Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  Linus looked – he had too – and he emitted a giddy laugh for it. By Ulf, this was exhilarating!

  Knowing they had been seen, Uther quickly found a ventilation hatch and lifted it open. Linus hurried to peer inside as well. Beneath them was a bulging sheet of grey, ribbed fabric, stretching as far as the eye could see. It was unmistakably the top of a dirigible, even though its scale was beyond anything Linus had expected.

  “It’s enormous!”

  “Aye, and it’s moving.”

  “Moving?”

  Sure enough the ribbed canvas was sliding by, slowly but surely. Linus could hear the roar of propellers, smell the imperium ash.

  “They’re launching,” he surmised. “What do we do?”

  Uther looked all about for another hatch, a different solution, but concluded. “Jump!”

  “Jump? Jump where?”

  “Down!”

  Uther tucked his armoured legs into the hatch and lowered himself down. He hung by his arms a moment, winked at Linus, then dropped some twenty feet onto the canvas below! Uther softened his landing with an imperious blast of will that billowed the canvas in circular ripple, like a pebble dropped into a pond. He didn’t even stumble. As the balloon moved ever more rapidly, so was Uther swept away from the hatch like driftwood. He walked along, beckoning Linus, his boots stretching the silvery material over the ribs below.

  “Come on!” he seethed.

  With every passing second the dirigible grew slimmer, pointier, as the tail end approached, and the fall grew longer, more dangerous.

  It was now or never.

  With a prayer to Ulf, Linus levered himself into the hatch as Uther had done. Even when hanging by his arms the dirigible seemed awfully far below.

  Somehow, Linus commanded his fingers to release. He dropped, bounced on his rump and rolled. There was no purchase, just a sea of sloping canvas.

  I’m going to die!

  A strong paw latched onto Linus’s hood, staying his uncontrolled slide. It was Uther of course, with one black paw grasping a durametal rib through the stretchy canvas, the other Linus.

  “Come on, mate!” he barked through his helmet.

  With tremulous, adrenaline-boosted limbs, Linus flailed over and gained a purchase on the dirigible skeleton that he could see pressed against the fabric, his boots rested on a horizontal rib, his paws a vertical. Nodding at Uther that he was all right now and not daring to look back, he clambered up the gentle, if treacherously smooth slope. Despite the nod, Uther kept a hold of Linus’s hood until he was safely on the back of the vast flying machine.

  And flying it was, faster and faster, higher and higher. The relative gloom of the hanger passed over, replaced by an infinite blue sky and a blast of cross-wind that sent the Howlers’ cloaks fluttering and the canvas wobbling, slapping the skeleton beneath. To the right was a hill of grey, to the left the four fins that made up the airships tail, each pinned upright with steel wires.

  Uther stood up and confidently advanced along the ship’s spine like the fearless maniac he was; Linus followed, albeit low, almost on all fours. Uther crouched, allowing Linus to catch up and assess the predicament he had gotten himself into. All around was blue sky and green horizon, behind was the silvery silk worm barn that had served as hanger, its roof shining bright in the sun.

  The airship tipped back a little and rapidly gained height, sending Linus clawing at the canvas. He looked back and saw the smoky battle continuing below between Lachlan’s Howlers and the THORN hyenas.

  “We’re on our own now!” Uther shouted over the wind and propellers churning somewhere below.

  Linus could but nod.

  Were Nurka and the other Chakaa aboard? Were Monty and Penny? How do we even get to them? All Linus saw from nose to fin was a sea of shimmering, rippling silver canvas with not a hatch or hole of any kind.

  “How long will it take to get to there?” Uther shouted in Linus’s ear.

  “What?”

  “To Hummelton?”

  “I… I don’t know!” Linus replied, calculating, or trying to calculate in any case, roughly how fast a dirigible could fly and how far away Hummelton was, and not how fast a wolf would fall and how far away the ground was. “We need to get inside!”

  “Hatch?”

  “Can’t see any!”

  Uther looked about, nodded, then pushed on the stretchy lozenge-shaped world of fabric. “Cut through?”

  “The inside is just bladders of felitium! The gondola is at the very bottom!”

  “Aye! So?”

