by Adam Browne
Ivan stepped into the car from the other side, his magnificent bluish rapier at the ready. “Den Father? You look perturbed.”
Amael stumbled to a halt. “Ivan! Ivan they melted!”
“Melted, sir?” Blade-dancer huffed.
“Black-imperium! I saw it. The Eisenwolf; he made it. It came from him. He killed them all in seconds. They just… fell apart at his feet, like rotting corpses!”
Ivan nodded slowly, “Ah. Like everyone at Hummelton, then?”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, sir, at this speed we’ll arrive shortly. If the crash doesn’t kill us, the black-imperium will. You can go the same way as all the wolves you have murdered. There’ll be no Den Fathers at all then. What will Lupa do?”
“No,” Amael mouthed, then loudly, “No! Turn the train around. We’ll decouple the carriages and leave him here.”
“I’d rather not.”
Amael strode forward, “Out of my way-”
With a forceful twist of his corona, Ivan both physically and intangibly shoved his Den Father stumbling backwards. Falling into a table, Amael stood dumbfounded for a moment, checking his body, as if shocked Ivan should violate him so.
“How dare you touch me!” he snarled. “I am your anointed-”
“Shut up and draw your sword ‘Den Father’,” Ivan interjected.
Back in the devastated lounge car, the black cloud slowly dispersed, sucked out the broken windows, leaving only the hot smoke of the fire rolling overhead.
Time passed. The train rattled along. Rafe checked his shaking paws, breathed longer, deeper.
He was alive. The suit worked. It really worked.
“Rafe! Rafe!”
The Eisenwolf turned, looked to the door behind. Janoah was there, peering inside. She beckoned him. He clomped over, still somewhat unsure of his own continued existence.
“JAN. WHAT DID I DO WRONG? WHAT HAPPENED?”
“It was the cloak!” Janoah shouted through the window, her voice muffled. “It was black-imperium weave. Josef said not to burn it!”
Rafe felt for his cloak, it was completely gone.
“I can’t come in!” Janoah said. “And don’t you come near me! You’re contaminated!”
“I KNOW.”
“Stay in your suit, it’ll protect you! We’ll hose you down you later! All right? Don’t panic!”
A nod. “I’M ALL RIGHT.”
Janoah pointed ahead. “Rafe, you have to check the engine! We’re going far too fast; something must be wrong! Go! Quickly!”
Rafe nodded, then about-faced and hurried through the smoke. As he retrieved his sword he tried not to glimpse the semi-skeletal bodies littering the carriage, tried to tell himself that their horrible deaths from black-imperium were not his fault. It was a mistake.
Rafe slid open one door and entered the connecting passage between carriages. There he stood, peering through the decorated window at two wolves in the next car, one with a rapier drawn, a pure-white wolf, tall and lofty.
Something made Rafe pause, a memory of a green forest. Pain. Such pain!
Inside, Amael flicked his rapier from its sheath. “Fine, I’ll put you out of your misery. To be honest I’ve wanted to do this for years, you lowly, back-combing, beta of a wolf! It’s limp-wristed wolves like you and Rufus that have corrupted Lupa and made us all weak. When I’m in charge, I’ll outlaw your like. Round them up, like hyenas, and re-educate you all with a pellet to the head!”
Ivan remained stock still, rapier held loose and slightly to one side, his feet spread just-so.
He said nothing; there was nothing he had say to one such as Amael.
The Den Father bounced on his feet, tested Ivan, feigned an attack, withdrew, then another. Ivan barely flinched.
“Come on, beta!” Amael goaded. “Scared, eh?”
Silence, patience.
“I’ll gut you!”
Snarling, Amael struck forward in a flurry of rapier thrusts and slashes, plasma and sparks flew as Ivan parried them all in a blinding display of skill.
Blade-dancer retaliated, jabbing his blade forth once, and only once.
“Gugh!” Amael yelped, staggering back with a paw to his throat.
He fell upon a table, his rapier clattering aside, blood pouring liberally from his neck, staining the tablecloth onto which he grasped for life. Lingering there for a few seconds, perhaps as many as ten, he emitted a gurgling laugh and fell, dragging the bloody tablecloth, a vase of flowers and all the plates and cutlery on top of him.
The brief reign of Amael Balbus had ended.
