Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  “Give up?” Monty said, blinking the awful imagery from his eyes.

  Nurka spread a paw. “The wolves won’t be able to quietly murder us once this gets out. Even if they do, we are ready to die for the cause. But, with help from sympathetic Elders, we hope to precipitate a change of government. THORN stands for The Hyena organisation for Recognition of Nationhood, nothing more. All we want is our land returned, our people freed, and we will live side by side with wolfkind. For all they say about us we haven’t the strength to fight them openly. So, we must live in peace and let bygones be bygones. Our Queen will see to that; she will decree what hyenas must do and they will do it. It’s our way.”

  Monty nodded absently. “I see, old chap. I see.” He licked his lips, “What about Reg?”

  “Reg?”

  “Well, what’s he getting for all this, him and all the wee beasts? He sounded rather frantic.”

  Nurka smiled and nodded. “As little beasts will be. The wolves will treat his people kinder once the world sees their true colours; they will have to. Besides, the Elders sympathetic to our cause love the little beasts as much as… as Rufus Bloodfang himself! Red-mist is with us, you realise.”

  “Really?” Monty marvelled. “Rufus Valerio?”

  “Yes. He helped us get to this point. Without him we’d have been killed to a beast in the Gelb mines.”

  “He’s here then?”

  Nurka waved a paw, “He was wounded and had to remain behind, but he will be in the new government.”

  “I see, well that is something. So… so there’s not going to be any ballyhoo then?”

  “Ballyhoo?”

  “Fighting and whatnot. Just these leaflets.”

  Nurka bowed a little, “No fighting,” he said. “No blood will be spilt by us, on my honour as a chief. May the ancestors curse me if I lie to you.”

  Themba raised his chin; Madou breathed a deep breath; an oath to the ancestors was a very serious thing to a hyena.

  Monty still faltered.

  “If you do not wish to help us I can sympathise,” Nurka said, looking to Penny, “but we may be forced to take more drastic measures. Beasts may die. I hope you understand that, compared to the murder of hundreds of my kin, a few strangers here and there are… as nothing.”

  Monty gulped and nodded, “Absolutely. I quite see your point. Can’t really argue with the facts when the beasts with the facts also have pistols.”

  Nurka cocked his head to one side, “You’ll fly us?”

  Monty could but acquiesce with a nod.

  “Then we are friends. Come.”

  The hyena chief ordered Themba to remove Penny’s gag and set her down, then he led them outside into the morning sunshine, Penny holding Monty’s paw. They passed the trucks that had ferried the hyenas from Kambi Mata to the farm. Nurka’s followers set about the trucks, gingerly unloading a wooden crate from each.

  “That’s a lot of leaflets!” Monty observed, trying to remain chipper for Penny’s sake.

  “Yes,” Nurka agreed, ushering them out of sight. “We’ve a lot of eyes to open.”

  “She can’t carry more than fifty tonnes, you know, the old Nimbus.”

  “Monty!” Penny seethed.

  “Sweetpea, we have no choice, we have to get them off the ground. It’ll be all right. It’s just a… a propaganda coup.”

  Nurka assured the frightened Penny that it was, and that Reg had supplied all the specifications needed regardless of any further cooperation. The hyenas had no more than ten tonnes of cargo to load, plus themselves; there would be no problem lifting off. Nurka did not need to consult the cats to calculate that ten tonnes of black-imperium weighed the same as ten tonnes of paper, and nor did they need to know.

  “Nurka!” Themba panted, rounding the towering hanger.

  “Yes, Themba?”

  “Howlers, chief, coming down the road, fast.”

  “What?”

  Themba lifted his Jua-mata helmet a moment to rub the eye Penny had poked. “There’s a lot of them… at least ten… and I do not need to remind you there’s only three Chakaa amongst us.”

  Nurka assessed the dire situation, running his purple eyes over the hanger and the windows. “Inside,” he said. “We’ll be able to hold them off long enough to launch. Come along my good cats, it seems we’ll be leaving a little earlier than scheduled.”

  “They’ll shoot us down!” Penny asserted, as Themba dragged her along; a cloud of ash on the horizon signified the approach of monobikes. “The Nimbus will explode, don’t you see?”

