Lord of Order

by Brett Riley

  That you, Ford? called Clemens. He sounded like he was talking underwater. Wherever you’re shot, I hope it hurts, you devil.

  No matter what, Clemens can’t reach the levees.

  The main door was open, the screen shut. Ford took another breath and held it. Then, forcing himself not to moan, he pulled off his shirt. White lights danced behind his closed lids. His left foot squished inside his gore-filled boot.

  Help me, Lord.

  He inched his way up the wall until he leaned against it, panting. When the pain subsided, he stuck the shirt on the end of his pistol barrel and thrust it in front of the screen.

  39

  Clemens had thrown up three times and lacked the strength to move out of his own puddle of sick. Every time he shifted, waves of nausea struck him. His left arm was bent like a bird’s leg, the jagged bone protruding through his bicep. The floor was covered in his blood. As a deputy envoy, he had seen violence, had instigated it. Three years ago, he had taken a Troubler bullet to the thigh. Once, he had been slashed across the chest with a machete, costing him his right nipple. But he had never felt anything like this—the arm, the skin lost in his tumble, everything. Mixed with the pain, a deep sense of self-loathing, all of it burbling in his stomach like gas. How sloppy and prideful they had been, how sure of their own eminence and the citizens’ compliance. When Ford had opened fire, Clemens saw, as in a vision, all the errors born of their hubris. The hunter had never been on their side. He had lived in New Orleans all his life, had fought beside Troy since coming of age. Put beside that, how could they have been so sure, so bloody certain, that anything, even the Crusade, would take precedence? Ford would go to hell for turning on them, but that would do the men at the lake about as much good as it had done Benn. Clemens had to stay conscious long enough to put down the traitorous dog. He had called to Ford and gotten no reply, but the hunter was out there somewhere, on one side of the door or the other. If he had still had two hands to reload with and enough ammo, Clemens would have perforated the whole front wall, just to be sure. But he had to wait. He—

  Movement from the door, a fluttering of white stained with red. Clemens roared and fired, pulling the trigger over and over until the hammer fell on empty chambers, the dry clicks like the chirping of an insect. His ears rang. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the room. He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and watched the door. Nothing moved.

  He laughed and laughed.

  I got you, he croaked, his throat parched, his mouth filled with gun smoke. Thank the Lord. I got you.

  40

  The first two shots sent Ford’s shirt flying into the yard. He yanked his pistol back before a bullet could destroy it. Clemens kept firing anyway, full of panic or rage or both. Then half a dozen dry fires. A moment later Clemens laughed and whispered something. Ford could not make out the words, but they mattered little.

  He stepped in front of the screen door. In the dimness, Clemens huddled against the back wall, trying to reload with one hand.

  Ford shot him three times.

  Clemens jerked and groaned.

  Ford opened the mangled screen door and stepped inside.

  Oh, no, Clemens said, high-pitched, panicked. Oh, no.

  One bullet had struck the deputy envoy in the groin, another just above the belt. The third seemed to have shattered his hip. Ford could have hung his hat on the bone poking out of Clemens’s arm. The Crusader threw up a mouthful of stringy bile. He looked as if he had been stampeded, his face ghostly pale.

  When he saw Ford watching him, though, he clenched his teeth and slowed his breathing. His eyes were still defiant. This doesn’t matter, he rasped. Our men will blow the levees anyway. You’ll drown.

  Ford bent and inspected the ragged hole in Clemens’s groin. Looks like your manhood’s shot off.

  At least it wasn’t my soul, Clemens said. You’ve damned yours today.

  His breath came quicker now, blood bubbling from his mouth and nose. He smiled, as if he could see through the years and all the dimensions God ever made, as if Ford’s spirit already bathed in fire and screamed for mercy.

  Ford pulled his hunting knife from its scabbard. Its sharp edge glinted, even in the dim light. He spat blood on Clemens’s boot. You don’t serve the same God I know, Ford said. Yours knows nothin of mercy or charity or forgiveness. Only wrath and vengeance. If it was me layin there, you’d let me die slow. But I ain’t that cruel. May the Father forgive us both.

