by Adam Browne
“Around,” Sara said vaguely, and not a little angrily. “Mum can we talk?”
Cora glanced about. “Nae now. Sara, you have tae leave town. Your sisters have already been sent away. Ah want you tae look after them.”
“But-”
“Behave and obey me for once in your life!” Cora hissed, pulling Sara down onto her seat.
Adal leant over, “Why if it isn’t the young reporter!”
“Reporter?” Cora said.
Sara excused, “Long story, Mum.”
“Tall story,” Adal corrected. Raising his snout at the horizon, he added surreptitiously, “Don’t look now, but I spy a balloon.”
*
As the world beyond the gondola windows spiralled and dipped like a mad fairground ride, Nurka pushed off a metal pole and climbed the sloping floor, defying the twisting forces that would have sent any lesser beast tumbling. In a few imperium-charged steps he was on the wheel and peeling first Penny and then Monty from it.
“Get off you fools!” he snarled.
Penny reeled across the gondola, but Monty snatched a pole and immediately came to wrestle with Nurka.
“No!” he mewed. “I won’t… let… you!”
Pfzzt!
Nurka simply ejected the cat across the gondola with a blast of plasma.
“Monty!” Penny cried, as her husband fell smouldering to the deck and rolled limply into a support pole.
Nurka watched the fallen cat a moment, before turning the wheel back, paw over paw, to its default position. The airship slowly stopped spiralling, but the dials were still dropping.
“Reg!” Nurka called, casting his eyes over the confusing controls and whirring dials. “Reg, help me!”
The nimble rat scurried to the helm, whereupon he tugged levers, pulled cables and generally restored order. Most of the dials stopped spinning rapidly anticlockwise and reversed to a sedate clockwise motion.
Once the ship had calmed down, the rat breathed, “Turn us west, Nurka.”
Panting beneath his skull helm more from fear than effort, Nurka picked out the compass from the many indicators and gently turned the wheel until ‘W’ wobbled into view. Outside, Hummelton swung round, and it was closer than ever. Nurka could see smoke rising from chimneys and distant glistening windows catching the sun. Even when locked in a mad death-spiral the wind had still been blowing the Nimbus rapidly closer to the countryside conurbation, like a boat caught inexorably in a current.
“Hahahahaaahaha!” Nurka laughed. It was the freest laugh to ever escape the uncommonly reserved hyena’s throat; it disturbed even his own sensibilities. Rubbing his face under his helmet and sobering up, he glanced behind and located Madou, who was pulling himself to his feet after the mad tumble.
“Madou!” Nurka called. “Go check on Themba and the others. Make sure they’re all right. I’ll stay here.”
The chief tugged the cable he had seen Penny use to dump water and thus increase lift, the ship noticeably rose.
“Madou?” he urged.
Nurka looked round just as Madou pressed his kristahl sword against his chieftain’s broad zigzag-cloaked back.
“Sorry, Chief,” he said.
“Madou, what is this?”
Howler Linus, meanwhile, had slipped his no doubt ineffectual bonds. Sitting by the wall, he held Nurka’s other two hyenas at bay with his pistol.
“Don’t move,” the Howler advised them. He threw them his wire bonds, “One of you tie the other with that, please.”
The two hyenas stood defiantly still.
“Do it!” Madou barked at them. “Or I’ll kill Nurka!”
“Nobody move!” Nurka commanded over all. “Madou… Madou, listen to me-”
“Shut up, Chief!” Madou replied.
He shoved Reg stumbling away – the puny rat could do nothing to help, as was ever a little beast’s lot.
“It’s over, Chief,” Madou continued. “Come on. Step away from the wheel.”
Nurka only gripped the wheel more firmly. “When did they turn you? Was it when they tortured you?”
“No Chief.”
“You cannot believe their promises, Madou.”
“Nobody made any promises, Chief.”
“Was it money?”
“Not money, not promises… just my own conscience. I’m listening to it, at last. So should you-”
“Conscience? You’re a traitor, turncloak!”
Madou pushed his sword closer. “You’re the one betraying our people! Prince Noss is right; no civilised race would do what we’re about to do! Noss raised us, made us what we are, and you have betrayed his teachings! We all have.”
