Monkey Wars (37 page)

As word of the attack spread through the cemetery, incredulous langurs emerged from their homes, looked up into the rain and saw panicked guards hurrying nervously around the tree canopy…and the dead Twopoint hanging in the power lines.

It was a grotesque image of failure. Far from being wiped out, their old enemy had returned to strike a blow at the very heart of their empire. And if the rhesus could attack the Great Vault in broad daylight, then nowhere was safe.

Tyrell was quick to visit the scene. Flanked by Breri, Sweto and General Pogo, he strode through the cemetery with a grim countenance.

It wasn't just the audacity of the attack that worried Tyrell, nor was it the fact that it was another distraction from the great plan. What really worried him were the expressions on the faces of ordinary langurs as he inspected the scene. In the shocked silence he knew that something had shifted; whereas before the monkeys would look at him as the supreme dispenser of power, now Tyrell saw doubt in their eyes.

Decisive action was taken: the vault guard was doubled, a new perimeter patrol was established to police the cemetery wall day and night, and the families of the victims were generously compensated with food and relocated to the Eastern Province.

Tyrell gave a series of speeches reassuring his troop that security was a top priority, that every langur life was precious, and that no attack on the cemetery would ever again succeed.

General Pogo stood on the podium listening dutifully to the rhetoric, but he had already understood the truth—extra security was useless because the rhesus had no intention of striking at the cemetery again.

And so it proved.

In the days that followed, Mico's monkeys pulled off a series of brilliant attacks on different targets using ever-changing tactics, each one catching the langur unawares.

In their wildest dreams, they couldn't have hoped for a better start to the war.

Yet, despite this, Mico was worried. Only now did he understand the true scale of the challenge facing them. So one stormy evening, he and Gu-Nah called their troops together to thrash the problem out.

“I think we've proved that we can fight as well as any langur,” Mico said with a wry smile that was greeted with self-assured laughter.

“But winning a battle is very different to winning a war,” he went on in a more pensive mood. “We could go on as we are, chipping away at Tyrell's empire, but where would that get us?”

The monkeys looked at him, puzzled. Their entire fighting philosophy was based on the idea that the huge imbalance of power was their friend. Now Mico seemed to be having doubts.

“Surely, the more we attack, the more the langur will lose confidence in Tyrell?” said Twitcher.

Papina agreed. “If we keep up the pressure, they'll overthrow him for us.”

But Mico had already thought further than this. “In theory that's what'll happen; but in practice, how long will it take?”

“Depends how hard we hit them,” said Fig coldly.

“When the monsoon passes, we'll lose a crucial advantage. Will Tyrell have fallen by then?” insisted Mico.

Silence from the monkeys. Pinpointing a specific moment in time suddenly made the task seem more daunting.

“And remember,” Mico continued, “the longer the war goes on, the more the balance of power shifts in
their
favor. At some point we'll sustain casualties, deaths even. But deaths mean nothing to the langur—they have a massive army to draw on.”

“So what are you suggesting?” asked Papina.

“I wish I knew,” Mico confessed. “But unless we want to spend the rest of our lives fighting, we need to find a way of delivering a decisive blow. A shock that'll stop the heart of the langur.”

T
yrell might have been lord high commander, supreme leader of the langur troop, overlord and protector of the provinces, general of the Twopoint Brigade and beacon of the future, but he was powerless to stop the rhesus attacks. No matter what the langur military did, the terrorists always found new targets and new tactics.

Eyewitness reports had built up a picture of the enemy, and Tyrell now knew the bitter truth: the rhesus forces were being led by the traitors Mico and Gu-Nah. It added a new layer of rancor to the war.

Worse than the hurt of betrayal was another feeling, one that Tyrell hadn't experienced since he was a young monkey: the feeling of being a helpless victim. He had done everything he could to wipe the rhesus from the face of the city and still they persisted.

The strain started to show on his face. His eyes looked sunken and tired; his brow knitted with a permanent frown; his shoulders, no longer arrogant and proud, began to sag forward.

Tyrell was made of stubborn stuff, though, and the more he was pushed into a corner, the harder he fought back. With grim determination, he convened a council of war and ordered them to create a new strategy to defeat the insurgents.

“It's simple: our army is in shock,” explained General Pogo, a blunt but candid analysis that only the old warhorse could get away with. “We've been conquerors for so long, our troops have forgotten what it means to fight. I mean
really
fight, to the death, with tooth and claw.”

“When you say ‘troops,' do you include their commanders?” asked Tyrell pointedly.

But Pogo was beyond these kind of political games—this was war and he knew what he was talking about.

“The rhesus are now ruthless and hungry, hard as steel, while our fighting forces are flabby. But every defeat we suffer makes us stronger, more battle hardened. Lord Tyrell, I really believe that the longer this war goes on, the more the balance will shift in our favor.”

Tyrell swirled the analysis round his mind. What exactly was the general proposing? Do nothing and wait until the enemy started to tire. Easy to say, but Tyrell knew that with every defeat his own authority weakened.

