Lord of Order

by Brett Riley

  Crusaders boiled out of back doors and windows. Some saw him and pointed and raised their weapons.

  If they shoot, they’ll hit the cache.

  Ford dropped his guns and held up his hands.

  A Crusader two buildings down started toward him. She thumbed back the hammer of her single-shot rifle.

  And then, voices raised in bloodthirsty ululations, Conspirators hit the Crusaders from the west. The outlanders standing near the buildings died first as someone mowed them down with what sounded like a Gatling gun. Misting blood hung in the air like smoke. From the south, thousands of people surged upon the Crusader positions. Royster’s army emerged from back doors and windows, screaming as the Conspirators opened fire. Some were knifed. Some were beaten to death with rifle stocks or broken chains or bare fists. None got close to a cache.

  Ford’s world spun as his rational thoughts evaporated. He sunk to his knees and shook his head, trying to clear it.

  Moving slowly, moaning with every other breath, Ford pulled off his shirt. Then he crawled to the nearest piece of burning wood. He picked it up by its unlit end, turned it this way and that to find the right angle, and then jammed the fire against his wound.

  He threw his head back and screamed, dropped the board, fell and curled into the fetal position. Everything went dark for a moment. When he opened his eyes, the fighting had not yet reached him.

  Stay conscious. Don’t die. Get up and fight.

  After a moment, he stood and limped east, hoping McClure was still alive.

  48

  As she left Ford at the cache, McClure ignored the sounds behind her and kept sprinting. What else could she do?

  A woman emerged from a building twenty yards away. McClure fired on the run. The bullet punched through the Crusader’s rib cage. She pirouetted and fell, the ground beyond her painted red. She saw McClure and tried to draw her sidearm, so the girl shot her again, this time between her breasts, and she fell backward, twitching. As McClure passed her, two men emerged from the next building down, one of them glancing about, the other headed for the levee. McClure skidded to a halt and drew her other pistol, shooting the running man with her left hand and cutting down the stationary target with the right. Then she took off again, lungs burning, Bandit galloping at heel.

  Up ahead, three Crusaders exited three different buildings, as if they had started on the same signal. McClure shot the first one in the shoulder. The man fell to one knee and then tried to stand and draw. Bandit veered off and leaped on him, ripping out his throat. His boot drummed the ground. The next-nearest Crusader shot at Bandit, but the bullet whined off the pavement. Leave my dog alone, fuckface. McClure fired, and the man dropped, clutching his chest as blood welled between his fingers. The third man sprinted for the nearest cache. Something was wrapped around his waist. A wisp of smoke curled up and disappeared.

  Oh, bloody shit. He’s made a belt of dynamite and lit the fuse.

  McClure stopped and steadied her right hand on her left forearm, sighting in on the runner. She fired and was already running again as the bullet smashed the man’s knee. The Crusader cried out and fell on his face. When he rose, he was ruined—nose mashed to one side, forehead sanded to the bone, a gibbering demon face. McClure shot him in the head, still sprinting, Bandit following, blood dripping from his muzzle.

  Two more men emerged from a building down the way. McClure’s bullets smashed into the wood near them, and they ducked back inside as she reached the dead man with the dynamite belt. The fall had jarred some of the bundles loose. The fuse had nearly burned away. The girl yanked out her knife and sliced it off. Then she cut away the rope holding the bundles to the corpse. She set off again just as two Crusaders dashed outside, guns ready. Probably the same two she had forced to retreat. McClure dragged the dynamite in one hand and fired with the other. A bullet zinged off the pavement beside the man on the right.

  Shit, McClure spat.

  She adjusted for distance as the Crusaders returned fire, slugs hissing all around her. Bandit dodged hither and yon, his tongue lolling, his eyes bright and wild. The Crusaders seemed scared half to death, as if her bravado had robbed them of their own. She glanced at Bandit, the best friend she had ever made. They better not shoot you. I’ll kill em all twice if they do. Then, still running, she tripped over her own feet and hit the street rolling, coming to rest on her knees, ignoring the road rash. She shot twice, hitting one Crusader in the gut. The man doubled over as his fellow stepped forward, aiming, blasting away.

