Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  Finally he was starting to understand how to defeat the rhesus. They never struck the same target twice—and now Tyrell would use their tactic for his own ends. The Great Vault had already been attacked once, making it the safest place to hide. All he had to do was wait for word from the summer house that Mico’s forces had walked into the trap.

  —

  After an exhausting trudge dragging the snake sack behind them, the rhesus arrived at the spot where the spring bubbled under the cemetery wall. Mico, Twitcher and Joop went through first, diving down into the brown stench, groping their way to the hole and hauling themselves up inside the cemetery.

  Mico’s eyes darted everywhere, looking for guards and patrols, but all was quiet.

  “She did it!” He put a reassuring hand on Twitcher’s shoulder. “Fig’s thrown them all the wrong way.”

  Twitcher gave a thin smile; the langur might have taken the bait, but what would they do to Fig when they found out they’d been tricked?

  In the street outside, Gu-Nah, Papina and the others plunged the snake sack into the water and forced it through the hole. Moments later, the whole attack squad was inside the cemetery walls, but the sack was now twitching restlessly—the shock of the cold water had started to revive the python. They had to hurry.

  With the civilian langurs sheltering from the downpour in their homes, the squad made swift and silent progress to the Great Vault, where they attached vines to the snake sack and hauled it up and over the roof, dropping it down into the seclusion of the vault.

  Papina, Gu-Nah and Cadby sprinted on ahead to eliminate Tyrell’s bodyguards, while Mico, Twitcher and the others started to drag the writhing sack toward Tyrell’s inner sanctum. With every heartbeat the python recovered its strength and tensed its huge muscles, trying to rip its way out.

  —

  Tyrell sat hunched up, deep in thought, trying to work out the identity of the informant. Despite his anger at having to root out another traitor, he couldn’t suppress a tingle of excitement, because the chance for total victory was finally within his grasp. If Pogo and Breri could slaughter the rhesus in the Eastern Province, the monkey wars would be over.

  Finally Tyrell would know the peace of absolute power, all monkeys would look up to him in awe, his authority would be—

  The door flew open with a crack.

  Tyrell spun round, and was aghast—standing in the doorway were Mico and Gu-Nah, the two monkeys he feared and hated above all others.

  “Guards!” yelled Tyrell. “Guards!!!”

  “Dead,” said Mico calmly. “All gone. There was no informant. Your army is in the wrong place. There’s no one here to save you now.”

  Tyrell felt the pounding in his head return.

  He had to defend himself, fight back. Desperately he marshaled his thoughts. Divide the enemy. Plant seeds of doubt, set one against the other.

  Tyrell shook himself and cast a withering look at Mico and Gu-Nah.

  “A broken old soldier and a deceitful coward,” he scoffed. “Do you really think a couple of weak and ragged outcasts can challenge the greatest empire in monkeykind?”

  “I’ll tell you about strength,” Mico replied. “About Fig, who volunteered to face your torturers.”

  Slowly he advanced on Tyrell, each footstep driving home his words. “She is a monkey who has been robbed of everything, but who has the strength to turn despair into a will as hard as stone.”

  Tyrell cocked his head defiantly. “If she’s that strong, why is she dead?”

  The words hit Mico and Gu-Nah like a blow. Listening outside the room, Twitcher slumped to the floor and let out a soft howl of grief. Papina put her arms round him, desperately trying to offer some solace.

  “Oh, you didn’t think she’d actually survived?” said Tyrell, amused that, even when backed into a corner, he could shatter hopes. “I dealt with her myself.”

  Mico steeled his nerves. Painful as Fig’s death was, they had to see this through, or her death would be in vain.

  “There’s no greater strength than self-sacrifice,” he said, eyes locked on Tyrell. “Search as long as you like, you’ll never find that kind of courage in your langur.”

  Tyrell sneered and turned away but Mico grabbed him, forcing him to listen. “That’s why we will win.”

