by Adam Browne
“But it can,” Amael began afresh. “If four Den Fathers demand a citizen’s pardon during the summit then that citizen is granted it regardless of ALPHA’s evidence. It is a Lupan Law, the Den Father Prerogative, a safety net kept in place to curb ALPHA’s power and keep them in check, one of the few truly overriding powers that remain. Now, Thorvald is one voice, as you know he’s fond of Rufus and furious over the insult ALPHA dealt him. He’s already in our camp. Hummel’s Cora is another one who admires him, she’ll help. I can get Flaid on board.”
“He’s just an Elder.”
“He’s sure to become Den Father of the Greystones within weeks; theirs is dying, and he and I have an understanding. That’s three.”
“I see. And the fourth?” Ivan said.
Amael blew a cloud of vapour overhead, “That’s where you boys come in.”
Ivan took a sharp breath and nodded.
“If you need time to think I can wait,” Amael said, swirling his tumbler, “but Rufus can’t. He might last a year in the mines, even two years… or a month, who knows? It’s rather unpleasant down there in Gelb. They make you wear imperium collars, but even they’re not enough to stop mad beasts stabbing one another-”
“I’ll do it,” Ivan said.
Amael looked at Boris, then back at Ivan again. Nodding, he turned to Uther.
“Alone!” Ivan stipulated, before Amael could speak. “I work best alone, sir. Leave Uther out of this, he’s not the right wolf for the job.”
“Oi!” Uther yapped indignantly. “Whatcha think you’re doing, Blade-dancer?”
Ivan sneered, “You don’t even know what’s being asked of you, cloth-ears. Now get out before you hear too much!”
“I know exactly what’s being asked,” Uther growled, nodding at Amael, “and I’m in, sir.”
Amael nodded.
“Fool,” Ivan spat. “What do you even care?”
Uther turned to Ivan, “I gave him as much venom as you ever did when it could’ve got me done! Don’t tell me I don’t care, not when I spent nights burning up from the rot so he didn’t have to!” He returned to Amael, “Tell me what to do, Elder, I’m your wolf, sir.”
*
Vladimir answered the knock at his office door without looking up from writing. “Come in.”
Linus entered, removed his helmet and saluted with his free paw, before standing smartly to attention. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been in a hurry, and looked somewhat bedraggled.
“Ah, Mills,” Vladimir woofed, “so nice of you to turn up for duty.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. The trains were-”
“Delayed, I know. If it’s not snow on the lines it’s ash. You need to learn to ride a mono.”
“Sir.”
“And where did you sleep last night,” Vladimir asked, giving the youth a disdainful look, “under a bridge?”
“No, sir. I… I stayed at Professor Heath’s flat.”
“Professor Heath!”
“Yes, sir. He insisted.”
“My my, you are moving in high circles,” Vladimir huffed in an acidic tone, even for him. “Or should I say were? I shouldn’t let it go to your head, Howler, you served Rufus like every wolf that’s gone before you – a pretty ornament draped over his arm to show what a potent alpha he is.”
Linus cringed, “Sir, I-I-I protest!”
“Protest?”
“I have never… I’m not Rufus’s-”
“Beta?” Vladimir guessed. “Yes, then perhaps you’ve had a lucky escape.” Grabbing a newspaper from his desk he showed Linus the headline, “No doubt you’ve seen all this?”
Linus glared at the offensive front page, at the picture of Rufus photographed like a common criminal, and the claims, written large in bold print, that he had misappropriated white-imperium, embezzled thousands of lupas, laid with all and sundry and tried to murder two ALPHA agents, one of them his own wife, in his bid to escape justice. The papers all across Lupa were unanimous in their condemnation of this treacherous, hyena-loving, debauched wolf – Linus had checked every newsstand he had happened across on his journey home, desperate for a contradiction, a ray of hope, but finding none, not even here in Riddle.
“Yes, sir,” Linus croaked, dipping his chin.
“Humph! I told him this was going to happen someday, it was inevitable the way he carried on,” Vladimir said, tossing the paper in his crackling fire. “He upsets conservatives with his inflammatory speeches; he upsets reformists by keeping a string of betas like a corrupt old Den Father, and he upsets ALPHA just by being a powerful free agent. He has few friends left.”