  “Explode, by the Wind!” Nurka rasped sarcastically, ushering Monty along. “How strange. I was under the impression your wondrous new felitium was inert, Mrs Buttle. Aren’t you something of an imperiologist?”

  It seemed Nurka had done his homework.

  “It’s not as inert as all that,” Penny claimed, as she was pushed inside, passing under the Nimbus’ red nose cone and into the silver gondola. “In any case, they’ll shoot the airbags and we’ll sink. You’re already lost, sir!”

  “The ship has hundreds of small gas bags, one or two being punctured will not hurt,” Nurka replied, stepping aboard with Monty. “I commend your bravery in trying to fool me, but please cooperate.”

  Silence.

  “I have seen the blueprints!” Nurka rasped, the whine of approaching monobikes pushing him into a rage. He squared up to Monty, dwarfing the slender cat in mass though not height. “Now get this machine started, Mr. Buttle, or I will have your rat walk me through the procedure regardless. Mark my words, if we start sinking, the first ballast overboard will be two uncooperative cats. Fly and you’re of use to me. Refuse and you are not. Do I make myself clear?”

  Monty nodded and tipped his cap. “Jolly clear, sir.”

  “Excellent.”

  Penny pressed her pink nose to the gondola window, trying to see what was being loaded into the Nimbus’ cargo bay – not leaflets, she was sure. Themba pulled her back from the cold glass and growled menacingly.

  “Penny, be a dear and help me,” Monty quavered.

  “But Monty-”

  “Please!” Monty mewed desperately. “Please, Sweetpea, just do as they say. It’ll be all right.”

  Whilst the Buttles began to pull levers and cables, watched always by Themba and some lesser hyenas, Madou climbed aboard with a speckled white moth hanging off on an arm. He passed it to Nurka.

  “Chief.”

  “Thank you, Madou,” Nurka replied, the moth taking up residence on his shoulder. He looked his stocky companion over, “How are you feeling?”

  Madou’s eyes flitted, “Fine, chief.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Shall I stay and see to the Howlers?”

  “No, you and Themba must come with me. You’ve earned this. The others know what to do. They are ready to die, as are we all.”

  Nurka patted Madou on the neck, then went to Themba and pulled him into a three-way conference.

  “This is it,” the chief rasped. “All we have worked for. Today we set things right!”

  Madou could but smile, nod, dip his chin.

  Crack! Ka-crack!

  The Howlers arrived, pistols and rifles blazing. The battle had begun!

  *

  “We’re too late!” Linus shouted, ducking with Uther behind a silkworm trough.

  “Not yet, mate,” Uther gruffed. “Not yet.”

  The dusty hanger windows were quickly smashed by spotted elbows and the hyenas within began shooting out at Lachlan’s Howlers. The farmhouse too harboured a couple of hyena snipers upstairs, one of whom took a well-aimed rifle-shot at the Bloodfangs.

  Ka-crack!

  The mighty pellet punched through the trough, sending splinters flying.

  “Ulf damn it!” Uther snarled, shaking a paw.

  “You hit?”

  Wild-heart checked his trembling, bleeding paw. “Just a graze, mate,” he laughed, giving it another shake. “Bit of wood or something. Basta
rd’s got a Greystone rifle; must have to go through wood this thick and be that accurate.”

  “Where’d he get that?”

  “Ulf knows, but he’s dangerous. I gotta take him out. Stay here, Woodlouse, won’t be a minute.”

  “Uther!”

  Too late, Uther was already tearing through the obscuring fields of mulberry and towards the Buttle farmhouse. Linus was about to follow when Lachlan grasped his shoulder and pulled him back behind the trough.

  “Where’s this airship?” the white-cloaked Hummel asked, flicking his head at the hanger. “In there?”

  “I can only presume so,” the red-cloaked Linus responded.

  Lachlan checked his wound, then chanced a peek at the hanger and all the hyenas stationed at the windows taking pot-shots at his wolves, and them back.

  “Well we’re nae getting in easy,” the Grand Howler judged. “Perhaps we should keep them pinned down and send for help?”

  “Most likely help won’t come in this district, sir,” Linus said. “Besides, the hyenas must be about to take off in order to make the opening ceremony. There’s no time.”

  “Can we nae shoot the thing down?”

