by Adam Browne
Rufus proffered a false smile, “That’s very clever.”
The Warden walked around the room, admiring his many trinkets, “Ulf knows I’m wasted here.” He turned and pointed at Rufus with his drink, “Do you know, I increased Gelb’s annual production by over two-hundred-percent! I devised the gang system, the tokens; I gave the prisoners initiative to work! All this and I am rewarded by being left out here to rot year after year! I should be an Elder; I’m a beast of culture and civilisation, not a prison guard. No more icy winters out here in this smouldering fistula watching over scum, not when Amael Balbus gives me what I want... and he had better.”
He looked to Rufus.
“If I do this,” he said, “I want your assurance that I’ll be brought into Amael’s regime, as he promised me.”
Rufus found his tongue, “My assurance?”
“Well yes,” the Warden laughed. “Surely you’ll have a say in the new order? Amael’s told me how much he values you. You’re like a brother to him, that’s why he’s getting you out of here early.”
Goodness, this fellow has been out of the loop a long time, Rufus realised.
“Amael’s my dearest friend,” Rufus agreed breathlessly.
Smiling, the Warden went on, “So then, once Amael’s in charge and the hyenas are disposed of also, you will be in his government and will bring me aboard. Amael’s promised he’ll make me the administrator of a territory, but I want a good one, mind, the Eisbrands, or the Common Ground perhaps, or all of Hummel, if that’s not too much. I don’t want that Greystone ash pile or his Bloodfang slums. If that’s to be my reward I’m going straight to ALPHA!”
“I don’t blame you,” Rufus chuckled, adding, “I will of course put in a good word with Amael.”
The Warden growled dangerously, “I want assurances, not ‘good words’.”
“You’ll get what you deserve,” Rufus promised. “On my honour as a Howler. After all, we cultured wolves must stick together.”
A grunt, a smile, a sip of brandy.
“Any chance I could be untied?” Rufus asked hopefully.
“I’m afraid not,” was the reply. “You’re going to be executed in a minute.”
“Twice in as many months! I am doing well.”
“Hmm?”
Rufus chuckled, “I’ll tell you about it when we’re back in Lupa and all that.”
The Warden nodded, then said, “Amael assures me you’ll be rescued by his associates before the sentence is fully carried out. I hope, for your sake, your trust in him is well-placed Howler Rufus.”
“Oh, we’re like brothers, remember.”
“We’ll see.”
On that note the Warden snatched his phone. “I’m done with him,” he told somebody, putting the phone down just as quickly.
“What about my gang?” Rufus blurted.
“What about them?”
“Well, what’s to become of them? Only, I’ve grown rather attached to one or two of them.”
“To that handsome young Watcher no doubt,” the Warden snorted meaningfully – he wasn’t completely out of the loop after all. “I’ll tell the hogs to go lightly on the lad, if that’s what you want.”
“Tomek doesn’t belong here,” Rufus excused. “It’s my fault he was sent down, you see. I’d be dead if not for him.”
“Then he’ll come to no serious harm as long as I run Gelb. You’ve my assurance.”
Rufus beamed amiably, “Much obliged, sir.”
The door opened and the Howlers strode in, saluting their superior.
“Get this scum out of my sight!” the Warden told them, a consummate actor if ever Rufus had met one, “And bring me a warrant; let’s get this over with.”
*
Tristan led Sara, Olivia and Professor Heath through the tight, lesser-known backstreets of the Eisbrand Territory, the hubbub of Petra Square receding rapidly behind them until even the whirring of Monty’s balloon was no more than a distant thrum punctuated by occasional faint cheers.
At least the Buttles were having fun.
What Sara wouldn’t give to be up in their machine. They could simply fly over Lupa’s walls and away to safety like some giant bumblebee, who could stop them?
Oh no!
“Toggle!” Sara yelped, running over to Heath and grabbing one of his enormous bear paws. “Professor, what about Toggle? She’s shut in our room!”
“I know, Sara. I know. It’ll be all right.”
“All right? We cannae leave her in there; she’ll starve tae death!”
