Freedom's Knife Read online

  “How may we assist you, Mr. President?” Silver asked with cool civility as the door shut behind me.

  The not-feet parts of me shook with barely contained curiosity and anger, though I wasn’t sure at whom. In the hall, the compulsion lessened, and I slapped my palm against the white wall. Punching it would only break my knuckles again, but I needed to do something to vent the frustration and pain boiling in me.

  Being ordered away from Dmitri had hurt more than I’d imagined when my sentence was handed down, months before he was born. My assigned quarters were in DC, and in the early months of my pregnancy I’d explored it and met the handful of other Indentured living in the area. In addition to our assigned tasks, we were expected to police the area for dangers—the demon crabs and other animals and spirits who preyed on the swampers.

  We lived to the south of the walls that surrounded the Washington Mall. When the river overflowed, those areas were abandoned by people who could leave. Villages built on the remains of flooded buildings blossomed like water lilies, rising on stilts above the ruins. Whoever desired to could prey upon the inhabitants: employers legally, others less so.

  It was no safe place to live. I foresaw being ordered there more and more often as Dmitri grew, to lessen my influence. The thought made my chest hurt and my throat catch. I’d be free, find a way out for us both. Even if I had to start another war between the Union and Kentucky, I’d get Dmitri out. Deep breaths settled the worst of the anger as my feet dragged me down the hall. I needed calm, needed to know what the mission was if I wanted to stop; otherwise I’d proceed to the gate and away from Capitol without a pause.

  Holding the reader between my teeth I pulled my gloves on. Contact with people would only make my mood worse. The mission abstract on the reader would give me a way to convince the geas to let me get ready before I left. I activated the holo.

  A presentation in slide format. Of course. My steps slowed until I could lean against the wall and watch it. The start point was a circle located in the ruins of Falo, near one of the northern inland seas. Clelan, an enclave near the lake, was suffering from unnatural flooding, possibly from a curse or magical intervention by enemies of the Union.

  Travel from Falo would be a few days to several weeks. It would be easier to use circles in inhabited cities, but the ease of the Indentured wasn’t something the Union cared about.

  I visualized the supplies I needed, and why. The geas wasn’t intelligent, but it could be held at bay if I honestly believed the actions would help fulfill Silver’s order. If only I could get laid that way…

  The hardy folk who lived Outside were starved for small luxuries such as batteries, sweets, medicines, all kinds of functioning tech. Good quality multitools were in high demand, too. Since I didn’t want to run my food down every night, having something other than scrip to trade would be good.

  I’d already picked up a new LawBook. The store master hadn’t been able to get me out the door fast enough then; I seemed to have that effect on people. I leaned against the wall, messaging the order to stores, flagging it as an urgent delivery. That way he’d have to drop everything else to fulfill it and leave it by the atrium. I got to inconvenience him and didn’t get a headache from fighting the geas: win-win.

  I lessened my pace to give time for the order to be filled. I took the thirty flights of stairs down, avoiding the people in the lower areas. While gloves and clothing moderated the emotions I read from people, they didn’t always stop me from picking them up. Other people’s emotions made facing my own harder. Getting past the Tree, the guardian of the portal exit, without a breakdown would be challenge enough.

  A satchel sealed with the store master’s stamp waited for me where the corridor widened into the great hall, half open to the sky. I stopped at the entrance, stuffing the satchel into my messenger bag. Beyond, the Tree’s branches blocked out the sun, leaving the open area in a perpetual green twilight. Nausea curled in my gut at the scent of the leaves. Bark and thorns scraping against my naked skin.

  The alien presence of the Tree saturated the air, thick and heavy when I stepped into the open area. Stumbling, I increased my pace. Arms bound high, stabbing agony radiating through shoulders and chest. The spirit within the damned Tree invading my mind and soul. It recoiled from the new-formed presence I’d only just sensed.

  That day and night still gave me nightmares. I had hoped for death by the time the Justiciars and the Tree decided on their judgement.