  The tyrant wriggled angrily, pushing Mico away. “Order, hierarchy, discipline, obedience!” Tyrell snapped. “That’s what strength is. That’s what builds a great empire—”

  “Which is rotten from top to bottom!”

  “And what would you have? A bunch of outcasts scrabbling in the dirt for a few berries? Is that your vision for the future?”

  “All you’ve created is a monster that crushes monkeys to your will,” retorted Mico. “There’s no freedom in your world. Everything is about serving you.”

  “You should have stayed in the belly of the beast. Then it could have been about serving you as well,” said Tyrell.

  For a brief moment he remembered the dream he’d once had of ruling with Mico at his side, the two of them like brothers, sharing everything. How the hurt of Mico’s betrayal still rankled.

  “Your ‘heroic fight’ is nothing but envy,” Tyrell declared with contempt.

  “There’s nothing heroic about my fight,” Mico said, with the guilt of a confession. “It’s not envy but shame that torments me. Shame that I helped you grab power by treading on the necks of others.”

  “My world works,” Tyrell said, his patience wearing thin with all this moralizing. “My monkeys are safe. They have food in their mouths.”

  “At what cost?”

  “There’s always a cost. Just as there’s always a will in command. And my will is to see you and your rabble destroyed.”

  Mico shook his head slowly. “Not this time.”

  He signaled to Papina and Twitcher, who dragged the writhing sack into the room.

  Tyrell looked at it, puzzled, trying to work out what was heaving so violently inside. Then he heard the sound of cotton tearing as the seams started to split.

  And he glimpsed scales. Snake scales.

  Fear seized Tyrell as he understood the size and anger of the creature that was bursting out of the sack. He looked up and saw Mico, Papina and Gu-Nah backing away, leaving him to face the monster alone.

  “Kill me, and someone else will rise up to take my place!” Tyrell shouted, his voice wavering with fear. “You can’t change the nature of monkeys—they are born to be led! Monkeys are followers! It’s what they do! It’s what keeps them safe!”

  Mico took one last look at the raging tyrant as the python’s head finally tore out of the sack. It spun round, trying to shake off the confusion of the hemlock, but nothing made sense. It had no conception of where it was or what had happened. Overwhelmed by confusion, the python could only do one thing—attack.

  Mico slammed the door shut. Moments later a terrible scream reverberated from inside the room.

  “NO!!!”

  It was pure, primal fear.

  The door shook on its hinges.

  Mico and Gu-Nah gripped the handle tightly, desperate to contain the snake.

  And then a scratching sound—fingernails clawing against the wood, desperate to escape.

  Mico clamped his eyes shut, trying to hold his nerve. The scratching sped up, frantic, terrified, then a strangled gasp…then silence.

  Mico and Gu-Nah strained their ears at the door—they heard the heavy, sinister swoosh of the python’s body moving across the stone floor, but nothing else.

  “It’s done,” whispered Gu-Nah.

  Still Mico gripped the door handle, refusing to let go, his knuckles white. Gently, Gu-Nah prized his hands away, then opened the door a crack.

  They peered into the room and saw the python’s jaws wrapped around Tyrell’s body, its gullet distending obscenely as it swallowed the tyrant whole.

  The monkey who had unleashed such terror and cruelty on the city was now reduced to nothing more than a lump of
meat. One final suck and his feet vanished forever.

  “At last…,” Mico whispered.

  “Ssh!” Gu-Nah held his finger to his lips, urging Mico to be quiet, but it was too late. The python whipped its head round, saw Mico and Gu-Nah and lunged toward them.

  The monkeys stumbled backward and ran through the vault, back toward the main entrance, with the writhing snake in furious pursuit.

  “NOW!” screamed Gu-Nah to Cadby, who hauled open the vault doors, unleashing the python on the cemetery and all its inhabitants.

  The Twopoint guards shivering in the rain didn’t know what to do. Alarmed by the strange sounds from inside the vault, they had sent word to the Eastern Province for reinforcements, but that would take time…and as the vault doors swung open they realized that time was the one thing they didn’t have.

