Fate of the Free Lands

by Jack Campbell

  Her revolver already in hand, Jules aimed and shot a galley crewmember who looked like a leader, then holstered that weapon. Drawing her dagger and readying her cutlass, she joined the others in defending the quarterdeck as the galley crew tried to swamp the defenders.

  Jules’ dagger went into the side of an Imperial thrusting at Liv. Bringing her cutlass up, she parried a blow from an Imperial.

  The Sun Queen rocked again as another galley rammed into the mass of ships inside the entrance to the harbor. The free ships at the back of the locked-together fighters were lashing themselves to their nearest compatriots and sending their crews over the decks of ships already locked in combat to reach the Imperials.

  One of Jules’ guards fell to a blow by a powerful Imperial. Jules pulled out her revolver and shot that Imperial in the face before he could recover. But she and her defenders were being pushed into one corner of the quarterdeck by the mass of attackers.

  Two more booms of a Mechanic weapon, this time from elsewhere in the tangled mass of ships.

  A wave of sailors and volunteers from the Proud Mari and the Bright Star came charging onto the Sun Queen and hit the Imperial attackers, driving them back.

  As the Imperials on the quarterdeck fled to avoid being hit from behind, Jules took a moment to look around.

  There’d been ten war galleys. At least eight were locked into the mass of ships, using their oar handlers in their only chance to try to overwhelm the free ships. A ninth galley was coming around, as if trying to reach the harbor entrance past the fighting, but as Jules watched, Fair Dani collided with the galley on its port side, oars splintering and rowers howling with pain. Before the galley could get free, Gallant Mike came along the other side, sandwiching the Imperial warship, crossbows on both free ships shooting down into the galley.

  Where was the tenth galley? There. Backing down using its oars, trying to get some distance from the fighting.

  But Prosper came across the galley’s stern. Before the oars could halt or turn the galley, it struck the stout side of the larger ship. The two spun about, drifting into contact with the larger mass of ships.

  Another boom of a Mechanic weapon. Jules looked across the tangle of ships and masts and rigging, guessing that the shot had come from almost opposite where Sun Queen lay. She hoped Captain Erin was taking down any Mages on that side of the fight. The last of the free ships were coming in, throwing grapnels to tie themselves to the other ships so their crews could get into the fight.

  As another wave of free ship volunteers reached the Sun Queen, charging onto her deck to hit the Imperial fighters who were trying to hold their ground, Jules, her heart pounding, raised her cutlass as high as she could. “With me!” she shouted, her throat feeling raw. She ran for the ladder to the main deck, her guards following, joining with the other free ship sailors and volunteers to push back the Imperials, clear the deck of the Sun Queen, and board the galleys and sloops.

  She saw an Imperial officer urging on her fighters. Jules brought out her revolver and shot the officer, realizing she’d have to reload, then used her cutlass to cut down a centurion.

  Dropping down to the deck of a galley, Jules saw a single Mage standing against the opposite railing, long knife raised, facing a semicircle of wary free ship sailors reluctant to risk attacking a Mage. Pausing to pull out the empty cartridges from her revolver and shove in six more that hadn’t been shot, Jules stepped forward.

  The Mage looked at Jules, his face streaked with sweat. She was shocked to see fear in his eyes, remembering that when Mages were dying or badly hurt they would display some emotion. But this Mage showed no sign of injury, just of being at the end of his strength.

  She raised the revolver to point it at him.

  Before she could shoot the Mage dropped his long knife and fell backwards, over the side and into the water.

  Astonished, Jules ran to the side and looked down, seeing the Mage slowly swimming toward shore.

  She should shoot him.

  She didn’t.

  Instead, as a small group of Imperials launched a desperate counter-attack, Jules turned and shot twice into them, dropping the two in the lead.

  The others faltered, dropping their weapons and raising empty hands.

  Jules joined the rush forward, clearing deck after deck, meeting up with Captain Erin and then Captain Hachi as they reached the last Imperial warship that still remained uncaptured.

  A massive volley of crossbow bolts arced across the sky and tore into the surviving Imperial defenders.

