Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

“Trust me. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Seeing Rufus peel off from the hyenas and head back into the cave, Tomek scrabbled to his feet and hurried after him, hugging the wall so as not to be seen or shot at.

  “Rufus!”

  “Tomek, stay there.”

  “Where you going?”

  “To get us out of this,” Rufus explained.

  “I help,” Tomek said, slapping his chest.

  “No-”

  “Please! Whatever it is, I must help. For Helmut. Please!”

  With time of the essence, and Tomek’s face irresistibly forlorn, Rufus caved in and beckoned the Watcher to follow him into the darkness once more, leaving Nurka and the others to hold the cave mouth.

  “Water,” Red-mist panted, as he hurried through the passages, waving his lantern at any dark rents and spaces in the rock as yet unexplored. “We need to find water.”

  “Water?” Tomek repeated.

  “Yes. A pool of water, deep enough to swim in. The caves are running with it, there must be places it collects.”

  Baffled though he was, Tomek trusted Rufus knew what he was about. “Right. We split up, yes?” he suggested, taking in the many passages roundabout. “I search this way. You search that way.”

  The youngster made to dash off into one of many twisting side-passages.

  “Wait! You need a light, you daft cub!”

  “Oh! I go back for one.”

  “No, take mine,” Rufus said, passing Tomek his lantern. “If you had a brain you’d be dangerous.”

  Tomek spread a paw, “What about you?”

  Rufus answered him by running a paw over his mantle-fastening brooch. The tired imperium within the ancient metal rippled into life at the Howler’s behest, shining with a barely useful red light suitable only for a dark room. Rufus had no idea to what pack this stolen armour might’ve once belonged, the circular symbol wasn’t familiar, but it would serve.

  “Don’t go too far,” he advised, grasping Tomek’s shoulder. “Search a little way in and come back here to the start, all right? If you come to a fork in the caves mark the way back with a rock or something. If you find water, shout like mad.”

  Much nodding and a wave of the paw, then Tomek was away like a cub on a treasure hunt.

  “Be careful!” Rufus called after him.

  “I will!”

  Waiting until the caves had swallowed Tomek and his lantern, Rufus picked his own passage to explore – they all looked the same. How easy it would be to get lost.

  The red light of Rufus’s brooch glimmered on the slick walls, making them appear almost visceral, as if he were exploring the innards of some giant creature. He tried not to dwell on what fate might befall Tomek. The eager cub could get lost forever, or fall down a pit never to be seen again, or be dismembered by a ferocious ant and carried off for tea.

  Helmut, Zozizou and half Nurka’s comrades, injured or dead. How many others will follow?

  “If you must have blood, Ulf, take mine instead,” Rufus bargained in the darkness, “All I ask is that you wait a little longer-”

  “Praying, Red-mist?” someone huffed.

  Whirling round, Rufus’s red brooch illuminated the manic toothy grin of Noss Jua-mata, casting the hyena prince in shades of scarlet, save for his purple eyes which somehow resisted.

  “That’s not very scientific,” he tutted, wagging a thick finger.

  “What’s going on back there?” Rufus demanded.

  Noss shrugged, “I’m sure Nurka’s capable of holding our Warden at bay,” then glanced behind him, perhaps checking if someone had followed. “I excused myself from him to come tell you… I’ve kissed the sun.”

  Silence.

  Noss went on theatrically, “I have kissed the sun, felt its warmth on my wings. I have known love with my mate and shared joy at their smile. Oh yes. And yet… there is so much more beyond the horizon, so much yet to see and do! This pond is but a puddle in a great ocean of green. Alas, I cannot go on. My time is done.” He finished with a cackle, “Is that not the password?”

  Rufus’s emerald eyes squinted. “You?” he gasped, looking Noss up and down. “You’re with Janoah? But how? If you’ve been in Gelb all this time, how could you be my contact?”

  “Vladimir, that spider, plans well ahead. He faked my death and sent me to Gelb in secret, so that Amael wouldn’t silence me.”

  “Because you’d testify against him,” Rufus assumed.

