Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “Oof!”

  Rolling momentarily into a ball of hurt, Rufus checked he had come away with his left arm and that it wasn’t dangling from the jaws of the ant.

  He still had both limbs, but neither was in a good state. With one bleeding and useless, and the other numbed by imperium shock, Rufus dragged himself to his feet and stumbled on with his arms folded to his chest. The adrenaline dulled the pain, but not the fear.

  Dismembered by ants, what a way to go!

  He glanced behind. Where one ant fell, ten others replaced her, filling the caves, antennae waving, searching. Find the intruder, protect the eggs! Whilst some set off to hunt down the enemy, others gathered the eggs in their jaws and ferried them up the tunnel, deeper into the nest, to safety.

  So efficient, so organised, so deadly. Magnificent.

  Rufus hurried on, the hiss of the waterfall and pool Tomek had promised tickling his ears. Tomek had come from the last passage on the right, as memory served, so that’s where safety must lie. Rufus wished he had asked for directions. It’s funny what one overlooks in the heat of the moment, he thought, hoping he had given Tomek and Noss enough time.

  “Awoooo!”

  Tomek? Howling to guide me? It must be!

  Right, into the passage Tomek should have led Nurka, Themba and the others.

  The dull chatter of countless armoured feet thumping on the floor and walls thundered past Rufus as the ants stampeded down the main passage he had only seconds ago left behind. Soon they’d search this tunnel too. They’d search everywhere, above and below, eliminating anything strange, anything not of the queen.

  Keep running, Howler, don’t look back.

  “Awoooo!”

  Definitely Tomek, louder, and with every step the hiss of falling water grew louder too. The tight tunnel opened up into a wide, black atrium, the feeble red light of Rufus’s weary brooch unable to penetrate. He continued on, blind, hurting; he felt he was heading down a slight slope, for his feet were tilted forward. Light! Shapes! The glow of a lantern, the ripple of black water, the white foam of bubbles; slowly a waterfall and a lake crystallised in Rufus’s eyes. Familiar beasts were wading into its depth, Noss, Nurka, Themba, Casimir!

  “Rufus!” Tomek shouted, waving his lamp. “This way!”

  Noss waved furiously too, beckoning Rufus into the water, as if the Howler needed encouragement like some timid bather concerned over temperature.

  Suddenly, the prince snatched a spear from the nearest wading hyena and charged through the pool towards the subterranean shore, kicking up sprays of foam in his desperation, spear held overhead like a rifle.

  “Behind you, Rufus!” he bellowed.

  Something hit Rufus like a sandbag, he stumbled, fell, and tumbled down to the water’s edge.

  “Ofaagh!”

  Then they were on him, several giant ants, a tangle of chitin and hairs, antennae beating him relentlessly like clubs. Their jaws nipped at his extremities, biting his flesh, seizing his limbs, an arm each, a leg each.

  “Gaaahaaaaagh!”

  Up Rufus rose, twisting in agony as the ants pulled in opposing directions, trying to tear him apart in a tug of war. He felt a shoulder crack, dislocate, his spine pop, tendons rip. With a last gasp of effort the Howler blasted them all with his imperious fury, sending waves of plasma rippling up each limb! Shocked right in the mouth by Rufus’s energy the ants relented, dropping him and running in confused circles, their spiked legs kicking and tearing his broken body as they walked over and around him.

  “Red-miiist!” Noss yelled, jamming his spear into one of the bewildered ants and releasing a blast of imperium that lit up the caves from stalagmite to stalactite. The stricken creature fell over sideways, its six legs curling up and antennae jittering as life took leave of its body.

  Prince Noss whirled on the next giant bug fool enough to face him and struck it across the head with a thwack of his spear and a well-timed explosion of plasma. Legs curling in death it rolled down into the water and splashed in the shallows beside Tomek, who was hurrying to help.

  Whilst Themba trudged for the shore, hammer in paws, Nurka calmly raised his imperium bow and shot past him, past Noss, past everyone, deep into the dark. A miss? No, the yellow-imperium arrow exploded in a spectacular flare, killing and confusing several more ants massing in the dark cave beyond.

  “Hurry!” Nurka rasped, drawing another arrow. “Into the water!”

