Monkey Wars (22 page)

“It's just a crack. Like those,” Sweto said, pointing to the pinpricks of light all around them.

Nappo wasn't convinced. Over the past days he'd spent a lot of time tending the smoke pot, studying the gentle pulse of the embers and the restless energy of the white billows. The smoke was like an old friend now, whose changing moods he instinctively understood, and he knew that it was being sucked out of the undercroft through something much bigger than a crack in the brickwork.

“Shouldn't we investigate, sir?” he ventured.

“What you should do is shut up and follow orders!” Sweto snapped. “We're to flush the enemy out through there.” He pointed to the far end of the undercroft. “Understood?”

Nappo hesitated. He was only trying to put the new training into practice. “But if there's a third exit, sir—”

“What if we change the plan and it all goes wrong? What if one of us gets killed? Will
you
take responsibi
lity?”

But Nappo was now looking beyond Sweto. The way the smoke was swirling in the shafts of light made it seem as if something was approaching.

“It's all very well thinking you can make decisions, but who's going to take the blame?” ranted Sweto.

Nappo wasn't imagining it; something was definitely out there, circling them.

“If everyone follows orders, everyone knows where they stand.”

Closer and closer.

“No monkey was ever punished for following orders. Even if the orders are wrong.”

And then it happened…

A screech followed by a sickening crack as one of the soldiers was plucked from their side and swallowed into the darkness.

The monkeys spun round, frozen with fear, smoke swirling between them, stunned at the speed of the strike.

“Close formation!” barked Sweto, and the monkeys clustered together, back to back, desperately looking in all directions at once.

“Sightings?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Their ears strained to get a fix on the enemy, but all they could hear was the gentle patter of human footfall on the platform above, which masked all other sounds.

“If we stay here, they'll pick us off, one by one,” Sweto whispered. “We have to storm our way out. Brace yourselves.”

Nappo piled all the remaining leaves into the pot and blew through the holes until great billows of pungent smoke enveloped them.

“NOW!” screamed Sweto, and they charged toward the exit at the far end of the undercroft, lashing out blindly in the darkness, screeching and yelling, tripping and stumbling, leaping over half-hidden obstacles, until finally they burst through the doorway at the far end, tumbling out into the blinding sun.

And heard Breri's bloodcurdling scream.

“NO!” yelled Sweto, cowering in the dust. “It's us! It's us!”

Just in time Breri realized who it was. He lowered the club and looked down at Sweto panting on the floor.

“You had them cornered and you let them escape?” Mico's voice trembled with frustration.

Just when he had a chance to come face to face with the resistance, to identify who they really were, Sweto had bungled it.

“We'll get reinforcem
ents, attack again,” said Breri, trying to placate his brother.

“They'll be long gone by now!” snapped Mico. “They'll have vanished the way they always do.”

And so it proved.

Stoneball's midtown patrol swung across to join forces, and together they combed through the undercroft, discovering supplies of food and a collection of fighting sticks…but no monkeys. Not even the body of the hapless footsoldier who'd been seized; the grisly death he must have endured didn't bear thinking about.

Mico wandered through the empty chambers taking it all in—this was a well-resourced operation; someone in the rhesus troop
must
know who was behind it.

“Sir, over here!”

Mico swung across the chamber to where Nappo was crouched by a recess in one of the foundation walls.

“I think I've found how they escaped,” Nappo said, holding up the smoke pot to the recess and watching the plume get sucked into the darkness of a chimney shaft.

Mico stuck his head into the shaft and felt the draw of air across his face. “Three exits. Not two,” he muttered. “Cunning. Very cunning.”

He pulled his head back and bumped into Sweto, who was watching the smoke waft upward.

“If we'd known there was another exit, we would've changed tactics, sir.” Sweto spoke with such conviction that Nappo could only look at him in stunned silence.

“We had no idea the resistance had a third way out,” Sweto continued, peering up into the shaft. “Such a shame we didn't see this when we came through the first time.”

He looked sternly at Nappo, silently demanding he go along with the lie. Nappo was too shocked to say anything.

Sensing his unease, Sweto clapped an arm around his shoulder. “Excellent work! Observation beyond the call of duty. You'll be rewarded for this.”

Nappo nodded obediently, but Mico could see that something wasn't right between the two monkeys.

The patrols finished their search and withdrew from the undercroft, leaving Mico alone in the darkness.

Identifying the resistance was crucial to Mico's plans, and he had been so tantalizingly close….If only he could find that vital clue.

He put his head into the cool shaft one last time and peered up at the patch of light far above; then, from the corner of his eye, he saw something glinting. He reached across and his hand touched a pile of small metal pieces that tinkled softly.

Mico clambered into the shaft and hunched over the objects. One by one he held them up to examine them in the half light.

There were fragments of scrap metal, bits of tin cans, but each piece had been carefully fashioned into a very particular shape. One shard of metal had been bent into a hook, another into a point, a third into a jagged star; and all of them were dangerously sharp.

