by Adam Browne
“Do you judge me, Nurka, your Prince?”
“As I would any traitor!”
With audible gasps reverberating about the camp, Noss gestured at the muttering hyenas all around, “Why don’t you tell them, Nurka? Why don’t you tell them what it is our noble race is to do tomorrow, what they have been working towards all this time?”
Nurka agreed with a nod, “That is precisely why I’ve gathered everybody here. I confided in you first, Prince Noss, as is your right, but you have betrayed us by sending Tomek and Casimir on an errand for your Lupan masters – I had you watched, so do not deny it.” The chief nodded at Tomek, lying in the mud, “I can respect the wolf’s decision, it’s his kind at stake, and Casimir was but a flighty little beast, but you, a noble hyena prince, siding with those who keep us in bondage? I prayed to the Wind I was mistaken, or that you might even admit to me the circumstances you had been forced into. Regrettably you have failed my test of trust.”
Noss raised his chin, “Nobody is my judge, boy.”
“Oh? Not even Vladimir of the Bloodfangs? Doesn’t he have you under his paw? Doesn’t he claim to have Princess Arjana and her sacred cubs at his mercy? Does he not control you through them?”
Silence.
“Mantis got your tongue, I see,” Nurka scoffed. “When I learnt from my sources you were alive I also learnt who stood to gain by sparing your life – Vladimir Bloodfang.”
Noss’s eyes twitched.
Emboldened, Nurka went on, “You struck a bargain with this Vladimir to spare your family and testify against Amael when he was brought down. He later asked you to betray THORN. He knew I would rescue you and is relying on you to provide him with intelligence, is that not so? That is why you live, because Vladimir needs you.” Nurka spread a paw, “Still, I understand your predicament. Come, let’s go to my tent and talk this over in private. There’s something you must know-”
“Touch me and I’ll shoot a bolt of plasma through your body so hearty your eyes will boil out your pretty face,” Noss said – he just said it, no raised voice.
Nurka withdrew his paw, tucked it behind him. He cleared his throat. “I wish only to make peace here, my Prince.”
“Peace? You and Amael would make a desolation,” Noss replied steadily. He gestured at the banners, “You shame the Jua-mata, flying our flag under the name of THORN, as if you have the backing of the Matriarchs.”
“My Prince, you do not understand-”
“Do not ‘my Prince’ me and then call me an idiot!” Noss barked. He took a sharp, calming breath, “I understand, Nurka, what you clearly do not, that I am your Prince, regardless of all other considerations. That is the law of our people punishable by the gods with damnation.” He pointed above, at the Wind and Sky, then down at Mother Erde, “They command me, and I you, whether I be mad, or sane or somewhere in-between, as we Chakaa all are.” He cackled a little, casting his unnatural purple eyes about the camp, at the sea of hyena faces, their combined gaze averted down in respect. “Jua-mata, members of THORN, you will lay down your arms, all of you. There is to be no final plan, no stealing of an airship, no abuse of black-imperium; none of the madness Nurka described to me in that tent! He speaks to me of sickness, yet he’s the beast who plans to indiscriminately gas thousands of innocent citizens. It’s true! He plans to drop black-imperium on Hummelton, from the sacred Sky, killing not only the oppressive Howlers but the whole city and no doubt the land itself for a hundred miles around. He plans on doing the same to Lupa, killing millions! This is the work of a sick mind consumed by hatred and fear. It is the work of a coward and mad beast that you will not follow a day longer. Yes… wolfkind oppresses us, I feel your pain, but Nurka’s plan would destroy our whole people and bring ruin on us for generations! What race would deal with us after we had betrayed decency itself? None! We would be outcast from civilisation, hunted down and destroyed, like locusts. Amael knows this and will blame us and us alone for the war to come.” Noss growled finally, “As your anointed Prince my word is law and I utterly reject and forbid this venture. We will find another way out; an honourable way.”
Only the fluttering skull banner of the Jua-mata disturbed the peace.
As the dust of Noss’s pitch settled, Madou limped over to Nurka. “Is it true?” he grunted. “Is that your plan?”
Nurka said nothing.
“Chief!” Madou snarled, grabbing his leader’s arm. “Tell me he’s lying. That Tomek’s lying too. Please!”
