Lord of Order

by Brett Riley

  Royster must have fainted, for he found himself sitting, his head spinning, his vision unfocused. His ears seemed to have been stuffed with cotton. Whatever energy he had found when barking his orders had departed. Babb had wandered off. He sat in the dirt some yards away, ministering to a dying man with a crushed skull. But Gordon Boudreaux knelt beside Royster, and Aaron Listerall loomed over him, calm and expressionless.

  Perhaps I should have made him a deputy. Even Mister Benn begins to doubt.

  Boudreaux did not bother to bow. Aaron Listerall, sergeant at arms from the D.C. principality, the deputy said.

  Royster tried to swallow, his throat a sheet of sandpaper. Gentlemen. The godless have halted our work. We must remedy the situation.

  Listerall was six feet tall and a solid two hundred pounds. He wore long blond hair and a bushy, uncombed beard, a sweat-stained hat, a leather jerkin, knee-high boots, a sidearm, and a knife big enough to gut a bull. These aren’t ragtag guerillas, he said. They’re well armed and strategically situated. If we go after the segment, they’ll cut us to shreds.

  Royster looked at Listerall until the man took off his hat and mopped his brow with the back of his hand, studying the gap, the bullets whining through it, the arrows, the fire. A Crusader plummeted, screaming, from the wall, three arrows buried in her chest. She landed on her back, dust pluming about her and blood erupting from her mouth and burst skull.

  If we can’t keep them out, Royster said, they’ll kill us anyway.

  Listerall nodded. I’ll ready the men.

  He moved away, sending runners to reposition the best shooters on the wall. He led the rest of the nearby Crusaders, between forty and fifty in all, to the gap. Listerall looked back at Royster one last time and raised his arm. When he let it fall, his guards boiled out of the gap, screaming at the tops of their lungs and leaping over their fellows who had already fallen dead or dying from the Troublers’ initial volley.

  34

  Flames licked the wall’s summit in half a dozen places. Crusaders smothered the fire with dirt hauled up in hats, with their drinking water. One man trying to use his own urine took an arrow in the throat. Listerall’s group watched all this with their backs against the last segment. On the other side, he knew, a cluster of Troublers waited for them to make their move. The rest of the Conspirators had taken cover in the tree line, behind lone bushes and rocks and the piles of dirt and debris thrown up during construction, behind overturned Crusade wagons, behind their own horses. The Crusaders on the wall fired six-guns and revolvers and shotguns and hunting rifles and arrows and sniper rifles. Some used slingshots. Some threw grenades. Others pitched glass bottles full of oil with a flaming rag stuffed in the neck. Foliage and vehicles and people burned. Horses screamed. Blood spotted the ground.

  Listerall directed most of his people to take up the abandoned ropes and shattered chains. As they made ready, he gathered his remaining seven men and five women.

  Circle around this thing and clean out the Troublers on the other side, he said.

  If we do, said a man carrying a shotgun and a machete, the heretics in the trees will cut us to pieces.

  Yes, said a woman with brown eyes and a pistol. She stood less than five feet tall and might have weighed ninety pounds. We’re all going to die. Why did we come out here?

  Others in the group nodded and muttered among themselves. They kept glancing back at the wall, likely calculating their odds if they ran.

  Listerall had his six-gun in hand. Now he cocked it and jammed its barrel against the woman’s forehead. She gasped and moved backward. He moved with her. We’re out here because Mister Royster ordered it, he said, looking at her but talking to them all. And if you don’t get moving right now, I’ll kill you myself.

  She shook with fear, but she held his gaze. I didn’t know we were so expendable.

  He laughed. Of course we are. Or they wouldn’t have sent us. Now choose.

  Shotgun-and-Machete stepped forward, staring at Listerall with distaste. We’ll move. Sir.

