Fate of the Free Lands

by Jack Campbell

  “What are people supposed to do?” the older woman complained. “Marandur, Alfarin, every city is straining at the seams.”

  Jules had been listening, hoping to hear anything useful about the police presence. “There’s always the west.”

  “The west? You mean outside the Empire?”

  “Yes,” Jules said. “There’s a lot of land out there. New towns. Cities being founded, with every job open for anyone who comes.”

  The younger woman spoke up again. “I have a friend who’s doing that. Going west. She was supposed to be on a ship leaving today with a lot of people being smuggled out of the Empire, but with the waterfront locked down they had to postpone until things get quiet again.”

  “What’s out west?” the man asked. “Those small islands, and some little places along the coast?”

  “There’s a lot more than that,” Jules said. “The western coast of the sea is full of places where cities could be. And there’s a strait that leads to another sea, and beyond that the ocean, with amazing lands bordering them.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” the older woman asked, skeptical.

  “I saw a chart.”

  “You saw a chart.” She laughed.

  “It was made by Jules of Landfall,” Jules said, knowing she should drop it, but wanting to tell others what she’d discovered. “Signed by her. Her ship found those places.”

  “Jules of Landfall?” The man gave her his full attention for the first time since hearing that Jules didn’t have any money. “The Jules of the prophecy?”

  “Yes,” Jules said, thinking that she really ought to be leaving, but since opening her big mouth not sure how to do it without attracting too much interest from these three.

  “She’s in Landfall,” the younger woman said. “That’s why everything’s so crazy. The legions out and police everywhere and the Mages…” She looked around to ensure none were in sight. “Attacking people and looking all over. Did you see her?” she asked Jules eagerly.

  “I’ve seen her,” Jules said.

  “There’s really nice places in the west?” the older woman asked. “Places with jobs?”

  “Yes. Any kind of job,” Jules said.

  “Do you know where she is?” the younger said. “The prophecy girl?”

  “No,” Jules said. “I have no idea.”

  The man had been looking at Jules, saying nothing else, but now abruptly leaned close. “Listen. You’re broke, and it looks like my chances of earning anything tonight are very low. But you’ll have money later on, won’t you? Why don’t we work out a deal on credit? That way we’ll both have a decent night.”

  Jules began to shake her head. “I’m not—”

  “Listen to my offer!” He looked at the two other women. “Let’s move over there to talk. I hate negotiating prices in public.”

  The two women laughed, talking to each other as the man led Jules a little way down the street, stopping right next to a building. She followed, not wanting to cause a ruckus that might attract the attention of Imperial police, legionaries, or any nearby Mages. But her hand stayed on the hilt of her dagger.

  “I’m not interested,” Jules said in a low voice as they stopped.

  “I know.” He gazed at her for a long moment. “I also know who you are.”

  “Do you?” Jules poised herself for a strike, wondering if she could kill this man silently enough that the two women wouldn’t notice right away.

  “If you stay here, one of those two will figure it out as well,” he added, nodding toward the two women who were still on the street corner. “They’re not bad people, but their lives are hard. They’d turn in their own fathers for a thousand gold eagles. That’s what you’re worth, you know. A thousand gold eagles for anyone who gives information resulting in you being found by the police.”

  Jules inhaled slowly. “And to think some people said I’d never be worth anything. Why won’t you turn me in?”

  He shrugged. “Because I’m a nice person.”

  “Sure.”

  “Not really.” He hesitated. “Long story short, my father was a Mechanic, my mother a common. Mother brought me up with stories of how I’d be a Mechanic someday and then my father would marry her. But…I failed their tests. I got kicked out of my home, and after that the Mechanic father pretended he’d never heard of me. It would make me very happy to see the Mechanics humbled when that prophecy comes true.”

  “It could be generations before that happens,” Jules said. “It’ll be a daughter of my line.”

  “That’s all right. As long as I know I helped make it happen. That’s worth a thousand gold eagles to me.” He turned and pointed, his hand held close to his body so the two women on the corner couldn’t see. “There’s a sally gate that way. You know about those?”

  “I know they’re kept locked,” Jules said.

  “Not that one. Four blocks that way, then three blocks left. You’ll see the wall. The gate is where a small street ends, hard to see. That’s why smugglers like it. They pay off the police in this area to unlock it and look the other way. If there’s a path out of this city tonight, it’s that gate.”

  “Thanks. I owe you.” Jules gestured toward the west. “If you leave the Empire, look me up. I’ll see you rewarded.”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “Me? In the west? I’m a creature of the city streets.” Stepping back, he spoke louder. “No deal! I’m a professional. I don’t give it away!” Turning, he walked back to the two women who were laughing again.

  Jules walked in the direction he’d indicated, trying to look stiff-backed with affronted pride. As soon as she’d lost sight of the three on their forlorn quest for customers this night, she dropped the act and edged close to the nearest buildings, trying to blend in with the shadows under front awnings and entrances. The moon hadn’t yet risen, so the night was comfortingly dark, but she still felt horribly exposed.