  The geas nipped at me. Visible now, the iron-bound door to Outside, though still half obscured by low hanging branches. There were other doors I’d heard, but I couldn’t perceive them.

  I hurried to it, twisting and turning to avoid touching leaves. My mission brief would interface with the door, triggering the transport to the circle in Falo, getting me away from this place. Leaves danced above me, rustles and flashes of sun suggesting laughter. Bastard. I loathed the Tree.

  Touching the door, even gloved, activated it. Indigo light spun through the doorframe, a chilly void waiting beyond. After the stomach-clenching transition, frigid prickles of sleet pelted down on my exposed head. Half blinded by the storm, I jogged to the minimal shelter of the barren-branched canopy that swayed in the wind.

  Chapter Three

  Given potential food shortages, combining magic and genetic engineering to create larger, more harvestable fish is a promising avenue of research. Potential rewards far outweigh any risks; safeguards have been implemented to minimize even those. The fish of the future will prevent famine!

  —prospectus, MagGenEng, May 2080

  Why couldn’t the mission be in an area controlled by the weather witches? Capitol was always warm and sunny during the day. This place, crusted with early spring frost and battered by wind off a heaving grey lake, slapped at me with cold.

  The few bones of the city, remnants of stone buildings, anchored less forested areas here and there. The circle, close to the lake, revealed a stone tower, perhaps thirty feet tall. Gravity vehicles parked nearby showed it to be inhabited, either by Northern Guard or by mercenaries contracted by the Union.

  This was one of the cities leveled by a mage-Ridden, who had called the lake down on it. He died soon after. The normal penalty for possession by Ridden or spirits was simply death, because it was so difficult to separate the human from the magical creature.

  Smashed flat, it wasn’t rebuilt even when the Union reclaimed it a few decades later.

  Clelan would be south, following the lakeshore. My eyes swept over the grey-green water as a long low ripple cut across the waves. I shuddered. The worst of the fish lurked in the deeper areas, and while following the lake edge was efficient, my nerves wouldn’t handle it.

  Most remote communities Outside had a road linking them to the enclave that administered the area, to facilitate the population paying their taxes. The lake’s presence to the north meant road lay somewhere south. Icy leaves and undergrowth cracked under my boots as I picked my way through forest, away from the lake and the tower, seeking a safer route.

  A sodden bog of a road split the trees, perhaps half a mile away. Frozen ruts scarred black mud. Brush snagged at my pants as I made my way to the edge of the road. It hadn’t been kept clear; regulations stipulated that passages like this needed to be cleared five or ten feet out from the road so carters and farmers could see what was going to kill them.

  Or maybe so they could defend themselves, though the success rate was low. I’d guarded others on a similar road, near Uston, as they carried their tithes for delivery. Since the Southern Guard was busy in the Gulf with a catfish infestation, I’d escorted produce and animals and their associated people. The work delivered an odd kind of satisfaction; the people were grateful when I killed the Ridden stalking them.

  At home, that duty was simply expected. Kentucky shared a river border with lands controlled by the Ridden, humans possessed and warped by an unbodied race. Whatever other differences they had, the mouths full of sharks’ teeth and hands with bony claws made their status plain. Strong, fast, relentless—and they hunted in packs. I’d been one of those who had killed Ridden and managed to make it across the border.

  I kill; I’m very good at it. None of the Xoticos clans believe in letting a tool grow dull. Who handled my obligations now? Running that night was an impulse, as was killing the cut-rate mercenaries who’d been hired for border patrol in the Union. Their crimes were ignored, since they were on the government payroll. After seeing their handiwork, vigilantism was called for. Escaping the people sent to bring me to ‘justice’ had just been fun. Until Silver caught me.

  The Justiciars hung me on the Tree. They got the truth and found out I was pregnant at the same time. While execution was the standard penalty for vigilante killings, they’d put their heads together based on the circumstances. Lifelong indenturement for me was their brilliant solution.