“Now don’t be silly,” Heath reassured Sara, patting her paw. “Look, once we’re in Everdor I’ll send someone from the university round. Someone’s bound to come knocking the moment I don’t turn up for work tomorrow anyway. They’ll hear her buzzing about.”
“That could be days. She’ll be frantic. Ah have tae go back fer her.”
Tristan whirled round. “Sara!”
“You go on ahead,” Sara told Heath and Olivia, “Ah’ll get the next train. Ah’ll meet you at the other end.”
“I’ll come too,” Olivia offered at once.
“No, it’s you ALPHA want. You have tae go with Tristan.”
“Sara-”
“Ah can’t leave her, Olivia. I just can’t.”
“For Ulf’s sake, you two!” Tristan howled, gnarling his armoured fingers at them both, “It’s just a stupid bug!”
“She’s nae a stupid bug!” Sara protested vehemently, fists by her sides. “She’s mah friend. Not that Ah expect you tae understand, Tristan. Bruno would’ve.”
“And what you don’t understand is that the flat is being watched by ALPHA agents. They’ll arrest you!”
“Ah’m nae afraid o’ them bullies, nae more than you Howlers!”
With that, Sara stormed off to see about her rescue. She took not more than ten steps before Tristan caught up with her and grabbed her arm.
“Let me go!” she barked, twisting like a mealworm.
“Sara!”
“Let me go! Ah mean it!”
After suffering a shower of harmless, if annoying, slaps about his armoured face and shoulders, Tristan grasped Sara’s little arms and said firmly, “Look, I’ll go!”
He glanced up and down the street, hoping the few citizens not at the exhibition weren’t ALPHA informants. The rat green grocer sweeping his doorstep looked down and away upon meeting Tristan’s gaze, whilst a pig at a cafe buried his snout in a beer.
“I’ll go back for her,” Tristan promised
“You?”
“If you’ll just get on that train like a good wolfess, I’ll bring your bee along tomorrow.”
“But… but you don’t know how tae manage her.”
“It can’t be that hard.”
Heath walked over and raised the obvious, “Won’t ALPHA see you going into my flat, Tristan?”
“They won’t bother me,” the Howler claimed. He looked at Olivia, “I can just say I was after offering Olivia a Howlership after I found out she was a dodger. I’m within my rights to approach potential Howlers with an offer, even dodgers.”
“Would it….” Olivia began. Everyone looked to her, which silenced her a moment. “Would it be so bad,” she continued, “I mean… if I became a Howler? I could be an Eisbrand. Like you. I might look quite good in a surcoat-”
“Olivia!” Sara gasped.
“I don’t want to get you all in trouble. Perhaps I should just give up now?”
Tristan stared at the girls for quite a stretch, then confronted Olivia, “You want to be a slave?”
“What?”
“That’s all I am, Olivia, a slave. I must do as I’m told, or else.”
“Like any soldier-”
“I’m no soldier, just a bully,” Tristan scoffed, looking down the street. “I oppress the citizens of Lupa and uphold the law even when it sticks in my throat to do so. I put up with little beasts crossing the road ahead of me and cursing my existence because their wife, or son,
or husband disappeared. I suffer it not out of love for Lupa, but out of fear. I’ll do anything to get my rotting paws on a sting so I can stave off the pain, just for another week or two, because I’m too scared to face the end. I’m nothing but a miserable addict.”
“But the power you wield-”
“An extension of my pack’s will, not mine at all. I’m not free. I’m as petty as a train hog. We all are.”
Olivia looked down at her feet.
“It’s too late for me,” Tristan said, “but you can still get away and put that mind of yours to use.”
Onwards, down the narrow streets, mingling and blending with the citizens going about their business as best as two wolves, a bear and a sizeable Howler were able. It would be even worse if Sara was towing a huge bee behind her, Tristan thought, not relishing the inevitable clash with whatever agents Josef had posted at the flat. Another run-in would do little to improve his already questionable profile.
The group made the nearest station, a pokey backwater stop compared to the grand affair near the university, its walls and pillars running with streaks of ash. Passing train-hogs and barriers with impunity thanks to Tristan flashing his brooch, the Howler escorted Sara and company to the door of a run-down train.