“Perhaps,” Nurka admitted. “But you’re the one who struck him down, Madou.”
“I wish I hadn’t! I wish I’d struck Arjana instead!”
“By the Wind! Do you even know what you’re saying?”
Madou took a sharp breath. “I was with you, Nurka. Every raid, every battle, every… every burning second on the rack; I suffered for our cause. The wolfen Den Fathers can all rot, I’d be happy to kill them myself, with my own paws, because they know what goes on in the Reservations! They must know.”
Linus’s ears twisted, but he said nothing.
“But not everyone is guilty, Chief,” Madou sniffed, “not Rufus, or Tomek, or Linus there, and the Wind knows the little beasts are innocent. They suffer as we do. If we kill every mother and cub and harmless old beast, along with a guilty few, our people will be exiles from civilisation itself. Even the ancestors will turn their backs on us!”
Purple eyes flitting, Nurka cooed, “Madoouuu, there is no other way. No other way! By the Wind, brother, do you think I have not considered all this a thousand times? I’ve not slept easy for months!”
“Well maybe you should’ve asked for a second opinion! Like mine! Maybe if you had trusted me, told me from the beginning what you and Arjana had in mind, we wouldn’t be here now because I would have said what I am saying now!”
“And then where would we be now? Twiddling our thumbs on the Reservation?”
“We’d have found another way. We’ll find another way. There’s still time.”
“Wake up Madou!”
“No, Nurka, I’m the one awake; it’s you who you needs wake up, you and Themba. The chunta is clouding your minds, you know it’s true! I’ve been off it for some months. I feel… better. I see and think clearer. I’m a changed beast-”
“Hahahahaaaahahah!” Nurka laughed.
“It’s true!”
“So you defile your body with white-imperium and now you’re better than us? What shall we do, blasphemer, land and give up? Say we’re sorry? We will be executed on the spot if we’re lucky or fed to the ants if we’re not! Now put that sword down, Chakaa, or else run me though!”
“So be it, Nurka! So be it!”
“No!” Penny shouted. “No more! I won’t stand for it!”
Both Nurka and Madou’s rounded hyena ears pricked, as did Linus’s triangular set.
“Drop your leaflets, Mister Nurka,” Penny said. “Drop your leaflets and only the leaflets, as you said to Monty. Make this a peaceful protest, an honourable one. No killing, no fighting, rise above it all. You can do it, all of you, and you’ll be remembered as heroes, not villains.” She looked down on the unconscious Monty and stroked his whiskered face. “My dear Monty fought in many wars you know, subduing the native races of the Feline continent. He used to be a warrior, just like you all, a soldier of Felicia, of our Queen. But he gave it all up to fight for truth and reason and… and progress. That’s why I fell in love with him, he wasn’t like everyone else. You don’t have to be like everyone else either. You can be better than them. Show them all up. You can!”
The longest time passed, Nurka studied Linus, Madou, and especially Penny as she cradled her husband.
Running his paws up inside his helmet Nurka clutched his aching head. “Grrraaaaagh!” he groaned. “Madooou… Madou, do you think that…
perhaps I… that we….”
The chief’s voice trailed curiously off as he focused on several puffs of ash erupting from the fields ahead. From the direction of the silent explosions came several blurred streaks of yellow, racing towards the gondola in all of a few seconds.
“Artillery?” said Reg.
Then the window in front of the hapless rat exploded inwards.
Ka-fssssfgh!
Reg instantly disappeared amidst a metallic cacophony of carnage, as did the two hyenas Linus was holding at bay. Ears and eyes momentarily overwhelmed from the ferocious blast and rush of whistling air, Linus didn’t even see or hear what exactly happened to the three, all he saw now was a gaping hole in the gondola where once they had been.
In the chaos, Nurka ducked round and blasted Madou away, thumping both plasmatic fists to his gut. The stocky hyena flew across the deck and slammed into the wall.
“Oaaghagh!”
As Madou fell unconscious, the damaged right side of the gondola collapsed further, the metal bending away, as if being peeled open from below by a curious giant.
