Imperium Lupi Read online

  “The war was that long ago?” Rufus sighed. “Time flies.”

  “Aye, that it does, Howler.”

  Ivan nodded a little, “Must be useful having a wolf for a son, especially one of Bruno’s… unusual stature.”

  “Ahahaaa-aye, he’s a big ‘un!” Casimir laughed, suddenly tugging his collar. “I-I taught him to box from a young age, so he could look after himself, you know? Lad’s down the gym all the time these days, really taken it to heart. He’s been looking for a new haunt since we moved; do you know any round here, Howlers?”

  Casmir’s decidedly nervous rant died just as someone passed by the bay window, someone large, another ‘big ‘un’ as the rabbit might say. They lingered for a moment, perhaps looking inside. Ivan ignored them, until he felt a tingle up his spine – a corona? Was it the beast outside the window that set the Howler’s bones throbbing, or was it still Bruno? Ivan could not deny the youth coiled with imperious energy, but this felt different, almost… familiar.

  By the time Ivan looked up from his meal, the figure at the window had moved on.

  “Who was that?” Ivan asked in general.

  Casimir scratched his brow, “Looked like a hyena.”

  Rufus got up from his meal. “Hyena?” he said, peering out the window.

  Ivan dispelled the notion, “Don’t be ridiculous. Hyenas are restricted to the Reservations; they would not get far traipsing around Lupa in broad daylight.”

  Casimir agreed, “Well aye, of course. I only caught a glimpse, Howler. Big fella though. Bear maybe? Definitely weren’t no hog, he was furry.”

  Rufus sat back down and chuckled, “No doubt another burly customer you’ve scared off, Ivan.” Reaching into his cloak, he produced his wallet and a fair few colourful Lupan bank notes, known as lupas. “I shall have to recompense Casimir triple-fold for the inconvenience you’ve caused him today.”

  “Oh, noooo,” the rabbit said, even whilst hungrily eyeing up the cash. “I can’t accept all that, Howler.”

  “I insist,” Rufus said, taking Casimir’s smaller paw and pressing the money into it. “What with me dragging poor Bruno out of bed just to make me breakfast and Ivan’s sour mug frightening off your clients, it’s the least I can do.”

  “Really, I can’t-”

  “Casimir!” Rufus snapped, adding gently, “Don’t be tiresome.”

  The white rabbit assumed his faux reluctance no further, save to helplessly spread his paws at such generosity.

  What a charade, Ivan thought, hurrying to finish his admittedly delicious waffle – the Elders would be expecting Rufus in ten minutes.

  Suddenly a tingle, the same as before.

  Ivan looked up from his waffle, jaw slightly agape, just in time to catch that cloaked figure passing the window again, only in the opposite direction. He was big all right, massive, with mountainous shoulders and a helmet that covered his face.

  A Howler? But what wolf was built like that? Something felt horribly wrong.

  “Rufus,” Ivan said, getting no further.

  Crash!

  The mysterious beast effortlessly put a mighty, spot-flecked elbow into one of the window panes, smashing it to pieces and showering the table with shards of glass. In the midst of flinching, Ivan heard and felt something hard and hefty bounce across the table. When he opened his eyes he saw a glowing, spiked ball of yellow-imperium crystal, fizzling and spinning away in the middle of the polished, pitted old wood like a demented puffer fish.

  Bruno leapt from the kitchen, greasy spatula in paw. “What in Ulf’s name was that?”

  Swiftly wrapping his arm in his cloak, Ivan swept the bristling orb from the tabletop, catapulting it clean past Bruno’s baffled nose and across the café, spewing a trail of yellow vapour like a sulphurous comet.

  “Get down!” Ivan snarled, grabbing Casimir and pulling him under the table.

  Coughing and spluttering from the vapours, Bruno didn’t have the wherewithal to move.

  In the same instant as he hit the deck, Ivan saw Rufus leap up from his chair and shove Bruno into the kitchen. A flash of light overtook them both and a clap of thunder rippled through the café. Bottles exploded, windows blew out and countless brilliant shards of smouldering yellow-imperium fizzled through the air, lodging in the walls, chairs and tables like burning darts.