  “Take him!” Noss bellowed at Tomek, jabbing his spear at another ant, and another.

  Nodding and gesturing, Tomek pulled the disturbingly still and bloodied Rufus down to the water by his arms, whereupon the powerful Madou was on station to hoist the wounded wolf onto his shoulders and wade clear.

  Big Themba joined Noss, smashing an ant ‘skull’ here, another there, and relishing it.

  “Come at me!” he laughed wildly. “I am Thembaaaa of the Jua-mataaa! Remember it!”

  Nurka shot another precious yellow-imperium arrow into the swarming ants whilst Casimir and the lesser hyenas fired a volley of pellets, lighting the underground lake with flashes of colour. Their efforts downed many an ant, but reinforcements were swift and ever more numerous. Some crawled on the walls, some even on the ceiling, their feet finding impossible purchases as they searched for the enemy.

  “We’re all gonna die!” someone shrieked – probably Casimir.

  “Just stay in the water!” Nurka shouted over the falls, ushering everyone back. “Themba, stop showing off and get your arrogant tail into the water! Come on!”

  Striking one last intrepid ant and snarling at another as if it had the mind to be intimidated, Themba waded backwards into the lake just ahead of Noss. The prince waved his spear left and right, the imperium tip glowing strongly with the energy he was imparting it. The light seemed to distract the ants, baffle them. Themba followed suit, channelling his energies up the hammer shaft to its brick-like kristahl head, so that it shone white-hot and reflected a million-fold in the compound eyes of a hundred ants.

  To Nurka’s surprise, and relief, the ants ceased their advance on Noss and Themba at the shoreline. They didn’t dare to wade into the water a single inch, but checked its existence with their antennae and refused to go any further. No amount of pheromones could persuade them otherwise, and they instead broke off their advance to trundle around the dry areas of the cave in a vain search for something else to tear asunder.

  “By the Wind, it’s actually working!” Madou woofed, punching the foaming water from the falls that lapped at his waist. “Rufus was right. Hahahaaaa!”

  “Of course I was,” Rufus grunted indignantly atop his shoulders.

  “Rufus!” Tomek yelped with delight, wading over. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been… better.”

  Nurka’s nervous band gathered into a tight circle in the midst of the subterranean lake, weapons presented outwards, lest the hydrophobic ants grew suddenly brave. The water here was cold and set many beasts shivering already. The wounded like Rufus and Zozizou were kept as clear of the icy water as their carriers were able, but there was nothing more anyone could do for them at present.

  “N-n-now what?” the trembling Casimir complained, as the ants lingered on, searching, chattering.

  Noss replied, “We wait for them to clean house.”

  *

  The Warden descended from the escarpment to join his Gelb hogs by the cave mouth. “Remove this,” he said, kicking the body of Helmut in passing. “Stick it with the others and burn it.”

  “But… but he’s a hog, sir,” a fellow hog pointed out.

  “What?”

  “Well, he’s no hyena terrorist-”

  “Sergeant, I’ll stick Rufus himself on that pyre if he shows his face above ground. It makes no bones to me what these treacherous beasts are; they’ve all forfeited any right to a proper service as far as I’m concerned. Dispose of them at once!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A second hog enquired nervously,
“What do we start a fire with, sir?”

  The Warden growled despairingly, “Must I think of everything? Get the spare fuel tank from my car!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  The two hogs dragged the hefty Helmut away and round some rocks to where the dozen or so bodies of Nurka’s hyena comrades were heaped, then set about dousing them with fuel fetched from the boot of the Warden’s limo. Hyenas at least would not begrudge being returned to the wind and sky, but hogs like Helmut were the burying sort – much better to return to Mother Erde from whence life grew from, or so the old ways went.

  The Warden had no time for the old ways, but hoped Rufus would be happy down there in his labyrinthine tomb. And if he dared come out, well, to the fire with his hyena-loving carcass. The only question remaining was whether to go to the Den Fathers or not. Without Nurka and the hyenas, Amael’s coup was doomed, but was it best to stay silent and plead ignorance when the inevitable investigations began, or claim a conscience and rat on him first?