  Noss nodded, then dipped his chin, “I didn’t… it was not hatred, that drove me to betray you Red-mist. Amael’s camp came to me first. They offered me money, so much money! I just wanted to be free; free of my responsibilities as a prince, free of watching my people suffer and die and me being unable to do anything!”

  Rufus let the tearful prince gather himself.

  “I am a coward, I know,” Noss self-flagellated. “I even betrayed Amael’s camp by letting you live, but they had betrayed me anyway, arresting Arjana and the cubs. Vladimir saved them, but said if I wanted to see them again I had to survive Gelb, and wait on his word. Only, I never expected his ‘word’ would be this! I thought I would only have to testify against Amael when Vladimir brought him to trial, that was our deal. Now I’m supposed to help you bring THORN down from the inside, they say.”

  “They?”

  “Vladimir’s contacts in Gelb. He has spies everywhere.”

  “Spider indeed,” Rufus agreed. “So then, will you help us?”

  Noss growled, “Believe me, Nurka goes too far! I would stop him whether Vladimir said so or not. THORN’s violent course will only destroy the tribes, not save them.” He spread his paws, “I… I don’t want to fight and kill anymore. I just want to live in a hut and raise my cubs with Arjana. That’s all I have ever wanted.”

  Rufus gulped, his neck bobbing, “I knew you weren’t so far gone that you’d murder innocent beasts. That’s why you didn’t throw a black-imperium grenade in The Warren that day. You couldn’t do it, could you?”

  Noss dipped his chin. “No, but… can you ever forgive me for what I did do?”

  “What’s done is done,” Rufus replied, noncommittally. “Hundreds if not thousands of lives may depend on what we do next, that’s what matters now. Understand?”

  Noss nodded. Clearing his throat of residual grief he asked, “Is it just us, Red-mist?”

  “Casimir’s on our side,” Rufus replied. “I had to convince him, but I think he can be relied upon.”

  “That cowardly rabbit?”

  “Pessimistic, certainly.”

  Noss waited a moment, as if worried of the repercussions of his next sentence. “I… confided in Tomek before we broke out of Gelb. He’s determined to help.”

  “Tomek? I wanted him left out of this!”

  “He’s a Watcher, Rufus, not some innocent cub you need to protect. He’s shot beasts, executed them – you almost, he told me everything. He knows what’s at stake.”

  “Does he?” Rufus scoffed. “Do you even know what’s at stake?”

  Noss said with some confidence, “Nurka’s going to plant a black-imperium bomb at the Pack Summit, killing all the Den Fathers. Amael and his followers will leave before it explodes and head back to Lupa to take control in the power vacuum.”

  Rufus laughed a little, “Says who?”

  “Madou,” Noss said.

  “Well, Madou may think so, and that’s likely what he told Vladimir too, but a black-imperium bomb won’t cut it, and Nurka knows that. He’s read up on imperiology; he knows how black-imperium behaves. No, he’s got something else in mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m… not sure yet, but it can’t be a simple bomb-”

  “Rufuuus! Rufus, I find it! Water!”

  “Tomek?”

  Returning to the main passage with Noss in tow, Rufus spied Tomek hurrying back from the very first cave he had disappeared down. Waving his lantern and a paw, the young wolf declared excitedly, “Is water this way!”
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br />   “Deep?” Rufus stipulated, meeting him at the mouth of the passage.

  “Yes. There is waterfall with pool. Is quite big.”

  “Waterfall?”

  “Yes, listen!”

  Rufus listened, and sure enough detected a faint hiss on the air. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.

  “Come see,” Tomek said, beckoning Rufus.

  “No, I believe you,” Red-mist assured Tomek, patting his shoulders. “Well done.”

  “What now?”

  “Run back and bring Nurka and the others to the water you found,” Rufus instructed. “Be ready to dive in, and I mean everyone, wounded or not.”

  “Right, I go!” Tomek said.

  “Wait; Nurka might not listen to you alone!” Noss barked, chasing after the eager Watcher. He stopped long enough to say, “Good hunting, Red-mist.”

  Snorting, Rufus drew his sword and dashed the opposite way, vanishing into the dark.