  A hot poker drove through McClure’s shoulder just underneath the clavicle, knocking her backward, the gun and dynamite tumbling from her hands. She landed on her back, her head barking on the road. She could not get a breath. Her left shoulder screamed fire and murder, the pain rising out of some bottomless well and bubbling to the surface one heartbeat at a time.

  Always wondered what gettin shot feels like. Big surprise. It fuckin hurts.

  Bandit stood beside her now. McClure picked up the dynamite and held it out to the dog, who looked at it, panting. Take it, the girl said. Hide. The dog looked at her for an interminable moment and then took the dynamite in his mouth. Go on now, McClure said, but still the dog watched her. Get, she cried. Bandit ran off between the buildings, the explosives trailing behind him.

  Good boy. Maybe you can live a long life full of beefsteak and bones.

  A roaring filled McClure’s ears, like a storm breaking onto a beach. She stared at the sky for half a minute before she realized no one was shooting at her. She forced herself to sit up.

  The Crusader who had wounded her faced the other direction, arms dangling, his pistol lying between his feet. Rushing toward him, a tide of humanity and horse, their war cry swelling. Conspirators shot and clubbed and stabbed and moved onward even as the lone Crusader dropped to his knees and held his hands to the sky, as if beseeching God for deliverance. Someone shot him. A moment later, his body was trampled underneath the horde. The earth shook with their charge. Stransky rode at their head, whooping.

  McClure chuckled, then grimaced.

  Stransky reined up in front of her, the army thundering past them, and dismounted. She knelt and patted McClure’s good shoulder and raised her voice over the din. If Troy had fifty of you, he would have killed us all ten years ago.

  McClure opened her mouth to reply and burst into tears instead. It felt odd. She had no experience with crying. A phantom horse stomped her shoulder over and over.

  Stransky embraced her, minding the wound. She hid McClure’s face against her gunpowder-reeking and sweat-soaked shirt. McClure blubbered away as the pain waxed and waned.

  After some time, she felt herself regaining control, as if she were coming to consciousness after a long sleep. By then, the lakefront Crusaders were dead or running.

  Stransky pulled away. Yonder comes Long. Reckon we ain’t gonna drown today.

  McClure grabbed Stransky’s arm. You tell anybody I cried and I’ll cut your fuckin throat while you sleep.

  Stransky cackled and tousled her hair. Don’t worry, child. You and me’s solid.

  When did I lose my goddam hat?

  Stransky helped McClure to her feet. The wound sang a brittle aria. McClure gritted her teeth and allowed herself one groan.

  Long rode up and dismounted. She was bleeding from a scrape on one arm and covered in sweat and grime. You’re hit, she said.

  McClure nodded. Cold sweat dripped down her face, her back. Ain’t nothin. We gonna go after Gabe and them?

  Course we are. Can you ride?

  What kind of goddam question is that?

  Long smiled. Then she whistled at a nearby Troubler and gestured. The man caught a riderless horse and led it to them. McClure gathered her pistols. One had been trampled. It was nicked and dented and misshapen, as if it had been struck by lightning. The other seemed fine. She holstered the good one and toss
ed the other.

  Nobody better hurt my dog. I hope he’s got sense enough not to eat that dynamite.

  49

  Troy and Tetweiller rode in the Conspirator vanguard, heading for the river. Jones, Derosier, Baptiste, and Gautreaux flanked them. Some of their troops rode captured horses, but most went afoot, carrying all manner of weapons—revolvers and pistols and hunting rifles and shotguns and clubs of all kinds and bladed weapons of every make. Those who could find nothing else carried rocks, bricks, nail-studded boards pulled from buildings. The Conspirators heard their enemy before seeing them—the low susurrus of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of voices. Soon, as the river bridge loomed closer, higher, Troy’s army and the Crusaders spotted each other. Voices on both sides rose in anger.

  The Crusaders waited, lined up shoulder to shoulder, their front line at the bridge’s apex, the rest falling back to the south. They all seemed to be armed. At their head, Jevan Dwyer sat his horse, his long locks flowing in the wind. He was shirtless, a bandolier of shotgun shells crisscrossing his chest, the weapon itself lying across his saddle.