Ivan flicked his rapier tip dry on another tabletop. As he made to sheath his weapon, he noticed Rafe had entered the carriage.
“YOU!” the giant woofed metallically, striding forth, Amael’s body and growing pool of blood of no interest to him whatever.
Ivan said nothing.
“YOU TRIED TO KILL ME. I REMEMBER.”
“I did, and I now I’ll finish the job.”
“WHY?” Rafe growled. “WHAT’VE I DONE?”
Ivan grunted, “You just killed half of my pack’s leaders and you ask me why?”
“BUT THEY WERE TRAITORS! THUMP ME, YOU JUST KILLED YOUR DEN FATHER-”
“He was a monster and so are you, an abomination of nature, one that Rufus should never have drawn Janoah’s attention to!”
“I’M NOT A MONSTER!”
“Humph!”
“I FIGHT FOR THE REPUBLIC, NOT AGAINST IT. I FIGHT FOR PEACE.”
Ivan pointed with his rapier, “Cease your whining, pup, and come at me.”
Rafe stood still, “I NEED TO STOP THE TRAIN.”
“Kill me first, if you even can! Come on, Eisenwolf!”
“NO! I’VE KILLED ENOUGH TODAY. NO MORE.”
“I tried to kill you. You must have your revenge. Come on, boy! You can do better than Amael!”
Rafe shook his head, “SORRY MATE, I’M NOT INTERESTED IN ALL THAT SCHMUTZ. NOW STEP ASIDE AND LET ME SAVE LIVES. PLEASE.”
Slowly, indiscernibly, Ivan’s rapier lowered.
Suddenly buildings panned past the window, lampposts, cars, streets, citizens, living citizens, standing and pointing, aghast at the runaway train.
How was Hummelton still alive? Had the hyenas failed?
“LET ME STOP THE TRAIN, YEAH?” Rafe urged.
Ivan nodded, then conversely shook his head. “I welded the engine’s controls in place!” he despaired.
“WHAT?”
“So Amael couldn’t reverse them! I thought… I thought….”
With a nod, Rafe hurried past. Ivan made to follow, until the Eisenwolf raised his metal paws, “I’M COVERED IN BLACK-IMPERIUM, MATE.”
Ivan instinctively recoiled. “Josef’s cloak?” he guessed, noticing its disappearance from Rafe’s shoulders.
“YEAH, SO STAY BACK.”
Given a moment’s thought, Ivan scoffed, “It hardly matters if we’re going to crash; at this speed we’re finished. Come on, I’ll show you the controls. Perhaps you can shift them.”
“I’LL TRY ANYTHING.”
Ivan led Rafe through dining car, catering car and service car, to the front of the train and the wind-swept cabin from whence he had ejected the badger driver minutes earlier. Rafe only just fit through the low and oppressive tender, stray nuggets of green-imperium crunching beneath his eisenglanz-soled boots.
Blade-dancer tried the forward-reverse lever first, then the flow valve; both were stuck fast and still hot from being welded by his own reckless actions.
“Throw that!” Ivan said of the lever, shaking his scorched paws.
Nodding, Rafe pushed on the lever with all his might; he succeeded only in bending the solid length of iron into a banana.
“OOPS.”
“The valve!” Ivan instructed next, touching it. “Turn it clockwise to cut off the imperium flow.”
Nodding, Rafe attacked the valve with both paws.
“GRRRR-FFFFFGH!”
&
nbsp; As he struggled, Rafe’s backpack began churning out great clouds of ash, which were instantly sucked forwards and out of the cabin to join the exhaust from the reversing imperium engine. In his desperate throes, accidental arcs of plasma shot down Rafe’s gauntlet-clad arms and into the engine controls.
Ivan stood back as energy bolts danced over the face of the dials and played between pipes. For a second the engine stuttered and whined, he was sure.
Choink!
Away came the valve, breaking clean off in Rafe’s impossible grasp. “AWW, SCHMUTZ!” he cursed, tossing it away. “IS THERE A BRAKE?”
“Yes, in the tender, but brakes won’t stop a running engine,” Ivan explained. “They’ll just melt.”
Rafe spread his paws, at a loss.
At length, Ivan gestured at the engine’s controls, “It stuttered.”
“WHAT?”