  The others muttered and glared, but they filed to one end of the segment, waiting. When Listerall nodded, they charged around the corner, shooting. Screams and curses and meaty thunks, probably the machete being put to use. Listerall watched as best he could. Some of the Troublers ran for the trees. One Crusader limped past Listerall, headed for the city, a bullet lodged in his guts. Aided by snipers on the wall, the other eleven fanned out toward the tree line, picking off wounded Troublers. Two of them were shot and fell dead. The rest kept pressing forward, probably burning with battle fever. Two more fell. And three more. Everywhere on that hellish field, the dead and dying lay in pools of their own blood and viscera, limbs blown off, torsos churned into ground meat, skulls shattered, brains puddling out like vomit. Troublers dropped charging Crusaders in midstride and were in turn avenged from the wall with withering fire that ravaged trees, men, women, and horses. Hidden artillery boomed from the woods, spewing foliage onto the field. Seconds later, the shells either hit the snipers’ positions, digging chunks in the wall and vaporizing flesh and bone, or sailed into the city, blowing holes in the earth and tearing horses in half. The last of Listerall’s crew to charge the tree line—the tiny woman with the steady gaze—fell only yards short of the woods. The rest of his crew pulled and yanked on the chains and ropes or worked the rollers, picking them up as the segment passed over them and toting them up front. The section inched forward one tug at a time. Someone tried to bring a team of horses through the gap, but the Troublers shot the animals down and then sighted back in on Listerall’s crew. The air turned sharp and deadly. Acts of great valor and courage on both sides, the kind from which ballads are born, yet none there marked those moments, for all were killing or being killed, drawing the last piece of the wall forward or arresting its progress.

  Finally, Listerall retreated through the gap and knelt beside Royster, his chest heaving, blood from his bullet-grazed temple caking his dirt-smeared and gunpowder-blackened face. I’m sorry, sir, he panted. We can fight them, or we can move that thing, but we can’t do both. We just don’t have the hands.

  Royster’s face was a pale moon, his eyes bruised fruit. Pull your people back. Keep the Troublers outside the wall at any cost.

  Listerall saluted and hurried away.

  35

  Gordon Boudreaux squatted next to Royster. The envoy licked his lips and swallowed with some difficulty. I wonder if you’d do me a service, he said.

  Boudreaux’s expression was blank. I reckon so.

  Royster squeezed his forearm. No one has come to our aid. I fear our comrades have encountered some fell treachery. Yet if we pull any more souls from the wall, we will lose too much covering fire. Therefore, you must ride into town and gather some troops. Enough to drive back those Troublers in the woods. We must finish the wall before the waters come.

  Boudreaux stood and slapped dust from his hat and put it back on. For a moment, he studied Royster, paying special mind to the wound.

  Okay, he said and walked away.

  He caught his horse and mounted up. Royster watched him go until he disappeared in the smoke. Only then did the envoy allow himself to sleep a little.

  36

  Bushrod lay on his belly, watching the gap. He estimated his losses thus far at around fifty. At least another four hundred hid in the trees and natural ditches and foxholes dug out of raw earth. Some sat their horses ten or fifteen yards back of the tree line. Bullets whined through the air in irregular volleys, probably just to keep them honest. One foolhardy bravo rode to the forest’s edge, and a sniper blew him off his horse. The animal neighed and bucked and ran off, uninjured but scared half to death. More sense in the animal than the man.

  We gave better than we got. We could breach with sheer audacity and meet Lynn in the middle. I could bring her Royster’s head. But Troy wants it done right here, with most everybody watchin a
t once, and Lynn’s with him. Well, if the city floods, we ain’t lost nothin. We live on the water anyway.

  Nearby a woman stood and aimed her rifle and caught a bullet between her eyes. She fell over in the dirt and lay still. More food for the insects and carrion birds, one less gun in his arsenal.

  Stay down if you don’t wanna get killed, you knuckleheads, Bushrod shouted.

  Then he hunkered down to wait.

  37

  Long, Ford, Benn, and Clemens rode down I-10. Prisoners sat on the roads unattended, their guards siphoned to one battleground or another. We gotta play this just right, Long thought. As they approached the causeway in Metairie, individual sounds began to separate from the city’s low hum—explosions, gunfire, high-pitched screams of pain, the cacophonous and ancient voice of war. We always come back to this. Hand to hand, knife against knife, who’s the faster draw or which one brought more ammo. It’s as natural as breathin, eatin, comin in outta the rain. Lord of order ain’t right. They should have named me lord of slaughter.

  Something exploded less than a mile away. They reined up. Benn turned pale.