  Jules raised her cutlass again and led the others onto the deck of the galley, resistance melting away as she charged aft.

  A small cluster of Imperials remained on the quarterdeck, some of them exhausted crewmembers grasping swords in hands slick with sweat, their eyes wide with fear. Behind them stood an older Imperial officer with a golden eagle on his collar, and beside him a junior officer holding a straight sword in a hand that shook with fatigue.

  Jules stopped, holding back the others with her, her cutlass raised to point at the senior officer. “Surrender your ships and prevent further loss of life.”

  He glared back at her, proud and apparently unruffled. “Who demands the surrender of the Emperor’s ships?”

  “Captain Jules of Julesport, the woman of the prophecy,” Jules said.

  The officer shook his head. “I’d prefer to die quickly with honor to dying slowly of the Emperor’s displeasure.” He drew his dagger, holding it before him. “But I see no sense in permitting the slaughter of those loyal to the Emperor. Lieutenant Wil,” he said to the junior officer beside him. “I order you to surrender these ships once I am dead.”

  Without another word, the officer plunged the dagger into his chest. He staggered sideways, fell against the railing, then went over it to splash into the waters of the harbor.

  Lieutenant Wil stared at Jules, his sword tip lowering, tears of frustration on his face. “As ordered, I surrender these ships and their crews.”

  “Disarm him and the others,” Jules said. “Pass the word. The Imperial ships have yielded to us.”

  Suddenly, she felt immensely tired. Looking down at her hands, she saw the cutlass in one, the blade notched by the fighting, and her dagger in the other. Both blades were streaked with blood.

  “Jules.” Captain Erin came up, also looking exhausted. “We need to check all ships for leaks. I think a lot of the Imperial galleys can’t be saved.”

  “The sides of their hulls aren’t that strong,” Jules said. “To keep the galley lighter so the oars can drive it faster.”

  “I know that.” Erin peered at her. “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Jules looked about her, listening. “I can’t hear any Mechanic weapons.”

  “No,” Erin said. “The attack on the wall must’ve stopped when the Imperials realized what was happening here. Jules—we need to check all ships for leaks.”

  “Yes.” Jules inhaled deeply, centering her mind. “Find every captain you can and detail sailors to check. If any of the galleys are so low in the water they threaten to pull down the ships tied to them, cut them loose.”

  “Aye.” Erin went off, shouting orders.

  Jules looked around her, seeing seven of her guards, as well as Ang and Cori. “Where’s Liv?”

  “A couple decks back,” Ang said. “Her leg took a cut, I think. She told us to go on.”

  “Her leg? Go check on her, Ang. What about Artem? Mad, where’s Artem?”

  “Don’t know, Captain,” Mad said, tears on her face.

  “Find him. Make sure he’s being taken care of.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Mad ran off.

  Where was Ian? she wondered, blinking in momentary confusion. Somewhere ashore. She had to make sure the Imperial attacks on the wall stopped.

  Jules looked aft again, where Lieutenant Wil stood, his face that of a man unable to comprehend events. She walked up to him, her boots thumping on the wooden deck, leaving re
d stains behind from the blood they’d trodden through. “We’re going to get a boat in the water,” she said. “Are you listening to me?”

  Wil looked at her, nodding. “Boat in the water.”

  “You’ll be taken ashore under a parley flag. You’ll find Prince Ostin and inform him that his fleet is destroyed or captured, and that he and every Imperial servant ashore are trapped. We can stand off and destroy the cargo ships at the piers with the ballistae on our sloops. There’ll be no more food.” She paused, knowing that Imperial pride would never allow a prince to surrender, no matter how many other lives that cost. “If the prince agrees to abandon the attack, take his remaining soldiers back to Imperial territory, and respect the independence of the western settlements, he and his legionaries will be allowed to depart in peace. I want them out of this town as fast as they can go. But if he refuses, if he continues the fight,” Jules said, thinking of the dead, “it won’t matter what happens to the legionaries. I will personally kill him, slowly, a cut for every life lost here. Tell him that.”

