Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “Yes, dear.”

  Leaving her husband to wring out his cap, Penny headed for the hanger’s huge double-doors – certainly a new addition to the silk worm barn. It was a fair trot, more than half a dirigible’s distance, and this was a big dirigible, Monty’s biggest yet. Penny reckoned if it was stood on end it would be about height of the Arkady University’s mighty clock tower, and probably broader.

  The name of the ship was stencilled near her bright red nose cone.

  ‘RF-4 Nimbus’

  Nimbus was the catchy name for the pubic; the rest meant something only to the Buttles. The R signified rigid, for unlike the modest balloon Penny had waved from at the Science Exhibition, the Nimbus contained an internal skeleton. The light yet sturdy durametal ribs pressing against its grey canvas gave the Nimbus the segmented appearance of a giant, anonymous grub.

  F stood for felitium, Penny’s secret lifting gas. The Nimbus’ internal bladders had been inflated just last night and without mishap, save for Monty squeaking like a baby mouse when he was necessitated to fix a leak. Felitium was harmless, but it did raise one’s voice comically if so inhaled.

  Finally, the 4 in RF-4 Nimbus stood for the current generation of Buttle-made balloon, three other rigid balloon designs had gone before this one, and many a soft balloon too, some more successful than others.

  Monty had a good feeling about the Nimbus, but then he always did. He was the optimist, the partner with his head in the clouds, literally. The practical side was left to Penny, managing finances, sponsorship, inventing new lifting gases, even making sure Monty turned up to an event on time instead of tinkering until the last desperate minute.

  In that spirit, Penny decided to open the great double doors now and generally get a move on.

  “Reg, get the doors will you?” she called, passing under the conical nose of the ship and plucking her pocket watch from one of her countless coverall pockets. “It’s nearly six ‘o’ clock already.”

  At Penny’s word, a brown rat abseiled down the canvas flank of the Nimbus on a wire harness and peered across at her. “What if there’s press outside?” he asked, lowering himself slowly to the ground on a thin steel wire, like a furry spider.

  “It hardly matters now,” the grey catess replied. “If anyone’s snooping about waiting to catch a sneaky photo they couldn’t even get their plate developed before the flyover, let alone to an editor and a printing press.”

  “That’s true,” Reg agreed, unclipping himself. “I’ll get to it, then.”

  “Thank you,” Penny chirped, slipping through a small side door. She came back, “You are going to come up with us this time, aren’t you? Only you’ve worked for nothing these past months. We want you to be in the photographs with us.”

  “What? A little beast like me?”

  “Of course! Everyone else left, but you stayed on, Reg. Besides, with a ship this size we might need more paws on deck!”

  After a pause, Reg beamed, “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Splendid,” Penny replied. “I’m going to get ready.”

  “Aye.”

  Spitting on his pink paws, Reg sighed heavily, then began turning a crank on the wall. The hanger’s metal doors slowly rattled open, throwing sunlight on the RF-4’s nose, as if it were a giant metallic mole tentatively sniffing the air outside its subterranean home. Penny stopped for a moment to take in the grand sight. History was being made, she supposed, but then she and Monty had launched enough balloons now that it felt almost routine. Still, Penny would have liked to take Sara up over her home town. Where had that girl gotten to?

  Thinking her thoughts, Penny crossed the farm, passing between the burgeoning mulberry field, which would be harvested for silkworms, and the sugar cane plantation where wild aphids would be encouraged to set up a colony. The cane plants were but seedlings; soon they would be twenty feet high and infested with aphids as big as one’s fist. Penny had spent many a happy afternoon with Sara walking between the mighty stalks tickling aphids and collecting the sugary nectar they produced. Every bottle sold helped raise funds and keep the infant Buttle Skyways aloft. Perhaps after today’s publicity stunt the money woes would finally be over. A licence to fly from Hummelton to Lupa would be a start; Queens Town to Felicia would come later, when Penny’s dear cousin the Queen and her Privy Council came round. If the wolves could be persuaded the cats would cave in as well, they would have to or else be left behind by the march of technological progress.