  As the senior guard peered into the vault, the python’s head thundered out of the gloom and blasted into his chest.

  He staggered backward, but with terrifying speed a loop of muscle whipped around him. The last thing he saw was the cold eyes of death bearing down on him as the snake’s mouth yawned wide, clamped onto his head and flicked him sideways.

  The python swung left and right, its furious cold gaze surveying the walled cemetery, tongue flashing in and out, picking up the scent of dozens of monkeys nearby.

  As the snake surged into the mass of tombs, Mico, Papina, Gu-Nah and Twitcher scrambled into the tree canopy and took up positions on the overhead wires. Even from here they could feel the shock wave of fear bowling across the cemetery.

  The python moved with terrifying speed, its sheer size giving the impression that it was everywhere at once. While its head thrust into one tomb, savaging the cowering occupants, its body coiled round those from another tomb, crushing them as they tried to run; the tail thrashed through the air like a demented limb, groping for anything it could catch, and its unblinking eyes searched every shadow and hiding place.

  Utterly beyond reason, the python had gone into enraged frenzy, killing anything that moved, offering no second chance.

  —

  General Pogo and Breri heard the terrified hysteria when they were still a few streets away. Birds screeched frantic alarm calls as they circled the treetops. Stray dogs in nearby alleys took up the call. Even the rats hurried away.

  Pogo’s troops heaved on the gates and entered the cemetery. There were no monkeys anywhere. The rhesus terrorists must be hiding.

  Silently, the general deployed his troops: Breri would take a team of elites around the base of the perimeter wall to outflank the enemy, while Pogo would lead the main thrust straight down the central pathway.

  They pushed into the cemetery, senses bristling, eyes scanning the undergrowth for the slightest movement. The only place they weren’t looking was behind them.

  Cadby, Joop and Jola sprang down from a tree and swung the massive gates shut as more rhesus emerged from under the wheels of a cart and rolled it across, barricading the gates shut.

  The troops at the back of the langur column saw they had been shut in, but obedience had been drilled into them so thoroughly they didn’t dare act without orders. All they could do was send word back up the ranks; by the time General Pogo knew what had happened it was too late—the langur army was trapped.

  “SNAKE!” One of the elites pointed to the diagonal path where scales could be seen slithering past the gaps between the tombs.

  “THERE IT IS!” cried another trooper, pointing in the opposite direction.

  Instinctively the elites huddled together, not knowing which way to run.

  Then a dark shadow fell over them. They looked up and saw the python’s huge body rearing up in front of them, furious and unrelenting.

  The snake slammed its body down on the terrified column of monkeys, crushing and scattering without pity.

  Some made it to the trees, but as they clambered up the branches they met the fists of rhesus fighters dropping down on them with savage ferocity, biting and clawing until the langurs lost their grip and tumbled through the air, smacking onto the hard ground.

  Seeing the ferocity of the attack, Breri cut across toward the main path. “The general’s in trouble!” he shouted.

  But when he turned to urge his troops on, he saw them scatter in a terrified disarray. The python had smashed all military discipline; it was every monkey for himself now.

  In utter bewilderment, Breri looked up at the overhead wires, and saw Mico perched with his band of rhesus followers. For a moment the two brothers locked eyes. Breri blinked, hoping that despite everything, his brother would show him some way to escape the carnage. But Mico didn’t flinch.

  A horrified scream rent the air, jolting Breri to his senses. He looked across, saw the python encircling the remains of Pogo’s team, and he quickly darted in the opposite direction, searching for refuge.

  —

  Pogo and the python finally came eye to eye in the shadow of the Great Vault. As the snake closed in, its huge body cutting off any chance of escape, Pogo realized with a heavy heart that all he had to show for a life of loyalty and obedience was this moment, staring down the gullet of death.

