The Outlaw Varjak Paw

by S. F. Said

  ‘Second,’ said Mrs Moggs, ‘we don’t know this Parjak Vaw, or whatever he’s called.’ Her words crackled round the yard like electricity. Luger shook his head.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘Because Sally Bones is offering a reward for information. Fresh fish and juicy mice, as much as you can eat.’

  Varjak’s heart twisted inside his chest. Luger had offered them the one thing they all wanted. But everyone stayed silent; even Old Buckley. They just looked down at the ground. Above, a seagull squawked a long, hoarse cry into the night.

  ‘Let me say it again,’ said Luger, ‘so there’s no doubt. Varjak Paw is an outlaw. We will find him, we will hunt him down, and we will bring him to justice. The same goes for anyone who helps him or hides him. They will be hunted down in the same way, and taken before Sally Bones for punishment. Do you understand?’

  As Varjak listened, an insect buzzed in his ear. It landed on his nose. He could feel its legs, crawling on his face. But there was nothing he could do. Sally Bones’s gang would hear him if he made a sound. Keep still. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.

  Out in the yard, there was silence, a roaring silence.

  Luger nodded at his lieutenants, beside him. ‘Uzi. Shane. Do your thing.’

  Uzi and Shane grinned. They stalked around the yard, tails flicking with menace. They pushed and prodded the street cats. Varjak could see the street cats’ fur rising with fear; their little huddles breaking up. He felt the fear himself, rising in his guts.

  ‘It’s going to get worse,’ said Luger, ‘if you don’t tell us what we want to know.’

  ‘Call your thugs off,’ said Mrs Moggs. ‘We don’t know nothing.’

  Luger sidled up to her. ‘Is that so?’ he hissed.

  Varjak’s stomach knotted as he watched – but Mrs Moggs didn’t flinch. ‘Yes it is,’ she said simply. ‘And I’ll tell you what else, now you ask. Them fish and mice you’re offering as reward? They belong to us anyway. You stole them from us.’

  Luger stared at Mrs Moggs. She looked straight back at him, dignified and calm. Luger blinked first. He shook his head with irritation, and snuck around behind her.

  ‘And who’s this?’ he said, dragging out the marmalade-coloured kitten.

  ‘It’s little Jess!’ said Razor. He strutted over. Jess tried to back away, but Luger held her there. The knots in Varjak’s stomach tightened.

  ‘Don’t you hurt my Jessie,’ said Mrs Moggs, her fur beginning to rise. ‘Don’t you hurt her, you hear me?’

  ‘We wouldn’t dream of it!’ said Razor, big and loud. ‘We don’t want to hurt anyone. We just want to protect you from a dangerous outlaw. You understand that, don’t you, Jess? Now why don’t you save everyone a lot of trouble, and tell us where to find Varjak Paw and his friends, eh?’

  ‘I d-don’t know,’ said Jess in a wavery voice.

  Luger shoved Razor aside, and unsheathed his claws in front of Jess’s face. ‘You’re a pretty little kitten,’ he said, cold as ice. ‘You want to stay pretty, don’t you? You don’t want to end up with nasty scars everywhere, like Razor here. Now tell us where he is.’

  Jess stood there, trembling. So did Varjak, in the crate, and Holly and Tam beside him. He felt helpless. Totally helpless.

  ‘Have a heart, Luger,’ pleaded Mrs Moggs. ‘Jessie’s only little.’

  Luger laughed. Varjak saw him look at Razor, a question in his eyes. Razor shivered, hesitated a moment – and then nodded.

  ‘Right,’ said Luger to the crowd. ‘If you don’t tell us what we want to know, this kitten will be punished.’

  A spasm of horror ran through the yard. Luger seized Jess by the scruff. She twisted and turned, but it was no good. He had her, and he was dragging her away.

  ‘No!’ cried Mrs Moggs. ‘Not my Jessie!’ She reached for her granddaughter – but the other gang cats shoved her back. They flashed their deadly claws and teeth at the crowd, keeping them at bay.

  ‘We’ll give you a chance,’ said Razor. ‘You’ve got till tomorrow night. If no one talks by then – you’ll have to deal with Sally Bones herself.’