  Clemens spat. Blast the Troublers. They don’t know when to lie down and die. We better get over there.

  Sounds like your people stepped in it, Ford said, shaking his head. LaShanda and me can head to the lake if y’all wanna go get bloody.

  No, Benn said. You two have no authority over our guards. They’re under orders not to blow those levees unless they hear from one of us or they’re being overrun. Clemens, you and I have the levees. You two rally your people. We’ve got to carve a path through the Troublers and get out of town.

  Benn and Clemens spurred their horses and rode lakeward. Ford and Long watched them go for a moment. On the streets, the chained Troublers looked toward the sounds of battle, their faces aglow for the first time in who knew how many months. Hope, or fear?

  We could have just shot em right here, Long said. Like fish in a barrel.

  No, Ford said. In close quarters, it could go either way.

  One of us needs to hunt down whoever’s leadin the fight in the city, in case Gabe and Ernie and Jack are dead. Our people won’t follow Stransky.

  I know.

  You’re the best hunter I ever knew. You take Benn and Clemens.

  Ford saluted as if he had sworn fealty to her and not Gabriel Troy. I wonder if he knows how much that tastes like ashes in my mouth. Or that I’m makin this up as I go. Is that what Gabe’s done all these years?

  You be careful, Ford said. Madame Lord. Before she could reply, he galloped off.

  Chances are good I’ll never see him again.

  She spurred her horse, riding toward the gunfire and the billowing smoke and the misery. They rode past hundreds and thousands of chained and ragged unfortunates—children and grown-ups, filthy and emaciated, the stink of them like something that would draw buzzards, the dead’s legs still shackled to the living’s, fleshy anchors that would pull you to the bottom of the floodwaters as sure as stone. Clusters of Crusaders shifted from foot to foot like puppets whose masters had left them dancing in the wind.

  Soon Long turned a corner and waded into hell. Carnage in the streets and yards, on the stoops of buildings, New Orleanians and freed prisoners stabbing Crusaders with knives and improvised spears, shooting them with bows and arrows, blowing them to pieces with grenades and captured firearms, strangling them with the broken chains of bondage. The guards returned fire. Men and women alike with cut throats, torsos split from groin to sternum. Carrion birds picking at spilled entrails. Children crushing skulls with the butts of liberated pistols and hamstringing guards from underneath the very bellies of Crusader horses.

  Long pulled her pistols. Some of the guards saw her coming and turned, raising their hands in a cheer. Their fists were still in the air when she shot them, trampled their bodies under her horse’s hooves while the chained Troublers and free natives whooped and fell back to slaughtering like fiends loosed from the pit. Long reloaded and let her horse carry her deeper into the battle. Here and there she stopped to send runners throughout the city, there to urge the locals to rise and unchain the Troublers, to slaughter the outlanders, to save New Orleans.

  38

  Ford urged Rachel onward. He took side streets and alleys and yards, leaped over hedges and the heads of Troublers who ducked and covered their skulls with their arms. The Crusaders he passed looked frightened half to death. Most of them had probably never fired a shot in anger and had gotten used to dealing with starving dociles in chains. Ford could have shot half of them, but the deputy envoys took priority. And so he rode and dodged and hurdled, shouting and waving people out of his way. Finally, he rounded a corner and found Benn and Clemens only blocks from the lake.

  He drew his sidearm and fired into the air, shouting their names.

  Benn looked back and said something to Clemens. They reined up and half turned their horses toward him. The animals’ snouts bumped each other as they stamped the road.

  Ford grinned. He spurred his horse. They picked up speed.

  Realization dawned on Benn’s face. The deputy envoy went for his pistol.

  Ford shot him in the stomach.

  Benn howled and fell off his horse, his gun clattering to the ground.

  Clemens’s horse reared, front hooves pawing the air. Rachel plowed into its exposed belly. The outlander’s mount shrieked, a high-pitched sound that was almost human, and fell backward. Clemens skittered fifteen feet across the pavement. Rachel trampled the downed horse. It screamed again, Rachel’s legs tangling in its own. Ford sawed on the reins, and somehow Rachel stayed upright. He sighted in on Clemens, who was trying to regain his feet, his clothes ripped to tatters and hanging off him like a shroud.