The chief’s burning eyes flitted to Madou, like a beast waking up from a trance. He turned away and gestured to his equally dazed followers to bring something forward.
Madou demanded again, “Chief!”
Nurka ignored him but for a glance and the words, “Shut up and bow, Madou.”
Then, to Madou’s bewilderment, Nurka faced his army and prostrated himself in the mud. Had he given in to Prince Noss’s authority? If so, he was facing the wrong way. How strange.
“Chief?” Madou piped in confusion.
Noss, meanwhile, looked on as the gathered THORN hyenas parted ways, shuffling aside as someone or something nestled in the midst of Nurka’s army came to the fore.
Slowly, the apex of a small, black and white tent emerged from the forest of imperium spears – a royal litter.
It couldn’t be.
The striped litter was carried aloft on ornate wooden poles by a team of muscled hyenas in traditional garb, their necks and arms rattling with necklaces and bracelets made of insect wings, fangs and carapaces. They walked slowly and reverently into the open and, without the slightest wobble, set the litter down somewhat shy of Nurka and Madou. They then bowed on all fours.
Madou’s legs inevitably gave way under the crushing weight of hyena custom as it dawned upon him what this must be. He fell to his knees beside Nurka, equals before a greater authority. Themba and the rest of the hyenas followed suit, bending like stalks of corn under a gust of wind.
Only Prince Noss remained standing.
The litter stirred, the flaps parted, and a marvellous beast stepped elegantly into the open – no hyena, but a hyeness. She was wreathed in magnificent, flowing garbs of pure black that devoured the sunlight falling upon her, like so much black-imperium. Her face, conversely, was painted gold, fur, nose and lips, all sparkling as the sun on wet sand. Perched upon her head stood a tall cylindrical crown marked with swirling patterns of black and white depicting, as all here well-knew, the sacred wind.
Her face was the sun, her robes the black erde, her crown the wind and sky; in this sacred hyeness were embodied all the Gods, not just one or two, for she was above Princes, Chiefs and Matriarchs, she was a Hyena Queen.
To Noss she was yet more. Even with a face of gold he recognised her features, her poise.
“Arjana?”
Queen Arjana said nothing as she approached Noss, foot over bejewelled sandalled foot, calm and self-possessed, her golden face unmoving even as she looked upon her mate for the first time in a year, even as Noss’s hefty brow twisted and quivered in unbelieving comprehension.
“You’re free?” he articulated at last.
“Yes, my husband,” Arjana replied, detachedly. “And a Queen, as I was destined to become.”
“Our cubs?”
Arjana’s golden eyelids flitted. “Taken from me, by the guards.”
“Taken?”
“They tore them from my arms in the re-education camp as punishment for refusing to raise them as… citizens,” Arjana choked on the word citizen. “My servants too. Everyone. The hogs locked me away, beat me and starved me. They enjoyed it. I suffered great indignities unbefitting even the lowliest rank before our Nurka was were able to find and extract me. He lost many good hyenas doing so.” She turned a little, looking down on her saviour with her golden face, “We are grateful to Chief Nurka for our deliverance, and yours. When I learned you were alive I sent for him to save you at any cost, which he did without question.” Arjana raised her chin a little, look
ing Noss over, “I am grieved to hear the poisonous words of the wolf Vladimir and the cursed imperium in your veins have both turned your wits against us, but it is no fault of your own. How could you know he lied to you? That I was free? But I know you will do what is right now that you too are free to act upon your own wishes again.”
Noss’s mouth moved, but no words came forward.
Arjana continued, “I am Queen; the last hyeness of royal blood, and you the last true prince. When Lupa falls we will process into the wolfen capital together and found a new dynasty. The hyenas will become the prime race on this continent, and a great tribe again-”
“Process into a capital made desolate by black-imperium?” Noss spluttered at once. “Arjana, my love, Nurka’s mad, don’t you see?”
“Mad?”
“He’s going to gas thousands with black-imperium! Not just the Summit, but everyone for miles around-”
“With a balloon, yes.”
Noss’s eyes narrowed, “You know?”
“Of course I know my husband; I planned it,” Arjana revealed, adding, “I commanded Nurka to make it so.”
