by Adam Browne
With all concerns receding rapidly into the distance, Bruno nodded, “Yeah. Dad always says so.”
“Good, good-”
Brrrriiing!
Bruno deftly extracted himself from Werner’s bulky embrace and went behind the bar to fetch the telephone, saying on the way, “I’d better get that.”
“That’s the third time it’s rung,” one of the Politzi rats snorted through his foamy beer.
“Third time?” Werner said, looking at his subordinate.
“Yeah, you were outside last time, boss. Wasn’t anybody there though, they just hung up again. Weird.”
“Is that right, Denny. Is that right.”
Bruno set the phone’s fancy base on the bar a moment and put the earpiece to his ear, before grabbing the base again and speaking into it. “Hello, this is The Warren, Riddle District, how can I help?”
A familiar voice crackled hurriedly in his ear, “Bruno, don’t say anything! Don’t speak, lad! Just listen!”
Bruno nearly piped ‘Dad’, but refrained.
“Just keep nodding and saying yeah,” Dad whispered down the line. “Pretend I’m a client, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” the young wolf nodded.
“All right, listen. Is Werner there?”
His heart thumping and mind frazzled by an already strange day, Bruno accidentally made eye-contact with the hog in question. “Yeah,” he said, adding, “Yeah, we’re open for business, sir. The windows will be fixed by tomorrow.”
“Good, lad, that’s really clever,” Dad praised. “Listen, whatever Werner’s said to you is a lie. Don’t go with him. Just get out of there. Hear me? Make an excuse and hop out a window, but don’t make it obvious, Werner’s no fool.”
“Yeah… yeah, tell me about it,” Bruno said, with a convincing chuckle.
“He let me go, I think,” Dad explained, “but I couldn’t twist his arm for you.” He drew a deep breath, “The Howlers are after you lad; the Bloodfangs that is. Whatever Werner tells you, if you go into their Den, you’ll not come out the same wolf as you went in, if ever.”
Bruno gulped. “Yeah? Why’s that then?”
Casimir sighed, “I’ll explain everything later, but I swear to you, lad, I did what I did to give you a good life. It’ll be different from now on. I’ll find a way to fix everything, we’ll go somewhere. Just get outta there, Bruno. Please!”
After what felt an eternity, Bruno found his wits.
“All right, so the usual seat then?” he said, grabbing a pen and writing in the reservation book.
“Aye, the usual place,” Dad replied fondly. “You know the emergency drill, lad.”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“I love you, lad. Be strong. I’m gonna hang up now.”
“See you then.”
Bruno slowly set the earpiece on the hook.
“Who was that?” Werner demanded, snout flaring a little.
“Oh… just a regular booking,” Bruno sniffed.
“Regular? You’ve only been here a few weeks.”
“Ah, word of my legendary waffles spreads pretty fast, Werner,” Bruno joked, paws spread on the bar.
Mind and heart whirring, Bruno removed his suddenly stifling coat and threw it over the bar; hoping at the same time to throw Werner off guard, since someone who planned to flee would surely keep their coat on.
Acting natural, he hoped, Bruno grabbed two glasses and drew the hog and himself a beer.
“Cheers!” Werner said.
Bruno slaked his thirst. He noticed his paws were trembling, so he put the glass down in a hurry lest Werner saw. Luckily the pig had his thick snout in his glass at the time.
Bruno made small talk. “So, how are you anyway?”
“Very well, thanks.”
“Good.”
Werner nodded, “You’re looking well yourself, Bruno.”
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
“Still boxing and lifting weights?”
“Yeah.”
“You get bigger every time I see you.”
Bruno scoffed, “So do you, mate.”
There was a brief silence; the other Politzi looked at one another. Finally, Werner burst out laughing and slapped his knee. “Ahaahahaaa! Aye, I do, but in the wrong places,” the huge pig admitted. “Not like you, lad. Oh, to be young and fit again. I had a body of rock, back in the day, just like yourself. Undefeated in the ring, I were. Werner Iron-snout they called me. Hah! Never boxed yer dad, mind, different weight class see, but… maybe me and you could’ve gone a few rounds.”