Weapons.

No longer content to throw stones or use sticks, the resistance were using human debris and human ideas to create new ways of killing.

Mico shuddered as he realized that whoever the resistance were, they seemed determined to take the battle between the monkey troops to a new, and bloodier, level.

“W
e need to strike back!” urged Stoneball. “Show the monkeys of this city who's in charge!”

Mico emerged from the cold damp of the undercroft to find the patrols whipping themselves up into a vengeful mood.

“Let's not overreact here,” he said firmly.

But Stoneball glared at him. “Tell that to my scars,” he sneered, pointing to the wounds on his face that had only just healed after the ambush in the alley.

“We turfed some rhesus scum out of the bus garage this morning,” said Breri. “We should head to Temple Gardens and do to them what they did to our trooper!”

A guttural roar erupted from the patrols—they wanted blood.

“You're overstepping your orders!” Mico shouted above the angry hooting.

“I thought we were supposed to make
our
own
orders,” Breri mocked.

“Rhesus blood for langur blood!” declared Stoneball.

“Yes! Rhesus blood for langur blood!” thundered Breri and Sweto, and in a few moments both patrols had taken up the chant:

“RHESUS BLOOD FOR LANGUR BLOOD!!!”

Mico racked his brains; somehow he had to delay the patrols long enough to allow the refugees to reach safety.

He pulled Breri aside. “Call them off!”

“Why?”

“It's part of Lord Tyrell's plan,” Mico lied, hoping mention of the supreme leader would carry enough weight. “He wants the monkey god shrines to be rhesus ghettos.”

Breri just shrugged. “The only good rhesus is a dead rhesus. If there's fewer alive at sunset than at dawn, I don't think Lord Tyrell's going to complain.”

“If you take the battle to Temple Gardens, you'll be defying his orders!” warned Mico.

“Temple Gardens is exactly where we
should
strike!” Stoneball declared, stepping between the brothers. “That's where they harbor the resistance. We have to go there and root them out!”

The ferocious roar of support sent a shiver down Mico's back—images of thugs with smoke rampaging through the gardens flashed through his mind. In a last-ditch attempt to avert violence, he reached out for any argument he could find. “What about Bandha?” he said to Breri. “What would she think if she saw you murdering refugees as they ran?”

Breri glared at his brother through narrowed eyes, hurt at the suddenly personal attack. “What would Hister say if she thought you lacked the courage for battle?” he retorted.

The two monkeys squared up to each other, years of tension and rivalry between them now boiling over; Mico would have loved nothing more than to fight it out, but he knew the important thing was warning the rhesus before it was too late.

“Do what you want, Breri. But don't look for my support when Tyrell calls you to account.” And with that he scampered away.

The moment he was out of sight, Mico veered left, scrambled up an ivy-covered wall, swung across a series of window ledges and ended up on the shambolic rooftops. In the distance he could see the top of the giant Hanuman statue poking above the chimneys. No time to waste.

He had never run so fast or so precariously in his life: sliding across washing lines, clinging to gutters and drainpipes, leaping over the gaps between buildings.

Halfway there he glanced down and saw the rhesus refugees trudging toward Temple Gardens.

“RUN!” Mico yelled down at them. “The patrols are coming!”

The refugees looked up at Mico timorously and drew back into the shadows. Why should they believe him? He was one of the hated langur. For a moment he thought about dropping down to street level to persuade them, but there just wasn't time.

On he ran, pounding across roof tiles as hot as oven plates, leaping blindly into the topmost branches of trees, until finally he dropped onto Hanuman's head and looked down on the hordes of rhesus monkeys lounging in the sun, utterly oblivious to the approaching danger.

“They're coming!” Mico yelled at the top of his voice.

No one took the slightest notice. They were all too preoccupied with life in the bustling gardens.

Twitcher…he had to find Twitcher.

Scrambling down the trees, Mico found him drinking from the ornamental fountain at the base of the statue.

“The patrols are coming!” he gasped. “You have to defend yourselves!”

Twitcher could see from the fear in Mico's eyes that this was serious. “How many?”

“Two patrols. And they're pumped for violence.”

Mico glanced around the gardens—those on the grass should be safe in numbers, but there were dozens of monkeys scattered across the trees and rooftops that could easily be picked off.

“Get every monkey into the gardens! Young ones near the middle!” Mico snapped at Twitcher. “And where's Papina?!”

A look of alarm flashed across Twitcher's face. “The markets…she's gone to steal biscuits.” He pointed in the very direction from which the patrols were coming.

Dread welled up in Mico's guts. He had to warn Papina, but there were two markets close by—she could be at either, and with every moment the patrols thundered closer.

Mico leaped, grabbed on to the tail of Hanuman, scrambled up the statue then dived across into one of the surrounding trees; swinging from branch to branch, he finally made it to the rooftops, where he hurried along a narrow balustrade until he could look down onto the Hawkers' Market. Straining his eyes, he tried to pick out Papina.