  Stomping through leafless undergrowth, I made good time south. The movement kept me warm, rain and ice slicking off my treated leathers. This slice of the world was all forest. Shaggy bark said beech to me, though I had no idea what the other leafless trees were. Icy trees would be prettier seen through a window, not out among them.

  The sun was in the process of pulling the horizon over her shoulder when frantic terror hit me. Not my own; my fickle ability to sense emotions at a distance blasted me with several sources of fear, some shaded with anger and protectiveness. A life or death fight was nearby, off the road.

  I bolted in that direction; innocence has a texture, and at least one source was a child.

  My breath steamed as I ran, sliding on occasional patches of ice. Whipping undergrowth cut both sides of my face before I hit the cleared area around a farmstead.

  Two groupings: three Ridden gnaw
ed on a still struggling and screaming man on the ground; another stalked a smaller person defending two children. The defender held a pitchfork, fending the Ridden off with awkward jabs. The stalking Ridden was slight in build, no more than five feet tall. My size.

  Bandits would’ve been much easier. They’d feel pain, they could be bribed or intimidated, they might run. This kind of Ridden only knew hunger.

  Not breaking stride, I gripped my heaviest knife by the blade and threw it, aiming for the stalker’s nape. Stopping a Ridden meant severing the spine or destroying the head. A high spine shot would disable it longer, so I could deal with the other three. Ridden, when whatever possessed them seized the body, gained tremendous healing and the ability to function through extreme trauma.

  It would be the weakest anyway: they ate in order of ranking.

  The knife flew true, and the stalker collapsed as I double drew and leaped toward the largest of the three on the screaming man. The hit knocked the dominant Ridden away, though it clawed me as it staggered. Once human, it was all muscle now. Claws tipped its fingers, its mouth was crammed with triangular saw-edged teeth, and no thought at all lay behind its eyes.

  It had been a man, the other a woman. The third another female, a teen. My focus narrowed to my foe, who’d oriented on me. The other two should continue attacking their prey while I ended their pack leader.

  It charged me, attempting a bearhug, and it missed me by a hair as I ducked and sidestepped. Continuing the motion, I thrust my knives into the back of its neck on opposite sides of its spine and used a scissor motion to sever it. Blood sprayed. The Ridden dropped.

  A pistol cracked behind me. I pivoted, kicking the head far from its body. The desperate man on the ground had used his free arm to draw a pistol and shoot the larger of the two Ridden still on him, going for a center mass shot. Inexperience or panic, understandable since they were chewing on him.

  The shot had dislodged the larger of the two from their buffet. The gut wound filled in as I feinted. A child’s scream. No time. I dropped my guard and it charged, grappling me.

  Very few humans are stronger than a Ridden. While on the short side, I was one of them. It bit my shoulder, and I dropped that knife to jam the other through its throat, at an angle to catch where spine joined brain on the other side. It dropped.

  Another shot cracked. Though bleeding out, the man on the ground succeeded in a headshot on the last mobile Ridden. The pitchfork-wielding defender had managed to pin the fourth against a tree. It scrabbled and shoved, but leverage won out.

  I scooped up an axe lying on the ground where someone had been splitting wood. Much easier to take a head off with this than my knives. My shoulder ached as I swung, giving the body peace.

  The children ran to the downed man, sobbing as I finished the last two. I pulled the rectangular medkit out of my dropped haversack and ran to where the man lay.

  The defender was maybe a wife, maybe a daughter—she was in her mid teens, applying pressure to the largest wound. The Ridden had bitten a good chunk out of his thigh and upper arm. Her skin was white with shock; it tinged further with green as blood pumped around us into the grass.

  She asked, “Do you have any medicine?”

  Silver insisted I carry a medkit, even though I didn’t really need one. I hated it when he was right.

  “There’s no guarantee,” I said. The man’s color wasn’t good and he’d lost a lot of blood. I affixed the kit over the big artery in his thigh and waited for it to do its work.