Linus scrabbled backwards as the floor beneath him gave way to deadly a slope of oblivion. It advanced faster than the Howler’s wounded body allowed him to move! Thinking fast, the crippled wolf limped and lurched across to a pole and latched on with his half-useful arms, overcoming the agony to cling on as the flimsy floor deserted him.
“Gaagh!”
Beneath Linus’s flailing boots the green fields of Everdor rolled by; roads, houses, a sparkling river; his pistol slipped through his fumbling bloodied fingers and spiralled away.
“Madou!” he yelped, slipping. “Help me! Madou!”
“Linus!” Penny shouted, pulling the unconscious Monty away. “Linus, hold on!”
Calming his loyal pepper moth fluttering worriedly at his shoulder, Nurka seized the wheel and turned the Nimbus firmly towards Hummelton.
More puffs of smoke; shells rumbled by, most missing, but a glancing blow was struck to the left underside of the balloon, tearing the fabric and smashing one of the durametal ribs. The whole skeleton of the ship quivered, the wheel vibrating in Nurka’s hefty hyena paws. Sparks rained down over the fields and thick support cables flopped out through the flapping canvas, trailing like the tentacles of a black jellyfish.
Very quickly smoke began to billow from the burning hole torn in the Nimbus.
Fire!
Breathing hard and fast, Nurka pulled cables and pushed levers, upping the lift and thrust; despite the damage the Nimbus responded, gaining speed and height. Shells screamed by below, missing entirely this time. Hummelton grew ever larger and dominated the horizon; town houses, bridges, and the Den rising at its heart, all took shape.
It was time.
Glancing back at the groaning Madou and wondering what to do with him, Nurka saw Themba enter the Gondola, hammer in paw. The big hyena took in the devastation, the gaping hole in the floor being most disconcerting.
“Chief?” he shouted worriedly, the wind whistling through the floor and up his cloak.
“Everything ready back there?” Nurka replied.
“Yes!”
Nodding, Nurka gestured with his paws. “Give me your hammer!”
Themba silently obeyed; Nurka passed him his fluttering moth for safekeeping.
Then the chief turned and unceremoniously smashed the wheel up, bending and warping it with several blows. He tried to turn it – it was jammed fast.
Good, nobody could alter course now.
Satisfied, Nurka swapped the hammer for the moth. Then he disarmed Madou, flicking his sword into the gulf – it passed within inches of Linus flailing below.
“Stay here and… and watch Madou, he’s not well,” Nurka told Themba. “Don’t let him or anyone else touch the controls.” He went to said controls and tugged one of the cables, “Pull this cord to raise us if we get too low. All right?”
Themba nodded.
“It’s time, Themba,” Nurka said, walking over to him.
Another nod, a gulp. “You should let me do it,” Themba said, looking slightly away. “The tribe will need you. What good am I to anyone without you?”
Nurka grasped both Themba’s arms, “Don’t worry, Themba. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But… but the black-imperium. I thought you said-”
“You’ll see. Stay here.”
“Help him!” Penny screamed, gesturing at Linus scrabbling uselessly below. With all his wounds the Howler was unable to gain a purchase, his bloodied boots slipping on the metal, his strength failing fast.
Nurka stared, eyes narrowing in contemplation.
“Please!” the cat begged of Nurka. “He could have shot you where you stood, but he didn’t! Please!”
“Themba… pull the Howler up,” Nurka commanded.
“Chief?”
“Don’t argue, just do it!”
“By the Wind, what-”
“If you love me you’ll do as I command!” Nurka said, cupping a paw to Themba’s helmet-clad cheek. “And… you will forgive me.”
Exiting the gondola, Nurka dashed down the main walkway towards the tail of the now smoke-filled interior of Nimbus, his striking zigzagged cloak being the last thing to vanish in the thickening haze.
Baffled, worried, but obedient, Themba walked gingerly over to Penny and the hole torn in the gondola.
“Down there!” she told the massive hyena, as cannon fire rushed by once again.
Another strike sent the Nimbus trembling and rocking.
“Oh!” Penny mewed. “It may not matter soon! She won’t hold together much longer!”
Silently grasping a support pole, Themba peered into the breach and spied the wolf Nurka had sent him to rescue; the Howler looked back with desperate baby-blue eyes.