Nothing.

He scampered over the roof and peered down into Anarkali Market. There were so many people milling around, but as ever the humans were utterly oblivious to the life and death struggle of the animals that surrounded them.

There!
He caught a glimpse of her perched on the canopy of a stall.

“Papina!” he yelled, but she couldn't hear him above the noise of the market. Mico glanced up the street and his blood ran cold as he saw Breri and his band of thugs burst out of an alley, heading this way.

“PAPINA!” he yelled again, but still it was no use. In a few heartbeats it would be too late.

Mico's eyes desperately scanned the rooftops and lit on the cables running across the street. Reaching up, he grabbed one and yanked it hard. A few tugs later and the copper tore from the insulators, leaving Mico with a wire rope that stretched to the far roofs.

He didn't dare calculate the risks; recklessness was now the only option. Gripping the wire with all his might, he launched himself into the air…and fell, plummeting toward the market stalls below, until suddenly his arms jerked upward and pain seared through his shoulders. His fingers slipped; desperately he tightened his grip as the cable rope swung him along the street.

“PAPINA!” he yelled as he flew toward her.

She looked up just long enough to be astonished; then he smacked into her, wrapping his legs around her body as he went, plucking her clean off the market stall.

They hurtled through the air for a few moments until the cable reached the end of its arc and Mico let go, sending them crashing into a pile of plant pots on a nearby balcony.

Stunned and bruised, Papina leaped to her feet and disentangled herself. “Are you trying to kill me?!”

But Mico clamped his hands over her mouth. His eyes directed her gaze to the street level just feet below them, where the rampaging langur patrols were surging through the market en route to Temple Gardens. He had saved her with moments to spare.

Suddenly a fist slammed into the window, startling Mico and Papina, who leaped back. A woman's face, smooth and fat, loomed up at the glass, gesticulating and screaming at the monkeys, shooing them away. Mico grabbed Papina's hand and pulled her along as he scrambled up the drainpipes.

They arrived next to the chimneys to hear a chorus of alarm shrieks from Temple Gardens. Looking down, they saw that Twitcher had gathered all the rhesus around the base of the Hanuman statue. They were packed closely together, the females and infants huddled near the middle, the adult males forming a protective line around the outside.

As Stoneball and Breri thundered into the gardens with their patrols, the rhesus monkeys on the outer line backed away, bending and distorting the heaving mass behind them.

“SCUM!” yelled Breri as he grabbed the smoke pot and started swinging it round his head, lunging at the rhesus line, forcing them back further.

Not having a smoke pot, Stoneball's patrol picked up trash from the gutters and started hurling it into the rhesus throng. The more disgusting the debris, the more the langur shrieked with joy.

Determined to claim at least one scalp, Breri swung the smoke pot lower, forcing the rhesus to crouch down. Faster and faster he twirled it, driving the monkeys down onto the cobbles groveling before him.

Until with a sickening clatter the smoke pot smacked into a rhesus skull. There was a shriek and the crowd heaved backward, leaving a concussed monkey lying in the road.

Breri let the smoke pot swing to a stop. As he strode toward his prostrate victim, an anxious silence gripped every monkey in the gardens. Breri looked down at the rhesus bleeding on the cobbles, and was suddenly unsure what to do next.

Acutely aware that all eyes were on him, Breri decided that everyone should know who was in charge. Snorting with derision, he flicked the lid off the smoke pot and callously tipped the smoldering ashes over the rhesus monkey.

The scream tore across Temple Gardens, agony echoing off the surrounding buildings. Breri watched calmly as the poor victim writhed in pain, screeching desperately, until finally he passed out.

Stoneball strode next to Breri and looked down at the rhesus splayed on the ground. Then he patted Breri on the back and, in a matter-of-fact tone, said, “Rhesus blood for langur blood.”

Breri nodded. “Exactly.”

Then they calmly turned their backs on the gardens and led the patrols away.

Until now Temple Gardens had been a safe haven, but with this attack, every rhesus knew that a line had been crossed.

Perched high up on the statue, Papina and Mico surveyed the shocked scene in silence. In the past this had been their special place, but now a cold tension bristled between them.

“Why have you stayed away?” demanded Papina.

“I've been busy…langur politics,” he answered lamely.

“And?” said Papina, sensing that there was something else.

Mico drew a breath. “I had to take a mate,” he said as gently as he could.

The silence between them thickened. He tried to reach his hand out but Papina recoiled.

“Listen to me—” he began.

“No.”

“I didn't have a choice.”

“NO! I don't want to hear!” Papina turned to hurry away but Mico grabbed her arm.

“Let me go!” she howled.

“You have to listen to me! Tyrell gave her to me.”

Papina tossed her head contemptuo
usly.

“I couldn't refuse!”

“What's her name?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Tell me!”