Monkey Wars (11 page)

This was an arsenal for warriors. Faded warriors maybe, but Soames knew he could draw on heritage and breeding to win this battle.

“The perimeter is secure, the grounds are in our possession, sir,” panted Commander Leaf as he delivered his report to General Pogo. “The enemy defenses have been wiped out; elite squads have surrounded the summer house ready to finish them off. Congratula
tions on another victory, sir.”

General Pogo didn't even bother to turn his solitary eye in the commander's direction; he just wiped the sweat from his brow and stared across the battlefield. All around him he saw the cocky swagger of his troops enjoying their apparent victory; Pogo was alone in discerning the truth; they had failed.

The general had wanted to fight the whole battle on the large open lawns, where superior langur discipline would prove decisive; that was why he had given orders that the bonnets should be cut off from any retreat. But frenzied with bloodlust, the elites had become distracted by the easy pickings, and half the enemy troop had escaped into the summer house.

Pogo couldn't complain too much; it was precisely this aggression that made his forces so dangerous, but today it had cost them the strategic advantage. Now they had to deal with a siege, and that was always tricky.

Adding to the general's unease was his suspicion that Lord Gospodar had underestimated the bonnet macaques. Certainly they were out of condition, but the bonnets had been a formidable force in the city for as long as Pogo could remember and he knew they would never surrender; they would have to be defeated one monkey at a time. It was going to be an ugly battle of attrition.

“Is everything all right, sir?” asked Leaf.

Pogo ignored the question and let his mind run through the battle options. He could storm the two wings of the summer house with a mass attack—there would be bloody hand-to-hand fighting, which favored the langur, but some of the bonnets would hole up in the tower and this would give the langur real problems. From the tower the bonnets would be able to see every attack being prepared, know exactly when and where the next strike was coming.

“Give me a squad with six of our best climbers,” Pogo ordered. “We're starting at the top.”

Breri had been in the second wave over the wall and, having missed the main action, had to content himself with some minor skirmishes. He was desperate to make his first kill, as he knew blood was the best way to glory. When the call for volunteers went out, he was the first to step forward.

He was assigned to the diversion troop; their job was to move into open ground in front of the summer house, find any moveable objects they could (fallen branches, bits of roof timber) and build barricades which would act as a shelter for the main attack force.

It was a tricky mission, as working without cover made them vulnerable to attack, but that was the whole point. Because while all bonnet eyes were on Breri's squad, a group of langur climbers was stealthily making its way up the tower.

Once on the roof, they examined the wooden tiles—they were laid in neat rows but the weather had taken its toll and the climbers silently started lifting them off.

It wasn't long before all the tiles were stripped and the monkeys were standing on the woven laths. Gently the lead climber bounced up and down, testing the laths with his weight. By the way they flexed he knew they had no strength; a few good smashes and his soldiers would be through.

The climbers exchanged glances, making sure that everyone was ready, when suddenly they heard a shuffling movement beneath their feet. They froze, their eyes swiveled down trying to peer through the gaps in the laths.

Something stirred in the shadows…then it was gone.

The lead climber crouched down and pressed his face to the slats. By the time he saw what was coming, it was too late. A sharp, spear-like branch thrust up through the laths, drove clean into the langur's eye and smashed through his skull. He didn't even have time to scream; he just lay there on the roof, twitching.

The other climbers staggered backward, stunned by the speed and lethal force of the attack, but their shock quickly turned to fear as more spears thrust up through the slats—four, five, six moving spikes driving up blindly, impaling whatever they could.

Two of the climbers tried to scramble back down the tower, but before they had gone any distance at all the spears starting driving out through the tower walls—one monkey was impaled and died splayed out, defying gravity; another lost his grip and tumbled through the air, plunging to his death on the granite patio stones below.

Watching from his command post, General Pogo thumped the ground in disgust. “By my beating heart!” he shouted, furious with frustration; the bonnets had anticipated his play and lured his forces into a trap. Pogo needed a counterattack fast.

Breri's heart leaped as the orders came through: his squad was no longer just a diversion; they were going in.

Troops from all across the gardens were marshaled and armed with sticks. The plan was simple: smash through the base of the tower and establish a beachhead. Because of its limited size, only a small number of bonnets would be able to defend the tower base, but the langur could attack from three sides with overwhelming force. Once they had seized the tower, they could surge out into both wings of the summer house.

That was the theory. On the ground it felt more like a frenzied ruck, and Breri was right in the thick of it.

He and the huge mass of langurs charged the summer house and started beating their clubs against the walls, sending a menacing noise reverberating through the whole building.

The pounding grew louder and louder, planks started to splinter, Breri screeched with excitement, swirling his club above his head, battering the wooden walls with violent, intoxicated glee.

And then he heard a strange, eerie whistling sound.