  Troy pulled out his spyglass. The herald looked at peace, even happy. A long hunting knife was strapped to his leather belt. Whenever he shifted, his muscles rippled like water in the wind, the forearm sinews working and working as he maneuvered his string, more cat’s cradles and hexagons and zigzags.

  Looks like God Himself sculpted him outta marble, Tetweiller said.

  Troy counted the troops. Dwyer must have held in reserve every living man and woman south of the river, and some from the north besides, at least two thousand. We got more, but most of ours are half dead and poorly armed. I don’t know how long pure spirit will last. He turned to Tetweiller. You think we got a chance?

  Tetweiller shrugged. We always got a chance. But I’d send half our number against that goddam mountain if I was you.

  Troy spat. I reckon he bleeds like any other man.

  He’s too pretty to bleed. You might just tap milk and honey.

  I aim to find out.

  They halted at the bridge’s base. Troy watched Dwyer, who sat like a statue, hard and unafraid.

  Troy turned his horse about. His voice was already hoarse from shouting, but he did his best. I reckon you see what’s before us. I aim to kill em all, startin with that Goliath up yonder. They got more guns, and they’re better fed. But we got somethin they don’t.

  Shit pants? someone yelled.

  Everyone laughed, even Troy. Some of the tension drained from the horde.

  Troy took a deep breath of smoke-scented air. No. You got your spirit and your pride. It’s your town they aim to flood. These streets they dumped you on? They’re yours. They’ve taken your houses. They’ve chained up your families. Now they wanna take your lives. Well, I say that ain’t God’s plan. I say this is our city, unless we let em have it right here, right now. You gotta pick your road, hoist up your pack, and tote it for the rest of your lives. You gonna roll over and die? Or will you stand with me?

  The Conspirators roared, raising their weapons over their heads. Mordecai Jones fired two shots into the air. Laura Derosier let out a war cry that might have curdled even Stransky’s blood. The sound rolled over Troy and Tetweiller and up the bridge and crashed against Dwyer, who sat solid and stoic before it, as immovable as a continent. Troy turned back toward Dwyer and raised his hand in the air.

  But before he could drop it and spur his horse, Dwyer raised his right arm. His string had disappeared. Instead, he held a white flag. It hung limp on the end of its short pole.

  Troy turned in the saddle and held his flat palm to his troops. Their collective sigh kissed him like a breeze.

  Now that ain’t nice, Tetweiller said. He ruined your speech.

  I reckon he’s impolite.

  A white flag. You think he’s surrenderin?

  I think he wants a parley.

  What do you wanna do?

  See what’s on his mind. If he moves on me, ride him down to the ground.

  Before Tetweiller could reply, Troy spurred his horse.

  Dwyer ambled down the bridge.

  Be careful, Tommy Gautreaux called.

  Troy snorted. That was the most redundant piece of advice he had ever heard.

  They met equidistant between the hordes. Dwyer was expressionless, as if he were watching a particularly dull children’s game. Up close and shirtless, he looked bigger than ever, all muscle and jutting jaw.

  Greetings, Lord Troy, he said. And congratulations. You wanted to be a Troubler. Now you’re the worst traitor in the history of the Bright Crusade.

  Troy spat. And your chin looks like a shovel. You got an offer, or did you just come down to flap your gums?

  Dwyer grinned, his even white teeth looking strong enough to rend bone. I offer a bargain. Personal combat, just you and me. No guns. Only knives and the strength of our flesh. The loser’s troops stand down. I see no sense in slaughtering your people. Only you.

  Troy snorted. Behind him, the stamp of hooves, the murmur of whispered conversations. I reckon you’re used to scarin people with all them muscles, but I’ve faced down nutria bigger than you.

  Then you accept my offer.

  No.

  Dwyer looked puzzled. I don’t understand.

  Troy laughed. If you won, you’d kill everybody anyway. Maybe not with gun or knife, but with water. You want to fight me? Fine. But if you think I’m gonna tell these folks they gotta put their chains back on and die like good little sheep, you’re dead wrong. And I mean dead, mister.

  Dwyer sneered. Cowardice dressed in pretty sentiment.

