Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  With a quick bow, the thickly-maned Zozizou scrabbled about on all fours, eagerly gathering the discarded weapons for his Prince. He stood up, truncheons clutched proudly to his chest – oh to be useful for one’s sovereign!

  Suddenly, Zozizou stopped in mid-stride.

  “Ungh!”

  He reached instinctively for his collared throat, the truncheons clattering at his feet.

  “Gaaac-c-cgh!” he rasped.

  Madou woofed in alarm, “What’s wrong cousin?”

  Even as the question left Madou’s lips, Zozizou inexplicably rose into the air! He hovered on the spot, feet flailing a few inches from the ground, paws grasping at his constricted windpipe. Then, with a strangled snarl he flew head-first across the cavern and slammed into its chalky walls with a sickening crack.

  He flopped to the ground and rolled to a stop, tongue lolling.

  “Zozizouuu!” Madou yowled, paws clapping to his head in horror. He ran to his cousin’s aid, but his collar suddenly assumed the inertia of a mountain. “Gaaahaaagh!” he gargled, as he too was yanked to an inexplicable halt.

  With a life all its own Madou’s imperium collar winched him from the ground, just like Zozizou’s had. The warrior squirmed and kicked as well, but to no avail. It was as though a spectral lynch mob had slung a rope around Madou’s neck and hoisted him aloft for summary execution.

  Through his blurred vision the hyena warrior spied three cloaked wolfen figures standing at the mouth of the atrium, one with their paw raised at him.

  Madou braced himself for a sudden, violent end.

  “Stop it!” Noss barked, stepping to the fore, his paws spread wide.

  Whatever Noss did, if anything, Madou’s collar loosened and the forces of nature returned to normal, pulling him to the ground, where he lay a moment, spluttering and gasping, half out of shock, half grief.

  Clawing his way to the downed Zozizou, Madou cradled his cousin’s bleeding head and looked murderously at the culprit as he stepped into the light.

  The Warden of Gelb!

  “That’s as far as you go, Prince Noss,” the black wolf declared in his tiresome tone. He was flanked by his two wolfen heavies, as ever. “Give yourself up before I lose my temper.”

  Satisfied Madou was all right, Noss let his mighty spotted arms flop down. “I’ll come quietly,” he said, glancing down at Madou and Zozizou. “If you let the others go. They’re of no importance to anyone.”

  “Don’t you dare try and bargain with me you wretch!” the Warden growled, casting a paw at Noss.

  Nothing happened.

  Noss smiled mischievously.

  The Warden’s bright eyes narrowed beneath his helmet. “A fake collar?” he surmised, allowing his paw to drop. “Tack’s work no doubt. I’m surprised you could afford his prices. Did he sell you one of his useless maps too?”

  “I’m surprised you know about him,” Noss said, with a flash of those teeth. “Strange that you let him get away with running his little… tuck shop.”

  “It’s a practical arrangement. Tack gets to experiment down in his hole, or whatever he does, whilst half the crystals he receives go to me. Without him every imperium nugget you dishonest miners squirrelled away for bargaining would disappear into the pockets of my corrupt guards. Have you ever met an honest pig? No, me neither. But pigs are all Lupa sends me! I make the best of a bad situation.”

  Noss nodded, “So, the prisoners think they’re getting one over on you, when in fact they’re merely giving you back what they stole for overpriced embers and confectionary. Very tidy, Warden.”

  “Indeed. Even the map you bought leads you here, a dead end. Nobody leaves Gelb unless I will it.”

  “Oh, evidently. No doubt you sell the venom Tack provides you on the black market and make a killing, even though each officially purified crystal could prolong a hundred good Howlers for a month. Very ‘practical’, Warden, if morally bankrupt.”

  “I’m not going to be dictated morals by treacherous hyena who tried to murder his own benefactor!” the Warden snarled. “You’re only alive because I allow you to exist, you disgusting creature. ‘Prince’ indeed. You’re nothing!”

  “I see,” Noss said, stepping slowly backwards. “Well, if I’m nothing, you won’t mind should I spread myself over the floor of that chasm behind me.”

  Silence.

  “What?” the Warden woofed.