He thought it was a battlefield command, but quickly realized that the sound was coming from above. He looked up and saw a strange black swarm descending. A swarm of stones, lethal sharp flints.

No one had a chance to run. Moments later the flints tore through the elites, slashing flesh and embedding in skulls.

Breri covered his face with his hands and by some miracle avoided the first cloud, but through the cracks in his fingers he saw the shutters at the top of the tower swing open as another swarm of flints was unleashed.

This time Breri wasn't so lucky.

Instinctively he curled up into a ball, trying to make himself as small as possible. The whistling crescendoed then turned into a deadly pitter-patter as the flints struck home. Breri felt a warm jab in the side of his head—there was no pain, it was more of a jolt.

Then he realized his hands were sticky. He looked at his fur—it was dark. He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked it. Blood. He was wounded.

Breri had got his wish; he'd tasted blood. But it wasn't the enemy's blood, it was his own.

P
erched on top of the signal box, Mico had been watching the supply lines all afternoon, but as yet no word had come back from the battlefield.

With no requests for reinforcements or more weapons, the cadets were starting to think that General Pogo must have won a lightning victory, and anticipation was running high as they talked excitedly about the rewards that would flow from being part of a successful campaign.

Which made the sight of bloodstained monkeys staggering back twice as bitter.

Scouts immediately rushed out to help them, messengers were sent scampering back to the cemetery to raise the alarm, and Mico was assigned the task of preparing the medical supplies. Urgently he laid out various herbs and plants—aloe vera to aid the healing of bruises, dried palm leaves to wrap around gashes, a collection of barbed thorns for scraping wounds clean.

But when he picked up the hemlock root, Mico hesitated. Although no one liked to talk about it, every medical kit contained hemlock, a desperate medicine for use when a soldier was in agony from wounds that would never heal. Swallowing a single dose didn't just relieve the pain; it put the victim into a deep sleep from which he'd never wake.

No, not this time. Mico put the hemlock down, refusing to accept that any of the injuries would be that grave.

As the wounded fighters were brought in, the well-organized supply post quickly descended into a chaos of injured monkeys sprawled wherever they could find a space. Most of the victims had deep lacerations where the sharp flints had rained down on them, and the top priority was to stop the bleeding. But as Mico dashed around the signal box ferrying medicine, he discovered that there was something far more serious than the physical wounds: shock.

Knitted into the fabric of langur life was the expectation of victory, the assumption of dominance; now faced with defeat, the monkeys couldn't make sense of what was happening. Mico saw this most clearly of all in Breri when he limped into the signal box and slumped down on the floor.

“Breri!” Mico cried out as he ran over. “You're safe!”

Breri clasped Mico tightly; it had been a long time since he'd shown any affection to his little brother and there was something desperate about his grip, as if he was clinging to the only thing that he understood.

“What happened?” Mico asked. “What went wrong?” But when he looked into his brother's eyes he saw an expression of utter bewilderment.

“The bonnets…th
ey're insane,” Breri whispered. “We've taken their land…they've nothing left to fight for…still they fight.”

“But General Pogo will have a plan?” said Mico, hoping for reassurance.

Breri looked around uneasily, as if he didn't want anyone to hear, then whispered, “The general's never met an enemy like this before.”

It was the first time Mico had heard Breri express anything other than admiration for the leadership, and it frightened him.

Suddenly the whole langur world was threatened. Everything Mico had ever known was hanging in the balance—the security of his friends and family, the familiarity of the cadets, the reassuring beat of langur ways and habits. He tried to imagine what life would be like if all that vanished, if the troop was defeated and scattered. Twitcher's ominous warning still rang in Mico's ears:
when the langur fall, their enemies will be waiting to pounce
.

He couldn't let that happen. Whatever doubts Mico had about the langur, they were still his monkeys, and he had a duty to protect them.

As he dressed Breri's wounds, he found out about the geography of the siege and understood why General Pogo was so worried. Using conventional langur tactics it would be a long, bloody seige, but Mico's unconventional mind could see another way.

He hurried out of the signal box to try and find a senior military commander—they were all huddled round a very grave Deputy Tyrell, briefing him about the scale of the casualties. Already the bodyguards were making preparations to escort Tyrell forward to the front line. Mico had to make his move now.

“Excuse me, sir. We spoke at the Warrior Day Feast.”

Tyrell spun round and glared at Mico, his mind so preoccupied it took a few moments for him to register who this cadet was. “Not now,” he snapped.

“Not all monkeys fight in the same way!”

The deputy's bodyguards had just lunged forward to bundle the troublesome cadet away when Tyrell raised his hand.

“Wait.”

The bodyguards stopped in their tracks as Tyrell scrutinized Mico.

“What did you say?”