  The street cats recoiled at her name. They shrank back in terror, sinking into the snow. Razor, Luger and the rest of them strode up the steps, out of the yard, dragging Jess away. She was writhing, Mrs Moggs was howling, but no one lifted a paw to stop it happening. There was no resistance. No one dared.

  Chapter Eight

  IN THE CRATE, Varjak’s heart was pounding. Sally Bones’s gang had left the yard, but Jess was gone, Mrs Moggs was sobbing, and it was all because of him.

  ‘Can’t believe it,’ he whispered. ‘She’s only a kitten. How could they do that?’

  ‘I know,’ said Holly.

  They sat in silence a while, in the darkness of the crate, with the smell of rotting fruit and the buzzing of the flies.

  ‘I’ll miss Jessie,’ said Tam. ‘She was lovely. I remember when she was born—’

  ‘You’re talking about her like she’s dead,’ said Holly.

  ‘It’d be better if she was dead. You know what they’ll do to her. We’re just lucky they didn’t find us.’

  ‘The only reason they didn’t find us,’ said Holly, ‘is because Jess didn’t give us away.’ She gave Varjak a long, hard look, her mustard eyes glowing fierce in the dark.

  Varjak looked down. He hadn’t wanted trouble, but trouble had found him anyway. The cats of the harbour yard had welcomed him, treated him like a hero. They’d stood up for him. And now Jess was gone – and he hadn’t lifted a paw to stop it.

  He felt ashamed.

  I can’t let this happen, he thought.

  But what can I do?

  Something stirred inside him. Something old and strong, and buried deep.

  His power. Deep inside him, like a spark waiting to be struck, the power was waiting. He didn’t want to use it. He was scared to use it. But what choice did he have?

  He took a deep breath. ‘I know why Jessie stood up for us,’ he said. ‘Tam, you told her I was a fighter. She believed you. She believed that if we escaped, we’d come back to help her.’

  ‘Help her?’ squealed Tam. ‘How? They’ve declared us outlaws! They’ll be searching for us everywhere! And they’ve taken Jess to her territory – her territory, Varjak!’

  Her words made him shake. He remembered Sally Bones’s ice-blue eye, burning into his mind. The thin white cat who also knew the Way. ‘I know. I know. And I wouldn’t ask either of you to come with me. But I – I’ve got to do something. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’ He tried to smile, to hold down the thrumming panic that clawed at his heart. ‘I’m going to follow them. I’m going to try and rescue her.’

  ‘Well,’ said Holly, ‘we can’t let him blunder in there on his own, can we, Tam?’ Varjak looked up, hardly able to believe it. Holly winked at him. But Tam’s tail was thumping behind her, thwacking the sides of the crate with alarm.

  ‘Have you gone completely mad?’ she cried. ‘No one goes there if they can help it – no one!’

  ‘Tonight, it was Jess,’ said Holly evenly. ‘Tomorrow, it could be you. Should we just forget about you, and let them take you away, next time?’

  ‘No, of course not, but—’

  ‘But what? In the end, they’ll come for us all.’

  Varjak wasn’t shaking any more. Holly was coming with him. She understood. She always did.

  Tam gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, I hate you, Holly! I hate you both! I don’t know who’s worse – you’re as mad as each other!’

  ‘Right,’ said Holly. ‘So here’s the plan. If we go after them now, they’ll be on their guard. Better if we surprise them. I say we set out at dawn and follow their tracks. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch them sleeping, and maybe – just maybe – we’ll have a chance of getting Jess out alive. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Varjak. ‘Tam?’

  Tam bit her paws. ‘Of all the stupid things you’ve ever made me do,’ she muttered, ‘this is the
all-time stupidest. It’s totally insane. But you’re not leaving me here on my own – oh no, no way! So fine. Whatever you say. Agreed!’

  Varjak grinned. It was good to have his friends beside him. Whatever happened, he knew he could count on them.

  They came out of the crate, into the open. It was freezing cold in the yard. The wind cut through his fur.

  The terror was still palpable on the air. He could smell it. The street cats were scared of Luger, Razor and the rest – but the threat of Sally Bones had terrified them most. They were strung out, broken up, defeated. Many of them had slumped to the ground in despair. A few were trying to comfort Mrs Moggs. Varjak took a deep breath, and went straight up to her.