“What?”
“Part of our cubs’ re-education were classes on the benefits of imperium science and technology – the justification for the rape of Mother Erde as told by Howlers.” Arjana looked across to Tomek like a spider might upon her prey, bound up in silk and waiting to be finished off. She turned back to Noss, “They let the children visit me, hoping it would turn my wits as they turned yours, but I was stronger than that – my mind is not clouded by the rot. I listened as my children described the ‘dirigible’ they had seen on the moving pictures. Zuma was especially excited.” The Queen smiled a moment, he composure crumpling under sweet memories. “He was so like you. If you could’ve seen him, Noss; such a fool, but so handsome and strong already.” Her golden countenance hardened, “It was the last time I saw them, but I remembered their lesson well. When Nurka brought me here to safety and told me his plan to kill the Den Fathers with a black-imperium bomb I knew it would not be enough. I knew we must go further, further even than the traitor Amael. He must die too. He thinks we will stop at Hummelton, but we will go on to Lupa with the balloon and finish him with the rest. Every Howler Den will be showered with our black rain. No wolf of rank must survive. They will all rot and their city stand empty forever more, like the Dead Cities of old.” Arjana stepped closer to Noss, “You are right we will not process into Lupa, my husband, that was a figure of speech. We will return to the wilds and live as beasts were meant to, healthy and free. All beasts will live that way again.”
Noss shook his head. He raised his paws as if to grasp his wife by the shoulders and shake sense into her, but refrained at the last inch. “Arjanaaaa,” he seethed, his paws flopping to his sides, “don’t you understand? We cannot turn back the clock. We cannot go back to the wilds. How would we defend ourselves? The next race that came across the waters wielding imperium spears would conquer us in a heartbeat! The wolves have kept peace for centuries, as the cats have on their continent, both using imperium. They conquered us with it. Without it we are nothing as well. What are we without Chakaa? Mere little beasts without power. What you and Nurka propose is madness. Killing the Den Fathers… I could see that through. But to murder every living thing between here and Lupa, and in such a manner, should be beneath our contempt! If we go through with this we are no better than the cowards who daily bully and murder our brothers and sisters in the Reservations, who killed Themba’s family, and Madou’s and Nurka’s.”
The three Chakaa looked up a little.
“If we do this act,” Noss said to all, “we will become the barbarians they say we are, and justify everything they have done to us up to this day. And we will not survive a year longer, let alone found a dynasty, because no race who commits such a crime as mass black-imperium poisoning will be allowed to exist lest we did the same to another.” The prince then implored his wife, “Arjana, think of our cubs. Their future.”
“Their future?” she replied. “Did you not understand me? They’re dead, my love.”
One could almost hear the wind being sucked from Noss’s lungs as Arjana’s words punched him in the gut, his muscle-packed belly no defence against the crippling blow.
“Dead?” he rasped at Arjana. “Our little Zuma and Anjali?”
“Your Howler, Vladimir, he came to me. When I begged for help, on my knees, he told me he could do nothing. The re-education camp the wolves had made for the moving pictures had been dismantled, the houses and roads and schools knocked down and every hyena in it… ‘disposed of’.” Arjana’s glittering, golden cheek was wetted by a single tear, “He apologised and left me, promising he would work for my release if you kept to your end of his bargain. I should have killed myself, freeing you sooner. But then he would have killed you. I lived for you, my Prince. Only you.”
“Heheheheeee,” Noss chuckled. “Hahahahahaahaheehee!” He collapsed on his knees, his laugher dissolving into vents of anguish, “Hahahaaahohohoow! By the Wind, no! Nohohooo!”
Forgoing all protocol and etiquette expected of a female hyena of such unassailable rank, Arjana knelt with Noss and embraced his heaving shoulders. “We are young and you are still healthy, my sweet, mad Chakaa,” she whispered in his ear, leaving a streak of gold where her nose touched his fur. “We will have more cubs. I’ll bring them into a world where the wolves are not even reduced to our slaves, but gone.” She finished with a growl, “I swear it!”
The Queen let her Prince cry into her black robes, before grasping his tear-streaked cheeks and making him look into her golden visage.
