Wolves (49 page)

The boatman stands to the side, offering no help to his passengers as they gather their things and disembark. More people coming from the opposite side of the river. A flood of them.

Huxley watches a family walk past him, and he holds his breath, as though the man will suddenly stop and turn in fear and scream bloody murder at the sight of Huxley. Bleat like a sheep when it realizes that the wolf is among them.

But they pass by and they do not give Huxley a second look.

Huxley strides to the boat, raises his hand incrementally to garner the boatman's attention. “How much for a crossing?”

The boatman is short, well muscled, but with a paunch hovering over his stomach. His forearms bulge and ripple as he grips the rope. A man that works with his hands, and has worked with his hands his entire life. He is sweating despite the cold wind coming off the water.

“You want to cross to the eastern side?” there is an amused quality to his voice.

“Yes.”

“Well, you're a rare prize.”

Huxley understands what he means. He has been ferrying people from east to west all day. No one wants to go west to east. The return trip is an unpaid waste of his time, and yet the only way he can make money is to pull himself back to the east bank.

“Why isn't anyone going east?” Huxley asks.

The boatman doesn't want to lose the only west-to-east fare he's had all day. He just shrugs noncommittally, though Huxley can see something like worry behind his eyes. “Cost for a crossing is one-and-a-quarter.”

Huxley looks across the water to the city of Vicksburg on the other side. There is nothing obviously wrong. No reason why people would be fleeing that city. But does it really matter? There is nothing that could be said to him now that would keep him on this side of the river. Not even the exorbitant cost of the crossing.

He opens his coin satchel. “Seems steep,” he observes.

“Busy day,” the boatman says with a sigh. “Everyone else is charging one-and-a-half. You can feel free to check, but I'll be gone by the time you make your way back.”

Huxley gives him the whole piece, and a quarter piece, and then climbs on.

The trip across takes less than ten minutes. On the other side, the riverbank is steeper and has no sandy shore. Here there are old wooden docks, and some new ones, that jut out from the muddy banks just far enough for people to be able to climb down onto the boat. The one that Huxley's boat finds is only a few yards off the shore.

The shore is filled with refugees. They stand in one big mass in the center, and trickle out into lines that form at the start of the docks, waiting for another ferry. Refugees, most definitely, but whatever they are fleeing from, they do not seem particularly urgent.

Huxley mutters his thanks to the boatman who says nothing in return. He climbs the dock and moves along it with his head down, shouldering past the families that press in with all their belongings, trying to be next in line.

The boatman calls out behind Huxley, “You four are next? Five? I can't take five. Not unless you ditch your bags. I can come back for one, or for the bags, but that'll cost you extra. Two pieces to cross,
per person
. Three if you want me to come back for your bags.”

They want to cross. The boatman knows it. There are far more refugees than there are boatmen. Why cut a deal when you can force them to pay? One piece seems like an expensive trip. Three is robbery. But Huxley looks over his shoulder and sees the family pulling out the necessary gold.

Huxley continues on until he is most of the way through the crowd. He sees a pair of men. One is old, hair white, beard white. The other is young, a boy really. Not much older than Lowell. A grandfather and grandson, perhaps. Or a tradesman and his apprentice. Huxley cannot tell. They don't have anything with them that identifies what they are. But they seem unassuming. Harmless. That is why Huxley stops beside them.

“Why are you going west?” Huxley asks the older man.

The old man has sharp eyes and a jutting chin. Not many teeth left. “You don't know?”

Huxley remains silent.
I wouldn't be asking if I did … 

The old man snorts. “Don't know what rock you just came from under.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder. “The EDS armies are pushing east. And it seems like they have help.”

“There's a dozen towns that have risen up against the council!” the boy says excitedly. “They're siding with the EDS!”

The old man glares at the younger. “Hey. Don't talk out of your ass. You're exaggerating and you need to think about
the ears.
You don't know who the hell is listening, so you be careful what you say.”

The boy mutters an apology.

The old man looks at Huxley again. “There've been rumors about EDS guerrillas, embedded in …” a sharp glance at the boy “… 
a few
towns and cities along the border. They all picked last night to start up, and the rumor going around is that our … 
honorable
Councilman Murphy's scouts have caught sight of what they think is a large EDS force, moving toward Jackson. Where, as you might suspect, the majority of the guerrilla groups are rising up.”

Huxley's heart takes one beat, then stops for a few seconds. His breath is stuck in his chest.

