Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “Your hyena friends too?”

  “Terrorists are no friends of mine!”

  The sound of a vehicle approaching drew everyone’s attention. It was a prison truck, but painted pure black instead of the local Bloodfang livery. Werner’s officers stopped it at the Politzi cordon, but after a brief exchange with the cat driver they waved it through.

  The truck parked up, revealing a white A symbol stencilled tidily on its side.

  ALPHA.

  Rufus looked to Janoah for an explanation, but she was already halfway to the truck. She met the driver, a familiar grey cat in a black coat and tinted spectacles, and together they disappeared round the back of the chugging vehicle.

  “So that’s where Josef Grau went,” Rufus said.

  “Didn’t Janoah tell you?” Vladimir derided. “He gets to rack a lot more beasts now he’s in ALPHA. He’s free to experiment, more or less.”

  Quite unaware he was being spoken ill of, not that he would care, Doctor Josef swung the truck doors wide and climbed inside the back. Janoah stayed outside, arms folded.

  “What’re they up to?” Rufus asked.

  “Nothing good, I’m sire,” Vladimir replied drily.

  Burning with curiosity though they were, Rufus and Vladimir waited, unmoving, unwilling to look concerned or in any way put-out by the appearance of ALPHA.

  Unencumbered by such pride, Linus strolled over to get a look. As he approached the truck, he heard Janoah and Doctor Josef talking, their voices just about penetrating the patting rain and chugging engine.

  “Is he up to it?” Janoah asked, stroking her neck.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Josef replied from within.

  “You’re the doctor, Doctor.”

  “His blood-ash levels have been good, lately. As long as he doesn’t overdo it he’ll be fine.”

  Then another voice, strong and yet tinny, like someone was entombed in a metal barrel.

  “I’M FINE! LET’S JUST GO.”

  Keeping a respectful distance so as to not appear unduly nosy, Linus circled round the ALPHA truck. Respectful distance or not, he felt an imperious presence growing in his bones; the static crackle of an unfamiliar corona butting up against his own.

  Peering inside the truck Linus saw giant of a wolf sitting on a bench, or at least he assumed it was a wolf. The beast was clad from head to toe in hefty-looking, eisenglanz armour, with a black mantle pinned about his mighty body. The armour was scratched and worn, tired-looking, like something from a museum cabinet rather than a modern Howler armoury. Not an inch of the beast beneath could be seen, not a lick of fur, not a single whisker; even his paws were housed in hefty gauntlets. His helmet covered his face, as with any Howler, but more extensively, enclosing him wholly under the jaw and even down the neck with flexible-looking rubber. A tube, perhaps carrying air, ran up into the helmet’s snout from a backpack tucked beneath the beast’s cloak. Tinted yellow glass covered his eyes, obscuring them utterly and rendering them as vacant orbs. Even the fellow’s ears were encased in triangular projections of metal, each perforated like a telephone’s mouthpiece to allow for hearing, one assumed. To Linus’s further astonishment the ears swivelled and moved, as if alive!

  What fine engineering is this?

  In his blind quest to get a better look, Linus tripped over an especially wicked cobblestone and stumbled into a puddle beside Janoah.

  She looked down at him, “Linus?”

  Flicking dirty water from his paws, the mortified Linus got up and saluted, fist to chest, then forward. “Forgive my intrusion, marm.”

  Janoah saluted back, albeit ALPHA-style. “Not at all, I like such curiosity in a wolf. How’ve you been these last months?”

  “Uh, very well. Thank you.”

  “You’ve grown,” Janoah observed. “Not up mind you, but that’s beyond help.”

  “Y-y-yes, marm.”

  “I hear Uther’s got himself in trouble.”

  “It… seems so,” Linus said, suddenly subdued.

  “Don’t worry,” Janoah chuckled, patting his arm. “We’ll sort this mess out.”

  Eased by Janoah’s kindly manner, Linus blurted with cub-like tactlessness, “Who’s that?”

  “That? Oh, that’s just Stenton, Rafe Stenton.”

  “Prefect?”

  “Of a sort.”

  A pause, “He’s n-nnn-not what I think he is, is he?”

  Janoah crackled dangerously, “And what if he is, Woodlouse?”

  Woodlouse rubbed his neck, “Well, uh… only that… uhm….”