“My associate in Riddle District will meet you,” he said, closing the door.
Sara lingered at the windows, her breath steaming up the glass. Tristan swore he lip-read a ‘thank you’ through the clouds of ash.
“All aboard!” a train hog warned.
Not lingering to wave and draw unwanted attention, Tristan took his leave, passing through the station again. He failed to notice Linus slip from behind a pillar just as he left. Flashing his brooch at the hogs, the blonde wolf hurried to the nearest carriage, the one coupled ahead of Sara’s, and boarded the train just as it began to chug away.
Two black-cloaked ALPHA wolves also boarded a few coaches further back, and a grey cat too.
*
Watched by many a mumbling prisoner and guard, the remaining members of the Scarab Gang were led across the camp to a fenced-off corner of Gelb. Inside the square fence, set in the bare erde, was a rusted trapdoor. The trapdoor was flung open by the yellow-uniformed hogs, revealing nothing at all within, unless black nothingness was a thing.
As he was forced towards the ominous hole by two hogs, Watcher Tomek was able to discern a slick, oily surface below, like a pool of liquid black-imperium.
“In yer go, scum!” one of the Gelb hogs snorted. “Maybe a stint down the Pit’ll learn you some respect. If not… well, you’ll go the same way as Rufus, picked apart by ants. Think about that whilst you’re down there. Maybe you’ll be able to hear him scream. Hah!”
Tomek emitted a whine of terror as the hogs shoved him towards this ‘Pit’. He glanced back at Madou, as if he could do something to stop it. Even were he inclined, the hyena’s paws were bound tight and his neck collared still. Helmut and Zozizou were behind him and in the same predicament.
“Don’t worry, boys,” laughed another hog, “you’re all going in together!”
With that, he whacked Tomek on the back of the legs with his truncheon so the youngster lost the power to stand. As he stumbled in pain, the hogs pushed him down the hole head-first. Tomek tumbled tail over torso for the briefest moment before his back slapped into a wall of icy water. The cold embraced him with its frosty fingers, invading his fur, his eyes, his ears, his mouth; blind, deaf and dumb he flailed in the confusing tumult, twisting his bound paws in the struggle to swim.
Suddenly Tomek’s feet touched solid ground. He pushed and scrabbled about, righting himself, or so he hoped. His head broke the surface and he greedily gulped down air.
Expecting to see something, anything, as he blinked the water from his stinging eyes, Tomek’s world proved nothing but an infinity of darkness and rippling water.
No, a square of light hovered ahead and above – the trapdoor. The opening was so bright compared to the blackness all around that it more resembled a light fixture in the ceiling rather than the sky.
“You no do this!” Tomek yelled, wading forward. “You no treat wolves like this!”
Much hoggish laughter and snorting ensued.
Moments later, Madou’s unmistakably muscled silhouette momentarily blocked the light before tumbling down into the water with an immense and foamy splash. The hyena righted himself in a snarling instant and shook the water from his robust head and neck. He stood waist deep in the pool, some inches shorter than Tomek, if almost twice as hefty. Big Helmut followed, stirring up a tidal wave as his immense body displaced an equal quantity of water, whilst the skinny little hyena Zozizou caused barely a splash at first, but flailed about post-impact with enough noise and panic for all.
Madou sloshed over to his cousin and, biting the back of his neck for his paws were bound behind him, pulled Zozizou upright.
“Calm yourself, cousin!” Madou barked, whispering afterward. “Don’t show them you’re afraid.”
The shivering Zozizou nodded quickly, water dripping off his dark snout.
Madou looked up, catching a final glimpse of the sacred Sky before it was shut away amidst a chorus of cruel laughter, and with it went every ray of light.
*
Sara cast her eyes up and down the trembling train carriage for the umpteenth time. Little beasts hid behind their newspapers, afraid of even a tiny, ordinary wolf like her. They had perhaps seen Tristan escorting her, and anyone too friendly with the Howlers was shunned.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, drawing Sara’s gaze back. “All this fuss over me.”