The old man doesn't seem to notice Huxley's reaction. He continues on. “Whole borderlands have turned into a goddamned mess. Most of us are farmers, but I know a lot of these poor bastards are from Jackson. I hear Old Town Jackson is a war zone. Don't know if the main EDS force has got there yet, but the guerilla fighters have taken to the streets with bands of local rebels that apparently have a bone to pick with the Murphys. Not that I ever had a problem with Councilman Murphy or any of his people. Just repeating what I've heard.” The old man looks at Huxley. “You alright, son?”

Huxley tries to swallow, but finds his mouth dry.
Jackson is under attack. If Murphy falls, what happens then? What happens to the slaves? What happens during the fighting?

His window of time abruptly seems smaller.

It's slipping away. It's all slipping away.

He swallows, this time finding some moisture in his mouth.

If it's slipping, then hold on tighter.

He looks at the man. Focused. Intense. “What about the Murphy Township?”

“Eh?” the old man quirks an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“Will it hold? Will they evacuate? Will they run or try to put it under siege? Can it even withstand a siege? And if so, for how long?”

The old man frowns. “Hell, I told you, I'm just a farmer. Ain't got no clue about war or walls or sieges or nothing like that. If you're asking my humble opinion, then I'd say that Councilman Murphy'll hold on to his township until he's dead. I've heard he's stubborn like that. Won't be any evacuation. As for how long it'll hold? Ain't no walls. Just sticks and tires and guns. It'll be a hellacious fight, but I don't think it'll last long. Day or so.” He smiles. “Why? You plannin' to vacation in Jackson? Might want to make different plans. Place'll be burned to the ground by the time you get there.”

“I hope it does,” the boy murmurs.

“Hey!” the old man backhands the boy in the face. “Watch your mouth. I already told you once.
Ears
, Jason.
Fucking ears.
”

The boy looks more irritated than hurt.

“Thank you,” Huxley says absently, then turns to walk away. He speaks out loud to himself, his mind running in a million different directions, suddenly lost in the scenarios, in the possible outcomes, in the sudden shifting of everything: “I need a horse.”

Chapter 7

It is almost evening. The wind has turned into Huxley's face as he rides, as though the Riverlands themselves are trying to beat him back. He hunches into it, his eyes watering at first, and then drying out, his nostrils burning with chill, his mouth gumming and drying. But he keeps going. Nothing has stopped him yet. Not the miles, nor the things and people and elements that have lain between the desert that he came from and this landscape of towns and fields and people.

He is a stone, rolling down the mountain.

There is no stopping until it reaches the bottom.

The horse between his legs is a powerful animal, but it cost him almost every gold piece left in his satchel, all into the hands of the price gouger at a public stable in Vicksburg. “There is war on the horizon,” the stablekeeper says to him, defensive of his high prices. “The price of everything is going up.”

Huxley had only kept enough to pay for the passage back. And he hoped … he hoped there would be a passage back. Huxley doesn't squabble. There isn't time for it. And besides, the horse is fast, and that is all that matters. But even this horse, a good horse, and an expensive one, is nearing its limit. Huxley was able to ride for the first half hour out of Vicksburg before stopping to let the horse breathe. He is down to ten-minute increments, but the sky is changing, he notices, and he knows that he is getting closer to Jackson.

The road is now packed with people.

This countryside is crammed with towns and hostels and inns, both newly constructed and made from large houses left over from the Old World. There are fields, but not the sad, weedy things with twelve-year pines growing sporadically through them like he is used to seeing. These are fresh fields, fresh tilled, some of them with winter wheat sprouting like a green fuzz on the landscape.

These are rich lands. Wealthy owners.

And all these little towns, all these little places where people are living in this relative gentrification, they are emptying out onto the street, a long line of refugees plodding their way westward on the road, fleeing from what is behind them.

What is ahead of Huxley.

Cresting a hill, the horse flags beneath him again and he loosens the reins and lets her walk. And at the very top, he stops, momentarily forgetting himself as he stares across a countryside like none he's ever seen. This is some cataclysmic blending of the Old World and the new. Concrete and steel meeting flame and black powder.

War has come to the Riverlands.

Here at the top of the rise, everything rolls out in front of him. It is like three distinct stages, set adjacent to each other, and each a little farther away from Huxley than the previous. The first is a patchwork of fields. Huxley can see that this is once where suburbs had sprouted up, but all the people that lived in those houses are dead, and their houses were razed to the ground and plowed over. Still, the old neighborhood streets stand as testament to what was there once, little gray lines coursing through everything. The faltering sun glows golden down on this stage, as though it is separate from the others.