Bruno just smiled amiably.
‘Time to go,’ he told himself, whilst telling Werner, “I’m gonna spend a penny, all right?” and hiking his thumb at the stairs.
Werner chuckled, “It’s your house, lad, you don’t have to ask my permission.”
Bruno forced a convincing laugh.
Wiping his fingers on his shirt, the big wolf climbed the stairs and ducked under the ceiling as usual, leaving Werner and the others below.
Once Bruno was out of sight, Werner set his beer down, reached across the bar and grabbed the reservation book. He flicked through to the last entry.
Not a reservation, but a meaningless scribble.
With a last gulp of beer and a shake of the head, Werner turned to his constables and flicked a trotter at the door. Setting aside their drinks, the Politzi grabbed their hats and truncheons and filed out in silence, save for the door bell, which jingled overhead.
Grunting and sniffing, Werner climbed for the stairs. They creaked under his bulk. Once he had squeezed through the gap between the stairs and ceiling and alighted on the first floor, the layout of which he was already familiar with after superficially searching for the eloping Casimir, Werner clopped to the bathroom and tried the door knob.
It opened. Inside was a tin bath, grooming sink and all the rest, but no Bruno. The window was shut and locked.
Werner picked up the pace, trotting to the nearest bedroom, the one Casimir had leapt out of.
Locked.
Werner rapped on the door. “Bruno, come out,” he said. “I know that was your dad on the phone.”
Nothing, save for some scuffling.
“Don’t be daft, lad!” Werner warned. “Don’t try and run, you’ll only get hurt!”
No response.
Werner stood back and rammed the door with his shoulder. With his great size and strength, not to mention weight, it buckled in a single blow. Werner stumbled into the room just in time to see Bruno’s dark paws release the windowsill.
“Bruno!” Werner shouted, hurrying to the window.
Landing awkwardly on the roof, Bruno fell on his rump. He looked up and saw Werner poke his pink head out the bedroom window.
“Bruno, listen to me!” he called. “Casimir lied to you! He’s been lying to you for years!”
Bruno’s said nothing, but his face conveyed ‘what?’
Glancing around for his fellow Politzi, Werner hissed as loudly as he dared, “He meant well; I know ‘cause I was part of it. We did it for your own good, lad. But the truth is you’re dying. You’re rotten and always have been, ever since you were little. Casimir’s kept you going as long as he can, but he can’t afford the amount of venom you need now. If you don’t go to the Howlers and get some proper juice you’ll die, I’m telling yer!”
Bruno sat frowning, ears erect.
Werner held out a trotter. “I won’t let no harm come to yer, I swear. You’re like my own blood, you know that. Come with me and I’ll make it easy for yer.”
Without a word, Bruno scrabbled to his feet and hopped off the roof.
“Bruno!” Werner shouted, seething, “Aww schmutz!”
The moment his paws hit the street a great weight slammed into Bruno from the side, knocking him to the smooth yet painfully immovable cobbles.
Bruno made to rise, but his world exploded in a baffling cacophony of trotters and paws, breeches and tails, as Werner’s uniformed Politzi thugs de
scended upon him, hitting him about the back and head with their truncheons and holding him down with their combined weight. They shouted and snarled at one another and at him, but Bruno couldn’t make head nor tail of it all. He rolled into a ball and tried to protect his head with his arms, to weather the storm.
It’ll be over soon.
No. I’ll be taken to a cell, questioned and beaten. Remember Dad’s stories, what he suffered at the paws of the Politzi and the Howlers, how so many of his friends just disappeared? Is that what you want to happen?
Get up! Bruno told his trembling, throbbing body. Fight back. Do something, anything!
“Gaaagh!”
Bruno pushed himself off the floor, sending the scuffling bodies tumbling off his back. They hit him, but he felt nothing as the red mist descended. The urge to survive seized the helm and steered Bruno’s fist expertly into the nearest Politzi face, all those sparring sessions making it second-nature.
With a fleshy thud the unfortunate rat dropped like a stone, his red hat flopping in a filthy puddle.