  Clemens grinned with reddened teeth. Get on with it. Troubler.

  Ford cut his throat.

  Clemens gurgled, his working hand hooked into a claw that scrabbled at the open wound. Ford sat and put pressure on his own injury, watching him die. When it was over, Clemens lay with his eyes open.

  Ford watched him a moment more. The pain in the hunter’s side waxed and waned with his breathing. His limbs weighed a hundred pounds each. Still, moaning, he forced himself to his knees and inched over and pulled Clemens’s shirt aside. Then he cut the crucifix brand from the deputy envoy’s chest. When he was done, he flung the meat away and knelt next to the body, his head spinning.

  As soon as he could gather his strength, Ford shuffled outside. Rachel waited in the street. He picked up his shirt and lurched to her and dragged himself into the saddle. When he clucked his tongue, Rachel trotted toward the lake. She smelled the water and tossed her head. Ford held the reins in one hand and his tattered shirt against his wound in the other. Fishhooks yanked at his lungs, his guts. His immediate future held more galloping horses, deep breathing, smoke, gunpowder. Father God, please don’t let me sneeze or cough. He hoped he could stay conscious long enough to finish this. If not, the troops and prisoners and horses would probably trample him where he fell. Or somebody from one side or the other will shoot me, and I’ll wake up in heaven. I hope.

  Now the great lake stretched to the horizon like a ruffled coverlet. Rachel had not drunk since they left the house that morning, and as they got closer, she trotted faster.

  Sorry, girl. Ain’t no way to get to the water around here. Storm wall’s unbroken for miles and way too high to jump.

  The day seemed overly bright, and sweat stung his eyes, so he nearly missed Willa McClure sitting on a black horse in a nearby house’s shadow. Bandit stretched out on the grass.

  The girl met Ford in the street and looked over his blood-drenched clothes. Shit fire and save the matches, Santonio. What happened?

  Rachel shifted beneath him. Ford groaned. I killed Benn and Clemens, but they didn’t like it much.

  McClure whistled. Can you ride?

  I hope so. A few inches to the side and I’d be singin hosannas and strummin a harp. What are you up to in these parts?

  She gestured toward the water. Keepin an eye on things in case none of y’all showed up. I wish you would have made your move on them deputies here. Maybe I could have helped.

  Wasn’t much choice.

  Well, that’s two less sons of bitches we gotta kill now.

  We’re still in it deep. Royster ordered his folks at the levees to blow their charges if the fightin gets too close.

  McClure grinned. They’re gonna find that harder than they think. She reached into a saddlebag with both hands and pulled out a snarl of fuses.

  Ford grinned despite the pain. Good job.

  McClure stuffed the fuses back. It’s just a few feet from near the caches. They run all the way into the lakefront buildings. A bunch of Crusaders holed up there, but they’re mostly lookin cityward, so I managed this much.

  Smart, Ford said. It’ll look like the fuses are still there. We’ll have a while before anybody realizes they ain’t gonna work.

  The fighting sounded closer.

  We need to tend that wound, McClure said.

  When we can. So, these Crusaders. They’re just sittin in them old houses.

  Y
ep.

  We’ll need to go around.

  I see you got your huntin knife. Good deal. But I brung you this just in case. McClure reached into her other saddlebag and pulled out two pistols fitted with suppressors. She handed one to Ford and gave him some extra clips. These should help keep them boys from realizin they’re flanked, she said. For a little while anyway.

  Another explosion rocked the pavement. The horses shifted and nickered. Bandit scratched his hindquarters as if nothing were amiss.

  We better get to gettin, Ford said.

  They spurred their horses toward the lakefront. Behind them, gunshots and explosions and screams and the great clinking of Troubler chains.