“When you shocked it with your plasma, the engine stuttered. I saw the dials drop, I swear. Perhaps you damaged it.”
Rafe stood thinking. He looked to the engine, then back to Ivan, then back to the engine again, the cogs of his mind whirring. Slowly, he raised his armoured paws over the profusion of pipes, levers, switches and dials.
“GET OUT.”
Ivan understood at once. He retreated from cabin to adjoining tender, but remained within sight, standing amidst the bunkers of glittering imperium. To his dismay he noticed the castle-like towers of Hummel’s capital den panning into view; Hummelton station was not even a mile down the line. Blade-dancer entertained the vain hope that some diligent train hog would change the points and send the runaway Bloodfang Train on towards Queens Town, buying time, but in all likelihood she remained on course for the termination from whence she had departed.
Without delay, Rafe called upon his internal fires. The imperium in his bones, his blood and the eisenpelz worked as one great well of energy to give life to blinding bolts of plasma the like of which Ivan had never seen! The engine’s dials went wild as Rafe’s power surged through him and into the system, overwhelming it, disrupting the imperium flow. His invisible corona reached out too, coiling through the air, twisting the very fabric of reality; Ivan could feel it slicing through him even from a safe distance. The cabin walls and roof, solid sheets of metal, began to buckle and twist around Rafe. Pipes split and exploded, venting burning ash and gases which would have killed stone-dead anyone but the amazing iron-clad Eisenwolf.
Groaning and whining, the imperium engine’s chugs mistimed, then backfired and eventually died altogether! The ash from the funnels ceased to billow and instead vented gently, like so many giant embers.
Quiet, but for the tearing wind and clack of wheels.
His backpack expelling a continuous, audible jet of ash like a boiling kettle, Rafe lowered his shaking, smouldering paws and fell back against the cabin wall.
Ivan dashed in, “You did it; she’s rolling-stock!”
He returned to the tender and pulled on what he hoped was the brake lever.
Screeeeeeeee!
The train jolted and began slowing. Was it enough?
Ivan went to the twisted cabin window and looked out, then turned to Rafe. “We need to get away from the engine; it’ll crush these carriages like paper. Come on.”
“ARE… WE… WE STILL GONNA CRASH?”
“Maybe.”
Nodding, panting, Rafe lumbered after the nimble Ivan, into the service car, through the catering car and on to dining car. Halfway along the latter he fell over a nicely-set table, exhausted and dizzy.
Ivan dashed back and wrapping his paw in his cloak tugged on the contaminated Rafe. “Come on, boy!”
“AYE!”
Rafe staggered as far as the dining carriage door before the Elder Train reached the end of the line. Hummelton station blurred by; pillars, tiles, the rear carriages of other trains.
“Honoured to have known you, Bruno Claybourne,” Ivan said.
The Eisenwolf took a shaky, tinny breath, “AND YOU… WHOEVER YOU ARE.”
Blade-dancer emitted an amused scoff.
With a thunderous explosion everything not bolted down jolted violently forwards, tables, chairs, glass, cutlery, Amael, Ivan and Eisenwolf. The carriage shook and crumpled, catapulted violently upwards and over, like a log in a caber toss. The roof became the wall and the broken windows scraped along the ground, sparks flying, fires setting.
The last thing Rafe saw in his mind’s eye before all sensation was beaten from him was Meryl.
Sweet Meryl.
*
Vladimir and Angus pulled up in the white Hummel car as the enormous durametal skeleton of the Nimbus collapsed in a heap of flames. They had trailed it past town and across the lake, watching it burn and shed debris all the way.
Getting as close as they dared, Vladimir stepped out the car and walked cautiously across the fields, circling the crash site and searching for any signs of life, or black-imperium. Thankfully there was none of the latter, but alas none of the former either.
“Nobody’s getting out of that alive,” Angus said, shielding his eyes from the heat.
Vladimir could but grunt and sigh.
“I say! Over here!”
A ginger cat in coveralls and a cap came traipsing through the long grass towards the wolves. He was rolling up a mass of silk sheeting in his arms; the sheet was connected to his backpack via two dozen strings or so. What in the world it was Vladimir had no idea, but he recognised the cat even before he opened his mouth.
“Montague Buttle!” he declared. “How’d you do?”
“Grand Howler Vladimir.”
