Pirate of the Prophecy

by Jack Campbell

  “Oh.” Jules brushed her hair back with one hand, thinking. “It never occurred to me that Ang wouldn’t want the job. He’d be good at it.”

  “Jeri, remember how you talked about sword fighting and how you get in the mind of your opponent? You need to do the same thing with your captain. And those you command. Don’t just see things from your perspective. Think about how they’ll see what you do. Think about what their priorities might be, which might not be the same priorities that you’d have. Get to know your people.”

  “Is that mentoring?” Jules asked. “Because that was great. Is that how it’s supposed to work?”

  “Hopefully.”

  “Will you…? Sir, I don’t have any right to expect it, but will you keep showing me these things? Telling me about them. I’m paying attention when you talk to Captain Erin or other captains. But obviously I’m still missing things.”

  Mak studied her again. “My question is, do you think you could do that getting-in-their-head thing with Mechanics, too? Maybe even Mages?”

  “See things from their perspective?” Jules shook her head. “I’ve tried with the Mechanics. There’s something…I don’t know. Like a very different…what’s the word? For everything about the way people do things and see things?”

  “Oh. That’s…I’ve heard talk about the Imperial court being different from the way Imperial citizens are in a place like Dunlan because of… Culture! That’s the word.”

  “Culture? Then the Mechanics have a culture which is different from ours, but there’s some overlap. Like when I talked to Mechanic Gin. It was almost like there was a wall there that we could both see over if she’d try, and if she’d help me up, but she didn’t want to. Or she’d been taught not to look over.” Jules shook her head. “But Mages. I have no idea. How do they think? Who’s ever talked to one? I mean, really talked?”

  “You’re the only person I know who’s ever spoken to a Mage,” Mak said.

  “I did not speak to the Mage. He spoke to me. I didn’t say anything.” Jules shuddered at the memory of those burning eyes gazing into hers. “I just ran. I wasn’t really thinking. I just ran.”

  “Which was the right thing to do,” Mak said. “If you’d given the Mage time to recover from his own shock, he would’ve killed you. You do that a lot, don’t you, Jeri? Respond instinctively in an emergency. You just suddenly know what to do and you do it.”

  “I think that’s a fair statement, sir. That’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head again. “No. Obviously not. You’ve made it this far. Your instinctive reactions tend to be exactly right. But you don’t plan well between those reactions. You have long-term goals that you can tackle step by step if those steps have been laid out. But laying out those steps yourself is something you haven’t been taught.”

  “Like the attack on the sloop,” Jules said. “I just suddenly knew we should try to capture it. But I didn’t do the planning right.”

  “We both messed up the planning, Jeri,” Mak said. “Later on. why don’t we go over that and figure out what we should have done differently?”

  “Does that mean it’s all right? I can stay aboard?” Jules waited anxiously for his reply.

  “Jeri, at this point if I tried to kick you off the ship, I’d probably face a mutiny,” Mak said.

  “And you’ll mentor me? Is that the right way to say it?”

  “I think I need to, if only in self-defense.”

  * * *

  A few days later, Jules gazed at the shore of one of the Sharr Isles, the island that held Jacksport. The town itself was a good ways off to starboard, too far off to be seen, or for anyone there to see what the Sun Queen was doing. The coast here held only a thin strip of beach backed by trees growing on slopes rising quickly to hills. From what could be seen of the island from this spot, there might be no human presence on it at all.

  The only other sails in sight were those of the captured sloop and the Storm Rider, continuing on toward Jacksport.

  “Get going, Jeri,” Captain Mak said. “We’ll be back for you when business is done. Lay low and keep an eye out for us.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jules waved a farewell to the rest of the crew as she went over the side and down the Jaycob ladder into the ship’s small boat, which had just been lowered. The other boat carried by the Sun Queen, the longboat, would’ve been too big for her to handle comfortably alone. She set the oars in the oarlocks, the hull of the Sun Queen rising above her.

  How are we going to get you into and out of Jacksport again in one piece, Jeri?

  Maybe it’d be a good idea if I didn’t go into Jacksport at all, sir.

  Which is why she was now rowing alone toward the beach. The Sun Queen put on more sail, following the sloop and the Storm Rider. By the time she grounded the boat on sand just short of the beach, only the Sun Queen’s masts were still in sight.

  Jules hauled the small boat as high onto the beach as she could, which wasn’t nearly far enough to hide it. After running a line from the bow of the boat into the trees and tying it off around a trunk big enough around to hold even against a major storm, Jules gathered what big branches she could find and dragged them out to the boat, draping them on and around it to hopefully create something that looked like a big mound of driftwood.

  Retreating far enough into the woods to be sure she couldn’t be easily spotted from the water, Jules finally sat down, her back against a tree trunk. She started chewing slowly on a small piece of salt pork, letting the wood-hard meat soften in her mouth, and batting at a couple of gnats that had already taken interest in her. In addition to the revolver she had a cutlass, her dagger, and her sailor knife. There was enough food and water in the boat to last for three days (four if she stretched it), more than enough time for the Sun Queen to finish her work in Jacksport and come back out for her.

  Which left her with a lot of time to think.