  Penny emerged from the fields and crossed to the farm itself, a large, L-shaped house in the frontier style, with blue-painted wooden slatted walls and a roof made of tin tiles. Pretty wisteria and ivy clambered all over it. The house had been modernised as far as possible, Monty installing central heating and plumbing, but it remained a quaint throwback to a simpler, romantic, if dangerous time, when Grunrose District had been a wild place, with outlaws and danger abound. The Frontier had been pushed back over the last century, so that now, though still fairly isolated, the house was safely within the laws and protections afforded by Lupan civilisation.

  Penny went inside, through the reception, the kitchen, upstairs to the bedroom and dressing room, passing heirlooms and knickknacks, vases, antique pistols and swords, paintings of great cats, some of them Penny’s noble ancestors; she had taken half of Felicia with her, or so Monty never tired of joking to guests.

  Penny had soon groomed and changed into her best frilly white dress and wide-brimmed hat, complete with lilac ribbons and gloves. She took a matching silk scarf to help wave to the public, as usual. Despite her chemical knowledge she knew her role today; she was the gentle, reassuring face. If a mere catess in a dress can stomach a ride on airship so can you, so don’t be afraid, you big hairy Howlers. Penny wasn’t sure if Den Mother Cora qualified as a big hairy Howler, she had heard she was very regal, almost queen-like.

  Thinking her thoughts and setting her hat just so in the dressing room mirror, Penny hummed a little tune and descended the stairs, twirling a parasol and nodding at her ancestors.

  At the foot of the stairs she noticed the front door was open. Monty must have come in to get changed; a small miracle.

  “Monty?” Penny chirped, searching about the kitchen, then returning and calling upstairs, “Monty? Monty, dear, are you in the bathroo-?”

  It was the burly, wild-looking figure filling in the door to the front room that caused Penny’s tongue to stick.

  A hyena!

  He was tall, as hyenas went, and wore a marvellous cloak with labyrinthine patterns of black and white. Penny stood staring at the stranger for a time, her mind fathoming what this was; a harmless passing traveller, a thief, or a murderer?

  Remain calm Penelope; let’s not jump to conclusions, the noble catess told herself.

  “How do you do, sir?” she hazarded. “Can I help you?”

  The big hyena’s fierce purple eyes widened in surprise; perhaps he had expected Penny to run and scream, or at the very least scream. He looked past her to another, shorter hyena, who appeared at the opposite doorway, dressed in a similar, if zigzagged cloak. His face was covered by a skull-shaped helmet.

  “Mrs Buttle,” the second fellow presumed, cordially enough. He removed his ferocious helm like a gentlebeast, revealing a young and dashing hyena beneath. “I am Chief Nurka of the Jua-mata tribe,” he continued in his rough, sandpaper voice. “Themba and I mean you no harm. Please, come with us.”

  “Come with you, sir?” Penny scoffed.

  Nurka smiled briefly. “We want to ride in your flying machine,” he explained, gesturing at the distant hanger with his helmet. “You will take us up, you and your husband.”

  “Is that right?” Penny said, cocking her head, “I… take it we don’t have a choice in the matter?”

  Nurka shrugged, “I’m afraid not. Please, do not make this more difficult than it need be, for your sake.”

  Penny nodded, smiled. Then she turned and dashed up the stairs. “Monnnnty!”


  “Themba, grab her!” Nurka grunted, flicking a paw.

  Themba rushed after the catess and snatched the hem of her dress, pulling her to a stop. Shrieking, Penny whipped her parasol backwards, hitting the hyena in the face, the metal spike catching his right eye.

  “Gaaagh! You bitch!”

  Snarling and cursing, Themba fell about the stairs nursing his eye.

  Another hyena replaced him.

  “Don’t hurt her, Madou!” Nurka warned.

  “Chief,” the stocky Madou acknowledged, clambering over the seething Themba.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, Penny grabbed a priceless vase from a whatnot and threw it down at the second attacker, then pulled the whatnot down for good measure.

  “Oof!” Madou wheezed, as the vase broke over his back and rained porcelain down on Nurka and Themba. The whatnot tumbled after, blocking the stairs. By the time Madou looked up, Penny had gone. He heard a door slam and lock. No real matter for an afflicted beast.

  Madou traversed the whatnot and located the door that Penny had locked.

  Whereupon he waited.

  And waited.