  Silence prevailed.

  Ivan opened his eyes and looked around. He pushed himself off the floor and knelt upright, glass fragments tumbling off his cloaked body. He felt no grievances, save for a ringing in his ears.

  He checked on Casimir; the little beast was all right, if obviously shaken – rabbits were notoriously panicky.

  “Rufus?” Ivan called, looking around.

  No sign of him.

  Still half-deaf, Ivan plodded to the kitchen and stood in the doorway, his paws resting on the frame.

  Rufus lay on top of Bruno, his black cloak shredded by a dozen smouldering holes.

  “Rufus!”

  Ivan rolled his comrade aside of the cook, revealing his bloodied face and raw, bobbing throat.

  “Go!” Rufus snarled at once, chest heaving fitfully beneath his cloak.

  “Rufus-”

  “Do your… duty, Howler!” he barked angrily, grabbing Ivan’s arm. “Get him f-fff-for me!”

  With but a moment’s hesitation, and many a nod, Ivan ran back into the café, grabbed his helmet from the windowsill and dashed out into the rain-lashed street. He looked left, then right, settling on right.

  Ivan’s boots faded into the distance, leaving Rufus to grunt and growl in lonesome agony.

  Until a big, brown wolf in an apron loomed over him. “Howler Rufus, sir!” he yelped.

  “Bruno,” Rufus seethed, “You… all right?”

  The young wolf nodded, his face filling Rufus’s ever more blurred vision. Those eyes, so bright, so beautiful, like fierce imperium embers; that corona, so warm, so strong, like the Rostsonne sun. Pity I’ll never get to know him, Rufus thought.

  “Bruno!” Casimir shouted discordantly, running in.

  “I’m all right, I’m all right!” the cook replied, before crouching over Rufus again. “Dad he’s hurt bad; what do we do?”

  “Just leave him!” Casimir said, grasping Bruno’s mighty shoulder and trying to pull him away. “Come on.”

  “What?”

  “He’s done fer, lad. We have to get out of here!”

  Bruno threw his father’s paws aside. “Dad, what’s wrong with you?”

  Casimir fumed, “Are you thick, boy? Can’t you see it’s a hit? There’ll be swarms of Howlers here in no time and I don’t want us to be swept up in an investigation!”

  Bruno thought for a moment. “Bring the truck round; we’ll drive him to his Howler Den. It’s the one just up the road, ‘en it?”

  “Bruno!”

  “Dad, stop it!” Bruno barked. “I’m not leaving him to bleed to death and neither are you. Now snap out of it and get the truck or I’ll do it myself!”

  Shaking his head, Casimir conversely gave in. “All right, all right, but you’re making a big mistake!” he grumbled, bounding away and grabbing a ring of keys from behind the bar. “Keep him warm, I’ll be as quick as I can!”

  *

  After a roundabout route, Ivan exploded onto the very street where Rufus had parked his monobike. He cast his eyes up and down the rows of shops and houses, sure from the assassin’s aura that he had fled this direction.

  I’m losing him, Ivan thought, as the strangely familiar presence faded away.

  Little beasts of every sort were gathered at the windows of their properties. Some stood in the doors, curious by the bang they had heard, but afraid to go out.

  Ivan turned to a tiny pinafore-clad mouse wife and her two even tinier children she was hurriedly ushering inside and demanded of her, “Which way did he go?”

  The terrified mouse wife shook her head and yet conversely opened her lips to say something.

  “Tell me, citizen!”
Ivan implored. “Please, I won’t hurt you!”

  One of the children pointed to the right. With a gasp the mother grabbed her offspring and bundled them inside, slamming the door behind her.

  Before Ivan could act on the information, he heard the popping of a fierce imperium engine in the distance – a monobike. The engine revved up and then grew louder, closer; it was coming this way!

  Sure enough a mono pulled out of a side street, a large, plain grey vehicle topped with an equally large, mantle-cloaked, helmet-clad beast, his legs encased in well-crafted black and white armour, his sandy-brown, muscle-bound arms as thick as Ivan’s thighs.

