Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  Howler Mills suddenly felt he was being watched and turned around. Scanning Lupa’s waste, he picked out an unusual quantity of threadbare furniture; chairs, sofas, desks, all set upright atop the junk as if in use. What looked like crude dwellings were pitched amidst the jumble, their sides constructed from corrugated iron and canvas, sometimes incorporating the inside of a car or bus. Beasts of every sort peered out at the intruder from these makeshift tents and shacks, little beasts in the main, but some bigger sorts.

  This was some kind of illegal slum, by the looks; Lupa was rife with them, inside and out.

  “I’m a Howler,” Linus puffed, chest heaving, turning on the spot and showing the citizens his glowing brooch. “I’m looking for a hog. Where did he go?”

  Nothing.

  “I know he came this way. There’s nowhere to go, so he must be here.”

  Still nothing.

  “He’s a thief; he stole a purse,” Linus explained, “It’s your duty as citizens to help me uphold the law.”

  “Go away!” someone spat.

  “Howler scum!” said another.

  Shocked, Linus shouted back, “I’ll have this fleapit cleared away if you don’t cooperate!”

  “I’ve got your purse right here, Howler!” someone declared from under the bridge. “There’s no need for threats.”

  Lowering his brooch, Linus walked tentatively towards the bridge, looking for the owner of that profound voice. The beasts in their dwellings made themselves scarce, closing their tent flaps and doors if they had them, or putting up a sheet of iron or drawing a curtain if they hadn’t.

  There was something not quite right about this place; Linus felt it in his bones. Is that a corona, or just my imagination?

  A lamp coughed into life, illuminating the underside of the bridge and revealing a fantastical grotto of tapestries, paintings, carpets and furnishings, all of it somewhat tired and worn, but still remarkable finds in this otherwise ant-heap world. Nestled amongst the sullied splendour was a fancy-looking high-backed wooden chair draped in purple, imperium-weave cloth and protected by a moth-eaten canopy.

  Seated upon this throne, his trotters crossed, was a huge, powerful, tusked hog. His massive body dripped with jewellery and fine clothes; rings, bracelets, chains, ribbons and more. It looked like he had blundered through Riddle Market, arms spread, randomly sweeping up all manner of spoils. Upon his head was a crown of sorts, a jumble of weird circles of metal soldered together. Linus couldn’t quite make it out.

  “You’re trespassing on my kingdom, Howler,” grunted the muscled hog, spreading his fingers at his junkyard domain, before settling back, resplendent in what seemed to be an imperium-weave cloak. “I am Gustav, King of Great Bridge. Who might you be?”

  Linus had but one lucid thought – what in Ulf’s name have I walked into?

  Well, here goes.

  “Howler Linus Bloodfang Mills,” he said, clearing his throat. “Trooper, First Class.”

  “Welcome to my court, Howler Linus,” said King Gustav, gesturing about his so-called court. “You look tired. Please, refresh yourself.”

  A mouse poured something into a bent golden cup and offered it to the Howler on a dented pewter tray.

  “N-nnn-no, thank you,” Linus stammered.

  Gustav nodded, the fine chains dangling from his tusks rattling, and drank from another, much finer cup. “I must apologise, Howler, for any inconvenience my subject caused you,” he said. “He knows it’s not the done thing to take from Howlers; he thought you were a mere Freiwolf.”

  Linus growled, “It is not the done thing to take from anyone, sir, Howler or citizen. That is theft.”

  “Oh? Yet Howlers take what they want, do they not?”

  “A Howler’s privilege, as written in the Lupan Laws-”

  “I see. Legal theft, then? Hahahaaa! You wolves like to have it all your own way.”

  Linus paused a moment, perturbed by the hog’s manner. “It is taxation, sir,” the Howler said, steeling himself. “Now, give up the purse you stole.”

  Gustav scoffed, “You make demands of me in mine own kingdom?”

  “This is Lupa, citizen,” Linus pointed out. “It is no one’s kingdom, it is a Republic-”

  “Insolent wolf, I am no citizen, but king of the Great Bridge!” roared Gustav, standing up and gesturing at the underside of the railway bridge. “This is my world, so be mindful of your insolent tongue!”

  Linus could hear Uther now, ‘Nutter, mate.’