  The tech was as much magic as the normal kind. I didn’t understand how either worked.

  The two children huddled by her, sneaking scared glances at me. I avoided catching them looking; I didn’t want to scare them more.

  The kit chimed green.

  “He’s stable!” I failed to keep the surprise from my voice.

  Children and teen all burst into tears at the good news. They burrowed into her arms as she stared from him to me, tears catching in the corners of her smile.

  “Um. I can carry him in if you have a bed in the house? It’s still cold out here…” I said, hoping to stop the tears.

  On a half sob, half laugh, she nodded and rose. I scooped him up with care, following her to the small house. Ungraceful and squat, it was one of the temporary shelters given to those who took the grants to live Outside.

  She held the door, and I paused until my vision adjusted to the dimness. Best not to drop him, now that he’d stabilized, by tripping over the furniture. She brushed past me, lighting a candle.

  The golden light revealed three doors. Warmth radiated from a stove in the center of the main room. A few braided rag rugs softened the quick-set floor, and someone had made small wooden chairs to supplement the adult-sized plastic issue.

  “This one,” she said, carrying the candle into the nearest room to the door. I carried him behind, dribbling blood all the way. The medkit had stabilized him, but he needed warmth and quiet. Despite the stove, the room was chill, the vents closed to save heat.

  The teenager crowded next to me. “What’s your name?” I asked as she pulled the sheet back.

  “Anna,” she answered. I settled him into the bed.

  “Where’s the woodpile?” I stepped back as she drew the covers up.

  She inclined her head toward the back of the house. The other children stayed in the room with her and their father. Hauling wood and water in gave her time to settle, and she came out to stir up the fire and heat water. When I returned from fetching my haversack I stood by the table, waiting.

  The younger child had subsided to sniffles in the other room. Not much older than Dmitri, sex indeterminate, I wanted to comfort and had no idea how.

  “Are you their mother?” I asked, tentative, as Anna dippered hot water into a basin.

  “No, Mother died the first year we were out here.” Stern now, her lips compressed, she stared at me. “Thank you.” Her eyes flicked from the blood on my face and hands to the onyx I wore.

  Indentured weren’t common, and I was the only one they let run around loose.

  Anna set the basin on the table and offered me a scrap of a towel. Hesitant, she continued, “Could you bury them? They were our neighbors…”

  This was a task I could do. I rose. “What happened?”

  “They caught the flu, and nobody got the vaccine this winter—the medics didn’t make their rounds,” she answered. “We just got over it maybe a week ago.”

  Puzzlement blended into building anger as I pulled out the LawBook. Thin, black, its metallic gleam was strange on the plastic table as I set it down.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a LawBook. When I find things that aren’t right, I record testimony from the people who’ve been hurt, then bring it back to Capitol. My boss is Silver, the Justiciar.”

  Her eyes rounded. “They might listen?” She touched it with her fingertips, like the brush of a small bird’s wings.

  “Oh, I think he will.” I smiled as I finished cleaning my healing shoulder wound. To give Silver a little credit, he didn’t enforce the law based on the victim’s income bracket.

  The motion caught her eye, and her brows drew together at the newly healed wound.

  Putting the bloody towel down, I continued, “I’m going to set it to record while I go out. Would you tell it your name and everything that happened, starting with the date, then explain everything you told me? I’ll make sure medics come through this coming fall.”

  She nodded, pointing mutely to a shovel by the door. The row of well-used tools stood neatly racked by their front door.

  Digging, I thought. Hungry Ridden were bad. Mage-Ridden, who could talk—you hit them with everything you had then you ran, hoping you’d get away. Without offensive magic, you were toast.

  But if there were lots of people dying of disease, there’d be a lot of hungry Ridden running around. Those Riders slid in as the person died, taking the body and using it.

  The ground wasn’t hard, and I placed the hole at the far edge of their fields. Cold rain started up again, making everything a slippery miserable mess.