  41

  With the lakefront in sight to the north, LaShanda Long knelt by her red stallion, Cherokee. He had served her well, and in turn, she had loved him as she might have loved a child. If she could have had children. And now, as Troublers and Crusaders fought and died around them; as more Conspirator sleeper cells roared out of hiding; as they took the haughty and confident Crusaders by surprise and overwhelmed them block by block, LaShanda Long held Cherokee’s head. Bullets riddled his sides. One of his eyes was a gaping red hole. Three or four blocks’ worth of guards had bunched up and unleashed an enormous volley in her direction. Long had dove from the saddle, but Cherokee had nowhere to hide. So much power and grace torn to pieces. She wept as she stroked the horse’s blood-soaked mane.

  You did well, boy, she whispered. I love you.

  She lowered Cherokee’s head to the ground. He breathed deeply, good eye rolling. Long wiped away her tears. Then she unholstered her gun and shot Cherokee in the head.

  When he had stilled, Long wiped his face as clean as she could manage and untangled his mane. A mother preparing her son for state. Then she stood. The rest of her horses, the lord’s and deputies’ entire remuda, had been assigned to their fellow Conspirators. She would make do with the first available mount.

  Lord, please lift us all in your sheltering hand.

  She walked the corpse-choked streets between shattered, fiery buildings, stepping over the dead, searching for a promising mount. A Crusader galloped toward her on a white gelding. She shot the man out of the saddle. When the horse slowed, she caught its reins. It reared, but Long held on. She threw an arm around its neck, whispered in its ear, stroked its muzzle. Then she saddled up and shot four weaponless Crusaders as they ran past.

  Ten of you for every round Cherokee took, and a passel for his life.

  She reloaded as bullets cleaved the air around her.

  Everywhere, Conspirators and Troublers and Crusaders fired on each other from around corners of buildings. Clusters formed and shot each other and scattered and reformed as bodies littered the streets.

  Your mistake, Royster. You brought enough guards to handle chained and broken people, but there ain’t enough of you in the world to stop us now. Our blood’s boilin, and we’re gonna scald you to death.

  Long’s forces marched on the lake, backing the enemy toward the water. The Crusaders had no route of egress, no hope of shelter beyond the buildings and houses they could enter but not defend. They could only fight and die. Long rode down the nearest pod of guards, shooting three of them in the back as the other three broke in different directions.

  And then, from the east and west and south, an enormous roaring fit to sunder the world from its moorings, the sound of voices raised in a common savage cry such as she had never heard. People surged up the street in a great wave, heading straight for her, whooping and screaming.

  At their head rode Gabriel Troy on a paint with white boots, one hand gripping the reins, one pistol raised.

  From the west came Jack Hobbes and Lynn Stransky, leading a column of freed prisoners who shot and hacked and ripped Crusader flesh. Mordecai Jones, Tommy Gautreaux, Laura Derosier, and Antoine Baptiste rode just behind Hobbes and Stransky, firing into the bunched Crusaders, trampling the loners under their horses’ hooves. Baptiste and Derosier broke from the main force, a mob of Troublers in their wake, killing from horseback while their foot soldiers engaged the outlander guards with fists and knives. Paired bodies fell struggling to the ground and crashed through house windows and disappeared.

  From the south came Tetweiller and his charges, stopping to break any chains Long’s group had missed. Every freed man, woman, and child took up a gun or a knife or the nearest tree limb and attacked anyone in Crusade colors.

  In an ever-decreasing semicircle, the outlanders retreated.

  None of this will do any good unless we can protect the levees. Plus, there’s all them Crusaders across the river. Maybe they’re already over the bridge and plannin to crush us between them and the lake, just like we’re doin to their friends. I hope Ernie thought to assign lookouts.

  Someone—Hobbes? Stransky?—had sent two hundred troops to flank the retreating Crusaders, who found themselves surrounded. The Crusaders fired and slashed, even begged, but before long, they broke like walnuts in a vise.