  “So we… we might suffocate inside the balloon, you can’t breathe felitium.”

  “Poisonous is it?”

  “No, but it’s not air, Uther!”

  Uther slung his rifle round and plucked the bayonet from the muzzle. With this he cut a long slit in the fabric and peered inside, looked about a bit, then withdrew. He gestured for his comrade to have a go. Like a maggot squirming into an open wound, Linus pushed his masked face into the fluttering incision and looked around. It was dark, but he could see huge, white, rectangular bladders, dozens of them stretching as far as was visible, all squashed neatly together like plant cells under a microscope. They were secured to the durametal skeleton by wires running through eyelets.

  “I’m going in!” Uther shouted, as Linus pulled his head back into daylight.

  “Uther-”

  “Got a better idea?”

  No, Linus did not.

  “If I get the angle right,” Uther said, “one shot from this rifle could go through half them bags. What you reckon?”

  A nod, “Worth a try!”

  “Chop the rest open, aye?”

  “If we lose too much lift we’ll crash!”

  “That’s the idea!” Uther replied with a laugh.

  Linus thought about it, and supposed crashing here in the countryside was better than at Hummelton, but he also supposed the black-imperium canisters might burst upon any violent impact and melt everyone inside. Worse, if the fuel tanks exploded and sent the wreck up in flames, the black-imperium would be carried aloft in the smoke to rain down over many tens if not hundreds of square miles. It would be a lesser disaster that what the hyenas had in mind, but a disaster nonetheless.

  Linus put his argument to Uther, who shouted defensively back, “What do you wanna do then?”

  “Take them out?” Linus said.

  “The hyenas?”

  “If there’s not too many! We should at least look! It’s a few hours to Hummelton, I’m sure!”

  After some time, Uther nodded his agreement.

  Without further ado Wild-heart split the fabric further and slipped inside, dropping onto the nearest bladder and grasping one of the steel wires for support. Linus lowered his legs in and with half as much grace joined Uther within the strange world of the dirigible, with bulging white bladders for a floor, an arcing grey ceiling above, and the thrum of propellers constantly assaulting the ears. The bladders were unexpectedly firm underfoot, but it was still difficult to walk with any kind of sure-footed grace, even Uther struggled to move about as he searched for an obvious way down through the tightly-packed bags of felitium. Cutting one open was an obvious solution and Wild-heart readied his bayonet knife again.

  Linus came alongside him and hung on a steel wire.

  “I think-”

  Choing!

  The wire snapped, slashing Linus in the right arm and tearing the bladder beneath him wide open.

  With a cloak-billowing blast of felitium, and a wolfen yelp of surprise, Linus fell straight through the sagging canvas of the bladder and plunged into blackness.

  “Linus!” he heard Uther bark, but Wild-heart could not save him this time.

  Tumbling in free space for a split-second, Linus bounced off another bladder and slammed back-first into some horizontal supporting strut – his shield took the blow, but he then fell forward onto another structural support just below that, raking if not breaking some ribs. Winded and unable t
o cling on for pain he fell again, landing on some metallic platform to an awful, somewhat fleshy clamour.

  “Gahaaaghfffgh!”

  Linus rolled agonisingly over, grasping at his slashed and profusely bleeding arm. He had landed on a walkway that he judged ran from nose to tail of the airship. All around were bladders, struts, pipes and wires.

  There was no sign of Uther.

  Suddenly the walkway rattled beneath Linus’s back, alerting him to several guttural-sounding hyenas bearing down on him from both ends with rifles and pistols ready.

  Not good.

  Linus scrabbled to his feet and lurched over the walkway’s railings – more durametal framework and bladders lay beneath, but what lay below that, mere flimsy canvas stretched over skeletal struts?

  The desperate Howler contemplated throwing himself over; contemplated too long.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Poing! Ting! Pang!

  Pellets ricocheted off the walkway, piercing bladders and then the cringing, flinching Linus.

  The Howler collapsed silently about the metal walkway, his left leg hit, his shoulder torn. They went numb and useless, then stung like fire, as if Linus had been whipped by burning hot plasmatic cables. Unable to stand for the pain but with a plan of escape to paw, Linus rolled blindly off into space amidst a shower of colourful sparks. One pellet deflected off his impervious Bloodfang shield, stripping some paint off just as its owner fell bravely into oblivion.

