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

fanned out up top. They fired, reloaded, fired again. Melton and Glau cowered nearby, their arms about their heads, Melton blubbering. Guns roared from within and without. The injured and the dying bawled and pleaded for help. A woman’s body fell from the wall and landed less than ten feet from Royster. Her blood spattered him and pooled around her still-twitching limbs, her left arm bent at a right angle halfway between the shoulder and elbow. Babb prayed aloud. Every sight and sound seemed farther and farther away, the light too bright. A semicircle of faces looked down upon Royster: Babb, Clemens, Benn, Long, Ford, Boudreaux.

They’re coming, Benn said, mopping sweat from his eyes. Orders, sir?

30

Troy and Stransky reentered the city before dawn, bringing with them two dozen armed troops. They used old, rusty grapples and ropes and scaled the wall between the skeleton crews manning positions along the top, Troy gritting his teeth as his injured knee throbbed. All of them carried sidearms and knives strapped to their belts or hidden in their boots. Some wore shotguns in scabbards on their backs. Inside the wall, chained and emaciated Troublers covered the streets and much of the lawns and lots, but the guards were limited to fixed positions. The usual riders and ambulators had gone to see Royster’s big show. For every guard, fifty or more prisoners. If everyone rose, they could kill these outlanders and take the city. But these folks are starved and dehydrated and half dead. Lord, let em find their spirit once they’re free. Troy’s and Stransky’s troops were dressed in Crusade attire. He did not want to know how they had gotten the tunics, but they worked. Beyond those who saw them come over the wall and grinned their damned grins, the prisoners barely glanced at them. The guards and the pickets nodded or waved or even saluted. No one tried to stop them. They’re lax. And why not? They’ve always won.

Troy’s band ducked into an alley and huddled up. It was time to separate.

Stransky laid a hand on the shoulder of the Troubler nearest her, a man with thick blond hair and a scar on his neck. Y’all goin with Troy—remember that today, an order from him’s as good as one from me. Any questions?

No one had any. The Troubler with the neck scar said, Thanks for choosin me, Lynn.

Stransky waved him off. I figure all I’m doin is gettin you killed. Still, good luck. And good huntin.

Good huntin, they replied.

Stransky took her twelve troops and exited the far end of the alley. Troy looked over his group—eight men and four women, bony and dirty-faced and armed to the teeth, their expressions fierce and angry.

I know we don’t like each other much, he said. But this is our principality, and ain’t nobody gonna drown it while we can still fight. We gotta watch each other’s backs and kill every outlander we see. But unless we get cornered, nobody shoots until we free my deputy. He knows who he’s recruited. They’ll reinforce us. Questions?

Again, no one had any. Troy motioned for them to follow him.

31

Stransky’s posse passed Hobbes’s house once, stepping past and over and around the people in the streets. Every block or so, a single guard, two, a cluster of six sweltered in the damp heat. They were armed with handguns and shotguns. Stransky frowned. Sheee-it. We gotta take em out fast. Still, the numbers looked promising. Surely some of those prisoners could still fight. If her people could overwhelm the guards at one end of a block, they could confiscate weapons and use them against the next group, and if Troy came through, several waves of reinforcements would arrive. Every block they took would bring more weapons, more support.

And if Troy’s troops faltered or betrayed them, at least Stransky would no longer have to tolerate the prisoners’ god-awful smell.

Some guards they passed were clubbing a skinny, filthy man. The victim hung on to their ankles and pleaded for water, no matter how many times they punched him or kicked his ribs or pistol-whipped him. One guard caught Stransky’s eye. He had red hair and carried what looked like a genuine cutlass on his belt. God knew where he had found it. He grinned, his front teeth missing.

If I can find you later, I’ll slit your throat for you, fucknuts. We’ll see how you smile then.

They passed sandbagged corner positions manned by jovial and inattentive guards. In the outlanders’ minds, they were already home. They paid Stransky’s bunch little mind.

Soon she angled across Hobbes’s yard and into his driveway. Two guards at the front door, another two on either side of the house. Probably at least two more in the back yard. The troops on the porch saluted them. Stransky saluted back.

You must have gotten your orders mixed up, said the man on the right. We’re on until dark. Or the evacuation, whichever comes first.

Stransky grinned. Ain’t that the goddam shit?

She drew her knife and buried it in the man’s abdomen and clapped her other hand over his mouth, stifling his scream.

The second guard tried to pull his sidearm, but one of Stransky’s men had already drawn his weapon and jammed it against the man’s testicles. Say one fuckin word and you’ll sing alto for the rest of your short-ass life, the Troubler whispered.

Someone opened the front door. They filed inside, dragging the prisoner and the dying guard with them. Stransky shut the door. Nice and quiet. As long as the others don’t wander around the house, we got a little time. Her people cut both Crusaders’ throats and left them crawfishing on the floor. Then they followed Stransky into Hobbes’s den. The deputy lord sat in a straight-backed chair. He wore his boots and his good sidearms. All around him lay ripped-up floorboards and what Hobbes had hidden under them: a shotgun and rifle on shoulder straps, bandoliers of shells