  The battle ended as if it were a candle someone had blown out. And as Troublers and former Crusaders dispatched the wounded guards and tended to friendly casualties, Long, Troy, Hobbes, Stransky, and Tetweiller met on the bloody and viscera-covered street. One by one, they dismounted. They looked at each other and at the scene, a blasted and burning wasteland superimposed on the geometric grids of what they had always called civilization. The air smelled of gunpowder and stool. Already, flies and crows and buzzards attended the dead and the dying. Carnage on a scale unimagined since the Purge, bodies piled like discarded children’s toys. No one spoke for long moments.

  Then Troy embraced Long, and the last two months of tension and self-doubt flowed out of her like water from a broken cistern. She smiled and hugged him back. And then they all laughed and cried and shook hands, even Stransky.

  How’s the arm? Troy said to Hobbes.

  Hobbes grinned, looking demonic, his face covered in blood and soot. Don’t bother me none to speak of. Seen Gordy?

  No one had. They lapsed into silence again, awash in the sounds of distant gunfire and the lamentations of the wounded.

  I don’t wanna get caught between the water and the enemy, Tetweiller said. We best move on the lake, and all them folks across the river too, before they move on us.

  Troy nodded. With their leaders out yonder at the wall, the southern outlanders will take a while to pick a move, but once they do, we won’t have much time. Where’s Santonio?

  Long was worried about that too. He went after Benn and Clemens, she said.

  Troy swallowed hard. All the faces around him turned somber. Well, surprise has been our best weapon. LaShanda, you and Jack and Stransky secure the lake. Me and Ernie’ll take Mordecai and them and hold the outlanders at the bridge. If we can.

  Tetweiller raised his eyebrows. We’re really pushin our luck, dividin our forces over and over like this. Bad strategy.

  Troy reloaded his pistols. We can’t let Royster have the levees, and we can’t afford to get hit from behind when the rest of em march north. So I don’t know what else to do. LaShanda, if you ain’t heard from us when you got your situation under control, come relieve us. If our part ends early, I’ll leave a crew to gather the ordnance on the bridge, and we’ll double-time it back here.

  Take half my weaponsmiths, Long said. They can disarm the caches better than y’all.

  Right. Troy paused, looking at each of them in turn. God bless every one of you.

  With that, they broke apart, though Jones, Gautreaux, Baptiste, and Derosier remained behind. They approached and surrounded Long. Their faces betrayed nothing.

  If they beat me down for givin in to Royster, I won’t stop em.

  Then Jones clapped her on the back. I hoped you and Santonio hadn’t really turned. Gotta admit I thought about puttin a bullet in y’all’s heads more than once.

 
It was Gabe’s plan, she said, but we struggled with knowin what was right.

  I reckon we all have, Derosier said. I’m glad we ain’t gotta kill you.

  Long smiled. I’m glad we don’t gotta die.

  Sweat poured down Baptiste’s face. Lord, I wish this was over. I’m right tired.

  Long saddled up. Me too. Seein y’all alive makes me happier than a flea in a doghouse, but we got business. May the Lord watch over you.

  They all mounted up and saluted her. Then they rode after Troy.

  Long turned her horse and trotted amid the refuse. Her fellow deputies and Lynn Stransky were already giving orders to their lieutenants, who sent word down the chain of command. The resistance forces numbered in the thousands, and as they moved across the city, the sound of their boots on pavement rattled windows. Long rode at the head of her column, Hobbes and Stransky flanking her, their combined masses marching shoulder to shoulder toward the lakefront.

  42

  Royster felt a bit stronger, though still light-headed. Sweat poured off him, thanks to the wound and the southern weather. His shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat, but at least it had almost stopped bleeding. The firing from the wall and the woods beyond it had died down to the occasional burst, both sides waiting for the other to make a move. The levees had not broken, and Gordon Boudreaux had not returned. From the city proper, the clang and clash of steel on steel, hideous animal shrieks of pain, the guttural roar of ten thousand shouting voices. Yet he felt himself drifting.