  It only took a little while to get the boat into the water, crew it with some captured Imperial oar handlers, and send it rowing toward the piers.

  Jules looked about her at the mass of ships lashed together into one wooden island. Sailors rushed around, trying to save damaged ships. Others slumped against masts and decks and rails, tired out or injured. Where bodies lay, often others knelt nearby, the lines of their grief easy to see.

  She watched the boat head for the pier, hoping that what had been done this day would be worth the price paid.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Exhausted but restless, worried about Ian but unable to do anything else to help him, Jules went onto other captured Imperial ships, helping to check them for wounded who needed treatment.

  Keli said he thought he could save Liv’s leg.

  Artem had been more badly hurt. Mad was staying with him.

  Jules stepped onto one of the wrecked Imperial sloops.

  “She’s taking on a lot of water,” Marta told Jules. “I don’t think we can save it. Maybe keep it afloat until we can ground it.”

  “Do that,” Jules said. “Some of the ships have cut free of the mess. There. The Kelsi’s Pride. Tell her I’d like them to put over a tow line and pull this sloop over to the shallow water near the breakwater.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Jules walked along the deck, checking, stepping over a fallen mast and seeing something under a sail that had dropped along with the mast. She used her cutlass to draw back the sail, wary of vengeful Imperials or lurking Mages.

  It took Jules a moment to recognize the figure who lay on the deck, her legs pinned beneath the fallen mast. Captain Kathrin of Law. Her sword lay on the deck, just out of reach of her grasp. She glared at Jules through eyes glazed with pain. “Give me my sword! I want to die with honor, fighting you!”

  Jules shook her head and kicked Kathrin’s sword farther away. “Enough have died today. It’s over. Your fleet has been taken.”

  “Liar!”

  “Oh, shut up.” Jules could understand why Captain Kathrin was so unhappy with her. This was, after all, the third sloop under her command that Jules had been directly responsible for destroying or capturing. “I’m trying to decide whether to let you die there, or get some sailors to help lift that mast enough to get you off this ship before it sinks.”

  “I’d rather die a thousand deaths than have my one life saved by you,” Captain Kathrin spat.

  Jules smiled slightly. “And there you’ve given me my motivation. You’ll spend the rest of your life knowing that you owe your life to me. Don’t go anywhere.”

  She walked far enough, trailed by curses hurled at her by the trapped captain, to spot some sailors and wave them over. Captain Kathrin fought back, of course. In the end, despite the agony of her pinned legs, she had to have her arms bound before they could safely get her out from under the mast. Jules flinched at the sight of her legs. “Make sure she gets seen by a healer.”

  “Captain Jules!” The cry sounded across the still tangled mass of ships. “Captain Jules! The Imperial treaty boat is coming back!”

  * * *

  Prior to this day, Jules wouldn’t have said there were any advantages to dealing with an Imperial prince. But it turned out there was at least one. When an Imperial prince made a decision, he didn’t have to worry about convincing anyone else. He could do whatever he wanted.

  And, at the moment, Prince Ostin seemed primarily to want to ensure his own safety. He agreed to Jules’ terms.

  The legions didn’t know how to handle defeat. They’d never practiced for it or planned for it or imagined it. Faced with the previously impossible, even Imperial discipline cracked. Jules watched the legionaries who’d been ashore rushing onto the cargo ships still at the piers. She knew how such loading was supposed to be done, in careful order with everyone carrying supplies and tents and other equipment. But the legionaries she saw were racing onto the ships, apparently abandoning any burdens that might slow them down. She saw a few Mages with the legionaries, moving in their usual terrifying isolation. As each ship was filled, wallowing low in the water due to the load, it wended its way through the harbor past the entwined mass of free ships and captured Imperial ships. The three pirate sloops were free of the mess by now, watching each ship closely as it left.

  Jules saw on the quarterdeck of the first ship to leave a figure in a brilliant dark red uniform, rows of medals and awards flashing in the sun, himself surrounded by others in perfect uniforms with lesser displays of supposed valor and mock excellence. That had to be Prince Ostin.