“Quickly!” Penny urged, shouting. “Linus! Linus, he’s going to help you!”
Themba leant down and extended his kristahl hammer towards this Linus. Unable to hear a thing for the whistling wind, the wolf fully expected to be poked or blasted off to his doom. All he could see was Penny’s mouth moving and a giant hyena looming over him, those purple eyes alight with menace and hatred.
Yet the hammer stayed put. Was this a lifeline?
Taking his chances, Linus extricated his best arm from the pole first and latched onto the hammerhead, then his rather weaker arm followed.
“Gahffffgh!”
All the hours in the Riddle Den’s gym, all the pain and sacrifices combined with the mixed blessings of imperium, granted Linus Mills the strength to cling on despite such fatigue and agony as he had never before known. Pushing with his good leg he scaled the wobbling metal slope with Themba’s aid and collapsed about the deck.
“Thank… you!” he panted.
Themba backed off, cut the air with a paw, and turned away. “I do not understand what Nurka is doing, but-”
Ka-crack!
Themba whirled round, his blood spattering against the gondola windows. The big beast fell upon the crooked wheel, then to the floor, chest heaving, paw clutching his body.
Penny screamed.
The exhausted Linus looked up and saw Uther standing in the entrance to the gondola, the barrel of his Greystone rifle smouldering. With Themba downed he calmly turned to the stirring Madou and went to unceremoniously bayonet him where he sat!
“No!” Penny shrieked, throwing herself in the way. “No, Howler! Don’t!”
“Out the way, marm!”
“Uther?” the cat squeaked. “Uther is that you?”
“Aye! Now step aside, marm!”
“I absolutely will not, sir. He’s a friend of Linus!”
Uther looked to Linus, who nodded, then collapsed about the deck. Puzzled beyond words, the Wild-heart lowered his rifle and went to him.
“Mate?”
“Uther,” Linus grunted, as his partner cradled him. He looked to Themba. “He… he saved my life. They… both did. Don’t kill them, Uther.”
&nbs
p; “What’re you on about?” Uther squawked. “They’re the ones from the refinery!”
“I know. I know, but… grrrffgh! I think… agh….”
“Don’t talk,” Uther chided. “Shut up and lay still. You look like krap, mate, and that’s no joke.”
Linus grabbed Uther’s sinewy black arm, “The other one, Nurka,” he spluttered, “he w-www-went to the back of the s-sss-ship. The black-imperium is down that way.”
“Aye, but it looks like we’re going down, mate. Someone’s shooting us up bad. THORN’s already lost.”
“No! No, we may s-sss-still pass over Hummelton.”
“He’s right, Uther,” Penny agreed, crawling over. “The cannons seem to have stopped as well.”
“They can’t aim… straight up,” Linus panted. “Cannon are not designed to shoot up at the sky. Nothing so dangerous ever flew… until today.”
He laughed a little.
“Where’s Nurka gone exactly?” Uther asked.
“There’s a cargo hatch on the bottom deck, towards the back of the ship,” Penny said. “If he’s going to drop anything, it’ll be from there.”
“Right.”
The catess stood up and brushed down her dirty dress, “I’ll show you, Uther.”
“No chance, marm, it’s too dangerous in there. Stay here, look after Linus and Monty.”
“But-”
“Please! I’ll find it. I always find my way.”
Penny nodded.
With that, Uther reloaded his rifle and made to leave, but Linus pulled him back.
“Uther wait! Wait a m-mmm-minute.”
“Yeah, mate?”
“Just… think,” Linus spluttered, his body trembling as shock set in, shock from being shot, blasted and nearly falling to his death. “Think b-bbb-before… you… you act. But act… if you must.”
“What?”
“Just… I don’t quite know… I… Hahaha!”
Frowning, Uther picked the delirious Linus up and set him down by the door. He removed his black Prefect’s cloak and laid it over him. “Rest mate. Penny’s here.”
Grabbing his rifle, Wild-heart hurried into the smoky bowels of the Nimbus.
*
Vladimir watched the burning airship approach; the Hummel artillery pieces were now useless, being unable to aim higher than forty degrees or so, but they had made their mark on the dirigible.