“See now? Do you understand the searing pain? You sided with the wolves for years and look what it’s got you!” She stood up, the comforting wife no longer, but the hard Queen again, “No more doubts, Prince Noss of the Four Winds. I declare the Howler in you dead, and your love for that vile race with it. You will help Chakaa Nurka complete his task. I command you, as Queen. Kneel and swear you will.”
Already kneeling, Noss remained so, tears rolling down his thick black muzzle and over his broad nose that bubbled with the mucous of grief.
“I swear,” he croaked. “I swear it.”
Nurka and Themba exchanged looks of relief.
Arjana, however, glanced sideways, “Now… kill the wolfen spy you conspired with, my husband.”
Noss emitted a snort. He looked slowly up that black robe, to that golden face crowned with white. Beneath the guise of power was a hyeness once so beautiful to him, now she was barely recognisable for her bloodlust.
“Prove yourself,” she said.
“Tomek… he s-sss-saved my life,” Noss excused. “He saved all our lives. It would be dishonourable to-”
“If you are such a coward that you cannot kill one wolf you cannot kill a thousand!” Arjana blasted, huffing like a disappointed teacher. “You could not even kill Rufus Red-mist, I hear. Are you a hyena or a mouse?”
Noss dipped his chin with shame.
The Queen grunted, “I see.” She turned slightly, “You, Chakaa Madou, isn’t it?”
The blood-stained Madou stumbled forward, then knelt again, head low, “Yes, my Queen?”
“Show our soft-minded Prince how a warrior is meant to behave. Execute the wolfen spy.”
A pause, an uncertain, “As you command, my Queen-”
“Madou!” Noss snapped, rising up. “Don’t. I beg you, as your teacher and friend. Help me.”
Madou stared for an age, but for all his power and supposed infallibility, Noss was merely a Prince; as with the ants and bees and wasps there were no kings amongst hyenas, only male consorts. Slowly turning and taking an imperium spear from a hyena, Madou walked over to the wounded Tomek – a quick thrust to the heart and his suffering would be over. It would be an honourable end for a wolf. Madou felt he would be glad of such a death. Besides, it was Queen Arjana’s will. She could not be denied.
Madou raised his spear, hesitated,
steeled himself again and made to strike.
Suddenly a paw on the shoulder turned him around. A second paw, a fist to be exact, struck him in the stomach whilst the first relieved him of his spear. Prince Noss then blasted the young hyena away with an imperious shock to his helmeted face, knocking him out cold, or worse.
Nurka and Themba leapt up as one, “Madou!”
“There will be no murder here today as long as I stand!” Noss snarled. Spear held forth he stood over Tomek and pointed at the hyenas, “I do not envy your choice brothers, your insane Queen, or your mad Prince, but at least I have the excuse of being a Chakaa. Hahahaaaahaha!”
“Noss, you fool!” Arjana cried, her litter bearers moving to protect her. “Bow to me, or I will end you, I swear it! I will not let even you destroy THORN’S dream!”
“The dream is over already, Arjana! The black-imperium is gone! It has been destroyed!”
Nurka rasped for all, “What?”
Noss grinned broadly, “Forgotten Red-mist, Nurka? I was merely a distraction! He fooled you all along, at every step, and yet you are so clever?” Swinging his spear overhead the prince laughed, “Hahahahahaaaaahaha! Now come at me, boy! End my suffering once and for all!”
Themba grunted, “Go Nurka. Quickly!”
Nurka nodded and said with strange calm, “Protect the Queen.”
The chief then hurried into the woods with some hyenas in tow, leaving Themba and the others to trap a hysterical Noss in a closing circle of spears.
“Hahahaaahahaaaa!”
*
Rufus pushed through the thorn bushes, and staggered into the cave’s mouth – his already wounded frame totting up a few more scratches.
It won’t matter soon, Red-mist.
Running a paw over his faded old brooch to light the path, the Howler picked his way gingerly along the passage. Left, Noss had said, on the left. Does he know what I’m going to do? Has he guessed? If he manages to turn things around back at Kambi Mata I’ll be doing this for nought. But if he doesn’t, then this is for all. Even if we both fail, Tomek will get word out and give them a chance back at Hummelton.