The Winter Tiger Page 4

  ‘And how do you know what the Winter Tiger wants?’ aggression had crept into the edges of the Red Lion’s words as he paced around. He was a creature used to getting his own way.

  ‘Listen to the Red Lion,’ snapped Goldtooth, the most unpopular Lion of the three. Star should know, he’d endured many complaints from Wolves since her arrival on Lupus.

  ‘Quiet,’ roared Red Lion, rounding on the similarly attired Goldtooth. ‘Star Wolf and I are talking.’ His words rattled off the metal hull.

  Star had never heard a spaceship go so quiet so quick.

  Goldtooth hissed, a cat-like sound, before sulking away and off the flight deck. But before she shoved a Wolf technician into another, tripping both onto a workstation. The duo shared awkward giggles, but when Star nodded they reset the flashing warnings on the workstation and went back to their tasks.

  ‘Sorry about that one,’ said the Red Lion, now sat in the chair next to the Night Badger. Behind them were the amused expressions of Bloodhound, and the March Hare who hiccupped and suppressed a burp, the Hare’s bloodshot eyes told a tale of their own. His Wolf shadow of Ash, River and Sky were pretending to provide a demonstration on a digital display to Blackfang. The fact the Red Lion’s son knew to stay away from the ensuing discussion made Star’s stomach roll.

  The most legendary fighter in the galaxy was testing Star Wolf in front of an audience.

  ‘He wants me to challenge him. His biggest desire from all of this is to find an equal in tactics and battle.’ Star sensed the Red Lion bristling. ‘I suppose he assumes the Lions will no longer enter the fray.’ The Red Lion nodded, and a throaty grunt of approval met Star’s assumption. ‘And given how I so openly challenged him on the Council of Worlds I believe he sees me as the most suitable candidate. This is a game to him. He wants to rule the galaxy simply because he can, or he’ll die trying. He told me as much on Ranae.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the Red Lion, ‘I heard about that battle. To survive in single combat without a scratch on you is no mean feat. Wouldn’t you agree Shadowfang?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Shadowfang pulled up his surcoat and one of the black leather panels from his shorts beneath to reveal the long scar tracing from hip to knee. ‘This is a token from the great Winter Tiger.’ The Leopard laughed, a scratchy, hoarse sound. He showed the scar at any opportunity, a ghastly wound that he wore with pride.

  Star didn’t think he’d be too eager to show off any war wounds he incurred but these war veterans took great joy in comparing. He’d lost count the number of times he saw the Night Badger remove his fake metal teeth.

  Shadowfang was in a chipper mood ever since his return to the Band of Breeds claiming that a hundred Leopard vessels would arrive in the next fortnight, bringing with them thirty thousand seasoned fighting Leopards ready to join the fray. Star would believe it when he saw the spaceships.

  ‘I got lucky,’ Star admitted, in a low voice, and yet he still caught River’s smirk. The tension between the best friends still surfaced now and again. River seemed unable or unwilling to fully forget and forgive Star Wolf. Star couldn’t decide if, roles reserved, he’d be more forgiving. Probably not.

  ‘Don’t mistake luck for fate.’ The Red Lion’s demeanour took on an excitable frenzy, Star sensed the great Lion was coming to a big announcement. ‘So, if we’re to make base here shall I start training these Wolf troops of yours?’

  Half a dozen Wolf heads snapped around excitement across their eager muzzles. ‘That’s an excellent idea, Red, and one that will undoubtedly do wonders in the battles to come.’

  ‘To war,’ said the Red Lion.

  Star did not like the wide-eyed excitement that had taken over the imposing Lion. He did not have the services of Leo or the Lions, but he did have the greatest fighter in their planet’s history and that had to count for something.

  Fate. The word had begun to creep into many of Star’s conversations.

  He didn’t feel fated, if anything he was a leaf caught in a storm.

  WITH SHIPS DEPLOYED to Star’s satisfaction he returned to the House of Wolves’ castle back down on the planet’s surface. Winter was a permanent fixture now. The snowdrifts piled so high they blocked some of the drawbridges into the castle. The moat had long frozen over but not before Star had ordered all fish removed. Supplies were the greatest commodities in the galaxy now, more so than ever.