  The armoured bulk in the truck, this Rafe Stenton, suddenly looked out at Linus. His eyes, though obscured by reflective, yellow-tinted glass, somehow conveyed no malice.

  Linus nodded at him and raised a friendly paw. “Hello.”

  The metal wolf raised a gauntlet-clad paw. “ALL RIGHT, MATE?” he rumbled, deep and hollow, like an organ pipe.

  “Uh, y-yyy-yes, thank you.”

  Janoah leant inside and huffed, “Come along Doctor! They could be getting away!”

  Josef made some final adjustments, twisting some valves on Rafe’s backpack, then pulling the mantle down over it again. “He’s ready.”

  “All right,” Janoah beckoned. “Come on, Stenton, let’s show these filthy terrorists who’s boss.”

  “AYE,” Rafe said simply.

  It was only when he stepped down onto the road that Rafe’s true stature became apparent to Linus. He was a steel giant, tall and broad, his massive chest jutting out over his stomach like an overhang on an old pub. Yet he was not inelegant, still long-limbed and nipped in at the waist as a wolf should be. His suit looked truly sealed from every angle, the armour plates sliding effortlessly over one another, with some kind of ribbed rubber bridging any gaps between the most flexible joints.

  Linus remained transfixed as Rafe clomped past the little Howler as if he didn’t exist, the coils of his corona burning him down to the bone.

  By Ulf, what a beast!

  Composing himself, Linus followed Janoah and her strange, towering champion at a distance, staring always at Rafe’s back, watching him thump confidently along, belts jingling, arms swaying, cloak hugging his shoulders and heaping over his backpack. He must weigh a few hundred pounds, Linus supposed, yet he carried his bulk with such apparent ease. He hadn’t a tail, only a thick black ribbon where it ought to be. It was common for a wolf who had lost his or her tail to mark its absence with a ribbon. Was his really gone or tucked in his suit?

  So many questions – and not all in Linus’s head.

  “What in Ulf’s name is going on here?” Vladimir demanded, taking a step forward as Janoah and her goliath approached. “Explain yourself, Prefect!”

  “Calm yourself, Oromov,” Janoah replied. “Prefect Stenton’s only here to help.”

  “Prefect my foot! This is highly illegal!”

  Illegal, Linus thought. Then is it? Could it be?

  “For the packs, yes,” Janoah said, “but ALPHA is not strictly a pack and therefore not a signatory of the non-promulgation treaty. We did not even exist at the time to sign it.”

  Vladimir could but huff, “A legal loophole, then. How ironic.”

  Janoah fondly brushed her steel companion on the arm with a paw. “Don’t worry, Stenton’s a kitten.”

  Rafe looked down at Janoah, head cocked, metal ears rotating. “JAAAN,” he hissed, embarrassed.

  She chuckled.

  For his part, Rufus stared at Rafe, silent, unmoving. Rafe turned to him, stared back. Gasping, Rufus turned away and latched onto the wet iron rails of the fence.

  “Rufus?” Janoah chirped in concern, then realised. “Oh! You get used to it after a while. It’s the suit. It generates such a searing corona. It made me ill too, at first, made Rafe ill in fact, didn’t it Stenton?”

  “YEAH,” he admitted. “EXCUSE ME, HOWLERS, BUT I’M HERE TO HELP, IF I CAN.”

  “Indeed,” Vladimir sniffed. “That’s what they all said… befor
e going mad.”

  A Politzi rabbit hurried over to Vladimir, “Sir!”

  “Yes, Claybourne?”

  Claybourne looked twice at Rafe, then said, “Sh-shooting sir, inside the refinery. Something’s going on.”

  “Must be Ivan’s doing” Oromov decided. “The fool.”

  Rufus looked alarmed. “Schmutz!” he cursed. “We can’t wait any longer, have to go in!”

  “If we storm the gate we’ll have multiple casualties!”

  Janoah slapped Rafe’s cloaked backpack, “You’re up, Stenton.”

  With a nod, and no authority from anyone but Janoah, the iron giant passed gates and Politzi lines with impunity, heading straight for the refinery as if strolling to work. Werner and his constables watched him pass as one baffled entity.

  “Who’s that?” Werner said, grabbing his speaking horn and shouting at the stranger. “Oi, you! What’re you doing?”

  “DON’T WORRY, MATE! STAY BACK, YEAH?”

