Lord of Order by Brett Riley (the reading list book TXT) 📕

dragging him by the hair, headed for the bridge’s edge. With one hand, Dwyer yanked him to a standing position, as if he intended to pull Troy’s head right off his body. The ex-lord’s scalp tore, spilling runnels of blood down his face.

The herald pointed to the water. Look yonder at the riverbank, he said. See how you have given your life for this city in vain. Dwyer raised his free hand over his head and waved it back and forth. Down on the banks, a man returned the gesture. Then Dwyer made a fist and held it stationary. The man fiddled with something on the levee. Dwyer pulled Troy’s face close to his own. We will destroy those levees. Your city will drown. That is the beauty of the Crusade. Our people give their lives for the greater good. You and yours care only for yourselves, and that is why you fail. Why your triumphs are written in dust, why your hopes are as ephemeral as water in your hand. Watch, Lord Troy. Watch and see.

You’ll die too, Troy croaked.

When you are gone, I shall sound a general retreat. My Crusaders will disengage and flee. We may suffer losses on our way to the wall, but you shall vanish from the earth.

Still fighting Dwyer’s grip with one hand, Troy raised his leg and slipped his hunting knife out of his boot.

Down at the river, the Crusader darted back and forth across the levee. Then he shrugged.

Troy grinned with broken lips. Looks like your man lost somethin.

The herald’s eyes were fiery coals. What did you do?

Troy’s scalp felt as if someone had scoured it with acid and soothed it with pepper. So did his throat. He could not see the herald for all the blood, but he could feel the mass of the man’s body in space.

I didn’t do nothin, he said. But you forgot somethin important.

And what’s that?

I ain’t alone. For instance, you never met Willa McClure. She’s good at doin odd jobs on the sly. Like slippin in while y’all fight us. Findin your ordnance. Tossin it in the river.

Dwyer dropped Troy and braced himself against the guardrail as he looked down on the riverbank. Troy struggled to his feet. Now six or eight figures stood in a circle over Dwyer’s man, beating him with sticks, ax handles, the business ends of hoes and rakes. The Crusader lay as still as the grave.

Damn you to hell, Dwyer whispered.

Maybe I’ll see you there.

And then Troy lunged and jammed the hunting knife in Jevan Dwyer’s gut, all the way to the hilt.

Dwyer’s eyes widened. His jaw clenched. Cords stood out in his neck. He grunted.

Troy grasped the knife’s handle with both hands and yanked upward, despite the sunburst of agony in his shoulder joint. Amid the din, the squelch of ripping flesh. Blood gushed over Troy’s hands, his forearms, his pants.

Dwyer moaned, a sound that seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon, and glared at Troy, teeth bared. Then he wrapped his hands around Troy’s throat and squeezed, thumbs driving into the suprasternal notch.

The day grew faint again. Sounds faded, only Troy’s own heartbeat strong and clear. He croaked and sputtered and tried to draw breath. He lost his knife. Such strength, as if Dwyer could have crushed stone. Troy fell to his knees, grasping at the herald’s hands, trying to pry the fingers from his throat, but he had little strength in one arm, and his hands were slick with blood. The herald followed him down, his weight inexorable and crushing. The light was leaving the world. Troy drove his open palm into Dwyer’s nose, snapping it. For a moment, the herald’s grip loosened, and he swam into focus, his teeth red. Then he bore down again. Troy had spilled Dwyer’s guts on the pavement, but the herald was still too strong. Troy’s arms fell to his sides, dead weight.

And then a jerk, and the fingers slipped from his throat.

Troy gasped, barely able to brace himself before he fell face-first onto the bridge. He looked up.

The herald’s eyes were wide, unseeing, disbelieving. More gore spouted from his neck.

Then his head tipped to the left and tumbled off his shoulders. The body collapsed onto Troy, pumping blood directly into his face. The herald’s weight was like a boulder.

Throat on fire, lungs aching, Troy turned to the side and sucked in air, and then he rolled Dwyer off of him, his knee and shoulder protesting. The herald landed on his back, links of intestine dangling from the abdomen. The head lay nearby, mouth open as if surprised, tongue protruding. Troy sat up.

Ernie Tetweiller held a broadsword in both hands, its tip against the pavement, the blade dripping blood. Beyond him, men and women and children slaughtered each other, treading on the bodies of the fallen.

Troy tried to thank Tetweiller, but his croaking voice was unintelligible. Everything hurt, the accumulated trauma of the past weeks nestling in his muscles and bones. Tetweiller tossed the broadsword on top of Dwyer’s body and reached into his poke. He pulled out Troy’s pistols, holding them by their barrels. Troy nodded but held up one hand, palm outward—Wait.

He dug through the herald’s pockets and found the colored string, balling it in his fist as he stood. He leaned over the side of the bridge and dropped it. The string fluttered in the air, stretching out and out as if some invisible hand were pulling it, molding it into new and alien shapes. It wafted on the breeze until it hit the river. When it disappeared, Troy turned, his body screaming with every movement, every breath.

Tetweiller appraised him. You look like hell.

Thanks, Troy croaked. He raised his eyebrows. A broadsword?

Tetweiller looked at the blade. It was almost six feet long from grip to tip. LaShanda said Dwyer loved em, the old man mused, and somebody dropped this one out yonder a piece. When I seen the herald tryin to squeeze your noggin off, it seemed