  Whatever happens I’m the one sitting on Lupa’s white-imperium. Nobody can touch me or I’ll cut them off. I’ll blow it all up, by Ulf!

  It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Yes.

  “Eyaaaagh!”

  “Run! Run for your lives!”

  Screams and then hogs burst from the cave, stumbling, arms-flailing into the light.

  “Now what?” the Warden growled. Drawing his sword he seized the first hog that crossed his path. “What in Ulf’s name are you doing?” he demanded.

  The hog squirmed wildly, “Let me go! Let me go!”

  Tickling the guard’s bobbing pink throat with his rapier the Warden snarled, “Who gave you permission to retreat? Where’s my Howlers? Answer me!”

  “Th-th-they’ll kill us all! We have to run!”

  “Pull yourself together; they’re just a bunch of-”

  The blackness of the cave mouth came alive with shiny silhouettes, shifting, waving, like ripples on the water. The cloaked outline of a Howler emerged, hovering above the ground, upside down, arms trailing in the dust, like a deranged ghost.

  No, it was but half a Howler, a dismembered and bloodied piece of flesh held aloft in the jaws of a giant ant. The beast chewed on its prey awhile, then dropped the carcass.

  “Oh, by Ulf!” the Warden howled in horror, paw to mouth.

  “Gaaaagh!” the hog squealed, wriggling free and running for the cliffs.

  The cave erupted, spewing a chattering, living wave of giant ants into the open, clambering over flats and cliffs with equal ease. Gelb hogs fled in all directions, some escaped into the hills, most were run down and set upon by the ferocious ants, screaming, disappearing, dying quickly amidst a tangle of black bodies and legs.

  Turning tail and sprinting for all he was worth, the Warden chanced a glance over the shoulder and immediately wished he hadn’t. The killer ants were everywhere, combing the mountains high and low. So fast! So many! Gelb hogs fired their pistols and rifles in vain before being overcome by the hordes and carried away, some kicking and screaming as a whole, some in pieces and silent.

  By Ulf, what can I do? Where do I go?

  The car! The car!

  Scrabbling madly up a scree-strewn hill towards the tidy black limo that had ferried him here from Gelb, the Warden slipped inside and locked the door behind him.

  Seconds later the last of his two desperate Howlers arrived. Unable to open the door he bashed wildly on the window.

  “Open the door, sir! Let me in! Please!”

  The Warden thought about it, but then the first ants arrived and put paid to that!

  In an instant one snatched the Howler away and carried him aloft kicking and screaming. The rest of the giant bugs clambered up and over limo’s bonnet, their hard feet patting on the metalwork, their jagged jaws biting the windscreen wipers, tasting and feeling this foreign object that was not of their nest, nor even their world.

  It didn’t belong here.

  “Away with you!” the Warden yelled, searching for the keys. “Get away you monsters!”

  The limo rocked side to side as the ants set about attacking it like some great invading beetle that needed to be sent packing; chewing wheel-arches, biting bumpers and stinging tyres until they hissed back. Some of the insects came away with a prize of chrome or rubber and marched off proudly home, but most remained, shifting with every random tug and push this unknown, odd-smelling object away from the nest, away from the precious queen, towards the steep slope opposite the cave mouth.

  “Stop it!” the creature cowering inside the hard shell commanded. “No! Please!”

  The ants cared not, their commands came from a different plane, one of smells and instinct, not sound and reason. By accident or design they pushed the bizarre object and its screaming contents over the crest of the hill.

  From the perspective of the ant sisters, the strange invader appeared to give up the fight and flee. It sped wildly down the loose rocky slope and crashed into a boulder, whereupon it overturned and tumbled wildly out of control, rolling and splashing into a shallow steam on its back, upturned.

  All was still.

  The ants investigated to the water’s edge, then thought better of it and retreated to the caves.

  The nest was safe again.

  Chapter 44

  As Den Father Amael Balbus had promised, the Elder Train stopped at the next station and ALPHA’s carriages were duly shunted into a siding ready to be disconnected. The Alpha remained at his desk throughout, ignoring the view out the window of rusting train hulks and overgrown sheds in favour of writing furiously. Even as the carriage jerked against a buffer and sent his tea sloshing over the cup’s rim he continued stoically penning without error.

