Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  The junkyard mob backed off somewhat.

  “Now, I’m gonna count from ten, then I’m gonna blow whoever’s in my sights to ash!” Uther declared, stepping slowly forth. “Ten… nine… eight….”

  Screaming and shouting, the mob scrabbled for the twisted hills of rubbish, stampeding past their king in their haste to flee the impending catastrophe.

  “He can’t kill you all!” Gustav told them. “You will protect your king, you cowards! I’ll kill you myself if you don’t!”

  Uther slowly aimed at the ‘king’, “Seven… six… five.”

  “You fool it could backfire and kill you!” Gustav told Uther.

  “Hahaha, aye! Four... three.”

  “Howler, wait!” Gustav said, clambering towards his throne. “Let us parley! I will let you both go free!”

  “Two.”

  “Wait! I beg you!”

  “One!”

  “No!”

  Crack!

  A stream of green, glittering light shot straight and true from Uther’s pistol, passing through Gustav and terminating in the back of his throne, where it stayed, glimmering and fizzling bright.

  There was but a moment’s grace, a second to think about the end, before the throne vanished, swallowed and incinerated by a sphere of plasma, and Gustav too.

  “Eyyyyaaaaagh!”

  The resulting explosion ripped across the junkyard, punching a half-blind, half-deaf Uther onto his back and sweeping away any stragglers. Shortly, the wind reversed, sucking everything towards the epicentre, before dying to a calm.

  Silence.

  Bits of metal rained down, and probably bits of Gustav, or what dust remained. Shaking his head, Uther scooped Linus into his arms and draped him over his back.

  “I got yer!” he said, stealing away into the night, “Hold on, Trooper, don’t die on me!”

  *

  It was a modest drive permeated by silence – preferable for both parties. No gates or checkpoints barred Josef’s ambulance as it crunched into the courtyard, imperium-fuelled headlights fading slowly upon the engine’s termination. Janoah climbed out and cast her masked face over Riddle District Hospice; a modest affair with six columns and a clock centred on the pediment. It was late, past visiting hours, but a Grand Howler on official business was exempt from all that, especially with Riddle Den’s coroner by her side.

  Flashing brooch and pass respectively and claiming to be here on an investigation, Janoah and Josef made swift progress through the chequered halls, the distant sounds of coughing and moaning, even downright mad shouting, pricking in their ears.

  Nobody challenged them, unwilling as they were to incur the wrath of a Grand Howler.

  With Josef Grau her guide, Janoah entered a ward, with its vaulted ceiling and high windows. It was dark and reeked of disinfectant, though not enough to mask the odour of rotting, dying beasts. Beds lined the long walls, many of them occupied by patients, wolves all, thin and tired-looking, many covered in sores and bald-patches with drip lines of water and painkillers going into them from all angles.

  These were the Howlers for whom time had run out, whose sting rations had been officially withdrawn, who had no choice now but to die here with honour, or flee and become an old dodger in disgrace.

  Janoah entered; she need not steel herself, for she had witnessed many a friend and teacher die thusly. It was the way of things. When stings no longer did the trick, when black-imperium leaked out of the bones and started to kill you, it was better, the Bloodfangs believed, to just let the rot progress and save the pack the expense and indignity of keeping you alive. She too would come here one day, if she lived so long. Rufus too. Perhaps not so long, Janoah thought, if this shortage continues unabated.

  With a glance and nod at the night nurse, who Doctor Josef rapidly dismissed, Janoah approached the first bed she happened across and placed a paw on the cold iron bed rails. The patient was a steel-grey wolf, no doubt once a strapping, handsome young Howler, reduced now to a sickly shadow of himself long before the natural order of things. Out of curiosity Janoah checked his records. He was forty, not that much older than herself. Unfortunate, but in general males didn’t last as long as females.

  The wolf opened his eyes. “Sir?” he croaked.

  The masked Janoah put down the clipboard and smiled, “Rest easy, Howler.”

  He smiled back, and said, “Did we win?”

  Janoah nodded, “Yes, we won.”

  Senility, or insanity; the fellow was probably re-living the glorious past in his feverish brain.

  “Rest easy, Howler.”