  Gustav sniffed and sat regally, “Still, you were not to know, ignorant soft-footed beast that you are. I shall overlook your transgression. You may go in peace.” Snapping his fingers, he said, “The purse!”

  The shifty-looking hog Linus had been chasing stepped forth from the shadows, head bowed, and passed his insane leader Rosalina’s green purse. Gustav snatched it and tossed it on the ground, making his bejewelled body rattle like a crystal chandelier. The purse landed just short Linus’s ‘soft’ feet.

  “Take it,” the king snorted, “and get you gone from my sight, little Howler.”

  Linus ignored the purse, saying, “I’m afraid you don’t get off that easy.”

  Gustav snorted, “Oh?”

  “I’m not leaving here without booking the beast who stole the bag.”

  The pig in question looked up a little.

  Gustav laughed, “I’ll not forsake a servant over a mere purse!” He leant forward, “Leave my domain and forget you were ever here, or else suffer the consequences of your wanton arrogance.”

  Unaccustomed to being spoken down to by mere citizens, let alone one of such brazen cheek, Linus boiled over, “Or else what, you mad-beast? I’ve only to speak to my superiors and the authorities will sweep your ‘kingdom’ of pickpockets into the river!” Linus looked around, at the countless eyes peering out from the junkyard dwellings pitched roundabout him, and told them, “You’ll all find yourselves on the rough edge of Lupan justice if I’m not satisfied!” He then addressed the so-called ‘king’, “Out of pity I’d rather leave these beasts in peace; I don’t want to see their lives destroyed over a purse any more than you. I’ll forget I ever saw this place, provided you give up the thief and swear to disband your illegal activities.”

  Gustav’s huge nostrils flared with rage. “I tire of your insolent yapping,” said the hog, casting his fat fingers at Linus. “Guards! Seize the intruder.”

  Four well-built hogs stepped out of the shadows armed with metal poles, surrounding Linus.

  “A-a-are you insane?” he spluttered, whirling on the spot, paws raised defensively. “I’m a Howler! Don’t you even know what I’m capable of?”

  “The imperious rage in your blood? What of it?” Gustav dismissed airily. “You’ll quickly break yourself on my legions and become exhausted. Then you will go the same way as all the others.”

  “Others?”

  The king touched his warped crown and it glowed momentarily with a rainbow of colours. It was clear to Linus then that it was made of Howler brooches of every rank and pack, crudely welded together. Gustav’s cloak too was a patchwork of Howler mantles, and his guards were wreathed in the same.

  “Where did you get all those?” Linus gasped.

  “I bade them to leave,” Gustav explained sorrowfully, as his guards circled Linus. “I am most gracious towards each Howler who rudely invades my domain looking for trouble, but being such an arrogant sort, few take up my generosity. Most that came investigating have had to… disappear.”

  “You killed them!” Linus realised. “You’re a Howler-killer!”

  “I but defend my people.”

  Ears flat to skull, Linus brandished a quivering fist at the hog. “Murderous scum!” he snarled, as sparks of imperious fire played over his paw. “I’ll bring you to justice! I will!”

  “Humph! Take him.”

  At Gustav’s command, the cloaked hogs lunged at Linus as one porcine ring; likewise Linus lunged at them, barging into the nearest and
slapping his paw into his midriff. There was a loud spark of blinding plasma and the hog was blown clean across the junkyard kingdom, sliding and rolling through the slippery mud.

  Shaking his throbbing right paw, Linus whipped around and used his left to deal another shocking coronal explosion to the next hog, sending him down too.

  Bzzzt! Crack!

  The third hog swung his weapon at Linus. The Howler heard the hollow metal pole whistle an inch from his face as he ducked and weaved, fought as he had been trained in the Bloodfang Howler Academy, fought for his life.

  Recovering from the dodge, Linus swept in and slapped both his paws on the guard’s distended belly. He summoned the imperium energy locked within his bones and blood, releasing it in a spectacular white spark that blew the surprised hog clean off his trotters.

  “Oooaagh!”

  He slid across the mud on his back and crashed into a rubbish heap, sending a cascade of cans tumbling over his shoulders and little beasts running for cover.