Mind you, Tyrell reflected, perhaps that was the general's devious strategy. Perhaps Pogo saw
himself
as the next ruler of the langur. Yes, that made sense. Offer advice that sounded loyal, but was in fact designed to topple the leadership.

The lord ruler was not going to be fooled so easily. He had built his empire through single-minded determinat
ion—it was
his
vision,
his
political maneuvering,
his
will that had achieved all this. He should trust his instincts, and right now they were urging him to seize the reins of battle.

He stood up, trying his best to exude confidence. “From this moment on, all battlefield decisions will be taken by
me
. Breri, set up a command chain so that my exact orders are conveyed to the troops, day and night.”

“Very good, my lord.” Breri bowed humbly, dazzled by the prospect of yet another sphere of operations being put under his control.

“This is the turning point,” pronounced Tyrell to the council of war. “I am personally taking responsibility for the campaign and, as history has shown, the more I take control of a situation, the better the outcome.”

With a cursory nod, Tyrell turned and started to sweep from the room, when a lone voice dared to speak up.

“With all due respect, my lord…”

Tyrell spun round, and met the gaze of General Pogo.

“Forgive me, Lord Tyrell,” the general went on, getting the deference out of the way early, “but I fear that will only play into the enemy's hands.”

“You doubt my military competence?”

“We're dealing with something quite different here. Gu-Nah is putting his unorthodox fighting methods into practice.”

“Well,” said Tyrell, “I proved him wrong once. I'll just have to do it again. A little more forcefully, this time.” Which garnered some sycophantic laughter from Breri and Sweto.

“We've seen how the rhesus operate in battle, my lord. Their success is based on speed of reaction,” persisted the general, gaining confidence as he moved on to military strategy. “If we're going to win this war, we have to be as fast and fluid as the enemy.”

Tyrell glared icily at him. “So I am wrong?”

“Central command of the battlefield is the opposite of what we need, my lord.”

The silence was so tense the air almost crackled.

The lord ruler felt his mind swim as rage took hold; he could hear the blood pumping through his temples.

“YOU!!!” he screamed at Pogo with terrifying malevolence. “If you had done your job we wouldn't even be in this war! DEAD! I wanted them all dead! Was that so much to ask? But you couldn't even do that!”

Tyrell loomed menacingly toward him. “You are to blame for all this! YOU! And now
you
dare to question
my
judgment?”

He reached out and grabbed hold of the fur on Pogo's neck, shaking him. “Why did you let Mico live? What are you plotting with him?! Are
you
a traitor too?” And with the terrifying energy of rage he slammed Pogo to the floor.

“You are NOTHING! Nothing but a weak and incompetent soldier who dreams of things he doesn't have the courage to grasp! You will apologize to me, Pogo!” Tyrell stood over the general, trembling with anger. “APOLOGIZE!!!”

Silence.

Pogo was shocked to the core. In all the time he'd known Tyrell, he had never seen him like this.

“APOLOGIZE!”

The general felt indignation churning in the pit of his stomach. Apologize for what? he thought.

It was Tyrell who had brought about this bloody war.
He
had failed to appreciate Gu-Nah's military brilliance;
he
had personally taken charge of the hunt for Mico and failed;
he
had created the monster they were now fighting.

But that was not how Tyrell remembered it.

Pogo knew that if he so much as raised a finger to protest, he would be finished. He would disappear like countless others.

Survival, that was what mattered. Survival at any cost; that was how the world worked. Pride, honor, truth counted for nothing if you were dead. For so many years Pogo's cynicism had justified his compliance, and now that he needed something of substance to hold on to, it eluded him.

So the great general, a monkey who had always fought with such dazzling physical courage, bowed his head in utter humiliation and said quietly, “I'm sorry if I have offended you, my lord. I was only trying to serve.”

Which was exactly what Tyrell wanted to hear.

He bent down, extended his hand to help Pogo to his feet, then embraced him like an old friend.

The feeling on the street was not so deferential. Much as the langur command tried to restrict the flow of information, footsoldiers kept talking, and the long series of military defeats had not passed unnoticed.

The official line was that langur forces had won the last two battles; that some rhesus terrorists were dead, with others now in captivity…
though no one had actually seen the prisoners with their own eyes.

Tyrell's spies reported back nervously some of the strange ideas starting to take root. Some monkeys believed that the Barbaries were going to return to save the langur; others believed that nothing could save them because the rhesus had developed special powers, like invisibility, and even the capacity to fly.

All this wild speculation damaged Tyrell. How could he hope to wage war on the humans when he couldn't even deal with a few outcast monkeys?

His response was ruthless: he ordered Sweto and the Twopoint Brigade to clamp down on unpatriotic thinking. No mercy was to be shown to monkeys who spread malicious rumors at a time when everyone should be pulling together for the war effort.

The Twopoints were obedient and diligent; beating, torturing, imprisoning, silencing. But even their cruel hands couldn't stop the rumors from spreading.