  In about three minutes, you’ll find out exactly how scared I am.

  Troy turned and rode back, expecting to hear Dwyer’s hoofbeats or the shotgun blast that would kill him. But he reached his host without incident. Dwyer had ridden back to his own column. Troy grinned, ignoring the protests in his stiff knee.

  How’d it go? Tetweiller asked.

  I don’t think he’ll bring me a pie anytime soon, Troy said.

  Tetweiller checked his pistols. You ready for this?

  Troy looked over his shoulder and raised his hand again. On my mark, he shouted.

  The Conspirators roared again. Dwyer’s group answered them. Like two tribes from the world’s birthing, enemies’ flesh caught in their teeth.

  On the bridge, Dwyer shouted to his troops.

  Should have made your speech earlier.

  Troy dropped his hand and spurred the horse, a guttural cry rising in his throat. His followers thundered after him.

  The Crusaders rushed to meet them. The bridge shook and swayed as their voices echoed throughout the city.

  Leading the vanguards on that red and smoking edifice of stone and metal, Troy and Dwyer collided. Their horses crashed and tumbled, throwing them. Troy and the herald flew past each other and skittered along the bridge, bowling down enemies as if they had been launched from cannons for precisely that purpose. Something ripped in Troy’s left shoulder, the pain blinding. His sore knee jerked and twitched. Around him, horse smashed into horse and body into body, every individual sound swallowed in that thundering. Troy groaned and came up firing with his right hand, putting bullets through the heads of the six nearest Crusaders, others dropping as Troublers and Conspirators shot them and tackled them and slit their throats. At Troy’s elbow, a withered and stinking Troubler woman leaped upon a Crusader’s back and clawed the man’s eyes out. He fell to his knees screaming, and she ripped his throat out with her yellowed teeth. Jones fired into the crowd and reloaded and used his horse as a battering ram. Derosier had been unhorsed and was firing with both guns, pistol-whipping Crusaders, screaming like a madperson. Gautreaux’s riderless horse galloped by, blood painting its haunches. Antoine Baptiste fired with one hand and used the other to hack at a guard with a sword, the origin o
f which Troy could not guess. Tetweiller stood in his stirrups fifteen yards away, aiming and shooting, his face composed and serene, a single tear on his cheek. His horse straddled a corpulent body with a long gray beard bearing evidence of three or four meals in its tangles. The chambray shirt no more than rags, holsters empty where once hung two pearl-handled revolvers. The body bled from a dozen gunshot wounds and a deep gash near the heart.

  Aw, Tommy. May the Lord carry you to glory.

  A Crusader armed with a machete decapitated a half dozen skinny, filthy wretches until Baptiste shot him in the chest. Sofronio Blanco, a water bearer who lived on Troy’s street, took a bullet between the eyes not ten yards away. Two Troublers were crushing a guard’s skull with rifle butts when Jevan Dwyer rose behind them and smashed their heads together. They fell, brains leaking from their ears. Someone had slashed Dwyer across the chest, the wound long and red like the tail of a comet, but if it bothered him, he gave no sign. One of Tetweiller’s fighters, a lamplighter named Marcelline Caron, ran at him with a hatchet. Dwyer pulled his double-barreled shotgun from the scabbard on his back and pulled both triggers. Caron flew back the way she had come, her chest and neck and face a mélange of bone and gristle.

  Dwyer saw Troy and smiled.

  A swarm of hornets had burrowed under the skin of Troy’s shoulder, and his knee kept buckling. But he reloaded and shot a Crusader fighting next to the herald. Then he winked at Dwyer.

  The herald roared, his torso running crimson, his shotgun smoking. He raised it and slammed its butt against a female Troubler’s skull. She fell and lay still. Watching Troy, Dwyer stomped the back of the woman’s neck. Troy did not hear her spine break, but her limbs spasmed. She might have been the same woman he had seen only a moment ago, felling Crusaders with her bare hands. Anger rose in Troy’s gullet like vomit, burning his throat. A red haze descended, obscuring everything except the desire to strangle the life from Dwyer. And the herald must have sensed it, for he dropped the shotgun and motioned Troy forward.