  Janoah moved on, scanning the sick and the dying for a wolf who at least vaguely fit the profile; big, brown, young. Some deviation could be tolerated, overlooked, money exchanged for the turning of a blind eye, but only so much. The bureaucracy of the Bloodfangs was pervasive, its all-seeing eye difficult to evade, what with officials crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s on every Howler’s rank, pay and sting rations, from induction to death.

  If anyone could pull a fast one, it was Janoah Valerio. At her instruction, Werner had already put it about that the boy was dead, run down by a truck. Editors had been rung, presses stopped, new stories printed just in time. It would all be in the papers tomorrow and a body would be waiting in the morgue for formal identification. All Doctor Josef need do is to provide that body.

  Aha!

  Janoah swooped on a bed at the far end of the ward, her paws latching onto the iron rail – a big mottled wolf lay before her with drip tubes going into him and a respirator over his muzzle, chest heaving slowly.

  Yes, yes he might just do.

  Janoah checked his records. Low rank and no next of kin. He would not be missed. Perfect! In her excitement she inadvertently read the patient’s name aloud.

  “Stenton, Rafe.”

  The wolf’s ears pricked. He slowly heaved his weary eyes open – they were black, as if dilated beyond all reason. It was in fact the decaying imperium that coloured them so. The eyes of healthy Howlers shone with imperious minerals, sometimes taking on a different colour than they were born with, but those days were over for Rafe, whose irises were stained and polluted with ash.

  “How are you feeling, Stenton?” Janoah asked, proffering a warm smile.

  No reply.

  “Is it terrible?” she asked.

  This time Rafe Stenton nodded and gulped.

  A day, a week, a month, it didn’t really matter, there was no way back for this one.

  Janoah checked Rafe’s records further. He was just a boy really, hardly older than the like of Uther and Linus, but the rot had claimed him all the same. Perhaps this youth had been too zealous in the pursuit of justice, exerting himself beyond the limits of endurance. There were those that burnt bright but quickly, whilst others flickered as mere embers for decades. Some defied the odds, others fell foul. In prosperous times with white-imperium enough for all Rafe might have lived another twenty years regardless, but with supplies thin on the ground there wasn’t enough to sustain those with a greater need.

  “Rest easy, Stenton,” Janoah soothed. “You’ll make a difference yet, I promise you. Your name will live on.”

  Rafe stared at Janoah, black eyes unblinking, unable to see her clearly if at all. Likely he didn’t understand what was going on, Janoah supposed, though she could not bring herself to tell even a dying wolf her burgeoning plans.

  The grey Josef approached in his lab coat. “There’s a definite resemblance,” he purred in delight, looking the patient over. “In the dark, at least. I’ll have to dye his fur brown to fool any next of kin.”

  Janoah huffed, “Bruno has none, save his ‘father’, and he’s done a runner.”

  “Someone will have to positively identify him, preferably a wolf,” Josef stipulated. “I can’t get round that.”

  “I’m sure his girlfriend will come.”

  “That could be problematic. She’ll know him intimately.”

  “I’m sure
you’ll persuade her, Doctor,” Janoah hissed, borderline threatened. She walked around the bed and held one of the dying Howler’s paws with both of hers. “Doctor Josef has something for you, Stenton,” she said.

  “Taubfene?” Rafe croaked through his respirator.

  “Yes... all the taubfene you want,” Janoah promised him. “Enough to take the pain away forever. You won’t have to suffer another minute.” She leant near, “Is that what you want, my Howler? I won’t do this unless you want it. I’ll find another who does.”

  Rafe let out a piteous whine, then took a deep breath and nodded.

  Did he fully understand? Perhaps.

  Satisfied this was not murder, Janoah nodded at Josef. “The taubfene, Doctor.”

  Checking the door, the cat produced a large syringe of yellow liquid from his inside pocket and flicked the air bubbles from the needle, more out of habit than necessity in this case. He disconnected the drip tube from its bag and unceremoniously stabbed the syringe into the line, injecting the contents, all of it, right up to the plunger. The yellow fluid rushed down the tube and into Rafe’s bandaged wrist, into his blood.