Next the pig; Bruno was on him, his whole weight pushing him to the ground, his fists laying into him, left, right, left, blood and teeth took fly and he was out of it.
Crack!
Something slammed into Bruno’s back, no mere truncheon, but an explosion of pain.
The wolf fell forward over the unconscious pig and snarling in agony crawled along the cobbles a few yards, trying to get away from the pain, as if he could outrun it. But there was no escaping. His whole left side throbbed like he’d never known, had his arm fallen off at the shoulder? No, it was there, but the pain by Ulf!
I’ve been shot!
Holding his arm stiff, for that eased it a little, Bruno levered himself upright and turned on the last Politzi rat. The constable had a pistol in his paws, a pistol that he was hurriedly trying to reload. He fumbled with the cartridge right up until the moment Bruno grabbed the pig’s stray truncheon from the ground and brought it round into the Politzi’s rat’s skull.
There was a flash of light, a thunderous clap.
Pfzaack!
“Agaghpff!”
Spiralling through the air, the rat slumped into a concrete gutter, silenced.
Bruno stood, chest heaving, body trembling, hot blood swilling in his throbbing mouth.
The rat didn’t move.
Dropping the truncheon like a hot poker and wiping his tingling paw for good measure, Bruno, despite everything, reached down and grabbed the downed rat by the back of his shirt, turning him over, lest he drowned in the putrid ashen water.
There was no danger of that; his skull was caved in on one side, revealing a dark, bloody hole and what Bruno swore was a hint of pale brain.
With a distinctly wolfen yelp, Bruno dropped the rat and fell on his rump. He scrabbled across the slick cobbles on three out of four limbs, kicking with his feet to distance himself from the rat’s staring, accusing eyes. The only thing that checked Bruno’s panicked crab-like scuttle was the pain. He collapsed to nurse his left arm, to grasp it tight and roll in the street.
Once the agony had subsided a little, Bruno felt a new sensation deep in his gut. It rose up his chest and into his mouth and forced its way through his lips.
He vomited.
It wasn’t much, just the beer from a few minutes ago. The acid and alcohol stung his nose and bleeding mouth.
Lips quivering, dripping, he looked at his offending right paw, opening and closing his bloodied, tingling fingers. Beyond them, coming into sharp focus, lay the other rat and the hog, both unnervingly still in the midst of the road.
With a whimper of fright, Bruno got up and staggered down the street, into an alley, overturning a bin in his haste.
Silence prevailed.
Once it was safe to come out, Werner crept round the side of The Warren and took in the devastation. He tentatively approached and kicked his comrade hog in the side. Getting no response he slowly crouched to check for a pulse.
He was alive, just.
When the enormous Werner rose again, someone was standing beside him.
“Yahaaagh!” he cried, very nearly falling over.
It wasn’t Bruno, but rather a slender, shapelier wolf in a white cloak and silver helm – almost worse.
“Calm yourself, Werner,” it said, paw on rapier hilt.
Once he had recovered from his fright, Werner saluted nervously, slapping a fist to his flabby chest. “Grand Howler Janoah, I-”
“Save it!” she interjected firmly. “I observed your incompetence from afar.”
Werner’s eyes darted about and his jaw shook a little as he found the words, “Then why didn’t-”
“I do anything?” Janoah guessed. “Silly pig,” she tutted, “I wanted to see what the boy could do. Though… I suspect you’ve long-known of his condition, haven’t you?”
Werner glanced at the rat whose head Bruno had mercilessly bashed in and used it to change subject. “The bastard murdered Denny,” he snorted, with a gulp. “Caved his head in with his own stick, I saw it!”
“Denny shot him.”
“Yeah, but-”
Janoah growled, silencing Werner, “You Politzi aren’t meant to carry pistols without strict Howler authorisation, Werner, for you cannot be trusted! The packs got a taste of Politzi ‘loyalty’ during the war; we shan’t make that mistake again.” She added softly, “I’ll say nothing to Elder Amael of it, or the fact you knew about this boy and said nothing to us, if you don’t mention his ability to anyone. Plead ignorance. Tell anyone who asks, Amael included, that this Bruno is a dullard and a weakling, do you understand me?”
