Maurice Broaddus - King's War

"I didn't have my wise counsel during the planning meeting," King said. "Besides, I got a few surprises left in me."

"Moving on in the face of fear, fighting for what's right, that is the definition of bravery." Merle took King's hand, first as insubstantial as a breeze, then solid as remembered flesh. "It's your cup. Drink its fill and don't be afraid."

King opened his eyes. Merle wasn't there. Lady G struggled on the slate-gray rocks. Her ankle gave out beneath her, but Lott caught her before she fell. Regaining her balance, she absent-mindedly reached for his hand. He took hers without reassurance. Whatever antsy dance stirred in Lott stilled at her touch. She quelled his disconnect.

There was no unhappiness in King. It was their life. She deserved the best. Someone stable, nice, who treats her well. Someone with a future.

"Hawk's out." Wayne broke the tension. "Looks like a storm's moving in."

"'Bout time. Been building for a long time," King said.

"What's the plan?"

"This is it." King gathered them around him. Lott, his right hand. Lady G, his heart. Wayne, his conscience. Percy, his faith. He could walk into Hell knowing they had his back.

"What? We show up," Wayne said. "Ain't but five of us. Ain't like we leading an army."

"Look, Dred's called for a summit meeting. He needed to pull together his whole crew to see what he was working with. It's all his top people plus his crew. They got numbers."

"What we got?" Lott asked.

"Five cold, wet fools," Wayne said.

"Six." A voice came from the underbrush. Lott and Wayne flanked King, ready for an attack. Her hand pulled back the branches, allowing Tristan to come into full view. "If you don't mind the company."

"Where you come from?" Wayne asked.

"Been here waiting. Saw you pull up."

"Waiting for what?" Wayne asked.

"Waiting to figure out my next play."

"What'd you decide?"

"Didn't. You all pulled up. You decided for me." Tristan came alongside them. "Time comes, a person's got to stand tall and do right."

"Way I figure it, we just need to take out Dred."

"Take out?" Tristan gestured a throat-slash.

"No, that crosses a line. But if he can be humbled before his people… challenge him for the right to lead…"

"You ain't exactly one hundred percent there, chief. Why not let Lott? Or Wayne?"

"Because it's my fight."

King no longer knew what was normal. In his gut, he knew exactly what he was doing, but had little idea why he was doing it. Things just needed to play out. All he needed to do was reach Dred, the rest would take care of itself.

At first glance, the greenery formed a smooth, thick grove, fairly impenetrable to incursion. Wayne formed a visor with his hand for closer scrutiny. A section of the undergrowth seemed to dimple. As he neared it the strange play of shadows revealed an entrance. He had traveled this way before. Once, with Outreach Inc. He suspected that the camp wasn't a live camp but a party squat. Towels and random pairs of shorts buried in the mud marked the path. He wasn't but a few meters in before brambles and burrs covered him. An action figure, Pyro — a villain of the X-Men — dangled from a tree. Two chairs — a burgundy car bench from the rear seat of a car and a green vinyl La-ZBoy — were arranged around a set of bookshelves. Like cupboards, the shelves kept clothes, candles, flashlight with a hand crank, and a set of toiletries from a more recent Outreach Inc. visit. A Bible rested on top of all of it. Off to the side, milk crates with toilet seat covers squatted over holes in the ground. Empty bottles of Cobra, Magnum 40, and Miller Lite littered the camp.

"It's like a tower of Babel of beer up in this piece," Wayne said. "Is it just me or is naming your beer 'Magnum' overcompensating?"

The rain increased. The dampness of his clothes irritated Wayne as much as the itch from the burrs, but he tried to keep a good humor about things. He stepped over half-filled bags of trash. The haunted echo of a train whistle blew in the distance. Everyone kept moving in a morose silence, except for the thick crunch of trodden gravel. Twigs snapped, leaves crunched underfoot, branches cracked with commotion as they skulked through the woods. These were city folk, not woodmen. A thin sheen of sweat dappled his brow despite the cooler temperature. One person through the woods was bad enough, but a half-dozen of them wasn't sneaking up on anyone even half-paying attention. Weeds choked off grass, which only grew in spurts and rough patches to begin with. Thickets like knots of foliage. King adjusted his pace so they could more silently make their way through the woods. A grumble of thunder pealed though the skies, refusing to fully open up.

"Down there." King drew aside the intervening growth. Through the barrier of foliage, he pointed toward a swift-flowing stream following a steep hillside of gold, yellow, and brown leaves. A long, secluded drive made worse by the muddy trail as the rain picked up to obliterate their view.

"This is their organizational meeting?"

"A ghetto pep rally," Wayne said.

"Quit playing," King said. "We can make our way closer to hear what's going on and see where we can make our move."

Camlann had the feel of refugee camp, with three-quarters of its occupancy slated to go as lowincome housing, people jockeying for position on the waiting list, each desperate to secure their own welfare, at the expense of neighbors. The Camlann experiment was what spurred talk of the threat to raze Breton Court. After the mysterious — though most suspected arson — fire burned the original Camlann to the ground, it dislocated many homeless squatters. City officials got it in their heads to construct low-income/transitional housing. Unfortunately, no communities wanted such a project in their neighborhood. Tenants worked together or crawled over each other, community leaders looked out for themselves. So the city designated an area near an industrial park as the new potential site. As the grandest of messes, it began with good intentions. The Camlann project was a bureaucratic mess. The city declared eminent domain. Thus the era of tenement housing and abandoned property left to rot ended with a whimper. A new era began, one of re-gentrification, locals pushed out by stingy agencies; inspectors in on the hustle; grant money thrown around; all while media and politicians promised a new day and new opportunities.

The abandoned construction site teemed with a few dozen hard-eyed thugs. Many played around, whooping and yelling. Dred was the last to arrive, cutting through the heart of the throng. Doling out fist pounds and shoulder bumps like a politician working the crowd. A few grumbled that was how they saw him, more politico than soldier. But they were hushed down by the reality of a lot of new vacancies having opened up at the top of their clique.

Dred was the undisputed general, their commander-in-chief. His troops would die for their colors, their crew, little more than urban kamikazes. Not caring if they lived or died, they were one-person suicide bombers. All he had to do was rally them, give them vision, promise money, and have a plan. He could've been a CEO or a politician with his skill set. Instead, he squandered it in blood feuds and magic.

"We ride together, we die together," Dred yelled, calling his meeting to order.

"Look around. See how they do us? They will build new projects to house us and tuck us out of the way so that we ain't inconveniencing anybody by struggling to survive. I don't know about you, but I needs to get mine. I ain't going to be satisfied with hand-outs, told what I can have and when I've had too much. We grew up in this shit. Our cousins, our uncles, our brothers… it's what we do. I'd say our daddies, but fuck 'em. Don't know what they do."