  The effect was immediate. Rafe breathed deep a few times and whined in delirium, “Mum…. Mum, it’s sunny out…. Can I go play in the street? Mum.”

  Janoah felt that grip fade, watched those black eyes glaze over. The last fires went out in him, his imperious corona extinguished in an instant by enough taubfene to execute a bear. It was painless, a blessed release, Janoah told herself, waiting a respectful minute for Rafe Stenton to leave this world.

  “You flew well, dayfly.”

  With that, Janoah gently placed Rafe’s paw on his chest and closing those tired, ashen eyes.

  Doctor Josef stood impassively by the bed, tinted glasses betraying nothing.

  Grabbing the clipboard from the foot of the bed, Janoah stood up and gave it to the doctor, pressing it firmly into his midriff. “Start the ball rolling, we’ve little time.”

  Codex: Bloodfang

  Eldest of the packs, the Bloodfangs, or Redcloaks, are among the few able to point to a record predating the Founders, Lupa and the rot, back when little beasts wallowed in mud huts, noble beasts cowered in castles, and imperium was but a curiosity, its true power mostly forgotten and untapped.

  Some sneer that the Bloodfangs still wallow in filth, their poor, heavily-polluted territory being little more than a collection of slums and markets not unlike those found clinging desperately to the outside of the Lupan Wall. However, the Bloodfangs are not as wretched as all that. The pack jealously holds the Far Ashfall, which, whilst worthless in itself, remains the only gateway to the Everdor plantations and Gelb mines. They therefore control most food and white-imperium currently entering Lupa and tax it accordingly; nominally to pay for the expense of guarding the Far Ashfall’s rails and roads from thieves and terrorists, but mostly to line its Howler’s pockets. This monopoly is a source of great tension between the packs, since at any time the Bloodfangs could raise taxes, or even cut supplies altogether. To do so would doubtless spark a Howler War with all other packs allied against Bloodfang, but it would not be the first time the pack has stood its ground alone and survived to make a favourable deal, for they are formidable.

  Shunning the gadgets and heavy armour of their main rivals, the Greystones and Eisbrands respectively, the nimble Bloodfangs rely on superior coronal manipulation to win out. Only the strongest wolves from across and beyond Lupa are accepted, or if resistant pressed, into service. The pack welcomes drifters, orphans, rivals, and even ex-criminals into its ranks, provided a wolf shows enough promise. Redcloaks therefore have no solid roots, no typical colouration, accent, manner or bloodline to point to, only the ancient name of Bloodfang itself to bind them.

  Be they voluntary or coerced, every Bloodfang beneath Elder rank must uphold a high level of fitness, both coronal and physical. There is no room, no provision of stings made, for wall-gazing scroungers. When the rot sets in such that a Howler can no longer perform their duties, the Bloodfangs regard it a kindness to permit a rapid decline instead of a lingering death, and sting rations are completely withdrawn. Some, stripped of their lifeline but desperate to limp on, move to other, less exacting packs; others turn to crime and buy venom on the black market; the honourable retire to their bed and wait for Ulf to collect them.

  It is because of this policy of pruning old wood, considered unreasonable by most, that Bloodfangs die statistically younger than their Eisbrand and Greystone counterparts. However, with no imperium pensioners draining limited sting supplies and the tax on two essential imports filling their coffers, active Redcloaks enjoy generous food rations and absurd pay, fuelling in their ranks a culture of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the Common Ground, which is tolerated as long as it does not impede a Howler’s duties. This alone attracts many talented young candidates to sign on Bloodfang’s dotted line; the other great attraction being the sheer prestige of donning the red mantle and becoming a member of the toughest pack of wolves on the Lupan Continent, until, that is, the local hospice calls them home.

  Chapter 12

  Morning nuzzled its way into Sara’s third-floor flat and stirred her. She rose in her green nightgown and drew the bedroom curtains, revealing the clear, crisp air of a sunny Lupan dawn; the clearest she had seen for a while. The city was awakening; chimneys coughed into life, pedestrians headed to work, trams and motor carriages trundled by in the street below. Just another day.

  To the kitchen; a humble affair. Imperium gas burner on, kettle filled, nice pot of Hummel tea on the way, just the ticket. Sara couldn’t wait to get to the campus and see Toggle.