  Jules sat watching the water, trying to dredge up memories of her life before her parents died. There weren’t many. More like vague impressions, and occasional clear images whose meaning she didn’t remember.

  Then the orphan home. Life as one of many orphans there, her clothing a shapeless shirt and loose trousers that eliminated the need for any sort of tailoring, the cheap fabric rough on her skin. Getting picked on, learning to fight back, that one fight where she’d nearly strangled a mean girl who’d been pushing her, the mean ones leaving her alone afterwards. Had the darkness inside her come from that, or had it always been there? She didn’t have a mother to ask.

  Terrible food, and usually not enough of it.

  But also friends. People like Shin. And the schooling, where the bottom-of-the-barrel teachers cared so little for their jobs that Jules had been able to read ahead, learn ahead, determined not to have only the choice of enlisting in the legions. Because once a legion orphan turned eighteen the Emperor’s charity no longer flowed, and few places other than the legions would accept them.

  How proud she’d been to put on that officer’s uniform, knowing she’d earned it by her own work, knowing she’d passed every test on her own, with no help from family connections or paid tutors.

  While she remembered, the sun had already settled far enough in the west to be blocked by the hills behind her. Jules made sure her food was safely secured in the chest in the boat, then taking a length of line walked into the woods until she found a tree that seemed suitable. Climbing branch by branch, she found one broad enough to sit on. Jules wrapped the length of line about herself, knotting it around the tree trunk at her back so she could sleep without fear of falling to the ground.

  It wasn’t animals or insects she feared. It was other people. Imperials, smugglers willing to deal with the Imperials in hopes of collecting a ransom for her, and Mages.

  Jules draped a sheet of dark cloth over herself, both as camouflage and to protect from the gnats who were swarming out in greater numbers as evening fell.

  By the time morning dawned she was ful
l of aches in stiff muscles that made getting down to the ground perilous.

  The day went by very slowly.

  What was happening in Jacksport? Would she be able to hear if Mechanics began firing their weapons that far off? Would she be able to see the smoke of burning ships or buildings?

  Jules sat inside the edge of the trees, watching occasional sails go by, the ships under them hidden by the horizon, and repeatedly imagined the worst things that could befall the Sun Queen.

  Imagining Captain Mak dying. Feeling her heart pound each time that happened.

  And yet she was absolutely certain there was nothing wrong in her feelings toward Mak. Nothing romantic anyway. No physical yearnings. She just didn’t want to think of losing him. She admired him and respected him. Whatever that was, it wasn’t love.

  Jules did a bit of exploring inland from where her boat was beached. She had plenty of time to kill, and as a general principle she thought it would be a good idea from now on to know enough about her surroundings to help her if she suddenly needed to start running for her life. In recent months that had happened far too many times already.

  Inland the ground sloped upward fairly steeply, going near vertical in places where trees grew up against the cliffs to mask them. There didn’t seem to be any good paths in that direction. To the left and right as far as she explored, the land stayed low near the beach, though the density of the trees varied. A short distance in the direction toward Jacksport, Jules found a stream coming through the trees and emptying into the ocean. It wasn’t wide or deep, easily walked through, but the water tasted refreshing after the stale supply she had in bottles on the boat.

  She returned to the boat and opened the chest to get some hardtack. It took a blow from her cutlass the break the hard cracker into chunks that could be softened enough in her mouth to eat. Wishing that she’d asked for a bottle of wine to be included in her food supply, Jules went back to the sleeping tree.

  The second night seemed a lot longer than the first.

  Jules got down from the tree on the second morning almost wishing that a Mage would show up so she could kill him or her with the Mechanic weapon. It hurt to walk. Everything hurt.

  The morning was halfway gone when Jules noticed some masts coming closer. Hopeful, she watched the masts grow higher as they grew closer, yardarms and sails appearing. But a lot of ships had that same arrangement of masts and rigging.

  As the hull came into sight and grew larger, Jules grinned. That had to be the Sun Queen. She stepped out of the cover of the trees, waving.

  The ship came about near the beach, but Jules frowned at it. Something didn’t seem right. Why couldn’t she see Captain Mak on the quarterdeck?

  Two longboats were lowered, sailors piling into them.

  Two longboats? The Sun Queen only had one. And that ship was definitely not the Storm Rider.

  Jules turned and began running.

  Chapter Nine

  Knowing she was being watched from the ship, Jules ran straight back into the trees. She kept going that way long enough to lose sight of the ship, then turned and began running to her right, in the general direction of Jacksport. Staying on the lower land not far from the beach, she tried to maintain the best pace she could, hearing shouts behind her as the longboats grounded on the sand.

  Those weren’t shouts. They were orders, and the way the orders were being called sounded very much like legionaries at drill.

  Jules went through the stream in two quick steps and on through the land beyond, dodging between trees and trying to stay far enough inside them that the Imperials wouldn’t spot her from their ship.

  They’d known where she was. Someone on the Sun Queen must have talked while the ship was in Jacksport. And this Imperial ship, disguised as just another merchant ship, had come looking for her before the Queen could get here.