  With a snort of fury, Ivan reached round his back, just right of his handsome white tail, and pulled his secondary weapon from his belt – an imperium pistol. It was, in essence, but a fancy-looking metal tube with a grip and trigger. There was an explosive charge of yellow-imperium powder and a hefty imperium pellet stuffed down the barrel, in that order.

  “Stop in the name of the Republic!” Ivan demanded, levelling the pistol at the stranger. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

  The beast on the monobike simply turned and accelerated in the opposite direction. He knew what the Howler knew; that there was little chance of a pistol hitting from such a distance.

  “Cowaaard!” Ivan snarled.

  Dashing to his black monobike, he threw himself over the seat and started her up with one mighty kick of the pedal, before riding his deafening machine down the road in pursuit, its single wheel glowing fiercely, its exhaust spewing a thick pall of ash.

  *

  Tentatively wrapping Rufus in his thick, black mantle, Bruno scooped him up in both arms and whisked the wounded wolf outside, the pounding rain beating down on them both.

  “The file!” Rufus growled.

  Bruno stopped dead, unsure of his own ears after that deafening explosion. “What?”

  “Don’t… leave it,” the Howler grunted. “It’s very important the Elders… read it.”

  “I’ll go back in a minute-”

  “Now!” Rufus snarled painfully, adding, “Please.”

  Nodding dumbly, Bruno carried Rufus back inside and searched the shattered café with his fiery eyes. He found the precious file lying in the corner, its cover smouldering from a tiny shard of imperium embedded in the paper.

  Bruno gently put Rufus down and patted the folder with a paw until it stopped burning.

  “I got it!” he woofed, wafting it in front of Rufus’s nose.

  Rufus gulped and nodded gratefully, before turning his face to the wall and letting out a long growl of agony. His cloaked body shivered and his bloodied fingers trembled as shock and adrenaline took hold. Howlers were no ordinary wolves; Bruno knew that, everyone in Lupa and beyond knew that, but Rufus doubtless had a dozen needles of poisonous yellow-imperium lodged in his flesh. How could he bare it so quietly?

  “Helmet,” Rufus spluttered.

  “Helmet?”

  “If I’m to die, give me… my dignity… Bruno.”

  The Howler’s helmet was lying upside-down amongst the debris like an upturned beetle. Retrieving it, Bruno gently lifted Rufus’s head from the wooden floor and slipped the mask over his agonised face, turning him anonymous and fierce, even now. The decorative fangs began to shimmer hot and red amidst the coils of Rufus’s corona.

  With great care, Bruno ferried his pitiful bundle out onto the street again and waited in the rain.

  Shortly, Casimir pulled the family truck round. The rickety vehicle was possessed of a little wooden cabin and a steering wheel on a ridiculously long shaft that vibrated alarmingly. The throbbing engine tucked beneath the rusty grey bonnet spluttered noxious clouds of spent imperium.

  Bruno climbed in the rear, between crates and barrels. “Dad, you drive. I got him.”

  Casimir crunched the gear stick and drove through the gathering onlookers of every race and creed, out onto the main road, towards the towering pile that was the local Howler Den looming large and ominous over Riddle District.

  “I got a bad feeling about this lad!” he shouted.

  Bruno said nothing. He laid Rufus down and made him comfortable, covering him with some sackcloth and sheltering his head from the rain by leaning over him.

  “Hold on, mate.”

  “Mate?” Rufus replied with amusement. “How droll.”

  Rocking to and fro as Dad drove the truck through Lupa’s cobbled streets, Bruno found Rufus’s nearest ruddy paw and held it in his own big brown fingers. The Howler squeezed back, a good, strong squeeze.

  Strange.

  Bruno looked at his paw. Pins and needles played over his flesh and up his arm, down to his very bone! It was a warm, crackling, numbing sensation, as if he had placed his paw on a vibrating surface for too long. With a panicked snort, Bruno let Rufus go and wiped his throbbing paw on his breeches until the sensation faded. He stared at his forearm, held it with his other paw and opened and closed his fingers.

  Nothing seemed amiss.

  “Now we’re fully… acquainted,” Rufus chuckled, his head flopping to one side.