  It was a winter like never before, or so the murmurs around the town surrounding the castle went. One that wouldn’t cease for an entire generation, like the long endless winters Star’s ancestors had had to endure during the Apex Wars. Star didn’t believe in all the folklore, or in some tales of black magic, which stated seasons were sometimes controlled by powerful Wolves buried way down in the House of Lupus. Star overheard one old Wolf regaling a dozen or so Wolf pups around a fire in the town centre that Star’s father, Sun Wolf, hadn’t gone to the grave willingly and had invoked the great Wolf spirit to wreak an endless winter on the Wolves.

  She soon shut up when Star left his hiding place, by a local tavern, and removed his hood.

  ‘I meant no offence, my lord.’ Her pitiful pleas only annoyed Star and he gritted his teeth to send her and the pups scarpering away on all fours, trudging up all the slush and black ice as they went. He was left to stand in the town centre, the immense heat coming off the circular fire pit not the only reason he felt hot under the collar. ‘As you were,’ he’d snapped before re-cloaking himself and returning to the castle. That was the last time he’d left the grounds of the castle, the bitter cold and matching resentment from the local Wolves kept him inside.

  ‘What’s the point in fighting a war if the Wolves you’re fighting for hate you?’ Star had asked Ash one evening when they found themselves alone in the long dining hall. Star was into his fifth beer when he asked the question, being slightly numb helped with the impending sense of doom that manifested as an aching gut. ‘And will someone fix the damn rafters!’ Up in the wooden beams of the roof, a trio of skylines had shutters that pattered against the frame every time the wind blew. Two days later all three skylines collapsed under the weight of overnight snow.

  ‘Forget the shutters and think of our species,’ Ash also talked a little freer after a handful of beers, ‘because they’re your kin. They are the Wolf and you are the Wolf, let them grumble and gossip, when push comes to shove loyalty is the Wolf way and the reason why we’re the only species with a chance of stopping those filthy Tigers.’

  ‘Is it loyal to start rumours this winter is my father’s doing, a punishment sent back to haunt me.’ Star Wolf slammed his mug onto the table, the pottery shattered and showered him in beer. ‘Some say because I usurped him and others because I failed to protect him. He was supposed to protect me, not the other way around!’ A trickle of tears slipped down onto the oak table; he stared as his tears soaked into the wood.

  ‘Those same families all have soldiers in your army.’ Ash stood up, straightening his dark grey uniform, which he had sewn the House emblem back onto since Star’s reign. ‘Do you sense a shred of disloyalty or rumour within our ranks?’

  ‘No.’ Star turned away from Ash’s fierce gaze.

  ‘Exactly, let the families moan, but be rest assured they know the truth.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That you’re our leader and have all of Lupus’s Wolves best interests at heart. We fortify this planet, make it so no one can touch us again, we must think like the Lion.’

  Star shot to his feet, his chair clattering behind him onto the hard-stone floor. ‘That’s it!’

  ‘What is?’ Ash furrowed his brows.

  ‘Summon every builder within a thousand miles, have them brought to me as soon as possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve got cannons to build.’

  THE CLAMOUR OF INDUSTRY was about the barren ice lands that Star Wolf had selected, at the advice of his master builder, for the construction of the very first defence cannon on Lupus. Such defences
only existed on a handful of planets, including Leo and Tigris, on account of the cost and expertise required to build them. Star happened to have the Red Lion as an esteemed guest, one who knew how to construct such devices.

  ‘What did I tell you about fate, dear boy?’ The Red Lion, much to Star’s surprise, did not hesitate when the call to help build them came. Once he had inspected a dozen industrial warehouses, a few miles south of the House of Wolves castle, he decreed they possessed most of the equipment and resources required to build the gargantuan structures. ‘Though it’ll take time Star Wolf.’

  ‘Understood.’ Star shook the Lion’s paw a little too enthusiastically.

  ‘Still, it does mean in time we can utilise your Wolf fleet properly.’

  That was a problem for another time.

  ‘How long do you reckon it’ll take?’

