Fate of the Free Lands

by Jack Campbell

  With night falling, Jules had to wait until the next morning to cross. This far from a city there were no bridges crossing the river, and only a fool would try to swim across the wide and swiftly flowing Ospren. That left ferries, which only operated during the day. Blending in with the morning traffic across the river should allow her to cross without being spotted.

  She gazed at the passing boat traffic, wishing she could safely hitch a ride on one of the boats or barges riding the river’s current west to the sea. But as she looked across the river, Jules saw two figures in Mage robes pacing along the north bank. They weren’t looking her way, and probably would have trouble spotting her amidst all the other traffic on the highway, but Jules still hastily looked away and as she kept walking tried to keep other people or wagons between her and the river.

  The sun had set by the time she reached a ferry crossing, and the inns gathered along the road to cater to those who had to wait through the night for the morning ferries to begin conveying people and wagons over the river. Jules sized up the inns, discounting the well-lit exterior of what was clearly the most expensive. A covered carriage already stopping there bore a small flag on a post to indicate it was transporting Mechanics. She didn’t want to risk encountering any Mechanics. But the cheapest inn, barely illuminated, offered its own potential hazards to her health and safety if she slept there.

  That left the in-between inn, which seemed nice enough to trust the food and lodgings, but not so nice that common rooms would be brightly lighted and cater to the sort of Imperial officials who’d love to spot Jules and turn her in.

  Despite hoarding the money she’d taken off the thief in Landfall, there was little left. Setting aside enough to pay for ferry passage the next day, Jules had enough to pay for the meal in the inn’s great room. She sat in a corner, gnawing on beef that had been roasted so long it was dry as well as tough. Some farmer’s ox had probably given up the ghost recently and ended up on a roasting spit. But for someone who’d grown used to salt pork on ships, a type of meat that could be easily mistaken for hardwood, the beef was good enough, especially when there was plenty of cheap watered wine to wash it down.

  Keeping her hat pulled low to discourage anyone from trying to talk to her, Jules listened to the conversations around her, much of it concerned with mundane issues like a broken wagon, the price of a trained plow-horse, the latest Imperial household scandal, and griping about Mechanics and their treatment of commons.

  “I don’t know where they’re selling them, but they’re buying all I can make,” a metal smith commented, one of her reddened hands raising a celebratory beer. “Used to be hardly anyone needed new ones.”

  “Sounds like a lot of building going on somewhere,” her companion commented. “Is the stuff going north?”

  “No. I send it down the river to Landfall. Where it goes from there doesn’t matter to me.” The smith frowned, her expression growing unhappy. “But both of my apprentices are making noises about heading west. Why, I ask them? And they give me some nonsense about being able to decide things for themselves.”

  “From all I hear,” the companion said, “the Great Guilds are in the west, too. Why go there when they’ll just lord it over us the same as they do here?”

  Jules noticed a large woman in traveling gear come in with a snort of disgust that filled the room as she sat down. “Beer!”

  “What’s it this time, Lil?” one of the wait staff asked, greeting her like a regular customer.

  “Mages,” Lil grunted.

  A large portion of the room fell silent, other conversations stopping to hear what Lil said. “Mages?” one asked. “I haven’t seen any here for a few days.”

  “They’re all north of the river,” Lil said. “I crossed over on the last ferry of the day, and had to walk past a handful of Mages watching everyone. If you’re going north across the river tomorrow, count on having their eyes on you.”

  After a pause, someone else spoke up. “I thought they’d taken over Landfall. What’re they doing here?”

  “Looking for her,” Lil said, gesturing toward a poster on one wall. “What do you think?”

  Jules looked, seeing one of the wanted posters with a drawing of her face on it. Fortunately, this room was dark enough and crowded enough that no one was bothering trying to look under the brim of her hat.