  ‘What do you want now?’ demanded Old Buckley. ‘Hasn’t there been enough trouble?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Some fighter you turned out to be,’ sniffed Buckley. ‘All that big talk—’

  ‘There was ten of them!’ Mrs Moggs cut in. Her whiskery face was crumpled and wet, but her eyes were still bright blue. ‘No one could’ve stood up to them. It’s not Varjak’s fault. There’s nothing anyone can do.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ said Varjak. ‘We’re going to bring her back.’

  They didn’t answer. They stared at him as if he’d spoken in another language. ‘We’re going to bring her back,’ he repeated.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ hissed Old Buckley. ‘She’s gone where no one can help her, and that’s that.’ The wind howled through the harbour.

  Varjak shook his head. ‘We can do it,’ he said. ‘We’re going at dawn. We’re going to bring her back where she belongs.’

  ‘You don’t understand, my dear,’ said Mrs Moggs, whiskers trembling in the wind. ‘They’ve taken her to Sally Bones’s territory. No one comes back from there.’

  For a moment, the street cats stared at Varjak, eyes glowing with uncertainty. Then they turned away. They went back to the pools of ice on the ground, and the broken packing crates. No one spoke to him any more, or even glanced at him.

  He looked up to the darkening sky. It was going to be a long, cold night.

  ‘Let’s get some rest,’ said Holly. ‘We’re going to need it.’

  She shut her mustard-coloured eyes, and curled up into a spiky ball. Varjak and Tam curled up beside her, and waited for the dawn.

  Chapter Nine

  VARJAK DREAMED THAT night.

  He dreamed he was back in Mesopotamia. He tasted the wild mint air; he blinked in the bright, silent sunlight. The sky was so clear and blue, he could see the stars, even though it was daytime.

  He was on the mountain with Jalal. They were standing on the summit. It was a sheer precipice, an open drop: they could walk no further without falling. Yet above them, ahead of them, was that mountain range, impossibly huge and perfect – and impossibly far away.

  ‘Are you ready to climb those mountains?’ said Jalal.

  ‘How?’ said Varjak. ‘We can’t climb any further.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Jalal, ‘in order to go up, you must go down.’

  Varjak looked down into whiteness. At first, he thought he was staring at the snowy slopes of the nearest mountain. But then the whiteness opened up and drifted away, and he realized with a horrible jolt that he’d actually been looking at a bank of clouds. He was so high, he was higher than the clouds. He felt giddy.

  ‘We can’t go down there,’ he said. ‘It’s too far.’

  ‘A single jump should do it,’ said Jalal cheerfully.

  ‘But we’ll fall!’

  ‘Precisely. We need only fall, and we will be there.’

  Varjak looked through the clouds, and saw that the nearest mountain slopes were much further below than he’d thought. He couldn’t be sure where space ended and the mountain began. He felt dizzy thinking about it. The view wobbled dangerously, and he had to look up.

  ‘It’s too far, Jalal! We’ll never make it!’

  Jalal drew back. His amber eyes sparkled in the sun. He raised a paw in readiness. Then he raced at the precipice, the drop, the edge of the mountain: and sprang forwards into space.

  ‘Jalal – no!’ cried Varjak. He rushed to the edge, just in time to see the old cat arcing through the air, plunging into the clouds – and disappearing from view.

  He was gone. Gone. Varjak stood alone on top of the mountain.

  He shook his head. This was madness. He couldn’t jump off a mountain! He’d be killed, his body would smash to pieces, he’d surely die –

  Yet Jalal had done it.

  He looked down. His stomach churned. He didn’t like being alone here. The wild mint air was going to his head again. He cursed his mad old ancestor.

  But what else could he do? Jalal left him no choice.

  He drew back. Shut his eyes. And still cursing the name of Jalal, Varjak Paw ran at the edge of the mountain.

  He sprang forwards, and flew into the clearest, bluest sky. Whooping, shrieking, soaring, he plunged through clouds. Air rushed through his fur, his whiskers, his face. He was falling, falling, falling through space, and –

  whump!

  – finally landing, lightly on his paws, safe on the other side.

  He’d done it! He’d crossed the chasm, he’d jumped the void. He’d made it to the other mountain.

  Jalal stood beside him, combing his whiskers.

  ‘Not so hard once you let go, is it?’ said the old cat. He gestured at a path, winding up into the heights ahead of them. ‘And now we have fallen, we can climb once again.’