  In those last few seconds, the general finally understood that he should have been fighting a different battle all along, that strength and power were two different things.

  But it was too late now.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come—he had lived long enough.

  —

  Mico and his fighters looked down on the carnage like spectators at some grim performance.

  The unflagging cruelty of the python was mesmerizing—each new kill was swept onto a gruesome pile of monkey corpses outside the Great Vault. Some it would eat later; most would rot. This wasn’t about food—it was about annihilation. The python had decided that the cemetery would be its new home, and it would hunt and destroy anything that moved inside the walls.

  Kill after kill, the rhesus watched in silence; they had waited a long time for this moment; they were owed this hour of reckoning.

  —

  As word of the massacre spread through the city, civilian langurs from the Eastern Province hurried to the cemetery…but they didn’t join the fight. They could see that their entire army was being crushed into oblivion.

  More frightening than the snake itself was the knowledge that somehow Mico and the rhesus had brought a great python under their control and unleashed it on the lord ruler.

  When Mico finally looked up from the carnage, he saw a mass of petrified langur faces gazing at him from the surrounding rooftops…swarms of them, and not one who dared to raise a fist against his small band of conquering warriors.

  The door creaked open and daylight penetrated the darkness. At first nothing; no movement, no sound, just the rancid stench of imprisonment.

  Mico peered into the gloom, clinging to the hope that in these last few cells he would be spared the worst horrors of the tyranny. As his eyes scoured the darkness, he heard a faint gasp.

  “Mico…” The voices were so weak they were barely audible, but it was enough to know they were still alive.

  “It’s safe now,” Mico said gently.

  He knew he mustn’t rush them; they had to emerge slowly from the depths of captivity. He stepped away from the door and listened to the feet shuffling closer. Then slowly, eyes squinting, two monkeys crawled into the light of freedom.

  Mico felt the strength drain from his body as he looked at the degraded figures of his parents. He drew his arms around Trumble and Kima and held them tightly. It was a far cry from the triumphant liberation Mico had always imagined.

  For an age they just crouched there, huddled in silence, terrified that if they spoke it would shatter this dream.

  Only when he was sitting in the warm sunlight of the Great Lawn was Trumble finally able to thank his son. His voice thick with emotion, he reached his hand up to touch Mico’s face.

  “You came back for us…when everyone else had give
n up.”

  “Of course I came back.”

  Mico hesitated, looked down, then finally found the courage to ask, “And Hister?”

  Trumble knew the very least he owed his son was the truth. “She gave up.”

  “She’s dead?” whispered Mico, the guilt rising in his gut.

  Trumble shook his head. “She gave up on you. She collaborated.”

  “Where is she now?”

  But Trumble just shook his head. “We heard nothing in the darkness of the cell. Nothing.”

  Mico hadn’t seen Hister in the fighting, nor in the crowds that lined the paths of the Eastern Province as the conquering rhesus had marched in. She had vanished. Now he would never know what had become of her; it was another regret marring his triumph.

  —

  But there were no regrets for most of the rhesus, who relished their total victory.

  Victory, though, gave them a whole new problem: what to do with all the conquered monkeys?

  “Vengeance,” said Twitcher uncompromisingly, his voice resonating in the summer house, where the rhesus had gathered for a debate about the future. “Before anything else, the guilty must be punished.” He had hoped for a rousing cheer of support, but it didn’t come. A few rhesus nodded their agreement, but to most his dark tone was at odds with the sense of relief that the war was over.

  “Surely we had our vengeance when we defeated their army,” said Mico.

  “Easy for you to say,” snapped Twitcher. “You didn’t lose everything.” He looked around the room, his eyes challenging anyone to question his right to hate the langur. “Papina, your parents were murdered by them. You must understand?”

  She nodded sympathetically. “No one’s suffered more than you…but Fig knew what she was doing.”

  “Then we should honor that and take our vengeance.”

  “Tyrell is dead, his regime destroyed,” said Mico emphatically.