The next stage is something that Huxley must assume is the Murphy Township, growing out of the western side of Old Town Jackson. This looks red in the sunlight. There is a wall around the entire thing, and inside there are clusters of houses, new and old, and there are buildings made of redbrick and they seem pristine from this distance. Huxley can feel the pride of this place, the Township on a good day, bustling with business, watched over by its councilman, its namesake. It is massive, expansive, a proclamation of the power and wealth that Councilman Murphy wields.

But this is not a good day for the Murphy Township, and the power and pride of it seems washed out, like watching a great man go pale with fear. It sits in the shadow of the third stage, and this is what looks like Hell. This is what tells Huxley that minor spats are over with and an offensive has begun.

Old Town Jackson is on fire. All of it, as far as Huxley can see. The buildings blaze, their walls black, their windows twinkling with firelight that Huxley can see even from his vantage point five or six miles away. Great gouts of smoke are pouring into the sky, like gravity has been reversed and the city is dripping streams of black, black blood from a thousand different wounds, up into the heavens where they pool and mix with the night that creeps in from the east. The streets flash every so often, and even from this distance Huxley can hear the reports of massive explosions, and he can see the clouds of gray and black smoke mushrooming up from the streets where the flashes came.

The land, the township, the cityscape. Three different stages. All sprawling out, filling Huxley's whole view of the world like they are all that is in it. And that is not far from the truth. The rest of the world is just a distant afterthought. What occurs now, what
matters
now, is what happens in those scenes.

Five or six miles.

Even with the horse almost blown, he could be at the edges of the township in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. What would happen in that short time? Right now, right at this moment, the Murphy Township stands untouched by the burning city right beside it. But how long would that last?

Not long.

He spurs his horse's flanks before he can think about it again.

You're a stone, rolling down a mountain.

You cannot be stopped.

The horse tears down the side of the hill, grunting and snorting violently, its belly heaving with the giant breaths it takes. Huxley focuses on that. He focuses on the feeling of speed, and he ignores all the faces of the people that watch him as he flies by, all these people fleeing the city, fleeing the township, wondering what madman would willingly enter into that bleeding, broken, burning heart.

The road flattens out. The horse's pace flags again. Huxley doesn't let it slow. He keeps yelling into its ear, spurring it in the sides. A pack of armed men with sigils on their arms watch him pass. Soldiers, perhaps? Huxley cannot tell, but they make no move to stop him. Huxley hopes that if he keeps moving urgently enough, no one will suspect his real business. Perhaps they think … 

It gives Huxley an idea. Half-cocked and spur-of-the-moment.

But better than nothing.

Around him, the fields made from neighborhood plots sprawl out around him, the very same ones that he had seen from the hill. He follows the line of people, not straying from the main road. He figures that they are all coming out of the township, and he notes that they are women and children. The men have likely been conscripted to fight.

If the township is bleeding refugees, then the gates are open.

Please, please, let the gates be open.

The road curves northward and then straightens again. Here the stream of refugees becomes a trickle. The last few leaving the gate, fleeing while men with weapons, bearing the sigils of Councilman Murphy, escort them out, yelling at them to speed up. They are trying to close the gates.

Up ahead, Huxley can see the squat walls of the Murphy Township looming in front of him.

A few stragglers, eking out of the gate.

“Come on,” Huxley says to the horse. “Come on!”

When Huxley is still a hundred yards away, he sees what looks like the last family leaving the township. They huddle together as they run and the gates are manned by two guards who wave them past with urgency and then begin to pull the heavy gates closed.

“Wait!” Huxley yells, because he can't think of anything else.

They'll know. They'll know who you are.

But he is a hooded rider with half his face in bandages. How would they know?

The guards at the gate look at him when he yells at them, and they hesitate.

That is all he needs. He doesn't slow his horse, but the horse slows itself, seeing the gates growing in its vision. Instinctively, Huxley ducks as they pass under the catwalk that guards the gates. It is far over his head, but it feels like it will lop it off at the speed he is going.

His pure audacity has shocked them. The two guards stand beside the gates, and they watch him and his horse shoulder through.

“Hey!” one of them yells, but still doesn't make a move.

“Message!” Huxley blurts.
If I act official, they will think it's official.
“Message for the councilman!”

Huxley doesn't stop to talk with them. His shouted explanation is carried behind him and the horse gallops through. He hunches over the nape of the beast's neck, wondering if bullets will start to wing in his direction. He doesn't dare to look back because it might make him look guilty.

There is shouting behind him.