  Chapter Ten

  VARJAK WOKE BEFORE dawn. It was cold and grey in the harbour yard. Someone was poking him in the ribs. He opened his eyes and saw Holly. Around the yard, the street cats were asleep.

  ‘Come on,’ Holly whispered. ‘Enough dreaming. Time for action.’

  She strode up the steps. Varjak and Tam followed her silently out of the yard. The harbour looked empty and desolate in the pre-dawn light. Winter wind lashed the water. Varjak felt its chill, and shivered.

  Holly led them west, following the gang’s tracks towards Sally Bones’s territory. There were few cars on the road; no people on the pavements. Old snow lay in drifts on the streets. It was hardening into slippery ice. Varjak’s pads kept skidding beneath him; he had to fight to keep his balance on the treacherous ground.

  In the distance, he could hear an eerie howling. It was wordless, but it seemed to be telling him something. Don’t come here, it seemed to say. Turn back and go away.

  ‘What’s that howling?’ he wondered, the fur on the back of his neck prickling.

  ‘It’s coming from the Storm Drain,’ said Holly, looking at an ugly concrete structure, off the road. ‘Don’t ever go there. They say wild things live in it – right, Tam?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ panted Tam. ‘Never been there. Never want to!’

  They kept away from the Storm Drain, and followed the tracks west. They came to a crossroads on the border of Sally Bones’s territory. There was a building site this side of the crossroads. The earth had been overturned; the ground was ripped open. Machines with iron claws stood poised over pits dug deep in the ground. The buildings here were half-demolished, their foundations exposed. A wrecking ball dangled from a crane, idle at this time of day.

  On the other side of the crossroads, great glass buildings rose from the earth, towering over the city. They pierced the belly of the sky, their upper reaches invisible. They looked sharp-edged and steely in the pre-dawn light.

  Varjak’s Awareness started to tingle. There was something familiar up ahead. An unnatural scent, ghostly. He edged forwards – and as he reached the crossroads, he saw where it came from.

  A tail. A cat’s tail. Laid out in the gutter, where people wouldn’t see it, but clear as a traffic light to any passing cat. And just along from it – mangled, filthy, but unmistakable – a pair of ears. Soft, furry ears.

  Cats’ ears.

  Varjak stepped back a pace. His mouth had gone
dry. Ears and a tail, on their own? What were they doing here in the gutter? It didn’t make sense. Varjak’s own ears flattened; his tail curled up tight. To lose them – the thought was too horrible.

  ‘Oh – my—’ said Holly. She’d just seen them.

  Tam shut her eyes. ‘I warned you. I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen.’

  Holly shook her fur, as if shaking out water. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing to do with us. Let’s keep going.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ came a voice from ahead.

  Standing in the crossroads, facing them, were two new cats. They were more like lions than cats: powerfully built, with shaggy manes of fur and bushy tails. They moved a little slowly, but they were the biggest, strongest-looking cats Varjak had ever seen. The one who’d spoken was about Razor’s height, but he was incredibly stocky and broad across the chest. The other one was even larger.

  ‘I said, I wouldn’t do that,’ repeated the stocky one. His paws were blunt and dusty. ‘Don’t you know whose territory this is?’

  ‘Course we do,’ said Holly, backing away from the crossroads.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ said the stocky one. ‘Can’t you see what’s in the gutter?’

  Varjak glanced at the ears and tail again. His heart sank. Holly didn’t seem to know these cats. Were they from Sally Bones’s gang? They sounded like it – and their faces were scarred, like Razor’s.

  ‘We’re just going,’ said Holly.

  ‘Oh no you’re not!’ The two cats strode forwards, rugged manes bristling. Varjak, Holly and Tam backed away, towards a half-demolished building on the site behind them.

  ‘We’re looking for an outlaw,’ said the stocky one. ‘A silver-blue cat called Varjak Paw, who fights like Sally Bones. Is that you?’ He squinted slowly at Varjak.

  ‘Him?’ laughed Holly at once. ‘That’s a good one! He’s just a pet who got lost – aren’t you, Snowflake?’

  ‘Er – that’s right!’ said Varjak. Sharp as ever, Holly had seen these cats could be bluffed. His only chance was to play along. ‘I’m Snowflake, and I’m lost. I’m looking for my home – can you help me?’ He smiled sweetly, though his pulse was racing.