  “This is outrageous,” Horst complained, striding up and down the carriage, paws behind back. “Amael will rue the day he took the law into his own paws.”

  From the comfort of a threadbare sofa, the big black Duncan watched his rotund white comrade pace. “There’s nae law that says we have tae be at the Summit,” he pointed out, somehow still smiling and jolly. “The Den Fathers nae want us there, we’re never really welcome-”

  “I know that!” Horst snapped. “But abandoning us in the middle of nowhere is utterly different to simply shunning us once we’re there. It’s not the done thing. Amael’s not like the old Den Fathers. He has no scruples, no honour. He’s a filthy guttersnipe!”

  Duncan swigged from a tiny steel hip flask that was engraved with a bee. “Aye, but giving us a ride was nae Amael’s deal,” he sniffed, patting his chest to help the strong contents go down. “It was Vito’s… and he’s dead now.”

  Horst huffed, “Resigned to your fate are you? Giving up?”

  “That’s enough you two,” the Alpha said, sealing his letter in an ALPHA envelope. “Whining won’t solve anything. Horst, I want you to personally see about flagging down Thorvald.”

  “Me?”

  The Alpha’s white mask of a face scowled. “Yes you! Have someone change the signals. Ulf’s teeth, lie on the tracks if you have to, just stop his train or we really will be resigned to our fate – that being summary execution at Amael’s paws before the year is up.”

  “Yes, my Alpha.”

  “And take this,” the Alpha said, sliding the A-marked envelope across the desk. “It’s for Thorvald’s eyes only, don’t give it to anyone under him. It’s my guarantee in writing that Howler Tristan will be released provided we are escorted safely to the Summit.”

  Taking the letter, Horst looked to Duncan, then back at the Alpha again. “Isn’t that dangerous, my Alpha, to put it in writing?” he asked, flapping the envelope about. “Thorvald could use it against you.”

  “That’d be unwise,” the Alpha dismissed. “It incriminates him as well. If he accepts my terms he’s breaking the law too. I’m sure he will understand that.”

  “Yes, but if he doesn’t accept it he could show everyone the letter!”

&nb
sp; “And doom Tristan to Gelb? That wolf is like a son to Thorvald. No, he’ll deal.”

  “With respect, my Alpha, this gamble is based on Janoah’s assumptions-”

  “On her work, Horst,” Adal corrected, “which has thus far proven exemplary. I trust her judgement.”

  “But-”

  “The matter is closed!”

  As if on cue, the carriage door towards the front end of the train opened and allowed Prefect Janoah to enter. With the prerequisite salutes she breezed past the Alpha’s desk and on towards the back of the train without a word being exchanged. Ignoring Horst’s whispers behind her, she crossed into Josef’s dingy carriage, where Rafe remained in a bad way.

  “The Bloodfangs are leaving us here,” she told Sara and Olivia, the latter springing to her feet from sitting upon one of many crates.

  “Leaving us here?” Olivia scoffed.

  “It’s a long story. In any case you should get back to your train before you’re stranded here with us. We could be stuck here until the end.”

  Sara was quick to declare, “Ah’m staying with Bruno.”

  “Me too,” Olivia breathlessly agreed.

  “Olivia!”

  “I’m not going without you.”

  Sara seethed, “Monty and Penny are expecting you!”

  “Well it won’t hurt if I’m a few days late. We just said we’d arrive soon. They’ll be dead busy preparing for the Summit anyway, Monty won’t even notice.”

  Janoah hiked her brows at both wolves, but addressed Olivia specifically. “My dear, I thought you were trying to escape?”

  “I am,” Olivia asserted, adding, “I was.”

  Janoah waited for more.

  Olivia continued, “But I’m here now. You know who I am, so I may as well stay with Sara and Bruno. I’m probably safer here with you than hiding amongst the Bloodfangs.”

  Janoah said nothing.

  “Well what about Linus?” Sara asked. “He must be in a right state.”

  “I’ve sent word via Vladimir,” Janoah replied, looking around the carriage. “Where’s Josef got to? He’s supposed to be looking after my Eisenwolf.”