  “If you let my friends go,” Noss bargained, “I’ll return to Gelb with you. If not… I believe I might just end it all now.”

  “By Ulf’s fangs!” the Warden laughed derisively, glancing at his two equally amused Howlers. “What’re you threatening to do, throw yourself off that cliff?”

  Noss shrugged, “And why not?”

  “My prince, you can’t!” Madou howled in dismay.

  “Shut up, Madou.”

  The Warden stepped forward a little. “He’s right. Hyenas can’t commit suicide. It’s against your custom.”

  Noss continued to walk backwards, closer and closer to the edge, “Ordinarily, but everyone knows I’m a bit… deranged. There’s no telling what a seasoned Chakaa will do, is there?”

  “But you’ll have no honour,” the Warden scoffed, a little worried now.

  “Oh, I sold that years ago,” Noss replied, with a nonchalant wave of the paw. “I’ve none left to lose!”

  “Your tribe will be disgraced!”

  “I’ve already disgraced them. They’ll not bother to scrape my remains off the rocks, believe me.”

  “But… but you’ll never meet your ancestors. You’ll wander the eternal plains forever. Isn’t that what you hyenas believe?”

  “The empirical evidence for an afterlife is somewhat lacking,” Noss said scientifically, turning around and jogging for the cliff. “So let’s test the hypothesis shall we? Hahahahaaaahaha!”

  The Warden reached out, “Alright alright! Stop! Stop! Please!”

  Noss skidded to a halt inches from the black chasm, sending loose pebbles tumbling to their doom. He slowly turned around with a great big hyena grin slapped across his thick dark muzzle.

  “Aww,” he said, in mock disappointment – or at least the watching Madou hoped it was merely mock. “Hmm, it appears I’m more important than you claim, Warden,” Noss boasted toothily. “Could it be that I’m valuable? It seems everyone wants a piece of me. THORN wants me alive; Amael wants me dead, or will do soon enough, whilst the wily Vladimir hasn’t yet made up his mind! I’m your bargaining chip to use against everyone. However the dice fall you’ll be safe, as long as you have an intact Prince to use against whoever wins and not a dismembered corpse blattered on the rocks below.”

  After the longest time huffing and puffing with fury the Warden conceded defeat. “What do you want?”

  “Safe passage for the others,” Noss sniffed, turning round to face the chasm again, arms folded. “I’ll stay behind.”

  “Safe passage? To where? This is a dead end!”

  Noss waved his map, before screwing it up and tossing it into the chasm. “We both know that’s a lie; this place was explored by Lupan geologists centuries ago. I have friends coming in from the other side with the real map. When they arrive I want no trouble. You’ll stand there looking pretty whilst they rescue everyone… except for me. You get to keep me. How delightful!”

  “How do I know you won’t kill yourself when they’re gone?” the Warden growled, pointing at the gorge Noss remained inches from.

  “Because I want to live, and I expect my side to win in the coming storm,” Noss said wryly. “And when they do, you’ll have to present me to them alive… or else.”

  “THORN won’t win,” the Warden maintained.

  Noss said nothing.

  Time passed. The standoff held. Eventually the frustrated Warden and his two wolves retreated to the atrium exit at Noss’s behest, whilst a growing army of Gelb hogs gathered beyond, ready to rush in and overwhelm the fugitives if there was any sign of trickery.

&
nbsp; Thus the five prisoners waited, trapped between a Gelb army and a bottomless pit – Noss most especially teetered on the edge, as if contemplating jumping still.

  Madou tore strips of fabric from his shirt and bandaged his cousin’s head, whilst Tomek rolled his up to fashion a pillow for the unconscious hyena.

  “Thank you,” Madou acknowledged.

  Tomek merely tipped his stripy cap and looked across at the Warden standing in the cave.

  “Give yourself up before you get hurt, cub,” the Warden urged Tomek, beckoning with a paw. “Nobody’s coming to rescue you. Noss there is a mad beast.”

  No reply.

  “You’ll be well treated. You won’t have to mine ever again. I’ll make you part of my household staff.”

  Still nothing.

  “I mean it, boy, I was asked to look after you during your stay here.”