  The attacking Hyenas gathered excitedly at the railing and aimed down.

  “No!” Madou barked, pushing them all away. “You’ll burst all the air sacks!”

  The stocky Chakaa looked down at the white ‘air sacks’ and saw two were smeared with rich, dark blood where the enemy had slid over one and then between them both.

  “Get back to work!” Madou ordered, climbing over the railing. “Tell Nurka I’ll find him.”

  The lesser hyenas waited, uncertain.

  “Go on! I can manage!”

  With his followers dismissed, Madou lowered himself carefully into the belly of the ship.

  High above, Uther watched helplessly as everything unravelled. Wild-heart was unable to reveal himself, not even for Linus; there was too much at stake.

  Shouldering his rifle, Uther picked his way down the dirigible’s framework, hoping against hope his friend and comrade might still be alive down there somewhere, but accepting it might not matter.

  One way or another, this crate is going down.

  Chapter 52

  Werner looked at the ticking clock above the dusty, long-since abandoned bar; it was approaching eight.

  The clock was one of the few things still functioning, water and imperium gas being cut off a year ago when Casimir and Bruno had disappeared and stopped paying the bills. The windows had been daubed inside with white paint and the door boarded up, but the clock’s precious white-imperium battery would last decades yet. For the imperium alone it would have been looted long ago had not Werner taken special charge of The Warren for his own needs, and the needs of the cause. Condemned and locked down by the Politzi Chief it served now as a secret rebel enclave.

  Casimir could have the premises back when the great deed was done, clock included.

  “Not long now,” one of Werner’s fellow conspirators said – to any passer-by just another rat Politzi, but underneath he was one of many such officials that had joined the cause.

  “Aye,” Werner replied, casting his beady eyes over everyone lounging around the tables. Some tried to play cards by imperium lantern, pitting paper bees, wasps, ants and termites against one another in an attempt to stay calm, but most sat nervously clock-watching, nursing fears and pistols alike.

  There came a creak on the stairs as Professor Heath joined the conspirators nestled around the café tables. The old bear didn’t really belong, he was no rebel, but Werner had agreed to take the befuddled fellow in until his problems blew over.

  “Any news?” he whispered, as if he had a clue.

  “No,” the rotund Werner replied. “You should stay upstairs, Professor.”

  “I can’t sit all day. I need to move about.”

  “If a Howler sees you that’ll be the end of it! I can explain us lot away as a secret knees-up, but you’re a wanted beast.”

  Heath hiked his brows. “A secret knees-up,” he observed, casting an eye over Werner’s armed Politzi, “with no beer and illegal pistols? That’ll wash.”

  “Just stay upstairs,” Werner snorted. “You can jump out the bedroom window if we’re rumbled.”

  “I wouldn’t fit,” Heath dismissed, wandering round the back of the bar. He noticed the time. “The Pack Summit will be getting under way soon.”

  “Aye and THORN will be dropping our evidence.”

  “Humph! Lot of good some pamphleteering will do, even if it is from a balloon or whatnot.”

  Werner looked to his fellow conspirators then gruffed at the sceptical Professor, “You’ll see what good it’ll do, mate.”

  Heath checked the cupboards for a drink or some morsel, turning up nothing but a small and quite inedible spider. “Pictures are strong evidence, Werner, but hyena-sympathisers have been giving them out for years and it’s changed nothing,” the Professor sighed, ferrying the delicate long-legged spider to a safe place and watching it to crawl up into the rafters. “If the Den Fathers know of the Reservation abuses, they will deny it; if not they will dismiss it as propaganda.”

  Werner claimed, “Aye, well, we’ve got more than leaflets. That’s just the beginning of our Impartialist movement.”

  Heath folded his arms, “So I gather.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I know a rebellion when I see one. I’ve lived through a few. I want no part in any violence.”

  “Aye! You’re neutral. ‘Tis fine, I can respect that. But like I said, stay out the way.”