  As she turned left, Jules wondered if the man was going to betray her after all. Perhaps she’d been directed into a dead end, and would find legionaries blocking her exit. Poorer neighborhoods had fewer street lanterns than more well-off areas, and this looked to be one of the poorest. There was only a single forlorn lantern on this block, the street ahead showing nothing but the pole of an occasional unlit lamp.

  Only one block left to go, the darkness unrelieved except by the occasional pale glow of a candle behind an upper story window. The neighborhood seemed to be a mix of tenements and dilapidated warehouses. The lack of any police patrols for the last few blocks seemed to confirm what she’d been told about smugglers paying off the police to stay clear. On this night, though, there might be legionary patrols in the area, so Jules tried to stay quiet and unseen as she headed down the last block toward the wall.

  Despite moving carefully, she wasn’t as adept at hiding on a darkened street as those who’d been practicing that skill for years as they plied their trade. A figure suddenly stepped out in front of Jules from a shadowed alcove. “Where are you going?” he asked, starlight glinting from the naked steel of a knife he held in one hand.

  A lookout. Of course the smugglers would have a lookout. “I must be lost,” Jules said. “It’s so dark.”

  “Hold it.” Before she could react, the lookout opened a masked lantern, the light flaring out to fall on Jules’ face. She heard the exultation in his voice. “I know you! You’re going to make me rich!”

  Most people would’ve fled at that point, and she could tell by the way the lookout shifted his stance that he expected her to run. But Jules had been running all day. Instead of fear, she felt anger.

  Ready to pursue her, the lookout was off-balance when instead she attacked.

  The folds of her cloak wrapped around his knife hand, encumbering it for a precious moment as Jules stepped in. He flung up his arm to try to block her thrust, but too late. The dagger went into his heart, backed by all of her strength.

  He fell back, the dagger pulling from his chest as she held
on to it. That freed his blood to flow from the slash in his heart. The lookout managed to open his mouth to shout but never got the sound out. He collapsed onto the cobblestones, his lantern rattling loudly enough to echo down the quiet street.

  Jules grabbed the lantern, closing it as fast as she could so its light wouldn’t betray her. She paused for a moment, listening for any signs that the clatter had tipped off anyone. Those most likely to hear would be the smugglers, and the last thing she needed was for them to be alert.

  The rattle of armor and the stamp of feet came from behind her, though. Jules spun about to see a patrol of legionaries coming onto the street a block away, the soldiers already moving fast as they sought the source of the noise.

  Jerking about to look toward where the sally gate should be, Jules spotted shadowy figures coming her way, from their movements some of the smugglers checking on their lookout. They hadn’t yet seen the legionaries, but they would at any moment, and like their lookout if they caught Jules would be more than happy to turn her over to the Imperials for the reward and to keep the soldiers from investigating the sally gate.

  Caught between a hammer and an anvil, Jules bolted in the only direction that offered her a chance.

  Chapter Three

  The smugglers caught sight of Jules at about the same moment they saw the legionaries charging down the street. In the dark they must have assumed she was their lookout who’d carelessly made a lot of noise and attracted the soldiers’ attention, because one growled “you idiot” before they all turned and sprinted back toward the sally gate. Knowing her only chance was to get through that gate, Jules ran after them.

  “Halt!” one of the legionaries shouted.

  The smugglers responded by increasing their speed, Jules doing her best to catch up. Reaching the end of the street, Jules ran into the rest of the smugglers amid some stacks of small crates, everyone beginning to scatter as they realized the legionaries were coming at them.

  Some of the smugglers vanished against the dark mass of the city wall. Jules angled toward that spot, reaching the inner sally door before it could be pulled shut. Those smugglers already inside were trying to yank the door closed to protect themselves, while those still outside were struggling to get inside. Shouldering her way through the desperate knot of men and women, Jules stabbed and slashed with her dagger to clear enough room to get in the door.

  She barely made it into the tunnel through the wall before those inside managed to get the door shut. It had been dark before, but inside the tunnel with the inner door shut it was now pitch black. The city wall was about three lances thick at its base, Jules remembered from her training as an Imperial officer. The feeble starlight coming in through the open outer door couldn’t reach as far as the inner door.

  The door shut, the knot of smugglers began to unravel, a few still trying to hold it shut while the rest headed for the pale glow of the outside opening. Jules heard the thud of hooves and the clatter of a wagon as some of those outside the walls took off. Running out onto the cleared ground outside the wall, Jules felt a moment of immense relief that was immediately shattered as torches flared on the top of the wall and harsh Imperial trumpets sounded an alert.

  The remaining smugglers were scattering, trying to lose themselves in the countryside before legionaries could reach this area. Jules scattered as well, angling to her right. The main eastern gate of the city and the road it served should be off to her left. That was where the on-call legionary cavalry would be coming from as they rode out to run down the fugitives.

  Fortunately, her tattered cloak was dark enough to help hide her in the night. Jules ran, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the city wall, searching ahead for any signs of the scattered buildings that existed outside the cleared area beyond the castle walls. She knew the clear area extended for twice the range of the ballistae on the walls, which was about three hundred lances. If she could get that far…

  The thunder of hooves and the clinking of harness warned of cavalry approaching. Fighting her instinct to keep running, Jules dropped to the ground, covering herself as best she could with the cloak before lying still.