  That got Tomek’s ear-twisting attention; Madou’s too.

  “You’re a very handsome wolf, aren’t you?” the Warden went on, loud enough for all to hear. “Yes. Just his sort. When this is all over he’ll come calling for you, don’t doubt it. I can protect you from him if you like.”

  “What you talking about?” Tomek spat at last.

  “Howler Rufus, of course.”

  “What about him?”

  “You’re his wolf, aren’t you? That’s why he asked me to get you out of the Pit. He’s taken a fancy to you.”

  Tomek barely reacted, but for an ear-twitch.

  The Warden continued, “Of course if you like being his beta then that’s fine too. Either way, I would rather salvage you from this situation in one piece than not; Rufus will thank me for it, and you will too, in time.”

  Tomek’s young face twisted this way and that, before he waved a paw and walked off, his cap tugged shamefacedly down over his eyes.

  Madou wasn’t sure what that was all about, something distinctly wolfen, but he nonetheless took away one strange fact – according to the Warden, Rufus was still alive and Tomek didn’t appear to be surprised by it.

  What is going on here?

  Suddenly a dejected-looking Helmut leapt to his trotters and pointed across the chasm. “I see ‘em!”

  Sure enough a contingent of hyenas entered the glowing atrium, a dozen or so, armed with spears and hammers and rifles. Two were especially robust-looking, wearing dazzling black and white cloaks, their faces masked by skull-shaped helmets.

  The little army crossed the atrium and gathered by the opposite edge of the chasm that divided it. Whilst many cast their curious eyes to the shining ceiling, marvelling at its beauty, the hyena at their head cared only to stare at Noss.

  “Prince Noss of the Four Winds,” he said. “Is it really you?”

  “Nurka?” Noss replied.

  “Yes, my Prince,” Nurka acknowledged, his raspy voice quavering with excitement.

  Noss hiked his hefty brows, “You’ve grown.”

  Nurka allowed a brief giddy laugh, then fell to his knees and bowed. The rest of the group followed their chief, all but two of them – a red wolf and a white rabbit were left standing at the back.

  Noss and the wolf stared at one another, their respectively purple and green eyes narrowing, their coronas reaching out and mingling as if no chasm parted them.

  “Red-mist,” Noss said – not asked, but stated.

  The red wolf said nothing.

  The rabbit looked between them, but neither he nor the wolf said a word before Nurka and his hyenas rose up again and obscured them from view.

  “We’ve come for you, my Prince,” Nurka declared.

  “I should’ve guessed it was you behind the messages the guards kept passing me,” Noss replied. “They never said your name, but I knew. Who else would bother to come for me but my old pupils?”

  “Names are incriminating and dangerous to use, my Prince. It’s not just us, but many allies across Lupa I must protect lest things should… unravel.”

  “Of course. You were always the clever one.”

  Leaving Zozizou a moment, Madou hurried to join his Prince. “Nurka, it’s me!” he beamed, unable to contain himself.

  “Madou!”

  “Hahahaaaa!”

  “Please forgive me for abandoning you in Riddle. I thought you were dead.”

  “So did I!” Madou professed. “It is good to see you.”

  Whilst his chief exchanged niceties across the divide, Themba spotted a problem lurking on Noss’s side.

  “Nurka,” he said, pointing at the Warden and his small army of Gelb hogs gathered at the caves leading to the glowing atrium.

  “I see them, Themba,” Nurka replied, looking to Noss for an explanation.

  “Don’t mind the good Warden, we’ve come to an arrangement,” the prince grunted vaguely. “He’ll not disturb us.”

  Madou stepped in, “Nurka, he’s not going to let Prince Noss go-”

  “Shut up Madou!” Noss barked.

  “But it’s true, he’s not!”

  Nurka’s wide purple eyes bared his alarm long before his mouth. “What do you mean? Madou, what’s going on?”

  Noss over-talked Madou and explained the precarious situation, that he was bargaining himself in place of Madou and the others, the Warden being unwilling to relinquish his guarantee against whatever force overtook Lupa, be it wolfen, hyena, or even the status quo.

  “Then we’ll kill him!” Themba growled.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Noss chided. “I’m not going to be the cause of a bloodbath.”