“But why?”
“Do you understand me, or do you want to go to the Gelb mines?” Janoah barked.
Werner nodded once.
Wordlessly, Janoah took her leave of him, dashing gracefully down the street and into the alleyway Bruno had taken.
*
Ducking into a passage, Bruno fell against the nearest moonlit wall and heaved again, but like a well-wrung sponge there was nothing left in him.
The pains shooting down his left arm overwhelmed any other; the savage beating administered by the Politzi pale compared to being shot. The young wolf wondered if he might bleed to death here in this alley, far from Dad, far from Sara, far from anyone who cared, which wasn’t many.
The war memorial, in the Common Ground, that’s the emergency meeting place.
Got to get there. Keep going.
Bruno could hear Dad now, encouraging him whilst sparring in the street, back when he was just a tiny cub smaller than a rabbit.
‘You can do it, lad. Pick your feet up! Move! Duck! Weave! That’s it!’
With a gulp, Bruno limped along the alley, his bloodied arm held stiff by his side.
His fevered mind wandered, the sickening image of that rat’s caved-in face bubbling to the fore like a rotten vegetable in a foul broth. By Ulf, it wasn’t possible. How could I do that? I just hit him with his stick. That’s all. I hit him back, is all. The Politzi hit beasts all the time with those things. Werner’s big and strong, but he doesn’t smash heads in with his truncheon, not like that!
You’re a freak, Bruno. You’re one of them, just like Rufus said. You’re gonna rot.
“No!” Bruno yelped aloud. “Dahaaad!”
His voice echoed off the walls of the houses. Someone opened their window high above and shook a fist at him, “Shut up, you thumping drunk!”
“Please!” Bruno called up at them, “Please, help me… I’ve been shot! Please!”
At once the window slammed shut and light within the house was extinguished; doubtless this someone didn’t want to get involved in any trouble lest they incurred the wrath of the Politzi, or worse, the Howlers. Bruno couldn’t blame them, not now he knew what it was to do so. I’m an idiot. I should’ve left Howler Rufus to die and disappeared like dad wanted. Should’ve lain low.
“Please!” Bruno called pathetically. “Somebody!”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance?”
With a startled gasp, Bruno looked ahead. A cloaked figure stood in the claustrophobic passage, silhouetted by an imperium lamp in the street ahead. They took a few steps forward, Bruno could hear the metallic clink of armour and belt buckles. The stranger had a thin sword at their hip and a helmet on their brow.
A Howler and no mistake!
“Poor boy,” she tutted, for she was indeed a she under that uniform, judging by her manner and voice. “You must be frightened and in a great deal of pain.”
“Please, Howler… I didn’t do anything,” Bruno sniffed, clutching his arm. “I’m innocent!”
“I know, I know,” she soothed.
Bruno’s fiery, yet watery eyes flitted about, “You do?”
“Yes,” she replied, raising her chin. “Werner’s thugs can be such bullies, can’t they? It was merely self defence, wasn’t it?” She turned away a little and sighed, “Still, you did kill a beast back there. Murdering a Politzi is a capital offence.”
Bruno’s lower lip quivered, “I didn’t mean to!”
“Shh. I know… I know.”
“I just… I….”
“Hit back?” the Howler guessed, with a slight titter. “With all your might?”
Bruno nodded dumbly, unwilling to embarrass himself by trying to speak through a flush of tears.
“My dear boy, but you don’t know your own strength,” the Howler told him, taking a few steps forward. “I do, I can feel your corona half a street away, that’s how I found you.” She cocked her head, “You… really haven’t been inducted, have you?”
Bruno dipped his chin and shook his head; he’d heard this part before. He wanted to laugh.
As if sensing this, the wolfess chuckled, “What is it?”
“Please, Howler. I’m just a cook. I’m nobody.”
“Nonsense!” she tutted. “You should embrace what you are, all the better for you. Starting to get the pains, are we? The old legs giving you jip, eh?”
Bruno looked away a little.
The Howler nodded, “They’re often the first to go. Werner’s many things, but he wasn’t lying. You’ll rot, and soon, unless you let us help you.”