  She was standing once again on the quarterdeck of the Sun Queen. Prince Ostin turned to look at her, and though they were too far apart for her to clearly see his expression, Jules gained an impression of superstitious terror. Certainly, Prince Ostin immediately headed below decks, where he didn’t have to face the gaze of a pirate captain.

  Volunteers had gone ashore to let those on the wall know that victory had been achieved, and by the time the last legionaries were filing aboard the last cargo ship, many of the wall’s defenders had come down to the water to see them off.

  Judging it finally safe to leave her ship and find out how Ian was, Jules came ashore on a longboat, still feeling oddly numb, looking at the dwindling line of defeated legionaries. Off to one side stood a small cluster of Mages who seemed to be deciding whether to leave with the legionaries.

  Four of her guards followed Jules from the boat.

  Dor came to greet her, smiling with the relief of a survivor of what seemed inevitable tragedy. A long cut ran down one side of his face, and one arm was bound against his body to immobilize it, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. “You did it!”

  “We did it,” Jules said.

  She looked over at the Mages, then away, then back again. Hadn’t there been one more Mage in that group?

  A Mage holding a knife appeared in front of Jules with shocking swiftness, her demeanor that of someone so tired they could barely move. Her arm drew back to plunge the knife into Jules, but the same fatigue that had slowed her steps also slowed her arm. No one else could react in time to stop her, but Jules herself was able to bring her hand up just fast enough to grab the Mage’s knife arm and stop the blade, the point nearly touching Jules’ skin.

  Jules braced herself for a struggle, but instead the Mage froze, her eyes locked on Jules’ face.

  The Mage’s hand opened, the knife falling from it to hit the ground.

  Jules let go as the Mage stepped back, her impassive face showing no feeling. “That one has had children.”

  The people nearest to them heard, Jules seeing their shocked reactions. She herself glared silently at the Mage.

  The Mage’s voice lacked any emotion, yet somehow still carried a hint of frustration. “How many? Where are they? How old are they?”

  Jules laughed at the Mage. “Do you really think I’ll tell you any of those things?”
>
  “It will not matter,” the Mage said, her dead voice carrying clearly. “That one no longer matters.” Having said that, the Mage turned away as if to emphasize her dismissal of Jules.

  Anger flooded Jules. Stepping forward, she grabbed the Mage’s arm as those watching gasped with shock at seeing someone choose to touch a Mage. The Mage must have been surprised as well, not resisting as she was spun back about to face Jules. “Do you want to hear another prophecy?” Jules snarled at the Mage, her voice carrying even to the legionaries about to board the last ship. “You won’t find my children. No one will. They’ll live, and have children of their own. And, someday, a daughter born of my descendants will raise an army from the people of the free lands. She will break your Guild, and Mages will never again be able to act in any way they want. When that day comes, my spirit will be watching, and laughing. Because I mattered. Tell that to every Mage. You’ve already lost. I’ve already beaten you.”

  Shoving the Mage away, Jules walked off, Dor staying with her. “You’re not going to kill that Mage?” he asked, bewildered.

  “No. I want her to go back and tell her fellow Mages that my children already exist. I want the eyes of the Mages on me, hoping I’ll reveal where they are. That’ll be different, won’t it? They’ll want me alive in the hopes I’ll betray where my children are.” Speaking of the children reminded her of something very important. “Where’s Ian? Why isn’t he here?”

  Dor gazed at her helplessly. “He…was hurt.”

  “Hurt? Wounded?” Jules tried to get her mind around the word even as it refused to accept it. “How badly?”

  “Pretty badly. This morning, during the last Imperial attack on the wall. He’s in my home. Getting the best care we can give.”

  Jules started running, leaving everyone else behind, her guards racing to try to catch up to her.

  She ran past piles of trash and debris and supplies left by the hastily departed legionaries, all the way to the house she knew was Dor’s, past a pair of startled sentries who weren’t expecting visitors. A woman gave Jules a surprised look as she started up the stairs. “Ian of Marandur,” Jules gasped. “Where?”