Fate of the Free Lands by Jack Campbell

Author:Jack Campbell [Campbell, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625675-04-0
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“We’ll see them coming, won’t we?” the Mechanic in the lead whispered.

“Not necessarily, Sir Mechanic,” Jules said.

He looked back at her. “You said you’d fought Mages. More than once?”

“Yes, Sir Mechanic.”

“Suppose we wanted to avoid fighting Mages. What should we do?”

One of the women spoke up in incredulous tones. “You’re asking a common for advice?”

“This common is the subject matter expert! Am I wrong? Come on, what’s your advice?”

Jules looked ahead into the deep darkness. “Do something different. Unpredictable. Mages sometimes know what people are planning. I don’t know how. Like now, waiting on this road for us.”

“So if we go another route we’ll throw them off?”

“That’s what I’d do, Sir Mechanic.” Jules sensed the hesitation in the Mechanics around her. “Mages chased me all through Landfall, and out, and back again. I’m still alive.”

“All right. Wendi, left or right?”

“Ummm…right,” one of the Mechanics said.

“Let’s go.” The Mechanic led the way back a short distance and then down a side road, the entire group moving quickly. “Myke, left, right, or straight ahead?”

“Straight.”

They kept it up, wending through the town using random choices until the group reached another wide street, this one well lit. “Let’s head for the pier,” the leader ordered. “Double-time, people.”

The Mechanics broke into a trot, Jules staying in the center.

They’d gone perhaps halfway when Jules spotted something out of the corner of her eye. “Mages to our left,” she gasped between breaths.

The Mechanics on the left looked that way. “I see them.”

“What’re they doing?” the leader asked.

“Just standing there.”

Jules managed a better look. “They’re looking inland. With their hoods up they can’t see us from this angle.”

“How do you know that?” the Mechanic leader demanded.

“I stole a Mage’s robes and wore them to get away one time,” Jules said.

“How’d you steal a Mage’s robes?” one of the women asked.

“I knocked her out.”

“You… Why are we protecting her again?”

They’d kept moving, and as the Mages to the left were lost to sight behind buildings the leader slowed their pace, which was attracting attention from the commons.

“There’s one Mage up ahead,” the leader said. “Crossing from our right to our left. Doesn’t seem to notice us. Everybody keep on. Common, stay low so they can’t see you.”

Resentful at the tone and the orders, Jules nonetheless saw the wisdom in what the leader of the Mechanic group said. She hunched over a bit, losing any ability to see past the Mechanics crowded around her.

Jules was surprised soon after when she realized they’d turned onto a pier. The Mechanics were relaxing a bit as they walked, audibly sighing with relief as they came even with the big Mechanic ship tied up there. Jules stole a glance at it, seeing how the metal structure rose above the deck in tier upon tier.

“You go down first,” the leader told Jules.

She grasped the second revolver firmly as she went down the wooden ladder to the boat astern of the ship. The box of cartridges had barely fit into one of her pockets, but

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