  Nurka, for once, agreed with his second in command. “My Prince, we’ve risked everything coming down here. I’m not leaving without you.”

  “You’ll do as your Prince commands, Nurka of the Jua-mata.”

  “Forgive me, but I must disobey you. Amael Balbus will use you against us once we’ve taken down the Den Fathers. He’ll bargain with your life and bend THORN to his will. We must extract you now, whatever the cost.”

  “Don’t concern yourself with me! You shouldn’t have bothered to begin with. You should’ve left me to rot.”

  Nurka seethed, “My Prince!”

  “It’s the truth!” Noss looked down into the bottomless chasm, as if into his black soul. “I’ve caused nothing but heartache for my tribe since the day I sold my honour for a fistful of lupas. My betrayal of the Howlers brought new sanctions against my tribe. How many of you have suffered because of my selfishness?” Noss shook his head, “I’ll have no more suffering and dying on my account. You’ll leave me here, Nurka, and never look back. Take Madou and the others. Treat them as your friends, they’ve been mine.”

  Nurka dipped his chin to his cloaked chest. Usually so eloquent a beast, yet words wouldn’t form on his lips for the anguish he felt.

  His Prince and teacher was lost to him.

  “Gentlebeasts,” someone said in a gravely tone, “if I may.”

  It was Rufus, pushing his way to the fore with Casimir. The wolf cleared his throat.

  “Let me talk to the Warden,” he said.

  “Talk?” Themba woofed. “You?”

  “Yes, my good hyena, negotiate. You should try it sometime instead of hitting things with a hammer.” With that scalding remark, Rufus turned to Nurka, “I might be able to talk him round.”

  “And if not?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Rufus chuckled, peering into the gulf. “Now, how does one traverse this little crack?”

  Watched by an increasingly suspicious and fidgety Warden, Nurka set his hyenas to the task at paw. Setting aside his hammers, the powerful Themba threw a weighted rope to Madou on the opposite side of the chasm and instructed him to tie it off round one of the natural rock pillars that stretched all the way from dull floor to glowing ceiling. Themba did the same on the opposite side, thus creating the most rudimentary of crossings.

  Nurka reached for the rope, but Themba stayed his paw.

  “No chief,” he said sternly. “If this goes south, you need to get away and
carry on. Stay on this side.”

  With an eye-squinting pause for thought, Nurka accepted Themba’s logic.

  “Just be careful,” the chief said.

  Grunting in acknowledgement, Themba passed Nurka his splendid labyrinthine-patterned cloak and skull-helmet for safe-keeping. He grasped the rope overhead with both paws and took a few deep, nerve-calming breaths. Levering his armoured legs up, the powerful hyena hooked both feet over the taught, creaking twine and began to fearlessly shuttle himself across the chasm, paw over paw, like a living cable-car.

  Themba made it look easy, but not everyone was convinced.

  “Are you lot insane?” Helmut snorted. “I’m not going across there on a teensy rope!”

  Tomek patted the hog on his mighty back, “You can do it, Helmut. Paw over paw. No problem.”

  “Well, w-w-what about Zoziwotsit? The lad’s out cold! He can’t do nowt.”

  Madou claimed nobly, “I’ll carry him.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll tie him to my back.”

  Themba had by now crossed the perilous gorge, to general relief. He swung his legs down without a fuss and walked over to join Madou, embracing him then and there. After much back-thumping and shoulder-patting on both sides, the shortest and tallest of Nurka’s followers parted.

  Themba cast his wary eyes over Helmut and especially Tomek, then presented himself to Noss. “My Prince,” he said, bowing again. It was as if prostrating himself from across the gorge wasn’t good enough.

  Noss averted his gaze to the pit. “Get my friends out of here, Themba. Look after them. Trust them.”

  “Even the wolf?”

  “Especially him. Madou wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Tomek. He’s one of us, now.”

  “Yes, my Prince.”

  One of the other hyenas made to cross over, but Rufus took the lead and told everyone to wait.

  “Keep everyone on this side,” Rufus said quietly to Nurka, swinging his legs up. “I’ve a plan.”