“What a waste, eh?” said the cat, looking upon the sad sight. “Me balloon doncha know. Years of work gone up in smoke… again.”
“Indeed.”
Monty licked his lips, “We uh… we had a bit of trouble, ‘Owler. Hijacked we were. Held hostage-”
“Where are the hyenas?” Vladimir asked directly.
Monty blinked, “You know what happened?”
“I’ve an inkling.”
“Oh, well… the THORN chaps all bought it I’m afraid, one way or another,” Monty sniffed, matter-of-factly. “Except that Madou.”
“Madou?”
“Yes,” Monty clucked, “nothing we could do for the others. Things just… got out of paw up there. Thought my fighting days were over. Terrible business. Had to do it, left me no choice. None.”
Vladimir looked to Angus, then back to Monty again. “What about my Howlers?”
“‘Owlers?”
“Linus and Uther,” Vladimir clarified, with a nod at the flaming wreck of Nimbus. “Are they in that?”
“No, no,” Monty mewed, scanning the sunny sky. “They’re still up in the big blue yonder somewhere. Penny’s just looking for a nice spot to land.”
Vladimir and Angus looked up as well, then exchanged bewildered shrugs.
*
Brrrrrr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-p-p-p-p-p-p-p!
It was not a monobike, nor a car, but a propeller, Sara reckoned, yet higher pitched than a dirigible’s, like a hoverfly was to a bee.
She looked up and out the car window and saw a huge winged silhouette swoop overhead.
“Och!” Sara cooed, following the machine across the windscreen and down in a field.
Sara’s many little sisters all clambered across the back of the Hummel limo and fought to press their faces to the window, with much gasping, pointing and giggling.
“Stop the car!” Sara told Eldress Brynn, who was driving.
“Mah orders were tae get you away from here.”
“Stop the car!”
“Sara-”
“That’s one of Monty Buttle’s planes. It must be them!”
“Or a hyena!”
“Oh aye, Brynn, because hyenas can fly planes and all. Pull over for Ulf’s sake!”
Reluctantly, Eldress Brynn drew to a stop and Sara flew out the car and across the fields. Her sisters tried to follow, but Brynn barked at them to stay where
they were – unlike their disobedient big sister, they stayed put. Brynn hurried after Sara, eager to protect the daughter of Hummel’s long-standing Den Mother.
The plane bounced to stop on its flimsy-looking wheels and turned slightly to one side. The engine and propeller choked to a halt. Beasts moved inside, Sara recognising some of them, others a mystery, Penny was up front with some Howler, and a hyena was squeezed into the back with another wolf wrapped in a bundle of black cloak.
Sara stopped, unsure. Was the hyena holding Penny hostage? Was Brynn right?
Penny and the Howler climbed out, the latter throwing off his helmet and falling on his knees to kiss the grass – it was Linus’s friend Uther, and no mistake. Sara was further reassured when Penny waved enthusiastically. The cat’s dress was covered in ash and Ulf knows what, but she did not look like a beast under duress.
Sara hurried over and embraced Penny, then eyes searching the plane asked her, “Where’s Monty? We saw the balloon go down over by the lake.”
“He took the parachute,” Penny replied. “Always a gentlebeast, my Monty.”
“And the black-imperium?”
“Gone, dear.”
“Gone?”
Uther stood up and said to Sara, “We took care of it, sweetheart. Should be fine.”
A nod, a smile.
Eldress Brynn arrived, rapier brandished as usual. Sara expected her to threaten the hefty hyena in the back seat, but she stood aloof, quiet, waiting, but ready to step in.
The silent hyena passed his wolfen bundle down to Uther.
“Linus!” Sara yelped.
“Sara?” he replied groggily, blinking in the sun. “Did… did we s-sss-stop Nurka?”
She nodded, “Aye, Ah think so.”
“No,” Uther replied, looking to Madou and saying, “Nurka stopped himself.”
*
Prince Noss awoke to a cool, damp cloth mopping his brow and the beautiful visage of Arjana looking down upon him, her face devoid of golden makeup and more beautiful for it.
“Arjana?”
“Noss.”
Twisting his bound wrists, Noss made to rise from the piles of pillows, but Arjana pushed him down. “Rest.”
Noss looked down at himself; he was dressed in traditional attire, just a black and white sarong.