  As Tomek hurried through the caves as fast as was sensible by lantern light, he turned to Noss as the hyena caught up. “Do you know what we’re doing, Noss?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Hahaaahahaa!” Noss cackled, “I like you, Tomek, you’re an honest beast.” Then he explained, for he knew the workings of Rufus’s mind, as well as the habits of many a bug, “The ants won’t go near water, so we can hide in there whilst the angry lot take care of the Warden and his pigs.”

  “Ants?”

  “Yes, all Rufus need do is provoke them into defending their nest, then we wait out the storm in your pool.”

  “Sounds like it will work.”

  “I’m that convincing?” Noss laughed. “That’s good to know.”

  Suddenly the hyena prince grabbed Tomek’s arm, pulling him to a stop.

  “Hey!” the Watcher yapped.

  For a moment Noss was still and silent. “You know… we could end this now,” he suddenly realised. “We could not tell Nurka. The ants would wipe him and the others out. It’d be an honourable death for a hyena, they wouldn’t begrudge it. Then Amael’s coup would collapse without Nurka completing his side of the bargain. It’d be over. We could all go home. It would be enough, wouldn’t it?”

  Tomek frowned and emitted a tiny scoff. “But… if Amael’s coup is stopped too soon, then the traitors will not reveal themselves. That’s what you told me.”

  Noss agreed with a nod. “I know. But, if we let this continue we risk Nurka and Amael succeeding. We may not get a better chance to end it.”

  Noss and Tomek stared at one another.

  “What would Rufus do?” the latter asked.

  “Rufus? He’s just trying to get everyone through this unscathed. He’s always been too soft. He just forgave me for trying to kill him! Anyone else would’ve run me through. I know his betas would’ve.”

  “His betas?”

  Noss looked Tomek over, “Watch yourself. You’re fast becoming one.”

  Silence and bafflement.

  Noss fondly clipped Tomek’s nearest ear with a paw, “Never mind, boy.”

  Whatever the hyena meant, Tomek moved on. “My mother always say… job worth doing is worth doing well,” he said, in his typically chipper fashion. “We go on, to end, and do this properly. Like we planned.”

  Noss seconded, “To the end then. Hahahaaaahahaaa!”

  *

  Rufus shone his feeble red brooch over the eggs Helmut had nearly trodden on. There was no sign of the nursery ants. They must be attending young elsewhere.

  “Schmutz.”

  There was nothing else for it. Steeling himself for the task at paw, Rufus tentatively entered the passage near the clutch of eggs in search of the ants, kristahl rapier held forth, teeth clenched beneath his scratched and pitted helmet.

  Rufus knew weapons and armour would do little to avail him against the fearsome jaws of countless furious sisters, for that’s what ants were, daughters of the queen, sisters one and all, dedicated to the defence of her and the continuation of their underground realm. They would not take kindly to someone disturbing the peace.

  After something of a steep climb necessitating Rufus crawl on all fours, the passage opened up into a larger atrium. The floor looked paler than the walls. As Rufus got his eye in he realised the whole cave was alive with movement! Fat, glistening, wriggling grubs, devoid of noticeable legs or eyes, lay amongst their un-hatched egg-bound sisters, like obese empresses lounging on piles of silk pillows, and all presided over by giant, six-legged slaves incessantly turning them, feeding them, cleaning them.

  This was the nursery proper, most likely one of many. The eggs down the hall were but the beginnings of an extension for this growing colony.

  Rufus watched, fascinated, wishing he had a camera and a flash, or even a sketchbook, with which to document the amazing sight. How many beasts can have seen the inside of a giant ant colony and lived to tell of it?

  You still have to live, Rufus reminded himself.

  Drawing his pistol, he aimed at one of the ants tending the grubs. Even though it was just a feeble-minded creature, an automaton controlled by pheromones and sensations with no higher thought than the very next thing to do, to wilfully shoot it went against every fibre of Rufus’s being. He felt like a vandal throwing a brick through a hospital window into the baby ward, but it had to be done.

  Lupa and countless lives may depend on it.

  “Sorry, old girl,” Rufus seethed, squeezing the trigger.

  Crack!