“Don’t be daft,” Sara chided, grasping her friend’s paws.
Olivia looked out the window at the passing Greystone Territory, with all its smokestacks and industry, heaps of ash and scrap metal – it was her birthplace.
“I always knew it,” she sighed.
Sara leant forward a little. “What?”
Olivia cocked her head sideways at Sara. “That I was afflicted,” she claimed, turning to the window again. “Ever since I was little I’ve known. I could feel them, you see. I’ve always been able to feel them all.”
“Who?” Sara asked.
“My kind!” Olivia tutted, looking to Sara again. “Tristan’s quite the wolf. If only you could feel what I feel, Sara, maybe you’d appreciate what you have in him. Still, it’s not your fault, I suppose.”
Sara emitted a tiny gasp of surprise at Olivia’s patronising tone, but said nothing.
“Linus isn’t half bad either,” she went on. “He’s not as mature though. His corona lacks… refinement. It’s very wobbly. It’s as if he can’t control his strength. Oh, it’s so hard to explain it to a normal beast like you.”
“Uh, aye,” Sara croaked – she had to say something, if only to acknowledge Olivia’s expectant gaze.
She’s just confused, Sara convinced herself; she’s overwhelmed by what’s happening to her. She’s ill. Don’t pay her rudeness any mind.
“Everything’ll be fine,” Sara reassured Olivia, and by extension herself.
She looked across at Heath, sitting opposite. The studious bear was strangely silent, staring out the window as if in deep contemplation, yet fidgeting, tugging at his waistcoat and rubbing his thighs as the train rocked to and fro.
“Ye all right, Professor?” Sara asked him.
“Hmm? What?”
“Don’t worry,” Sara told him. “Once Olivia’s safe, Tristan will sort everything out with Den Father Thorvald and ye’ll be back in your flat in no time.”
Heath humoured his student with a nod and smile, but said nothing. He stared out the window again, thumbs twiddling.
This isn’t like him, Sara thought, dipping her chin to her chest. It dawned upon her then, at that moment, that this was deadly serious.
“Ah wonder who Tristan’s contact in Riddle is,” Sara whispered, desperate to make conversation – anything was preferable to the unbearable silence. “It must be someo
ne we can trust, a real upstanding Howler. Tristan’s very clever at this kind of thing; he’s got all kinds of contacts all over Lupa. It’ll be fine.”
The words had no sooner left Sara’s lips than Olivia stood up and looked behind her.
“Someone’s coming,” she said, ears erect.
“What?”
“I can feel them. It’s a Howler… Maybe two.”
Sara peered round her seat and down the carriage. She could see nobody, no cloaked wolf of justice, only little beasts hiding behind crumpled papers.
“Where?”
Olivia sat back down again. “I’m telling you, Sara, someone’s coming,” she whispered, pulling her blazer tightly around her, as if it could dampen her field. “And if I can feel them, they’ll be able to feel me. What if it’s ALPHA, the ones Tristan said were coming?”
Heath looked the other way to Sara – the door to the next carriage wasn’t far. “We should move move,” he declared, standing up and tugging the creases from his waistcoat.
Little beasts of every sort peeked over their newspapers as the odd group of two wolves and a bear vacated their seats and hurried past them, followed minutes later by a grey cat flanked by two black-cloaked wolves; ALPHA agents to be sure. They had entered the carriage at the opposite end to the exiting group, missing them by seconds.
The cat in spectacles moved slowly down the carriage, looking at every seat, every face. Little beasts buried their noses in their papers if they had them, or the passing scenery if they didn’t.
“She’s not here, Doctor Josef,” one of the Prefects said to the cat. “I can’t feel anything. She must’ve gone to the next carriage.”
“She’s onto us,” the second Prefect growled. “Come on, she’ll get away!”
The cat, Josef, stopped them with a raised paw, but didn’t face them. “She’s not going anywhere, you fools, this is a non-stop train to Riddle District. Careful you don’t pass her; she’s a pure-blood, yet she’s been hiding in plain sight for years, undetected. I suspect she can suppress her corona and she could be able to wield it.”