  “Madou?” Nurka barked, climbing the stairs.

  “Locked chief,” Madou excused, suddenly and furiously twisting the doorknob.

  “Blow it then!”

  “I’m trying, chief,” Madou assured. “I’m… I’m still a bit weak, that’s all.”

  Nurka brushed the floundering Madou aside and grasped the doorknob.

  Pfffzzt! Bang!

  The lock exploded in molten sparks and Nurka, shaking his smouldering paw, kicked in the door to a cloud of smoke. He saw Penny glance back at him through the haze, then drop out the window.

  There was a feline yelp, then much complaining below.

  “Get off me you brute! Let me go this instant, I say! Monnnty!”

  Nurka and Madou ran to the window and saw Themba in the garden below with Mrs Buttle over one shoulder, her punches and kicks availing her nothing.

  “Well done,” Nurka said, flicking his snout in approval.

  Themba squinted back at his chief with one good eye, the other being bruised half-shut and weeping. “You’re quite the little warrior,” he complimented Penny.

  “Monnnt-mmph!”

  Gagging the fairer half of the Buttle couple, Themba ferried her round to Nurka, Madou and the others exiting the house, whereupon they set out towards the hanger to find her husband and persuade him.

  *

  Checkpoints had been few and far between since Hummelton, occurring only at district borders, and with a Grand Howler escorting Linus and Uther, interfering busybodies, hogs in the main, had proved no impediment to progress. But after riding all night Linus was exhausted, and his body ached terribly from his fall. He felt so stupid, but then again it had perhaps been a blessing in disguise. There was nothing to do but put the pain to the back of his mind. Uther was likely as weary.

  Linus just hoped Grand Howler Lachlan and his dozen Hummel escorts were still fresh, for there could be a fight at Rumney Farm, a fight for the future of all Lupa.

  A fight we must win, Linus thought.

  The last barrier between here and Rumney Farm appeared; the entrance to Grunrose District itself. The Hummel banners fluttered, along with the smaller district flag depicting a pale-green rose. The hogs operating the checkpoint were surprisingly numerous and alert, comprising a veritable army, as if someone in this far-flung district was expecting trouble. With THORN afoot that didn’t seem too unreasonable.

  Grand Howler Lachlan slowed his bike and hailed the two-dozen hogs, speaking to one over the barrier arm and flashing his Hummel brooch.

  Linus and Uther stopped behind with the rest of the Hummels. They could not hear what was said over the thrum of their stationary bikes let alone everyone else’s; a chorus of twelve or so rumbling mono engines was hard on the ears even at rest.

  Whilst Lachlan had it out with the officious hog, one of the bike’s exhausts backfired loudly, making Linus jump.

  Crack!

  No, it was not the bike; Lachlan bent double and fell on his side, shot by the hog at the gate!

  Then all the hogs stationed nearby produced pistols and rifles, the Hummels too.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  “Ulf Almighty!” Uther roared, falling off his bike and twisting it sideways, using it for cover. “Linus!”

  Wild-heart dragged his stunned partner off his bike and to the floor with him before the young wolf was torn to shreds by the insane, close-quarters fire fight. Some Hummels fell wounded, as did some hogs, but it was the latter that miscalculated. Once the first volley had been expended the hogs had no redress save to retreat into nearby offices and reload; the furious Howlers, on the other paw, had their kristahl weapons. Some drew swords, others unfolded spears that Watchers, used to dealing with centipedes, were fond of carrying for that extra stabbing range. Either way they leapt over the barrier in defence of Grand Howler Lachlan and set about the fumbling hogs.

  Uther joined in the battle; Linus stayed out of the ensuing slaughter, hurrying instead to Lachlan and dragging him behind a bike amidst sparks of pistol fire.

  “Grrrfgh!” the Grand Howler groaned, clutching his bloodied cloak. “Traitors!” he declared.

  “Are you all right?” Linus asked, feeling an idiot, but he didn’t know how else to express concern.

  “I’ll live,” Lachlan growled, checking his ribs. “He… agh… he said nobody could pass. Nobody, on order of the Elder. Then he shot me! Since when are hogs permitted tae carry such weapons let alone use them against a Howler?”