  Toast in paw, the little black wolfess hurried downstairs to the mailbox and retrieved the morning paper, The Lupa. It was the Common Ground paper which, although heavily biased against ‘lesser races’ and constricted by its neutrality towards the packs of Lupa, was at least full of actual news, births, deaths, discoveries and more, rather than columns of opinionated propaganda designed to make the local plebs believe their pack was the best one in Lupa. The Harbinger was the local Eisbrand Pack’s authorised rag useful only for firelighter and lining the bottom of insect cages.

  The Lupa open in her paws, Sara headed for the stairs. She hadn’t got far when the building’s main door opened. Sara expected it to be one of her neighbours returning from an early morning shop, but was instead met with a white rabbit in a coat and hat. He had a steel box in one paw.

  “Sara,” he panted.

  “Casimir!” she replied, with a gasp. “Och! You’ve caught me in mah nightie,” she laughed, performing a mock curtsey.

  No smile graced Casimir’s lips. “Is Bruno here?” he asked directly, taking a step forward. “I… I thought he might have stayed the night with you.”

  Sara took a moment to comprehend Casimir’s extraordinary proposition. “No,” she said. “He was supposed tae meet me at the pictures last night. Ah thought he was sick.”

  Casimir’s face sunk and he fell against the wall, sliding down to the floor.

  He wept.

  Dropping her half-eaten toast on the stairs, Sara dashed over to him. “Och! Casimir, what’s wrong?”

  “They’ve got him!” he cried, curling up into a ball. “They got my boy!”

  “Who’s got him?”

  “Oh, lad. It’s all my fault!”

  “Casimir, what’s happened? Tell me for Ulf’s sake!”

  Getting no sense out of the rabbit, and not wanting the neighbours to see, the wolfess pulled him to his feet and helped him limp upstairs to her flat.

  Ushering him inside before anyone saw, Sara sat Casimir by her pokey kitchen table and hurriedly made him a cup of tea before attempting to tease forth the facts. She knew it concerned Bruno, and knew it was no good, but Casimir was a rabbit and rabbits were known for overreacting and seeing the worst in a situation.

  “There now,” Sara said, physically grasping Casimir’s paws and folding them around the cup of t
ea. “Have a sip o’ that and tell me what’s going on. It cannae be the end of the world.”

  With shaking paws, Casimir supped his steaming tea, then looked at Sara with his tear-streaked eyes.

  “The Bloodfangs, they found out,” he said.

  “Found what out?” Sara asked, guessing, “That you were in the resistance?”

  “No. Well, yeah they probably know that, but….”

  “What then?”

  “Bruno’s… sick,” Casimir said carefully, his face contorting as he squeezed out the truth, “He’s got the rot, lass.”

  Silence.

  “I never told him, but I knew. I’ve always known, ever since he was a cub.”

  Sara gasped, “But Ah thought he was just allergic tae ash.”

  “Aye, he is that; Howlers often start that way, but he’s got full-blown rot, always has,” Casimir said, forcing a laugh. “He’s been getting worse just lately. I just couldn’t keep up with his needs, you see. I couldn’t afford it.”

  “Afford what?”

  “The good stuff. He needs too much to stay healthy and the prices on the street keep going up on account of the shortage.”

  Sara was all at sea. “Ah don’t understand. You mean he’s a proper dodger?”

  “Not… exactly.”

  Silence.

  Casimir picked his claws, “I’ve… been… sneaking him venom without him knowing. I’ve been doing it for years-”

  “Casimir!” Sara gasped.

  “I had to!” the rabbit yelped, covering his face with both paws. “I had to. I couldn’t tell him, Sara. When he was just a cute little cub I couldn’t bring myself to stick him with a sting, so I spiked his cough syrup instead.”

  “With white-imperium?”

  “Aye, it was bitter medicine,” Casimir seethed, “so we added lots of honey and lemon. Uncle Werner’s Cough Syrup, we labelled it. It was Werner’s idea, see. Lad still takes it now, swears by it! It only works whenever I make a batch of course, not when he makes it. Bruno doesn’t know the secret ingredient.”