Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti Page B

rest of us surged through the open doors and drove our way up through the house.
    “By the time the sun set, the grounds were strewn with the bodies of dead monkeys. The langur had triumphed.”
    A spontaneous cheer went up from the cadets, who had clung to Tyrell’s words with rapt attention.
    “This was just the beginning!” the deputy boomed, silencing the cadets. “Rhesus scum were attacking humans right across the city, stealing from shops, biting children, terrorizing the elderly in their own homes. The humans had a whole city to clear, and they looked to us, the langur, to do it.
    “Battle after battle we fought, and gradually the rhesus savages were driven back. The more they lost, the more violent and desperate they became. In their bloodlust, they even turned to butchering their own kind—time and again we found evidence of cannibalism everywhere we cleared.
    “Thanks to the courage of langur forces, and the wisdom of our leadership, that first phase of the rhesus clearance has been completed. They are now contained within strict limits, seeking refuge in a handful of monkey god temples, or subsisting in the forgotten slums. But we must be vigilant or the rhesus will rise up and terrorize the city again. And that is why
you
are so important.” Tyrell gestured expansively to his audience.
    “The langur have been chosen to bring peace to this city. A peace that it is your duty to defend, with your lives if necessary. And I for one can think of no finer cause.”
    As Tyrell sat down, the cadets immediately started cheering and thumping the ground in rapturous approval.
    Gu-Nah smiled at their enthusiasm, leaned across to Tyrell and shouted above the racket, “Makes you proud to be a langur, sir!”
    Tyrell nodded. “It’s important to keep our story alive.”
    “There were things even I didn’t know,” laughed Gu-Nah. “And I lived through it.”
    “In the hurly-burly, you can’t always see the bigger picture,” Tyrell said with a smile.
    He looked across the room and basked in the applause, unquestioning pride written on every face.
    Except one.
    The smallest cadet in the room was looking worried. He applauded like the rest, but Tyrell could see confusion in his eyes. What was it that the young monkey had failed to grasp? He waved his arms to restore quiet, then pointed at Mico.
    “You seem worried, Cadet.” All eyes turned to Mico, who suddenly felt very awkward.
    “N-no. Not at all, sir,” he stammered.
    But Tyrell wasn’t going to let it go. “Please, feel free to ask questions. After all, that’s what monkeys do.” The words were sympathetic, but there was something chilling in his tone.
    Mico hesitated, remembering how the footsoldiers had sneered at peace as they disposed of the dead rhesus. Sneered at the very thing they were supposed to be protecting.
    “Cadet Mico, tell the deputy what’s troubling you,” barked Gu-Nah.
    So now it was an order, thought Mico, he had to say something. Drawing a deep breath, he looked up at Tyrell. “I was just wondering, sir, if the rhesus lived here in the cemetery, before us?”
    “They certainly did. We had to fight our way in and drive them out. But what about it?”
    Mico hesitated. “It’s just that…there were no signs of cannibalism when we arrived.”
    Tyrell nodded thoughtfully. “Do you really think we would have let our females and our young witness the true horror of the rhesus? We took great care to clean up all evidence of their barbarity before we opened the gates.”
    Mico made a big show of smiling as if his worries had been allayed. But Tyrell looked at him sternly, as if memorizing every hair on his face.
    “Satisfied?” asked Tyrell.
    “Yes, sir,” lied Mico. “Sorry to have—”
    “No, no. It was a good question,” replied Tyrell with a polite edge that suggested it was anything but a good question.
    Gu-Nah quickly stepped in to draw the lesson to a close—he didn’t want any more awkward questions being posed