  Letting his arms fall loose, Heath rowed back a little, “It’s not that I don’t agree with Impartialism, Werner. Of course I want Lupa to be a city for all, but it’s very often intellectuals like me who are targeted in the inevitable purges!”

  “Not under Nikita, mate,” Werner revealed.

  “Nikita?” Heath said, recoiling. “Nikita of ALPHA?”

  “Aye.”

  “So… he’s your leader?”

  “That’s right. He’s gonna throw Adal and all the rest over. Hah! Nikita’s a real Impartialist. He’s not like Adal; he won’t tell beasts what to think and when to think it.”

  “You’re convinced of that, are you Constable, when Nikita himself arrested Rufus for ‘dissenting remarks’?”

  “It were Adal’s orders! But he’s in Hummelton now. Nikita is in charge and soon he’ll have the whole city, with our help.”

  All was set, Werner explained to Heath. When word came from Nikita, Werner would seize Riddle Den and instruct the Politzi to lock down the district. The same would happen at many Dens across the great city as rebel Politzi and Howlers emerged. Control would be wrestled from the grasp of Boris and other weak placeholders left to watch over Lupa by the absent Den Fathers. ALPHA would assume control and run Lupa as a united single pack headed by Grand Prefect Nikita. Now there’s a wolf Werner could get behind! A rabid impartialist raised on the wild Steppes amongst beasts of all kinds, Nikita had released countless dissidents from ALPHA’s cells and turned the other cheek to venom smugglers and hyena-sympathisers alike. Nikita would rule, aye, but as an impartialist he would do so with the help of the pigs and the rabbits! Train hogs and Politzi hogs, rabbit clerks and tax collectors, the hogs and long-ears were everywhere, running everything, trade and civil service relied on them; whoever ruled needed the humble pigs and rabbits.

  Heath sighed, “And what of the Den Fathers, Werner, are they just going to roll over?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about them, sir.”

  “I’m not, I’m more worried this is the start of another war!”

  Suddenly the front door burst open,
the bell ringing overhead, and a big grey and white wolf in a black Prefect’s uniform tumbled inside The Warren and fell about the place, knocking over a chair.

  “It’s me!” he panted, removing his helmet. “It’s me, don’t shoot!”

  His face was bloodied and covered in dressings, but Heath quickly recognised the wolf. “Tristan!” he woofed, hurrying to his aid.

  “He tried… to kill me!” the Howler exhaled, as Heath picked him up and led him to a bench. Werner peered down the street and shut the door.

  Tristan rambled, desperate and afraid, “I-I-I didn’t know where else to go. Not home; the Eisbrands would question me too. She let me get away, Meryl Stroud that is, the ALPHA nurse. She gave me this uniform and led me out and-”

  “Slow down, lad, slow down,” Werner said. “Were you followed?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes! Yes! I waited round corners and everything.”

  “All right. Fine. Now, who tried to kill yer?”

  “Nikita!” the bloodied Tristan yelped, collapsing on a green wall-bench. “He sent Silvermane out, then threw the switch and tried to cook me alive. He killed Josef’s assistant to do it! Meryl… she saved my life. She risked everything for me. I don’t think she’s really with us… but…. Oh, I don’t know what to think anymore!”

  Tristan rocked on the bench, arms folded close.

  Heath turned to Werner with exemplary sarcasm, “What a reasonable fellow, this ‘Nikita’, murdering his own comrades. Not at all like nasty Adal or the Den Fathers, oh no-”

  “Shut up!” Werner snorted, turning to Tristan. “It must’ve been a mistake, lad.”

  “No mistake!” the wolf seethed, shaking his head. “No mistake, Werner. Nikita threw the switch right beside me. I begged him not to do it, I begged him-”

  “It were a mistake!” the hog reiterated, laughing and patting Tristan’s shoulder, looking reassuringly at everyone else’s worried faces. “Probably wasn’t even Nikita you saw. You all look the same you wolves in your cloaks ‘n’ helmets, eh? You were probably confused from all the racking, lad.”

  “Not with his accent, Werner!” Tristan snarled, standing up to his full height, his raw, bandaged features suddenly filled with a terrible fury. “Do you take me for a fool?”