool, Mico could see that little had changed since he was last there. All the security effort was concentrated on the main doors; once inside, the vault was a quiet sanctuary.

  Not for much longer.

  Gu-Nah’s squad was to target the guards at the main entrance, while Mico had to lead his team deep inside, where senior langurs carried on the day-to-day business of running the troop.

  Papina’s squad was charged with securing the pool area, as this was the vital escape route, so splitting into twos, they swept down the rooms, searching for the enemy.

  Twitcher kicked open the door to the first cubicle and Papina dived in, heart pumping, ready for the kill, only to find it empty.

  He slammed open the next door. Again Papina rushed in, nerves jangling…again, nothing.

  A strangled cry from the opposite side of the pool made her spin round—she saw Cadby yanking down on the neck of a Twopoint guard, who crumpled to the ground.

  Cadby swayed, shocked by his own actions. For a moment it seemed as if he was going to be engulfed by a wave of remor
se.

  “Cadby!” Papina’s voice was hard, uncompromising. Cadby blinked, looked up, caught her eye. She pointed to the pool, reminding him of the plan. Cadby shook himself, then picked the dead guard up and tossed him into the water.

  At the entrance to the Great Vault, Gu-Nah’s squad took out three guards with brutal efficiency, then dragged the bodies back to the pool, leaving bloodred stripes criss-crossing the stone floor.

  Mico led his team deep into the vault interior, where they heard voices echoing in the stone chambers. Closer and closer they crept, peering round doorways, until they saw three senior langurs chatting over some papaya fruit.

  Mico thought he recognized one of them and for a moment struggled to place him. Then he checked himself—no point remembering.

  With well-practiced discipline, Mico’s squad burst into the room—the langurs barely had time to understand what was happening before they were beaten to death.

  The attack hadn’t lasted long, but as Mico gazed at the pool, swirling red with blood, he knew it had changed the monkey world forever. This pool, the ultimate symbol of langur power, was now defiled with the bodies of dead guards. With a guilty pride, he saw that there was a dark brilliance in the savagery of this symbol.

  “RHESUS!!!” A screech from outside the vault walls. One of the langur guards must have escaped.

  Immediately the rhesus started scrambling up the walls, then they launched into the tree canopy and climbed for their lives.

  Down below, Twopoint guards splashed through the mud and launched themselves into the lower branches, determined to catch the terrorists.

  But a treetop battle wasn’t in the rhesus’ plans—they swung through the branches until they were within leaping distance of the power lines that fizzed dangerously in the rain. After a moment’s pause to check which cable was which, they leaped onto the grid and scattered across the wires.

  As the senior Twopoint guard watched the attackers melt away, he saw his own career vanish with them; in a last desperate attempt to salvage something from the debacle, he commanded the guards, “FOLLOW ME!”

  He launched toward the power lines, reaching out and gripping the wires tightly with hands and feet.