  The pistol exploded with a flash of light and sound, turning the whole atrium to day for a fraction of a second, every grub, egg and ant, illuminated. The one Rufus had selected for death fell over and curled into a tangle of legs. In its dying moments it chattered wildly, stridulating with its mouthparts like enormous maracas, while its grape-like abdomen pumped wildly, as if taking some final heaving breaths. The ant was in fact squirting an invisible pheromone into the air, a chemical message that carried a cry for help.

  In seconds the nearest ant responded, rushing over to its dying sister and feeling her with its antennae. Then another came and another, each one chattering and releasing more chemical messages, drawing more and more ants to the fray like panicked mothers rushing from their houses to attend a youngster knocked down in the street. The sisters began to search for the cause of the disturbance; spider, centipede, another invading ant, whatever it was they massed to destroy it, running all over the nursery like creatures possessed.

  Rufus promptly about-faced and slid into the tunnel as the caves thrummed to the chitinous feet of a hundred furious insect warriors.

  The frenzy had begun.

  *

  One of the Warden’s two Howlers hurried up the mountainside to join his superior, who was overlooking the cave entrance from a safe distance. From this vantage point it was possible to see the dozens of Gelb hogs stationed around the rocks and escarpments that surrounded the cave, their pistols aimed at Nurka and the hyenas cowering within. It was also possible to see the bodies of the hyenas they had already dealt with, heaped to one side in a bloody pile.

  The Warden was done with games and deals. Just kill them all was the order.

  “Well?” he demanded of his Howler.

  “They’re… going back in, sir,” the fellow puffed, a little short of breath after the climb.

  “What?”

  “They’re retreating back into the caves, sir.”

  The Warden pondered the news. “They must be looking for another way out. Fools, they’ll never see the light of day again. They’ll expire in there, one way or another.”

  “Yes… sir.”

  For a time nothing more was said. The Howler fidgeted a little, shuffling from foot to gaiter-clad foot.

  “What is it?” the frightening Warden grumbled at him.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Out with it, Howler.”

  “Only that, well, Howler Rufus disappeared first sir, him and that cub h
e likes. Then after a few minutes the hyena prince ran after them both. I was just going to come tell you about it when those last two came back without Rufus and spoke to the hyenas, and then they all upped sticks and left together. They all looked pretty organised, sir, like they knew what they were about and where they were going to.”

  “I see.”

  “Maybe Howler Rufus knows a way out? He’s pretty clever isn’t he? One of the best there is, they say. He must be to leap that gorge sir; I ain’t ever seen the like!”

  The Warden glowered at his awed subordinate.

  The Howler withered under his gaze, “Just a thought, sir.”

  “No… no you’re right,” the Warden admitted, paws on hips. “Maybe he does know a way out… or maybe he’s just trying to draw us inside to ambush us.”

  The Howler waited for his orders.

  “Take half the hogs and investigate,” the Warden decided. “I’ll stay here in case he’s planning to hide somewhere and then double-back as you pass. Whatever he’s thinking I won’t underestimate him again, nor trust that worm Amael. Once this is over I’m going straight to the Den Fathers to inform them of the conspiracy. They’ll have to reward my diligence then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Watching his two Howlers gather some hogs and enter the caves, the Warden growled to himself. “You’re not going to best me, hyena-lover.”

  *

  Rufus scrabbled down the tunnel into the main passage as fast as his limbs could carry him. He avoided crushing the few ant eggs there, as if unwilling to compound murder with infanticide.

  A mistake.

  In the time it took Rufus to skirt politely around the pallid clutch, a furious ant burst from the tunnel in pursuit of him and in an instant lunged across, nipping his left arm neatly in her vice-like jaws and yanking him to a stop!

  “Gaaaahaagh!” Rufus cried, falling about the place.

  Round came the ant’s abdomen, tucking under her legs, the sting unsheathed and ready to strike – ants had stings like wasps and bees and weren’t shy about using them, but nor was Rufus shy about using his! Clapping his right paw to that rock-hard, armoured head, Rufus let the ant have it, blasting her with an plasmatic shock so potent that it blew her on her back and sent him tumbling across the caves until he slammed into its smooth, slick walls.