  Whatever else Lil had planned on saying was interrupted by other new arrivals, three men whose leather armor, short swords, and whips at their belts advertised their occupation as Imperial prisoner guards. Jules, like most of the others in the room, covertly watched the three take a table. Imperial citizens who were neither wealthy nor powerful learned early in life not to attract attention from even such minor servants of the Emperor.

  Conversations slowly began to build again, still a low murmur. Jules tackled her beef, wondering if she should pay for another flask of ale and leave herself broke except for the ferry fare.

  “Pirates.”

  Jules almost jerked her head up at the word, catching herself barely in time and raising her gaze just enough to view the big man who was the leader of the prison guards.

  “Hauling pirates to Marandur,” he boasted to one of the wait staff.

  “Pirates?” she repeated, not seeming all that impressed. “Why didn’t they just hang them in Landfall?”

  “I dunno. We’re just delivering them.”

  Pirates. Prisoners on their way to Marandur. Jules chewed her meat slowly, realizing that they could be from her ship, the Sun Queen. What if they were? But they were being guarded, and were probably chained. And on the north side of the river, watching all of the traffic crossing on the ferry, were Mages. They’d apparently once again gained some foreknowledge of where she was going. But not enough foreknowledge to bring them to this inn, fortunately.

  The only route that offered a decent chance of escaping was still to the north, though. This side of the Ospren River offered too few ports aside from Landfall itself. Getting through the Mages wouldn’t be easy, but if she didn’t she’d be trapped between the desert Waste and the river. That was a big area, but there’d be a lot of Imperials looking for her, as well as Mages once they realized she hadn’t crossed.

  Nonetheless, the only smart thing, the only prudent thing, would be to leave this inn and head south, away from the Mages and the eyes of Imperial servants who used the main highway. Surviving another encounter with Mages wouldn’t be easy. And she shouldn’t risk everything to help pirates who very likely weren’t from the Sun Queen.

  As she thought about that, she realized that she’d already made up her mind. Jules dropped a few coins on the table to cover her meal, standing up not too fast and not too slowly. Aside from a couple of glances her way, no one else in the great room seemed to notice or care that she was leaving.

  Hunching her coat around her as if cold, Jules walked out into the courtyard and past the lantern at the inn’s door. She stood in the starlit open, looking about.

  Over by the stables, a wagon stood, its distinctive shape unmistakable even in the dark. Two thirds of the wagon’s bed was given over to a cell of crisscrossing iron bars just tall enough to hold prisoners inside if they sat rather than stood. Two horses which must have been pulling the wagon had been unhitched and were at a water trough.

  Jules walked toward the prison wagon, taking out her dagger and sliding it up one sleeve where she could get at it very quickly. Her arm that had been cut by the Mage’s knife back in Landfall was still stiff and sore, but not enough so to hinder her movement too much.

  What was she doing? Stupid. Don’t take the risk.

  But she kept walking, as she got closer seeing two more prison guards at work on the horses, probably rubbing them with curry combs to remove the mud and dust of the road. Two guards outside, three inside. A hand of five, just as the legions liked to do things.

  She could also see the vague shapes of the prisoners still inside the cell on the wagon, packed in closely. It looked like the gu
ards weren’t planning on letting the prisoners out during stops like this.

  Make a plan, Jules told herself. But how? She had to take out both of these guards without making enough noise to be noticed.

  One of the guards noticed her as Jules came closer, watching her with an expression unreadable in the dark. “You need something?” he asked, sounding as if he didn’t care about the answer.

  Jules kept walking at a steady pace, one hand cupped to keep her dagger up the sleeve of her coat. “I hear these prisoners are pirates,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  The second guard came over, wiping one wrist across his forehead to clear sweat. “You shouldn’t get too close to the cell. They can reach out a little,” he warned Jules.

  “They’re not eating?” she asked.

  “Nah. They ate before we left Landfall. They’ll live until we reach Marandur.”

  “Animals,” the first guard said, spitting to one side.

  Those words both decided her on what to do and gave Jules an idea. “I hate pirates. They…killed my father. Can I spit on them?”

  “Sure.”

