The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 1 The Sleeping Army Awakes

Prologue

Old Kelp, the despised game keeper, and consequently, keeper of the Shoot-to-kill-Gamekeeper-Drones or Skidges, constantly heard wolves howling in his head. He lived alone. He liked being alone and in many ways it was less complicated than sharing his space with anyone that could not understand the constant noise of wolves in his head.

In a way, the wolves were his constant companions; though it has to be said that they were certainly not his friends. Their desperate poignant lament reamed holes into his soul, and try as he might, Kelp could never ignore the sound totally. It was there all the time. Kelp had taken away their food. No amount of alcohol could drown out their accusation completely and he had certainly drunk enough.

The wolves' eerie lupine opera of tragedy, seeped into his consciousness because they were starving, and they mourned the lost cubs and the bleak future that faced them. Although Kelp thought that this was their problem; he couldn't avoid the nagging doubt that it was all his own fault. He had used the Skidges to fire their ceramic pellets at the sheep-like beasts and although it took almost a whole cartridge to down one of them, slowly and inexorably, he had hunted them to extinction. The two pairs of Skidges, Kelp's true friends, patrolled Sir Percy's lands and Kelp would sit comfortably in his observation post, viewing the whole pursuit through the on board cameras and not having to lift a finger to help the hunt until the kill had been confirmed.

Half the time, the free roaming sheep like creatures weren't even on land that Kelp had jurisdiction over. Mouflon prefer rocky wooded hilltops to the soggy lands below and his master owned none of the high ground. The lower slopes weren't suitable for mouflon because the terrain didn't wear their constantly growing hooves. Kelp had interfered with the settings for the patrols so that they overflew Naval land. The Navy had never responded in any way. Kelp wondered if they still existed.

Technically Kelp wasn't stealing anything other than some ceramic pellets from his new employer, Sir Percy Mac-ham Dodds, and if he did not use any pellets at all, in any particular month, then there would be questions, as to whether he was performing his job properly. Over the years that Kelp had worked for the previous lord, he had made deals that ensured the safety of the locals, well most of them. He had to take the odd pot shot just for appearance sake but invariably there were injuries but no fatalities. The locals bribed him with strong home-made cider and Slivovice, the local plum brandy.

Kelp convinced himself that he was stealing the mouflon from the Slavik navy and not Sir Percy. For reasons best known to themselves, the navy had introduced the mouflon to the hills years ago. The horned mouflon, looking more like deer than sheep, had prospered on the hills, despite losing the occasional member to predation from the wolves.

In killing the whole herd Kelp, had removed the wolves' main food source, but more than that, he had made them angry and forced them to roam far away from their traditional hunting grounds. The wolves had been dependent on the occasional kill, but they had only chosen the weaker, older mouflon and had been more than happy to let the rest of the flock survive because without the flock there would be no weaklings to eat.

Kelp hated going onto the naval land to retrieve the downed beasts, because the wolves' howling became unbearably loud. The naval land was unfenced, but clearly marked, with dire threats for trespassers, and it was also said to be haunted by the souls of drowned miners, but if he wasn't quick to remove the kills, then the wolves and carrion birds would get them first. Kelp had never been challenged by the naval guards and he suspected that there weren't any, any more, but nevertheless he was careful never to drop an animal at their doorstep, not near the mine entrance. Wherever the mouflon did expire on naval land, it usually meant mad dash and a long climb up the steep rocky hill and a longer climb down again carrying the carcasses down a shallower slope to the nearest roadway because once he was bearing the carcass it was too dangerous to descend via the steeper slopes.