  Slowly, Werner lowered the trumpet. “It can’t be,” he scoffed. “Can it?”

  Linus expected Rafe to peel off and take a side route into the building, as Uther and Ivan had, but he just kept marching towards the main entrance, bold as brass.

  “They’ll sh-sh-shoot him!” Linus stammered.

  “Don’t p-p-panic, Mills,” Janoah mocked.

  The refinery’s gaping entrance was piled high with boxes and barrels. As Rafe approached, the hyenas taking cover within their crude fortress grew agitated.

  One jumped up, imperium rifle in paws, shouting, “Get back, Howler scum!”

  He fired.

  After the flash of the imperium charge came the puff of ash and the ‘crack’ echoing across the refinery. Linus expected Rafe to fall down wounded, but he kept on going, striding forth unchecked. Had the hyena missed him?

  Another took aim and fired – a colourful spark flashed off Rafe’s shoulder, tearing his cloak, but he hardly noticed. By now the first hyena had reloaded his rifle. He leant on a box and took more careful aim. He fired. Rafe’s armoured head jolted back as the pellet doubtless hit him right between the eyes and he stumbled backwards.

  The hyenas whooped.

  Their celebrations proved premature. Rafe righted himself, shook his head and continued his stoic advance. Slowly he raised a paw.

  “IN THE NAME OF THE REPUBLIC!” he woofed, his voice carrying further than was natural, “LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER! YOU WON’T BE HARMED!”

  Imperious plasma played up his forearm and snapped between his metal-clad fingers in a show of strength that would’ve burnt any normal wolf’s flesh to the bone.

  Linus couldn’t believe it, “By Ulf’s fangs!”

  Doctor Josef strolled up behind the Howlers, snug under an umbrella – cats despised the rain. “Their puny weapons won’t put him to the test, Janoah,” he observed, raising a pair of fancy binoculars to his spectacled eyes.

  Janoah snatched them, “Give me those!” and peered through for herself.

  Meanwhile, panic set in on the hyena side. Several of them stood up and fired an incongruent volley over the tops of barrels and boxes. The deadly pellets pinged uselessly off Rafe’s armour like so many dried peas.

  “I DON’T WANNA HURT YOU!” he said.

  A desperate hyena produced a metal bauble and twisted it open to reveal a bristling yellow-imperium crystal. Instantly fuming as it made contact with the air, the hyena threw the sizzling bomb at Rafe and dived for cover.

  “Get down!” Werner shouted, hitting the deck.

  Unafraid, Rafe calmly stepped forward and crushed the crystal with a mighty boot – it exploded. Deflected by the suit’s thick, eisenglanz sole, the shards shot away from the Politzi and right back at the hyenas! The burning imperium embedded in the crates and boxes, setting them instantly aflame and clogging the entrance with choking smoke and poisonous fumes.

  Then, with seemingly impossible acceleration for a wolf of his dimensions, Rafe hunched down and leapt gracefully into the clouds, vanishing from sight!

  Linus held his breath. His ears twitched and eyes darted, listening, searching.

  “Gaagh!”

  “Get back you-aaarrrgh!”

  “Eyaaagh!”

  The rolling, yellow-tinged smoke lit up from within, flashing like an angry thundercloud. Amidst the sparks and screams, a hyena was ejected from the chaos. He rolled tail over head and came to a rest on his front, his body trembling and smouldering in the rain as residual arcs of plasma licked over him.

  The wind changed, the smoke and ash cleared, and Rafe stood alone, armoured shoulders heaving, the black ribbon that marked his absent tail dripping with water. The bodies of hyenas lay strewn about him like the tragic victims of a Rostsonne whirlwind.

  “Are… are they all d-d-dead?” Linus stuttered.

  “Toast,” Josef said. “Even a Howler cannot take much of a shock from Rafe, let alone nobodies.” He turned to Janoah, “Silvermane said there’d be Chakaa here.”

  “Patience, Doctor.”

  Observing the devastation, Vladimir remarked, “So much for prisoners.”

  Suddenly, and to Linus’s astonishment, a thick jet of sparkling imperium ash hissed from Rafe’s back!

  Fsssssh!

  The ash came from a short, stout exhaust poking up near Rafe’s left shoulder, like the funnel of an imperium train. There was even a neat, well-stitched hole worked into his black mantle to allow for its egress. Linus could see that, just like the flexible tube going to Rafe’s helmet, the funnel originated from the same backpack lurking under the folds of his mantle.