  Linus had a theory. “As I said, the Elder of Grunrose must be helping THORN. Amael’s got many beasts on-side, from the lowest little beast to the highest Elder.”

  “Aye, Ah can believe it now!”

  “You didn’t before?”

  “Ah was nae sure, but… but this clinches it. Something’s a brewin’, lad. Och!”

  Uther returned with the others, their imperium weaponry bloodied, slain hogs lying on the road behind them. Linus supposed his comrades had had no choice and all, but he also imagined if he and Uther failed now they would be branded murderers by Amael’s regime. He would skew events according to his needs, just as the packs had always done in the newspapers.

  Now there really was no going back.

  Despite protests from his wolves, Lachlan mounted his bike, insisting he push forward with his Bloodfang guests. The wounded were hastily patched up, Lachlan being the worst off as it happened, and the barrier was raised.

  Checking Sara’s map, Linus and Uther rode on with Lachlan, into the rolling hills of Grunrose.

  It wasn’t far now.

  *

  “An amazing machine, you’ve built,” Nurka praised, peering inside the gondola’s windows at all the controls that commanded the Nimbus; buttons, levers, steel cables, even an old-fashioned ship’s wheel, albeit one made of light brushed-effect durametal instead of wood. “I’ve followed her progress closely,” the hyena claimed.

  “Not closely enough, sir,” Monty sniffed, chin raised. Two hyenas were standing menacingly either side of him, their paws clapped on his shoulders. “She’s not yet airworthy, I’ll have you know-”

  “Spare me your lies!” Nurka rasped back. “I know today’s the day you fly over Hummelton. You’ve already filled her with gas, and your wife here was getting ready for the occasion when we unexpectedly… dropped in. Though not entirely unexpectedly, right Reg?”

  Reg the rat appeared amongst the hyenas, his cap doffed in shame, yet his long brown face looked determined.

  Nurka explained, “Your trusted employees have kept us up to speed with the Nimbus. So, do not lie.”

  “Reg!” Monty mewed, as did Penny, through her gag. “Mmph!”

  Reg seethed at them both, “Sorry Monty, but we’ve all had enough.”

  “Enough old chap? Enough of what?”

  “Of being trodden on by the Howlers! Us and
the hyenas and everyone else. It’s not you, you’re good ‘un’s, it’s them. Time for a change and the hyenas are the beasts to do it.”

  “Hyenas? Since when are they friends of the wee beasts?”

  “Since the wolves started massacring ‘em, like they massacred my family in the war.”

  “Reg, I know what happened, but innocent wolves were murdered too. It was a bally war and-”

  “You dunno nothing, Monty! You dunno the half of it-”

  “That’s enough!” Nurka barked, before patting Reg on the shoulder. “Let’s not have a debate, my little friend, time is short. Get her ready to fly,” he instructed gently, to which the rat nodded and went about his work. “Help him,” Nurka told some of his followers.

  The chief turned to another hyena and grabbed a pile of papers from his paws; there were several of the spotted chaps about with stacks of paper, Monty observed.

  Nurka approached Montague with the papers; leaflets the cat saw, with photographs and text.

  “We will drop these over the Summit,” Nurka said. “We have mountains of evidence; the wolves cannot cover it all up with their lies. We will drop them on Lupa too, every town and city that we can. The world will see what wolfkind means by ‘re-educate’. They do not educate, they torture, and murder, by the thousand.”

  “But that’s impossible-”

  “Look at them!” Nurka bellowed, thrusting some papers into Monty’s paws. “Look at the faces of my dead brothers and sisters and deny it, I dare you! I dare you.”

  Monty took hold of the leaflets, some dropping to the floor at his feet. They were all the same, a grainy photo of hyena corpses being shunted into a pit, but Nurka quickly snatched leaflets from other stacks and slapped them furiously into Monty’s paws; destroyed villages, firing squads, hyenas reduced to walking skeletons for want of something to eat, it was all there, and all convincing.

  “We mean you no ill will,” Nurka assured the Buttle couple, looking between Monty and Penny, then to Themba and Madou, who looked sideways at each other. “All you have to do is fly,” the chief went on. “Nobody will blame you; we held you against your will. Once it is done we will let you go and… give ourselves up.”