  Linus shook his head, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “But, did nae one explode over Felicia? Aye, Ah read about it in the papers-”

  “Yes it did, sir!” Linus snapped, frustrated and trying to think. “But that’s been fixed since. The lifting gas is inert, it won’t catch fire now.”

  Lachlan looked Linus over and asked, “And how do you know so much about it, lad?”

  “The inventors are friends of mine,” was the youth’s reply. He dipped his chin and gulped, “In fact I should have seen this coming. I should have thought of it myself. It’s so obvious now it’s painful. I could have warned Monty and Penny. I could have stopped this before it even begun!”

  He punched the floor with a spark of plasma.

  “It’s nae your fault lad,” Lachlan soothed. “You’ve nae got a wicked mind, is all.”

  Linus shook his head, and his paw. “An imperium cannon might do the trick,” he sniffed afresh.

  “Och! Ah left it in mah other breeches.”

  The two guffawed nervously at the joke, knowing that they had no options open to them save rushing the hanger and seizing control of the airship by force. Many, if not all the Howlers would die in such an attempt, but far better than all of Hummelton and beyond.

  “Ah’ll tell the lads what’s about,” Lachlan said, scurrying to his Howlers.

  Time passed, shots were fired, orders given.

  Before Lachlan could organise the final assault, Uther returned, skidding behind the trough with an enormous rifle in his paws.

  “Got him,” he said.

  Linus checked the farmhouse – the hyena sniper was draped out the window, brained or worse. “That was quick.”

  “Fastest wolf in Lupa, Woodlouse, you know that.”

  Linus hated to ask, lest his friends were dead. “Did you see Penny or Monty in the house?”

  “No, mate.”

  “They must be in the hanger. Hostages, do you think?”

  “Maybe. I saw a sneaky way in back there.”

  “What? Where? How?”

  Whilst tearing open a cartridge to reload his rifle, Uther explained, “There’s a water tower round back. I reckon I can climb up that and get on the roof; there’s probably a skylight for ventilation. I’ll drop in and surprise ‘em, know what I mean? Oi, has Lachlan got any imperium bombs?”

  “I don’t know; it’s not standard gear, Uther.”

  “Ah well, neither’s this,” Uther cackled, slapping his massive rifle. “This’ll put a big hole in Nurka’s balloon.”

  “Not big enough, I fear,” Linus woofed. “It won’t just explode you know.”

  “I know, but it’ll leak won’t it?”

  “There’ll be cylinders of felitium on board to refill the bags at the pull of a lever. It won’t pop and deflate like a football, Uther, it’s like… like putting a… a pinprick in a bucket of water, it will take hours to empty.”

  Uther growled, “Worth a try though!”

  “By all means, I’ll try anything. Lachlan’s going to assault the place any minute.”

  “Aye, well, so am I – from the inside tell him.”

  Uther made to sneak away, but Linus grabbed him, “Wait!”

  “Oi!”

  “I’m coming too.”

  “Woodlouse, you ain’t built for sneaking-”

  “I’m coming, Uther, and that’s an end to it! I’m not a cub, I’m your partner.” Linus paused a moment; Uther was very much a criminal now, not his partner, but what did any of that matter in the light of THORN’S planned mass-murder? “We’ll attack from within,” Linus finished, “Lachlan from the outside.”

  The Wild-heart gave in and slapped Linus on the arm, “All right, partner.”

  Hurrying for cover behind an outbuilding, Linus and Uther informed Lachlan of their plan.

  “Good luck,” Lachlan replied, saluting, “For the Republic!”

  Linus saluted firmly back, Uther just barely.

  The Bloodfangs set off on their mission, stealing around the farm under the cover of fences and bushes, even piles of rusting machinery. The rising sun helped blind the hyenas to their presence.

  Uther ducked behind a flapping sheet of tarpaulin that was stretched over some kind of large machine, like a pitched tent. Linus joined him shortly after.

  Poing!

  An imperium pellet pinged off a nearby barrel.

  “Someone’s seen us,” Uther said. “I’ll get him, hang on.”

  Whilst he waited, Linus, overcome by curiosity, peered under the tight tarpaulin and discovered a tiny red dirigible that had seen better days. Four large wings protruded from its corroded shell in a squashed X-shape. There was a propeller on the back.