  Moving fast, in the dark, the cavalry could spot a moving figure. She’d been told that during training, and warned that someone lying still would be a lot harder to see. Hopefully these cavalry hadn’t recently been reminded of that.

  Heart pounding from the exertion of her run and fear of being caught, she heard horses passing behind and in front of her as the cavalry searched along the cleared area, the occasional yelp of a smuggler being run down piercing the night. The urge to jump up and run as well was almost overwhelming, but she held herself unmoving as the search went past her.

  They’d be back, quartering the area again. She had to get out of the cleared area and as far as possible from the city before daylight came.

  Coming up to a crouch, Jules peered into the darkness. Off to her right, the receding sounds of the cavalry search line could be heard. Far to her left, where the main gate and the road were, she could see torches flaring as legionary search teams gathered to scour the area on foot.

  For the moment, the night ahead of her held only darkness and silence.

  She didn’t run, fearing that would make her motion more obvious. Moving at a fast walk, keeping low, Jules headed east, the lights on the city wall behind her looking far too close for far too long.

  The moon finally rose, casting more light across the land. Jules breathed a sigh of relief as she saw buildings coming into clearer relief. Barns. A stable. Storage sheds.

  Despite her extreme tiredness, Jules kept going, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the city. She reached fields of crops and pastures, crossing trails and side-roads, heading steadily east. As the sky ahead began to pale toward dawn, she sought some place to hole up for the day. A field dotted with tall haystacks offered what seemed the best option. Picking a stack near the edge of the field, not far off a small stream meandering its way toward the Ospren River, Jules paused only to drink her fill before she burrowed into the hay to hide herself.

  Exhausted, she passed out rather than fell asleep, one hand on her dagger.

  * * *

  The only person who’d recognized her among the smugglers had been the lookout, and he’d died before he could tell anyone else. As far as the Imperials knew, she was still in Landfall.

  Mages were another matter. In the past, they’d known she was going to be someplace before she herself had known it. All she could do was to try to avoid predictable routes and keep her eyes open.

  The second night after escaping the city, she went through a small town in the middle of the night. Moving like a ghost among the slumbering citizens snug in their homes, Jules had stolen a broad-brimmed hat and a light coat, as well as two loaves of bread. The possibly-betraying and much the worse for wear hooded cloak she wrapped in a stone and tossed into the town’s garbage pit.

  She traveled by night the first three days, but after that the risk of being caught forced her to shift to walking during the day. No one traveled by night except soldiers or police on forced march or patrol, couriers on horseback, and criminals. During the day, she could blend in with other travelers, though at the risk of someone looking beneath her hat and recognizing the woman wearing it.

  Keeping to side roads, Jules didn’t see any Mechanics passing by. They’d be on the main road, riding in carriages, or using their “train” that ran between Marandur and Landfall. A couple of times she heard a far-off, piercing wail that sounded frighteningly like a Mage monster, but turned out to be a noise made by the Mechanic train.

  Odder was the lack of Mages. At first on edge, expecting to encounter them at any moment, Jules didn’t see a single Mage as she trudged east. They couldn’t all still be searching for her in Landfall. But where were they?

  Heading east, the least expected direction, had gotten her out of the city and the legionary search parties near it, but she co
uldn’t keep heading toward the Imperial capital at Marandur. Escaping the Empire meant finding a boat or a ship, and the best chance for that would be somewhere along the coast well north of Landfall. Hoping she’d gone far enough east, Jules finally turned north. Another half-day’s walk took her to the south bank of the Ospren River. That also meant reaching the main highway running east from Landfall, which followed the path of the river, and all of the traffic that used that road. She’d tried to time her arrival at the river for not long before sunset, so that there’d be less chance of her being identified in the fading light.

  It was still unnerving to see the many wagons, carriages, and individuals riding horses along the road. Jules joined those travelers on foot walking along the verge of the road, doing her best to blend in. Somewhere up ahead there’d be a ferry she could use to get across the river.

  Her nerve almost cracked when a column of legion cavalry came riding past from behind her, her first sight of them happening when the head of the column rode by not much more than a lance to her left. Jules concentrated on keeping her pace steady and trying to calm her racing heart as the ranks of riders rode past her, heading east. But the cavalry took no notice of her, riding with the stoic indifference to their surroundings of men and women who’d already spent a long day in the saddle and would probably be doing the same tomorrow.

  As the cavalry rode on ahead of her, Jules watched them, remembering her father. He’d worn the same uniform and armor as those legionaries. Maybe some of the older ones had known him.

  What had he been like? The faded, fragmentary memories of her five year old self offered few clues. Would her father approve of what she was doing? Or had he been a loyal legionary who would’ve insisted her only honorable course of action lay in submitting to the Emperor?

  Her line was supposed to someday produce the daughter who’d free the world. But she knew nothing of her own mother and father. Was that irony? Or just life?