  Then a gunshot, and fire ripped across Ford’s ribs. He dropped his pistol and fell. As he landed, he rolled for his gun and grabbed it, his ribs awash in hellfire.

  Clemens stood, empty-handed, legs trembling, his face blank and dazed and half covered in road rash. Still, when Benn’s horse fled past him, Clemens grabbed its saddle horn and swung himself onto its back.

  Ford sat up on the road and aimed, but a shot careened off the pavement near his feet. Benn was sighting in on him with one hand and holding his leaking gut with the other. Ford fired three shots. Two struck Benn in the upper chest, knocking him backward. The third obliterated his throat, blood-spray fanning over the road like mist from a cataract. Benn dropped his weapon and fell onto his back. His feet twitched, and he clawed at his neck, blood geysering and coating the blacktop.

  Ford struggled to stand as Clemens rode toward the lake, swaying in the saddle. Thank God Rachel’s better trained for battle than them Washington horses. She tamped her feet nearby, unspooked. He stumbled over to her, yanked his rifle out of the scabbard, and knelt in the street, sighting in. He fired. Clemens’s horse collapsed on its forelegs and somersaulted twice. The deputy envoy went flying again, flopping across the pavement. Even from the distance, Ford heard something snap like a thick branch. Clemens screamed. The horse crawfished on the road and tried to rise, legs buckling as if it were newly foaled.

  Wound’s throwin me off. I aimed for the man.

  Ford mounted up and shoved the rifle into its scabbard. He reloaded his pistol and snapped the reins. Rachel broke into a run as his ribs protested. His side was slicked with blood.

  Clemens managed to stand again, left arm twisted and pumping blood. Still screaming, he stumbled onward.

  Sweet Father God, Ford said. He’s too stubborn to die.

  When Ford passed Benn’s body, he spat on it. Thin red threads wove themselves through his slaver. Don’t think about it. Just ride. Just shoot.

  Clemens wobbled down the street like a drunk.

  Ford passed Benn’s thrashing horse and shot it in the head without stopping. Rachel’s every clop on the pavement seemed to shift s
omething inside him. One broke rib, maybe more. Lungs filled with broke glass. Don’t think about it. Just ride. Just shoot.

  Clemens looked back and saw Ford and screeched. He broke right and sprinted for the nearest house. Then he kicked in the front door and stumbled inside.

  Ford dismounted near the yard and whispered to Rachel, who bobbed her head as if she understood: If I just mosey up the walk, he’ll blow my head off. Gonna be hard to flank him when he can probably hear me breathin half a mile away. Don’t wanna let him get you either. Two animals dead on this road, no tellin how many more out yonder where the fightin’s the worst. It’s how we always seem to repay you for your loyalty and love. We slaughter you and leave you to rot. I’m sorry, darlin.

  He took the reins and urged Rachel through the yard at an angle, keeping her between himself and Clemens.

  He’s only got the ammo he’s carryin, so he might not fire until he’s got a clear shot.

  As they neared the house, Rachel tossed her head. Her eyes rolled as if she could smell burning gunpowder from the shots that had not been fired yet. Ford gripped the reins hard, ignoring the pain in his left side. Still nothing from Clemens. Perhaps he had fainted or died.

  Five feet from the house, Ford let go of the reins and slapped Rachel’s hindquarters. He flattened himself against the outer wall as she trotted away and stopped in the street, where she turned to watch the drama play out however it would. Ford crept toward the front door. When he reached the picture window, he dropped to his belly and pulled himself along, trailing blood in the grass. His breath sawed in and out, agonizing and hot. He can hear me. I know he can. Might shoot this wall to pieces. Don’t think about it. Just move. After clearing the window, he sat with his back to the wall and scooted along until he reached the door. From inside, Clemens groaned. Ford pulled up his shirt. The bullet had gouged a wedge-shaped chunk out of his side a few inches below the armpit and passed on. A hint of jagged rib bone peeked out. At least the round ain’t in my belly or liver. Thank the Lord. I hope I don’t bleed out before I finish this. He took a slow, deep breath, clenching his teeth against the pain, tears welling. Forget it. Take the door. Kill the man. Then die if you must.