Linus looked up, “Sir, we have to do something-”
“There’s nothing we can do, you foolish little pup.”
“But surely if we ask Elder Amael-”
“Linus, do not dare!” Vladimir bellowed, cowing the ‘little pup’ at a stroke. “Unless you wish to join him, and believe me that’s the last thing Rufus wants, you must forsake him,” he advised, gentler now. “If ALPHA knocks on your door, and they will, disown him. If they ask about donating venom, it never happened. You only went anywhere with Rufus because he’s a Grand Howler and you felt you had no choice to save your career. You didn’t even like him. Don’t give them a reason to take you to task as well, because they will, by Ulf.”
“B-b-but why?” Linus stammered incredulously. “What’ve I done?”
“It’s not what you’ve done, but what you are. Rufus doesn’t pick up just anyone off street corners. Your blood… it crackles with imperium.”
Linus let out a tiny scoff of surprise.
Clearing his throat, Vladimir averted his eyes from Linus to the desk. “ALPHA will use any opportunity to clip our wings,” he said twiddling his golden pen between his fingers. “Removing talented wolves like you and Rufus from play is one way of going about it. Despite their protestations of ‘purity’ and ‘justice’, ALPHA is fast becoming a pack like any other, only with sweeping powers foolishly granted them in haste after the war. There will be a reckoning someday, but for now you need to learn to blend in. Bend and sway, hide your strength, your intelligence. Do that and you may survive. Then, perhaps, if you climb to the top of this termite nest we call Lupa, then you can make a difference.”
Linus dipped his chin. He said nothing.
At great length, Vladimir got back to his papers, “If anyone asks, I never said any such thing. Dismissed.”
“Sir, I-”
“I said dismissed! Go groom yourself, Mills; you’re unfit for duty.”
Once Linus had departed, Vladimir sighed to himself, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Janoah.”
*
Linus burst into the washrooms, threw his cloak down and slammed his palms on the washbasin surround to vent his fury. The mirror in front of him warped and cracked, splitting Linus’s shocked reflection in two.
The young wolf checked his tingling paws. He opened and closed them.
“Linus?” someone said.
The Howler in question quickly spied Uther’s reflection via the next mirror along. Ivan joined him, stepping out of the shady shower rooms further down. This wasn’t so odd, except that both wolves were fully dressed in their Howler gear and could hardly have been grooming. Whispering in the shadows, perhaps?
“You all right, mate?” Uther asked Linus.
“Yes,” Linus said, pushing himself off the sink and gnarling his fingers. “No. Sorry I just… I-I-I’ll pay for the damage.”
“Puh! We never saw nothin’, mate,” Uther dismissed, clapping a dark paw on Linus’s sturdy shoulder. “Right, Ivan?”
Ivan nodded once.
Linus’s blue eyes darted between them, then down into the sink. “Have you heard about Rufus?” he asked.
“Who hasn’t?” Uther scoffed angrily.
“There are such….” Linus began, faltering and gulping back his grief, before starting again, “Such liars and criminals in Lupa; beasts guilty of things a thousand times
worse than anything Rufus has done, yet they’re not carted off are they? I-I-I fight so hard to make Lupa a better place, and now… I don’t know what to think anymore. It’s not fair!”
Uther nodded sagely. He sniffed and glanced at Ivan’s inscrutable porcelain face, then said to Linus, “It’ll be all right mate, you’ll see.”
“How can it be?” Linus spat.
“Trust me-”
“Uther!” Ivan growled, walking by. “Come on, Boris is waiting.”
“Yeah yeah, comin’.”
Ivan stayed in the doorway a little while, giving Uther and Linus a look, before stepping out.
Uther waited until Ivan was quite gone, before licking his lips and saying to Linus, “Listen. I’m not supposed to say anything, but you’re gonna notice sooner or later. Me n’ Ivan, we’re, uh… gonna be away for a little while. All right?”
Linus turned around, “Away?”
“On a special mission, mate. All hush hush. Nothing you need worry about; just keep your nose clean whilst we’re gone.”
Linus stared at Uther with cub-like bafflement.
Uther laughed and gently knuckled Linus on the chin. “Oi, it’ll be your job to hold our patch together whilst I’m gone. Now I know I can rely on you, Woodlouse.”