  Baffled beyond words, Linus looked to the others, Rufus, Vladimir, Janoah – they were in no way surprised. They know what he is, Linus realised. They’ve seen it all before because they were in the war. Rafe must be one of them. But then, how could ALPHA get away with this? Legal loophole, Vladimir had said.

  Once the vented ash had billowed away, the long-legged Rafe looked back at his allies, raised a paw, and leapt clean over the boxes into the refinery with Uther-like athleticism.

  Shortly thereafter more screams and flashes ensued.

  “Come on!” Janoah barked, drawing her rapier. “Let’s back him up, Howlers!”

  Vladimir growled at the Prefect, “You’ve no authority here, Janoah!”

  “Then stay,” she spat, “and let the glory be ALPHA’s!”

  The red wolfess strode through the gates, rapier held before her nose, left paw on her hip, as bold as Rafe had been before her and yet she hadn’t his armoured bulk. One well-placed pellet would go straight through her cloak and tunic.

  “Jan, don’t!” Rufus shouted, running to the gate and reaching for her. “It’s too dangerous! He’s too dangerous!”

  With a glance at his superiors, Linus unbuckled his shield from his back and dashed past Rufus into the refinery grounds after Janoah.

  “Mills, what’re you doing?” Vladimir snarled. “Mills! You’ll be flogged for this!”

  Linus Mills pretended not to hear as he slipped in front of Janoah, shielding her advance with his Bloodfang-emblazoned kristahl shield.

  “Much obliged, Mills,” Janoah said to him.

  “Marm,” he replied nervously.

  With a glance at one another, Rufus and Vladimir drew their rapiers and advanced with the three other Howlers at their backs, ordering Werner and the Politzi to follow their lead.

  Soon a ring of Howlers and Politzi officers was closing in on all sides.

  The final assault was on.

  Chapter 18

  The water lapping at Nurka’s helmet-clad face brought him to his senses with a start. He was on his front and something was pressing down on him.

  Panic set in.

  Kicking, splashing and choking, he scrabbled aside of the mysterious bulk and fell against the circular, brick-lined sewer wall, spitting gritty, ash-laden water from his mouth. Chest heaving fearfully he removed his helmet and wiped his stinging eyes, looking all around for the
giant centipede, expecting it to snatch him at any moment.

  It was gone.

  The weight on him had been the ladder, Nurka realised. It had fallen with him and landed on him. That’s all.

  Satisfied for the minute that he wasn’t being eaten, Nurka looked up at the bright, circular drain hole – he saw nobody and heard nothing of the world above.

  “Themba!” he rasped, as loudly as he dared. “Madou?”

  Cursing the gods, donning his helmet and shouldering his kristahl bow, Nurka searched the shallow water for the ladder. Hefting it onto his bruised shoulders, he discovered it was bent and mangled beyond use; it would not reach the drain. He lowered it gently back down into the water and looked up.

  Plan B then.

  Nurka prepared himself; taking deep breaths, bending his knees, crouching low.

  “Ragh!”

  The Chakaa leapt straight up with all his imperious might, his corona pushing out behind him, blasting the water away in a bubble of invisible energy. As the water splashed back into the void below him, Nurka latched onto the lip of the circular hole.

  Slowly, carefully, he pulled himself up enough so his skull-covered face could tentatively peer into the ghostly refinery, rounded ears swivelling, purple eyes darting. He could see nothing. The whole place was awash with a dense, grey smog, of the sort Lupa suffered when the Graumeer wind failed to clear the air.

  Shapes loomed silently; pipes and machinery silhouetted against the ambient light. Then Nurka looked low and saw the bodies of fellow hyenas strewn about.

  Heart pounding, the Chakaa levered himself up and rolled from the sewer mouth. He stole across to the nearest of his followers. The downed hyena lay in a pool of blood, his body ripped open. There was no need to check for life, he was with the ancestors now. The work of the hundred-legs.

  Nurka looked up and around but couldn’t see it. Has it retreated back down the sewers?

  “Chief,” someone said.

  Nurka whirled round and found Madou flat on his back, one paw holding his heaving body. The chief crouched beside his follower and cradled his blood-flecked, helmet-clad head.

  “Chief,” Madou said, trembling, “I’m… I’m bitten.”