  ‘A troop of Lions built one in three months once, so a hundred Wolves could go at a similar rate, I’d suggest. I will have a few specialist parts shipped immediately.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Star Wolf strolled across the open, rock-solid ground, trying to suppress a shiver despite the multiple layers and thick woollen overcoat he wore.

  The Red Lion chuckled. His deep baritone voice echoed off into the horizon, he bristled from head to toe, shaking snow from his shoulders and bulk of his orangery-red mane. ‘It’s damn cold here. I’ve never known cold like it, not since I went north on Tigris.’

  ‘You went across the Misty Ice?’

  ‘Correct,’ the Red Lion bared his teeth, his canines near white and as long as Star’s entire muzzle, ‘hunting the damn Winter Tiger. Not that I ever found him, he’s an elusive one. He’s a perfumed Cat with a silver tongue, deadly in a fight and yet more cunning than a Fox. If he stood and fought he would’ve lost.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he never stood still.’

  ‘You’re a sharp one, I can see why the Winter Tiger likes you.’ The Red Lion neatened his crimson jacket and patted away snow from his knees and thighs.

  ‘He likes me?’ Star scratched at his muzzle and wet nose. His black gloves were already crusted over with ice.

  ‘Of course, if he didn’t like you you’d of died on Ranae. Make no mistake about it.’

  ‘So, he likes Shadowfang?’

  The Red Lion stopped walking, running a paw through his luxurious mane, ‘Well, if Shadowfang didn’t escape I would presume so. A pattern is beginning to emerge.’ A wicked grin spread over the Lion’s face. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

  5. The Dungeons Of Tigris

  As always, the stench of urine and faeces hit the Winter Tiger a few miles away. The dungeons on Tigris let you know their location via smell long before the fire pits appeared on the horizon. This was a location he abhorred visiting almost as much as the inner sanctums of the Elder Temple. He had no problem with torture but once a creature had provided all information he deemed an animal worthy of a quick death, as long as he believed them.

  The Elders, however, opted to pile their torture victims up and create a stockpile of assets if required. Again, Winter saw value in taking hostages, but only a select few and these should be treated fairly. Returning a half-dead creature to its own kind was hardly going to incite gratitude. He didn’t fear any other species, far from it. It was more that the Elders ways often jarred against his very specific and wholly unique set of rules to adhere by. Soon enough that wouldn’t be a problem, once he had the numbers he would strike.

  Violence, and all the ugly offshoots that came with it, was often necessary and unavoidable. But creating squalid hellholes, hidden out by the coast, on the off chance that they might have use of these creatures was beyond cruel. The Winter Tiger only believed in handing out cruelty to those that deserved it, like the arrogant species from the damnable Council of Worlds. The millions that died from the resulting AWB explosions were casualties of war, and their deaths lay with their rulers and their incompetence, not with him.

  ‘Wait here.’ The Winter Tiger waved his hand in the direction of his driver, a surly old Tiger whose fighting days were well behind him. From the smell of him he’d taken to tobacco, booze and cheap whores. Still, this was a Tiger from military background, and he nodded his acknowledgement, cutting the hoverrider’s engine which spluttered out a ball of black smoke.

  A crimson dusk was setting over Tigris, her two moons redder than the purest blood. They sat high in the sky, in a podium position. Many religions across the galaxy believed a red sky meant blood had been spilt or was about to be and given Tigris’s moons were always red seemed apt to the Winter Tiger. Not a day went by that murder didn’t happen, in abundance, on Tigris.

  Kill or be killed. It was a simple mantra that boiled down the Winter Tiger’s overall belief structure.

  He breathed in deep, but through the side of his mouth, to savour the last semi-clean breath he’d take for a while. Winter could’ve worn a mask into the dungeons, the workers all did, but that was a sign of weakness. Sweat and blood now caught his nose, mixed in with the other foul stenches emanating from deep underground. The smoky fire pits created a veil of smoke, but their crackling wood couldn’t drown out the torturous screams coming from the black abyss.

  On duty guards nodded whenever the Winter Tiger passed them. He always thought the volume of soldiers positioned to guard half-dead creatures was excessive but the decree came from the Elder Three and so the dungeons were swarming with Tigers, each one a trained killer. Such a waste of talent. Though these ones wore the official gold and black armour of the Tiger army, unlike the pampered fools back at the Elder Temple.