  Meanwhile, Linus stumbled away, his shaking paws throbbing and burning, yet numb and stiff. Without a kristahl sword, or at least something metal to channel the energy away from his flesh, it was wounding him too. He couldn’t keep this up for long.

  The last hog, wary from witnessing his comrades downed by this tough little wolf, hesitated. At last, seeing the Howler was in serious trouble, he went for him, swinging his rod. The stocky little Linus weaved aside and grabbed the iron rod with both paws in one tidy movement.

  Finally, something to channel the imperious fire!

  Plasma erupted from Linus’s arms and rippled up the rod in a flash, straight into the hog who gripped on tight, unable to let go as the enraged Linus filled him with energy.

  “Gaaaahaaaagh!”

  Finally, Linus released the rod and the hog collapsed backwards into a puddle, stiff as a drawbridge. Traces of plasma crawled over his trembling body and dissipated into the water. Then he went limp.

  He was dead. No normal beast could suffer an imperium shock like that, and Linus knew it. Chest and shoulders heaving, the panting Howler stared at the four downed pigs, horrified at what he had done. He looked at his quivering paws, their pads blackened and raw.

  ‘By Ulf, I’m a killer!’

  The sound of thumping trotters and jangling metal quickly brought Linus to his senses. He dived to one side as Gustav himself deigned to descend from his rotten throne and charge him, head down, festooned tusks brandished.

  Linus rolled in the mud and back to his feet as the cloaked mountain of a pig stood upright and looked down upon the puny wolf.

  “Humph!” he snorted, tramping towards Linus on his mighty legs. “You shall suffer many days of humiliating torture for this, Howler. You will beg me to end your miserable existence. And when I grow weary of your pitiful moaning I’ll have you buried alive in the heaps of Lupa’s waste. Nobody will hear your screams as you twist and turn, the roaches and mud-worms nibbling your flesh.” Gustav raised an eyebrow, “And when your body is picked clean, your bones will go into the stinking mud of the Lupa, and it will be as if you never were… just like all the rest.”

  “You’re insane!” Linus growled, backing away as quickly as Gustav advanced.

  “It is you who is insane, your race who cuts down the forests and chokes the world, who uprooted my noble hoggish ancestors and forced them to live in your vile city as your Politzi scum and servile train hogs!” Gustav’s beady eyes widened with a terrible glee. “There will be a reckoning for wolfkind someday, but for you, little Howler, it comes this day!”

  With a stomp of trotter, the snorting hog charged Linus, sweeping his head and tusks at the wolf, gold décor rattling melodiously, bracelets falling in the mud.

  Linus weaved clear and seeing an opening scrabbled past Gustav’s mighty bulk landed an imperious punch on his massive body.

  “Ragh!”

  Linus expected the hog to be knocked off his trotters like his minions before him, fight over, but the plasma merely dissipated over his imperium-weave cloak and served only enrage him! By Ulf, what kind of monster is this?

  The snorting, squealing, red-eyed Gustav swept Linus away with an arm. The wolf rolled in the mud to escape a stomping great trotter and tried to rise, to get away, but then it hit him, a trainload of pain bursting through his body!

  “Gaaaagh!”

  Up Linus went, levered foot by agonising foot slowly into the air, all the while clutching instinctively at something hard and bony protruding from his stomach. He was brought level, his world reduced to black night, twinkling stars and an infinity of pain. The squirming wolf lifted his head to look down at himself, to try and fathom what was happening, and discovered he was impaled on Gustav’s tusks like a maggot on a thorn bush! One had gone straight through him; the one he was clutching uselessly at with both bloodied paws.

  “Ulf above!” he cried. “Ulf help me! Gaagh!”

  If Linus’s moans moved King Gustav, it was only to let the pitiful wolf down with a contemptuous flick of his gory, twitching snout. The Howler tumbled to Erde, landing heavily in the mud. Winded and wounded, he could but cough and splutter as Gustav stood impassively astride him.

  The ‘king’ cast at the dwellings all around, “I give him to you, my subjects! Take your revenge on your oppressors. Drag this one to the shore and bury him up to his neck. Let the mud worms hollow out his eyes!”