  With a pang of dread turning his veins to ice, Bruno pressed his ear to Rufus’s chest.

  He was still breathing, thank Ulf.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Bruno took the Howler’s paw again. There was no tingle this time, no warmth, save that of a hot-blooded, living being. Bruno felt somehow disappointed. He looked up from the trundling truck, fiery eyes blinking in the rain, and saw the distant towers of the Riddle Den growing closer, hoping with every breath he was doing the right thing, if not the most sensible thing.

  Chapter 3

  The rain battered Ivan’s body, the wind ripped at his cloak, but still he twisted the accelerator another inch, adding another few notches to the monobike’s quivering dials. Not that he paid any heed; he felt his machine’s beating heart through his legs, his body, his bones, whilst his eyes remained fixed upon the bike in front bearing the beast who had bombed the café.

  After a long straight, the road twisted and turned like a marble run, bins were overturned, papers scattered, little beasts sent diving for cover as the assassin tore through Lupa’s backstreets at breakneck speed, leaning hard, skidding round corners, sometimes putting a leg down to kick off the cobbles and even a far wall to stop himself from going over, before accelerating away again.

  He was good, but Ivan was better.

  Foot by foot the Howler closed the distance, shaving off mere fractions of time with every corner, until, at last, another long, straight alley presented itself and with it Ivan’s opportunity.

  The Howler reached round his back and drew his silver pistol. He hoped it had stayed dry tucked under his cloak, for if the rain had dampened the imperium charge it wouldn’t fire so much as fizzle.

  Black mantle flapping about his shoulders, Ivan took aim at the rider, but decided in the last second to aim down.

  Crack!

  A flash of light and puff of ash burst from the pistol’s end. A fraction later and a colourful spark dashed off the leading monobike’s one wheel. The tyre exploded and tore itself apart in an instant.

  The assassin’s monobike shuddered and twisted violently to one side, before catapulting itself seat over wheel and flinging the rider in front. He sailed through the air and disappeared amidst the carnage as his machine slid along the cobbles, shedding a shower of sparks and pieces of chrome bodywork all the way, before smashing into a heap of rubbish piled against the end of the alleyway.

  Ivan came to a controlled stop. Throwing those long, gaitered legs off the bike, which remained upright of its own volition thanks to the still-spinning gyroscope, the Howler holstered his pistol and drew his cold, bluish rapier.

  Sword held loosely, Ivan approached the crash scene, his armoured paws crunching on the dirty, wet ground, his brooch gently illuminating the glistening brickwork and cobbles of the alleyway. The assassin’s monobike smoked and crackled as the engine cooled down. Drops of rainwater boiled away on t
he overheated engine.

  Where is he?

  The alley was a dead-end with garbage piled high. There was nowhere to go.

  Something stirred beneath the refuse and a tin can tumbled down. Using his sword to prise aside an old sheet, Ivan found a roach half as big as him hiding there. Long antenna waving furiously, the giant bug burst forth and scuttled down the alley as fast as any monobike.

  Not quite the manner of vermin Ivan was after.

  Then a distinct grunt from somewhere ahead – insects didn’t grunt. Following the noise, Ivan spied the beginnings of a narrow passage half-buried by the rubbish.

  Clambering over the rotting piles, Ivan made it to the alley just in time to catch sight of his quarry vaulting up onto a ten-foot-high brick wall. Despite what Ivan judged to be relatively short limbs for someone otherwise so big, the stranger was evidently very athletic and able, for he hauled himself up with ease.

  “Halt, in the name of the Republic!” Ivan demanded, pointing with his sword.

  The Howler-like stranger glanced behind with two bright purple eyes gleaming out from under his helmet; one side of the helmet was white the other black. Wordlessly, he swung his alternately black and white armoured legs over the wall and fell down the other side with another pained grunt – no doubt he was bruised from the crash.

  Sheathing his sword, Ivan sped down the alley and attacked the wall with rather more aplomb than his hefty foe, reaching the top in a heartbeat, whereupon he glimpsed the assassin fleeing round the next corner and heard his heavy pawsteps.

  Jumping down into a puddle, Ivan saved his breath for the chase and pursued in silence.