  She walked a few more steps, both guards coming close to her. Jules saw one of the male guards eye her body up and down and then grin at his comrade.

  Pausing about half a lance from the cell on the wagon, Jules saw the prisoners gazing back at her. The dark made it hard to see any detail, but she could still sense their apathy born of exhaustion and lack of hope. None of them looked at all familiar, an immense relief since that meant they weren’t off the Sun Queen. But now that she’d seen them, she couldn’t just walk away.

  One guard stood on each side of her.

  She let the dagger drop into her hand, gripping it ready to use.

  “Why does that prisoner have that?” Jules asked, pointing toward the cell with her free hand.

  “What?” Both guards took half-steps closer to the wagon, peering at the cell. “Which one has what?”

  Jules side-stepped a little, so she was behind the guard on her right, her hand coming up and around to draw the dagger blade across his throat.

  She stepped back toward the second guard as the first fell, clutching at his throat. Prison guard armor didn’t have neck protection, allowing Jules to ram her dagger blade into the second guard’s throat, who had turned toward her while he was still trying to grasp what had happened to the first guard.

  She got her free hand across the guard’s mouth, muffling his frantic gasps as he died.

  The nearby horses raised their heads, their upper lips curling, as the scent of blood reached them, but aside from shuffling about a little stayed quiet.

  Lowering the guard’s body to the ground, Jules looked about, seeing no one else in the courtyard.

  Now what?

  “Where are the keys?” she whispered to the prisoners.

  They were staring at her, their eyes shining in the dim light cast by the stars. “The boss has them,” one said. “He’s inside.”

  The other three might come out at any moment. Her only chance of taking them out quickly and quietly was by surprising them as she had the first two. Jules sized up the two dead guards, hauling one around to the back of the wagon. Stooping to lift the body, she sat it back against the cell. “Hold it up so he looks like he’s taking a break,” she told the prisoners.

  They could only reach out their lower arms between the bars of the cell, but that was enough. Jules yanked the short sword and dagger from the guard’s belt and passed them to the prisoners. “Use these if you get a chance.”

  She went back to the other body, hauling it around so the wagon was between her and the entrance to the inn. This guard had been about her size, so the armor and clothes should fit. She pulled off the armor, shirt and pants, peeling off her own clothing and hastily donning the prison guard attire.

  Setting the leather helm atop her head to help hide her face, Jules came back around to the other side of the wagon, trying to get her breathing back under control.

  “Who are you?” one of the prisoners whispered.

  “I heard you’re pirates,” Jules murmured in reply. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. We were on the Evening Star.”

  “The Evening Star?” She’d heard of that ship. “Captain Orin?”

  “Orin was our captain, yeah. He was killed when the Imperials took our ship. So were a lot of others. We’re all that lived.”

  “Why didn’t they kill you, too? Why are they taking you to Marandur?”

  “I think it’s about that chart,” the prisoner said. “We picked it up at Dor’s. They wanted to know where we got it. It shows lands out west, and another sea.”

  “I know,” Jules said.

  “You—?”

  The prisoner fell silent as the door to the inn opened and the leader of the prison guards came strolling out, picking at his teeth with one finger. “The other two’ll be out and then you go eat,” he said. “You finished on them horses?”

  Jules nodded, not saying anything.

  The leader’s eyes fell on the body sitting in the wagon. “What the blazes are you doing, stupid? Never put your back to ‘em that close to the cell!” He walked quickly toward the wagon.

  Jules followed. Just before they reached the wagon, she jumped, hitting the leader in the back and sending him stumbling into the side of the cell, his head hitting one of the bars.

  “Wha—?” the leader got out, before Jules pinned him chest first against the cell, her free hand going over his mouth, her dagger going into his back.

  She wasn’t able to hit his heart from behind at this angle, and worried the leader might struggle, but he jerked a couple of more times, shuddering before going limp.