  The shouted orders behind her were growing fainter. With any luck the legionaries had spread out in a search line and then charged straight inland in search of her. Hopefully, by the time they realized she’d gone another way they would have lost a lot of time trying to find a path up those cliffs.

  She had to slow down a bit, her breath coming deep and fast, almost slipping as she dodged around another tree.

  The beach where she’d been dropped off had been thousands of lances from a turn in the coast that eventually led to Jacksport. How far off was Jacksport? Too far to run.

  More shouting of orders. Jules paused for a moment, trying to catch her breath while looking back the way she’d come. Some shouts from inland on her left. Some shouts from her right on the beach.

  Blazes. They were spread out and coming this way. The ship must have spotted her when she turned, and gotten word to the legionaries.

  Jules began trotting through the woods, trying to keep her pace. She was surprised to realize that the noises from the legionaries behind her quickly faded again, as if they were moving slowly rather than running in pursuit of her.

  The reason for that became clear as the trees thinned without warning, giving her a look out onto the water. The ship, sails set, glided along in the same direction that she was going. Also visible was one of the longboats, the rowers pulling hard.

  They were going to get ahead of her, land more people, and wait for her to either run into them or try to hide and get caught by the searchers coming behind.

  She dropped her pace to a walk, thinking. What would Captain Mak be suggesting? Plan. All right. Hiding wouldn’t work. She knew how well legionaries handled tasks like searches. Running wouldn’t work. She couldn’t outpace a longboat and a ship. Going out to sea, swimming, would just leave her easy prey for one of the longboats.

  That left trying to go inland. Which meant tackling that high ground even though the cliffs farther back hadn’t looked very friendly to climbers. But it was the only way that offered any chance of avoiding capture.

  The trees had gotten denser again, blocking her view of the ship and the longboat. Jules veered to her right, heading straight inland at a trot.

  The land sloped up quickly for a short distance before leaping upwards into cliffs, just as it had back where she’d started. She walked along the cliffs, looking up for any possible way to climb them. Stay calm, she told herself. Take time to study those cliffs. Look for a path up. Look for…

  She’d reached a place where a section of cliff had collapsed, leaving a mound at the bottom and a steeply rising ramp upwards.

  Jules stopped at the foot of it. Maybe a hundred lances from top to bottom. Mingled dirt and rocks. But it wasn’t a cliff that would require a slow, tortuous climb. She should be able to run up this. If she didn’t fall or slip and slide back to the bottom.

  She paused, breathing deeply, trying to gather her strength, hearing the shouted commands behind her slowly getting closer.

  Jules launched herself at the rise, her legs pumping in an all-out effort. She ran, her feet slipping on the loose soil of the rockfall—keep going—rocks and gravel and dirt sliding under her feet, leaning forward enough to keep from falling backwards, grabbing with her hands at new clumps of brush springing up and bigger rocks to pull herself up and aid her legs which were aching and blazes how much longer could she do this she couldn’t stop to look up and see how far was left to go or she’d fall where was the top her left leg almost slipped completely out from under her blazes recover keep going up don’t stop or you’ll fall blazes she couldn’t-

  She reached the top and sprawled on the narrow ledge of what had been clifftop here, more cliff rising behind it, unable to move for a few moments as her vision hazed from exhaustion over the extreme effort. Still trying to catch her breath, Jules painfully pulled her legs all the way onto the ledge, out of view of anyone below. Finally managing to get to her hands and knees, Jules rolled against the back of the ledge into a sitting position.

  Her vision clearing and her breathing becoming less labored, Jules looked to her left and right along the ledge. It quickly disappeared on one s
ide but meandered along the height in the direction she’d come from. Behind her the cliff only went up another ten lances or so, but offered no obvious good handholds on its dirt surface. That made deciding what to do next pretty simple.

  Jules got to her feet, one hand on the side of the rise, and began moving cautiously along the ledge, listening for the commands being called below. The legionaries were sure they had her trapped and were hoping to scare her into flight, like hunters beating the underbrush to spook birds into the air.

  She put her feet down carefully as the ledge narrowed, trying to avoid sending any rocks or gravel down what had once more become cliffs. If the legionaries heard that they’d know where she was.

  “Count off!” The shout came from nearly even with her, rattling Jules. She crouched, unmoving, her eyes on the ground below her.

  “One!” a legionary called from near the beach.

  “Two!” a bit closer to her.

  They kept calling out their numbers until Jules heard one that sounded as if he was right beneath her. “Twenty!”

  She tried to breathe silently, leaning as far back as possible, hearing the crunch of feet stepping on fallen branches and leaves. A bit farther off from the high ground, Jules spotted a legionary walking at a slow, steady pace through the woods as she searched to either side and ahead, as well the trees above her. From here, Jules could spot the armor concealed under the woman’s sailor shirt. There was a scabbarded short sword at the legionary’s belt, but in her hand she held a padded club.

  They wanted her alive. Undamaged except for bruises and maybe broken limbs, neither of which would prevent her “wedding” to the Emperor.

  Jules waited only a short time after the legionaries passed her spot before moving on at the fastest pace she dared. The ledge varied in width and was descending enough to be dangerously slippery but not enough to offer hope of getting her back near the ground.