  Winter flexed and rolled his shoulders, cursing the tension he always felt after meeting with the Elder Three. He longed to make a move on them but to do so now would bring about his demise, and he had things to take care of before that happened.

  ‘General Winter.’ The dungeon master, another veteran Tiger, stood up from the wooden stool he was slumped on when he noticed he wasn’t alone, a hint of fear lingered on his voice. ‘As instructed the cells and prisoners have been secured after the Wolf pup and his band of mongrels tried to break in.’

  ‘Ah, yes, splendid.’ Winter reverted to his smooth tone, one he’d practiced many a time, pitched to leave the recipient wondering if he meant to praise them or rebuke them. It was good to keep creatures guessing. ‘A daring effort by the Wolf, I’m sure. It does beg many questions, given how many forces you had. I must say your numbers have swelled even further.’ The dungeon master, who Winter recalled went by the name of Firestone, chuckled though a perspiring brow showed his candour as false, ‘Still, at least it gives you time to rest your paws and sit down, yes?’

  ‘Uh, uh.’ The rotund Tiger’s belly wobbled as he scrambled for a response, his golden armour plate clanked.

  ‘Oh, do sit down, Firestone, I am teasing you. You, more than most Tigers, have earned a rest now and then but you are wasted down here.’ The Winter Tiger strolled around the wooden desk, positioned against the dusty dirt wall, tapping as he went and inspecting the scribbled notes on the desk; nothing of importance. ‘I must admit I do have questions about the attempted jailbreak. Firstly, how did the young Wolf get ashore without detection, do we not have sentries positioned along the coastline at regular intervals?’

  ‘We do, sir, but they breached a gap, it would appear we spread them a little too thin.’

  ‘Is it we?’

  ‘I mean.’ Firestone coughed; he’d been drinking. ‘I, sir....’ At least he had the courage to admit the fault lay with him, which was brave but unfortunate as the Winter Tiger’s claw lashed out in a flash of black and white tearing the veteran Tiger’s cheek to shreds.

  ‘Never drag me into your mistakes or the follies of these dungeons.’ The Winter Tiger booted Firestone, now slumped on his knees, firmly in the gut. He kept his hind leg claws retracted to avoid a fatal wound; he still had use for Firestone. ‘As I said, you and many like you are wasted down here, do not fail me again. If the Elder Three send more
soldiers here because of your incompetence I will personally kill you.’ He grabbed Firestone by the scruff of his black leather collar. ‘Slowly.’

  Though he continued to hack and cough, Firestone returned to his feet without fuss. It was as if the beating had knocked some sense into him, Winter liked this one, he clenched his jaw, ignoring the flow of blood, and nodded once. ‘Understood, General Winter.’

  ‘Very good.’ The Winter Tiger helped straighten out Firestone’s uniform. ‘And remember who you serve. I will call upon you in the future.’ Another Tiger added to Winter’s small but ever-growing private force, a contingency plan.

  ‘Of course, I am your Tiger.’ Firestone’s back stiffened; he was a fraction shorter than Winter but much wider around the stomach. ‘I will ensure all those at this,’ he paused the next word seemed to stick in his mind, ‘facility,’ a well-chosen word, ‘are ready and primed when you require us.’

  ‘Fabulous.’ Winter couldn’t keep the sly smile from his face. ‘And in your defence Star Wolf is a fantastic young specimen. Plus, his merry band are quite the team, you did well to kill one.’

  Firestone chuckled. ‘Would you like to see the Wolf?’

  ‘Lead on.’ The Winter Tiger slapped a firm paw on Firestone’s back as he led him down one of the dark, snaking underground tunnels. ‘And what’s this one calling himself? I trust he’s speaking now?’

  ‘Singing like a bird, General.’ Firestone unlocked the cell door with the set of keys that had been jangling at his hip. In the dank, near pitch-black corner of the cell a great husk of a Wolf was curled up in the corner. ‘This one calls himself Elm.’

  The black fur of the Wolf shuddered at the mention of his name, but he did not move from the corner.