  Stepping back, Jules saw that the prisoners had made good use of the short sword and dagger they’d been given, stabbing the leader in the front as she held him from behind. Stooping, she found the ring of keys at his belt.

  “We’ve got two more to worry about,” she hissed at the prisoners as she fumbled for the right key and got it into the lock of the cell. Opening it, she pointed to the prisoner who’d done all the talking so far. “You’re about the size of that guy. Get his outfit on you. And you, strip this one and put on his armor.”

  “Manacles,” the first prisoner said, pointing to his ankle.

  Cursing, Jules got the manacles loose, tossing the keys to the other prisoners. “Get yourselves free, but stay inside that cell until we get rid of the last two guards.”

  The two newly released prisoners came around the side of the wagon, still fastening their sword belts, as the last two guards exited the inn.

  “Go on, then,” one of them said as he got close. “Hey, you’re—”

  His words choked off as a short sword went into his gut and an arm came around his back and across his neck to stifle any sounds he made.

  That left Jules to handle the second guard. She thrust at him, but to her surprise instead of fighting or fleeing, he dropped to his knees, waiting for the blow.

  She halted her attack, watching him. “Do you want to die?”

  “I’m tired,” he said.

  The first prisoner, wearing the armor of the guard leader, came over. “He was the only guard who was decent to us,” he told Jules. “Seemed like he didn’t enjoy his work.”

  The guard looked up at them defiantly. “I got in debt, and was sentenced to Imperial service to work it off. It would’ve been fine if they’d made me a legionary, but instead I got this job, hauling people to work gangs who’d had the same misfortune as me but hadn’t been as lucky.”

  “How’d you like to live?” Jules said. “And go somewhere that doesn’t have work gangs?”

  “Don’t play with me. Who are you to offer such a thing?”

  “None of your business,” Jules said. “Get out of your armor. You,” she told the first prisoner. “Find one of the other pirates to wear his outfit. He’ll have to ride in the cell. What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Art
em.” He eyed her, then saluted. “My name’s Artem of Sandurin, Captain. I don’t know why you ran this risk to save us, but our lives are yours.”

  “Get the bodies into the cell on the wagon,” Jules said. “We’ll need to haul them somewhere we can dump them so they can’t be found. Can any of you handle horses?”

  The pirates responded with embarrassed silence. Not that Jules could blame them. She hadn’t much experience with horses, either.

  “I can,” the last guard said as he pulled off the rest of his clothes.

  “Then you can earn that life you still have,” Jules said. “Change of plans. Put your clothes and armor back on. Artem, take his sword and dagger. What’s your name, guard?”

  “Nico. Nico of Landfall.”

  “Artem, keep someone close to him, with a dagger in hand, as he works,” Jules said. “We need those horses harnessed to the wagon again. Let’s move it, people. We can’t hang around here.”

  The horses weren’t happy to be brought back to harness so soon, but Nico calmed them enough to get the pair ready to pull the wagon again. Jules found a bag and stuffed her clothes and boots into it. “Anyone not in a guard uniform has to be in the cell,” Jules said as they got ready to leave.

  “But the bodies are in there!” one protested.

  “You want us to be stopped by the first group of legionaries that sees prisoners outside their cell on the wagon?” Jules snapped. “The five of us in uniforms ride outside because that’s where we’re supposed to be. The rest get in there.”

  “Who the blazes do you—?”

  Artem stepped in, glowering at the complainer. “If not for her we’d all be in that cell until we got to Marandur and the Emperor’s torturers started going over us. As far as I’m concerned, she’s our captain, and we’re going to do what she says.”

  “But—”

  “And she killed three men tonight before they could make a sound,” Artem added. “I wouldn’t be giving her any trouble if I was you.”

  The cell was even more cramped than before, because with Jules making up one of the five guards the size of the group had grown. Of the ten total prisoners, six of the pirates were men, and four were women. Three of the pirates, two men and one woman, were in guard armor and could ride outside, but the other seven had to wedge themselves back into the cell along with the bodies of four guards.