  Wait, it’s not a dirigible at all, Linus realised, but a heavier-than-air craft!

  “Uther, look! It’s a aeroplane! I had no idea Monty was making these-”

  “Not now, Linus!” Uther snarled, taking aim at the hyena who aiming back at him from the hanger. “Ulf’s teeth, like I give a schmutz.”

  Ka-crack!

  “Got him!” Wild-heart woofed. “Move, Linus! Come on, come on, come on!”

  Leaving the aeroplane, Linus scrabbled after Uther, following his guidance, however mad, however reckless. Jumping a fence, tearing across the farm and dashing headlong for the hanger. Uther then Linus ducked along its sunny, east-facing wall, slipped round the narrower north face into the vast, cold shade of its west side.

  Somehow it felt safer here – indeed there were no hyenas at the windows; Lachlan and his Howlers were keeping them occupied on the sunny side, pistols blazing.

  Panting beneath his white-cheeked helmet, red fangs glowing in the relative darkness, Linus looked up at the promised water tower. It was a good few feet from the hanger and was connected to it by a pipe.

  As Linus snuck along the wall with Uther, the shield at his back scraped over the corrugated metal. Uther glared at his clumsy cohort and jerked a paw; Linus duly stood proud of the wall a little.

  They soon made the water tower. Checking the windows were clear of rifle-toting hyenas, Uther wasted no time latching onto the tower’s rust-flecked ladder and racing up, paw over paw, Greystone rifle dancing at his shoulder. Linus followed suit, shield at his back, boots clinking on the metal. It had not occurred to him how high the hanger was until he was halfway up the adjacent water tower’s flimsy ladder. Rosalina would not approve, Linus thought.

  Uther made the water tank and helped Linus aboard. They stood atop the tower, cloaks fluttering, a whole world of green rolling around them. The hanger roof was glaring in the strengthening dawn sunshine, like wet cobbles on a Riddle District street the morning after rain, when the ash had been freshly rinsed from the air.

  “Climb across, right?” Linus panted, looking at the connecting pipe.

&nb
sp; “Nah, jump mate.”

  “Jump!”

  “I don’t trust that flimsy plumbing, especially you, you’re no lightweight.”

  “Uther I-I-I can’t! It’s too far!”

  “You can do it,” Uther encouraged. “Standing jump, mate

  “Standing! That’s impossible.”

  Looking the hefty Linus over, Uther craned his gaze to the top of the tower’s water tank. “Come on, up there; there’s a bit of room for a run-up,” he said, clambering up a pipe to the tank’s roof and helping Linus up after him. “Cor, you weigh a ton, Woodlouse.”

  “That’s not helpful, Uther.”

  “Hahaha!”

  They were even higher now, the hanger roof being a good ten feet lower than the water tower’s shallow apex.

  “It’s not far,” Uther puffed. “Watch me. Easy peasy.”

  Wild-heart clapped his paws, rolled his shoulders, rocked back and forth.

  Then he sped across the tank’s roof in a few steps, like a mad beast, and kicked off its lip! Sailing through the air he landed on the hanger roof and rolled once, before springing to his feet, paws spread, as if expecting an audience to applaud him.

  “Come on!” he beckoned.

  Linus backed up to the far edge of the tower, as near as he dared – his legs and feet tingling with primeval fear, or was it the rot? Not now, by Ulf, not now. Young Mills prepared himself as Uther had, shoulder rolling and all that, even clapping for what it was worth. He tried to imagine there was not deadly chasm ahead, but a benign sand pit, like the one back in the Academy Linus had practised coronal-assisted long-jumps in. It didn’t help.

  Poing!

  An imperium pellet twanged off the tower, then another and another, making Linus flinch.

  Poing! Ting!

  The hyenas had spotted him! Spurred on by necessity, Linus dashed those few steps to the lip, then kicked off with all his might. The yawning gap passed in an instant, replaced by glaring metal, and he landed, rubber-soled boots gripping the roof all too well and friction catapulting him over onto his back. Linus scraped along on his shield, spinning like an upturned dung beetle on a tabletop, before rolling over and grasping the roof with his paws.

  He was alive.

  “See?” Uther cackled, pulling him up and slapping his arm. “Cleared it by miles, mate.”