Don't stop. Maybe it's not for you.

He doesn't know where he is going. This is a maze of streets, but he can see something conspicuous ahead of him and he knows, just like any grid of streets, that he can eventually make it there if he keeps it in sight. It is what looks like a tall condominium complex. It overlooks all these dilapidated houses and it has the feel of a castle set amongst the town.

That is where they are. That has to be it.

He winds his way through the streets, left, then right, then left, then right again, trying to keep the tall complex in front of him. Groups of men with rifles watch him gallop past, but they say nothing. If he was not stopped by the guards at the gate, his business must be legitimate.

His ruse is at least partially effective.

How long it can continue, Huxley doesn't know.

He doesn't care. He's the stone on the mountainside.

He will keep going until they try to stop him. And then he will shoot. And he will shoot until he is out of bullets. And then he will stab. And when he cannot stab, he will bite and claw. But he will move forward. Until he is dead. That will be the only thing that stops him.

All around him are houses. Turned into businesses. Turned into brothels. Turned into auction houses. Turned into taverns. What once had been suburbs with quiet streets and joggers and lawnmowers—the picture is so clear in his head—now some strange, mixed-up cityscape, except that it is empty. All the stands, all the stalls, all the businesses are abandoned.

The storm has come
, these streets say to Huxley.
The storm is here.

In front of him, the houses-turned-businesses are suddenly gone. The complex towers up in front of him—not tall by Old World standards, because it is only five or so stories tall. But in a world built with sticks and boards and scrap, anything over two stories seems a skyscraper. It is all dark-hued brick, like it has been painted with old dry blood. The image sticks with him.

There are balconies. Guards on those balconies.

It is surrounded by a wrought iron fence—an affectation of safety when in fact it is only a mild deterrent. Wrought iron fence, wrought iron spikes, and a three-foot-tall section of brick below. A large, gated entrance.

The wrought iron gate is closed.

Barred.

Guarded.

Fuck.

Huxley reins in his horse as he comes close to the gate. “Message for the councilman!”

The guards are alarmed with how quickly he's come upon them.

Two guards. Plus the guards on the balconies.

One of the guards holds his rifle across his chest, a breechloader like the ones that Huxley stole. “What's that now?” he demands. “What are you doing here?”

Huxley waves violently at the complex that towers over them. “A message! I have an
urgent
message for the councilman!”

The guard looks more irritated than anything. “Who from?”

Huxley spits out the first thing that comes to him. “From the chairman.” He tries to sound official. “Open the gates, immediately.”

The guard looks him up and down.

A hooded man with burn wounds on a blown horse belonging to a public stable.

No sigils. Certainly none to identify himself as a courier from the chairman.

This is bad. This was a bad idea.

The guard reaches his hand out. “Give the message to me. I'll deliver it.”

Huxley feels his pulse heavy in his throat. Like his heart is pushing ball bearings instead of blood. His eyes flit up to the balconies, but the balconies are on the front of the complex, and the gate is inset between two of the buildings. The guards on the balconies are not visible.

The guard's hands work rapidly in a
give me
gesture. “The message?”

This was a bad idea.

But it's too late to turn back.

You are a stone rolling down a mountain.

“Sir,” the guard's voice bears an edge. “Do you have a message or not?”

“Yes,” Huxley meets his eyes. “You can have the message.”

He reaches into his wool coat with his right hand. Draws the revolver from his waist and shoots the guard between the eyes. The roar of the weapon is deafening. Much louder than the ball and cap. The cartridge is fast, and powerful, and the projectile is large.

The upper half of the guard's head disappears.

The other guard jumps, watches his friend fall, rather than watching Huxley.

Huxley shoots that man, the first big bullet ripping his pelvis apart. He collapses, screaming. Huxley thumbs the hammer back and puts an end to him with a round to the chest.

The sound of his own thunderous gunshots echoes back to him.

“Shit!” Huxley stands up in the saddle, revolver still in hand. “Shit,” he strains the words out. “Shit, shit, shit …”

There are shouts. From the balconies. From the complex.

How many guards?

More than me. More than I can kill.

What did you do? You reckless fool.

No time. Keep rolling.

He grabs the top of the wrought iron spires, one foot still holding him up in the stirrup to give him extra height. He hauls himself up and rolls his side and his back across the spikes. His heavy wool coat blocks them from piercing him, but they jab mercilessly at his ribs, his wounded side, his spine. And then a piece of his coat catches and twists his body around at the last moment. He flails, falls, six feet to the ground, solidly on his back.