  As Gustav returned to his throne, the wretched beasts in the ramshackle dwellings set aside their makeshift doors and tent flaps and emerged in filthy rags. Mice, rats, hogs and rabbits, male and female, young and old, descended from the hills of waste and closed in on the helpless Linus like ants on a wounded caterpillar, their dirty paws grasping at his clothes and pulling him through the mud.

  “Aaaagh!”

  They beat him and kicked him, hit him with sticks, some spat on him and cursed him.

  “Howler scum!”

  “Your kind murdered my son!”

  “Rot!”

  And then, amidst the baffling melee, a coarse voice snarled clear over them all.

  “Get off him, you gazing vermin! Get back or I’ll thumping blow your heads off! Go on, get!”

  The mob scattered, dropping Linus on his back, his paws clutching his stomach. Standing over him, pistol in paws, was a black and white wolf in a red tunic.

  “Uther!” Linus coughed.

  “Mate, get up!” Uther urged, pointing his pistol at some of the bolder ‘gazing vermin’. “Come on, come on!”

  “I… c-c-can’t.”

  “Aye, you can!” Uther insisted. He glanced down at Linus and saw he had a hole or two in him. “All right… maybe you can’t,” he agreed.

  The gory Gustav stood up, beautified, bloodied tusks dripping. “Another one?” he huffed. “Where one Howler goes, another is bound to follow, like ants to a sugar bowl.”

  “Stay right there,” Uther warned, “or I’ll shoot!”

  “Humph! You can’t shoot us all, Howler. You only have one puny pellet.”

  “Aye, but I can shoot you, freak!”

  “Hahaaa! Go ahead; see if you can kill me!” Gustav said, parting his cloak and revealing a weird, malformed breastplate, its surface a beaten patchwork of welded metals. “My body is protected by your very own eisenglanz, fool!”

  Uther let out a snort and murmured at Linus. “Woodlouse what have you got us into?”

  Linus gulped, “He’s… a murderer… a Howler-killer.” He grimaced and looked down at himself, at his heaving, bleeding stomach, and he wished he hadn’t. “He’s insane, Uther.”

  “No kidding. He looks like a walking Wintertide tree.”

  “He’s afflicted. I f-felt it when I… agh!”

  “Hold on Woodlouse, be strong,” Uther puffed, aiming left and right, keeping the ragged mob at bay; nobody wanted to be the first to attack and get shot.

  “Get help,” Linus suggested.

  “Shut up! I’m not leaving you to ‘em!”

 
“They’ll kill us both if you stay… and then nobody will know. You have to s-sss-stop them, Uther.”

  “I will too! Just gimme a minute to think here.”

  As he lie there, Linus’s fevered mind wandered. He thought back over the strange day, this morning’s chase, Monty and Penny, the Crab and Kettle, the pictures, Rosalina, the pearl.

  By Ulf, that’s it!

  Linus slapped a paw to his chest pocket, feeling the hard round sphere tucked away near his heart. “Uther… Uther, the pearl.”

  “What? What pearl?”

  Linus took out the pouch, “The pearl I bought. Use it.”

  Uther glanced down a few times, “Whatcha mean? You mean bargain with ‘em?”

  “No… I mean….”

  Lying in the mud, Linus tipped the pearl into a cupped palm and closed both paws around it. Snarling for the pain of his burnt pads, the Howler summoned all his imperious might one more time. Plasma trickled down his arms and danced over his shaking paws, exciting the imperium, turning it critical, priming it for use.

  With a yelp of pain, Linus opened his smoking paws, revealing the shining orb of pure, green-imperium, smouldering and fizzling away. The mob gasped as one, their sickly faces made even sicklier by the eerie green light.

  “Mate, are you serious?” Uther growled.

  “Leave me with the pistol!” Linus begged. “I’ll do it.”

  Uther scoffed, “Not on your life!” and quickly snatched the blazing pearl. Breaking open the pistol’s breach and removing the normal pellet, he instead dropped the pearl down the muzzle; the usually pitch-black black bore shimmered bright green as the orb slid neatly down – a good fit.

  “Now we’re cooking with gas,” Uther cackled, raising the pistol by his ear and slowly lowering it, levelling it at the filthy mob. “All right you low-life gazer scum, I’ve loaded this baby with a live imperium pearl. You know what that means do yer? Eh? Aye I can see you do!”