His mind whirring, Linus scrambled about for his power of speech. “H-how long w-www-will you be gone?”
“I dunno. Month, maybe two.”
“Two months!”
“Aye. Gonna be going out beyond the Far Ashfall. See a bit of the world. That’s all I can tell yer.”
Linus gasped in surprise and smiled, “Oh, well, that sounds wonderful! I-I-I’m jealous.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course. By Ulf, I’ve longed to leave Lupa for years.”
Uther leapt on the premise, “Right! When I get back we’re taking a holiday, mate, just me and you, down on the old Graumeer Coast. We must have some proper leave brewin’.”
“Why Graumeer?”
“Rostsonne then. Whatever! Oi, you can show me your homeland.”
Linus nodded, laughed.
Slowly, Uther’s own smile melted away and he looked around the washrooms. “Well, be seeing yer, Linus,” he sniffed bluntly, slapping his friend’s arm. “Take care of yerself, all right?”
“I-I-I will,” Linus replied, concerned by Uther’s melancholic tone. “You too,” he added hastily, as Uther made the door.
Linus raised a paw, but Uther didn’t look back, he just stepped out and shut the door. Linus heard him and Ivan talking, their muffled voices fading away as they strode down the hall and to Ulf knows where.
*
“The Alpha will see you now,” the overweight Grand Prefect Horst said haughtily, stepping out and breezing by Janoah, his medals jangling about his distended cloak like a jester’s bells.
Without a word, and a dirty look, Janoah went inside. She wasn’t sure what to expect – the Alpha was in ALPHA HQ’s gymnasium of all places, hardly the most discreet of venues for a meeting, but the Alpha was a busy wolf and had to slot supplicants in somewhere, Janoah supposed.
She moved quickly amongst the exercise machines and dumbbell racks, searching for the Alpha. Much of the equipment was the standard fare used for working the muscles and building enviable bodies, but some items were elaborate imperium-laced monstrosities that could only be powered by imperium-wielders, however strong or skinny. Possessed of cogs, discs and spheres made from glittering imperium alloys, they were to be turned, lifted or rolled by manipulating one’s imperious field alone.
“My Alpha,” Janoah saluted, finding him and Nikita on a gym mat in the middle of the huge space.
The Alpha stood with his brown back to Janoah, paws cupped behind him. Nikita was opposite. Both were wearing white training breeches, nothing more.
The Alpha raised his paw in acknowledgement of Janoah, but didn’t turn around. “One moment, Prefect,” he excused.
Janoah nodded, waited, watched.
The Alpha and Nikita, both slightly out of breath and a little bedraggled, bowed gracefully at one another, one paw tucked to their chests as if doffing a hat.
Then they continued.
With a growl Nikita lunged at the Alpha, trying to thump him with the palm of a paw, but the Alpha twisted aside and struck the bigger wolf in the ribs with his own deft paw. Amidst a flash of plasma and a little smoke, Nikita was sent staggering sideways, nearly stepping off the mat and out of the bout. He regained his balance, however, and skirted around the smaller Alpha. Nikita bobbed about, rolling his mighty shoulders like a boxer, whilst the Alpha maintained a rather nonchalant stance, one paw held before him as if checking his perfect, moon-white face in a compact mirror, the other tucked neatly behind his brown back.
Nikita attacked again, the Alpha dodged and weaved, but as he made to get away Nikita thumped him in the back, blasting him with a loud snap of imperious energy. The Alpha staggered forward, his back arched in pain, before recovering his stance with a snarl and face-saving chuckle.
Janoah wondered why she was stood here watching the Alpha toy with his second wolf. Is he really slipping me into his busy schedule, or is this intentional? Am I supposed to be impressed at his masculine virility? Oh dear, boys will be boys, even the Alpha.
His composure regained, the Alpha goaded Nikita with his fingers and the words, said through a smirk, “Let’s not keep the Prefect waiting, Nikita.”
Nikita snorted angrily and bowled into the Alpha, who apparently just let him. Grasping him around the midriff Nikita knocked his superior to the ground where they wrestled, Nikita’s paws pushing against the Alpha’s. Janoah could sense their coronas mingling, twisting. The air hummed with energy, growing stronger and stronger until.
“Grrrrragh!”