“You once told me the only way to win is by remembering that not all monkeys fight in the same way.”

“Well, well…,” muttered Tyrell. He drew Mico to one side, taking him into his confidence. “So tell me, how does that help us now?”

“A siege is no good, sir. Our troops are just going to get wounded, or worse. Instead we need to make the bonnets' fortress their prison.”

“How do you mean?” asked Tyrell curiously.

“If we throw a bees' nest into the summer house, they'll either get stung to death or they'll be forced out into the open.”

Tyrell nodded indulgently. “It's a good idea. Not a new idea, of course. We've tried bees in previous campaigns, but the problem is that all monkeys look the same to bees—they sting us just as readily as they sting our enemies.”

And with a patronizing smile he turned and started to walk away.

“That wasn't the idea, sir,” Mico persisted, chasing after him. “There's a place in the city where men live with the bees. They use nets so that they can get close without getting stung.”

Tyrell glared at Mico. “Where is this place?”

Mico ignored the question. “If we steal the nets and wrap them round the hives, we would control when they fly, where they swarm, who they sting.”

Tyrell's eyes narrowed; he liked the way Mico had sidestepped the question, but most of all he liked the idea.

He glanced sideways, checking that no one had overheard their conversation. Then, with a dark smile, he whispered to Mico, “Wait here. Say nothing.”

Even though he was secretly brimming with confidence, Tyrell kept a grim countenance as General Pogo showed him round the battlefield and explained the complexities of the siege.

“Any attempt to storm the building leaves us open to attack from above,” Pogo lowered his voice to avoid alarming his own troops. “And even if we accept the high casualty rate there's only one way up the tower. Our forces could go in no more than two at a time—they'd be picked off before they reached the first level.”

Tyrell frowned and rubbed his chin; it was important to give the impression that he was thinking on his feet. Then after a credible pause, he smiled as if an idea had just occurred to him.

“Forgive my simplicity, General, but it seems to me that getting the bonnets
out
is the only solution?”

“If we had them in the open, we could deal with them easily,” growled Pogo impatiently.

“And if I gave you a swarm of bees, could you get it into the main building?”

General Pogo stared at Tyrell blankly. “But bees—”

“Could you get them inside?”

The general looked over to the summer house, his mind testing out the various options. “Yes. We could get them inside.”

Tyrell smiled at the thought of the massacre that would follow. “Just the answer I was looking for.”

The moon was up by the time the raid on the beekeeper's yard swung into action. Tyrell took personal command of the mission as it was of the utmost importance that everyone should see this was all
his
idea.

Mico went along in an ostensibly minor capacity, but in fact he was the only one who knew the location of the beehives. Tyrell had demanded to be told everything, but Mico explained that he couldn't actually describe the location; he could only find it again by smell, by literally nosing his way from one street to the next.

Tyrell didn't believe him for an instant, but he played along. Mico obviously had secrets, and powerful ones at that, which made him a monkey to keep at his side.

“There…,” Mico whispered as they emerged into the scrub ground dotted with hives. “The ones hanging from the trees.” He pointed to a large banyan tree that wove between the sheds—from its lowest branches hung a cluster of clay beehives.

“And the nets?” Tyrell demanded.

“On the side of the sheds. The humans put them on their heads, but we can wrap them round the hives.”

“Remind me,” asked Tyrell innocently. “How did you come by these again?”

Mico hesitated. His mind flashed back to the night he had come here with Papina….

And the thought of her name suddenly reminded Mico of all the suffering the langur had inflicted on the rhesus. For one terrible moment he felt doubt pulling at his fur. Could he really trust Tyrell with a weapon as deadly as the bees?

Mico gripped his fists, forcing the nails into his palm, reminding himself that he was doing this to
save
lives…his own brother's life.

Looking up at Tyrell, he shrugged. “I got lost one day. Sense of direction was never my strong point.”

Tyrell scoffed. “I don't believe that for a moment.”

But Mico was not going to be drawn any further.

Tyrell watched as the troops unhooked the beekeeper's veils then cautiously approached the banyan tree. The hives were silent; nothing stirred. Stealthily the monkeys climbed the tree; then, very slowly, working in pairs, they stretched the veils around the clay hives, gently tightening them, trying not to cause any vibrations.

The monkeys paused, checking that each hive was secure; Tyrell gave the signal, and in one sweeping move the monkeys dropped from the branch, yanking the hives as they fell.

They crashed to the ground in a chaotic flurry, the terrifying jolt sending thousands of bees into a frenzy, But the monkeys held tight, gripping the nets in place, so that when the bees tried to swarm from the hive, they slammed straight into the nets. Trapped.

Tyrell crouched down and listened to the enraged buzzing of the bees, now rendered powerless by his cunning. Such a simple trick and the deadly insects were utterly at his mercy.