With a blast of air-warping, imperious power, enough to punch Janoah back a step, Nikita was blasted clean off the Alpha. Sailing through the air he landed flat on his back with a loud, bony, distinctly organic thump. The mat broke his fall, but it was hardly a soft landing.
The Alpha kicked himself to his feet with a gymnastic grace that was enviable even amongst Howlers and brushed himself down, before offering his downed opponent a friendly paw. Nikita, eventually, took it, and was pulled to his feet whilst nursing his spine.
The Alpha slapped him on the arm. “Invigorating match, Nikita,” he said.
“Adal,” Nikita replied simply.
Grabbing a towel from a nearby rack and wiping himself down, the Alpha turned to Janoah, his pale face and bright blue eyes arresting her.
“Apologies for boring you, Prefect,” he said affably. “I’m sure we looked like cubs play-fighting on a sitting room rug to you, at least compared to your famous Riddle comrades Ivan and Uther.”
Janoah deftly batted aside the Alpha’s none-too-subtle compliment-fishing. “I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing them matched, my Alpha.”
“Ah.”
“But for the record, my husband could take them both at the same time, I’m sure.”
After a distended pause, the Alpha looked back at Nikita, who hiked his eyebrows at the incredible notion. Wiping around his robust neck, the Alpha said to Janoah, “Then your husband must be well-guarded. We can’t have him embarrass ALPHA again by escaping before his trial.”
“I understand Grand Prefect Silvermane is taking personal charge of the matter,” Janoah said simply.
A nod. “Rafe’s quick actions have been noted, Prefect, as has your loyalty to ALPHA in the face of… personal difficulties.”
Janoah nodded, “It was merely happy circumstance Rafe was nearby when Rufus,” she paused a moment, then finished, “when he attacked me.”
“It must be very shocking.”
“Yes.”
“How is our young Eisenwolf?”
Janoah smiled, “Improving, my Alpha. Josef’s treatment seems to be effective.”
“Good, good,” the Alpha said, adding, “You will divorce Rufus, of course.”
&
nbsp; “If he’s found guilty, my Alpha, but I mustn’t be seen to presume guilt, even though he… he….” Janoah looked into the far distance, then dipped her chin and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed, turning away.
The Alpha stepped up behind Janoah and gently gasped her shoulder. “Rufus casts no shadow over you,” he said. “I know you put Lupa above anything, even him. I’m sorry things turned out this way. Truly.”
Janoah slowly turned to the Alpha, taking his paw from her shoulder and rubbing his palm with a thumb, “Thank you, my Alpha.”
He nodded and smiled amiably.
With that, Janoah was sent on her way with the Alpha’s blessings and the understated salute of his own invention. The brief meeting was over.
Nikita, watching and listening from afar, was left somewhat baffled as he wiped himself down.
“What was all that about?” he scoffed at the Alpha, coming up behind the shorter wolf as Janoah picked her way through the gym and out the door.
“I wanted to let her know her loyalty has been noted,” the Alpha explained. “It can’t be easy for her, having to finally let Rufus go.”
Nikita’s brow knitted, “You like her, don’t you, Adal?”
“What?”
“You show off in front of her, like big cub!”
“Nikita, what in the world-”
“I do not trust her! Horst; he agrees with me. She goes back and forth to Riddle. Is she Amael’s, or is she ours? And that monster she keeps. He could destroy us all. She need only ask him to kill us and he would do it.”
Chuckling, the Alpha turned to Nikita, looked the powerful wolf up and down, “By Ulf’s fangs, Nikita, are you jealous of that tiny little wolfess?”
“Adal, I am merely-”
The Alpha tossed his towel at Nikita’s mottled face. “What do you take me for?”
Nikita ripped the towel from his face and replied, “She is a Howleress, a rare jewel, and many say she is very beautiful.”
“Since when did I care for that?”
No reply.
Adal clapped a paw to Nikita’s thick, mottled neck and pulled him close. “Nikitaaa... Janoah’s clever and resourceful,” he said, “and that is why Rufus, despite his every natural inclination, married her; to gain an ally in this insane hive we call Lupa. Ulf knows they stopped laying together years ago. Besides, even were I so inclined where Rufus is not, it’s not like I could marry her once they divorce, it’s forbidden.”