Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Iko

T he pungent chemical smell of lantern oil wafts out of the bottle. Wrinkling my nose, I stuff the last rag partway down the neck and watch the liquid gradually saturate it.

Signy straightens up from where she was crouched by the side of the old wagon. Her movement, all athletic grace, draws my gaze automatically.

She pats the side of the wagon, which is now standing evenly on four solid wheels and stripped of its ragged covering. “There. All we need to do is harness the horse and load it up.”

I leap to my feet. “I’ll help you with that. I think we’ve got a good supply of explosives now.”

Signy eyes the rows of assembled bottles and lets out a soft laugh. “I should probably be worried by how much you seemed to enjoy putting those together.”

I thought she was pretty from the first moment I saw her hollering for her neighbors to push back the Darium soldiers, but when she smiles, my heart skips a beat.

I grin back at her. “Who doesn’t enjoy a good blast?”

As she fiddles with the harness, a mix of the abandoned one that’d started to rot and fresh strips of leather we scavenged from the shoe shop’s rubbish heap, I lead over the largest of our three stolen stallions. It’s obvious that this woman has never harnessed a horse before, so she lets me take the lead, eyeing the animal warily. But despite her uncertainty, she rises to the task with the same unshakeable determination I’ve seen over and over in the past few days.

How did this incredible woman manage to drop into my life out of nowhere, in the worst of circumstances?

We heave the three large casks we’ve acquired into the front of the cart. I check to confirm that the lid will easily pop off before stocking the base of each with several doctored bottles and a flint. Signy should fit inside easily enough, but it’ll be more of a squeeze for any of the rest of us.

As we load up the rest of the crates and sacks, mostly stuffed with trash with only a topping of food showing where necessary to sell the story, Jostein and Landric come riding over on the other two horses.

Jostein hefts the raw roast in its waxed paper wrapping and nestles it in clear view. It’s the key to our entry to the fort after all.

Landric dispenses handfuls of battered fruits and vegetables from his sack, carefully arranging them so only the best parts are showing. He motions to Signy. “I got your lemons!”

I can’t help watching the interplay of emotions on his pale face as she hustles over to collect the yellow fruit. He’s trying to play it cool, but there’s an almost desperate intensity to his gaze.

I don’t think she notices how much it bothers him that she’s still standoffish with him. And I suspect that bothers him even more.

But if he used to talk to her the way the rest of her idiot neighbors did the other morning, her aloofness serves him right.

Signy gets down to work cutting into the lemons and squeezing juice into a few small oilskin pouches. Before I can ask her what she’s planning on seasoning with the stuff, Jostein grunts in warning.

Several figures are heading our way from town. I hop up on the back of the cart for a better view. “They’re all wearing regular clothes, no soldier uniforms. Three of them are from the bunch we talked to last night, a couple of women around the same age, and two older men. I think they’re all right.”

I don’t have any magical gift for judging people’s intentions, but the grim resolve I can make out on the new arrivals’ faces and the forcefulness of their strides suggests they’re committed to a task they expect to be risky but worthwhile. If they were coming out here just to betray us, I’d expect to see more nerves or signs of guilt.

We all gather together to meet our accomplices. As they near, I take in the details with a growing sense of satisfaction.

Not only do they look resolved, they’ve also come prepared. The two older men are carrying crossbows, as is one of the younger men. One of the women has a regular bow slung over one shoulder and a quiver of arrows on the other. The other woman and two men carry hunting knives.

They’re definitely anticipating a battle.

I step a little ahead of my companions and smile in welcome. “Good to see you all here. Are you ready to crack some Darium heads?”

A gleam comes into the eyes of one of the younger men. “Are we taking them on today? Where are we going at them?”

The older man next to him gives him a nudge. “I’d like to know who we’re dealing with first, Sepp—and they’ll want to know who we are.”

Sepp ducks his head with an abashed look. “We were careful, like you said. This is my dad and a friend of his, Otmar. They do a lot of hunting—they know how to handle a weapon. And Tilman and Weiland brought their wives. The more of us can pitch in, the better, right?”

Jostein considers the group. “What happened to your other friend from last night?”

It’s the drunken one who’s missing, the one the soldier aimed his darts at.

Tilman grimaces. “He’s too hungover to be much use this morning, and I’m not sure he’d have the guts for it anyway. But those pricks from the fort have been terrorizing the whole town for too long. If we can do something about it…”

Otmar the hunter adjusts his crossbow under his arm. “What are we going to do? Who called for this expedition?”

Before I can speak, Signy spreads her hands apologetically. “It’s just us. Last night, we needed to be careful too. But we’ve already destroyed one of their guard posts, just the four of us. With a little more strategy and the seven of you, I think we can take down the entire fort.” She tips her head toward the distant building.

“Who are you?” Sepp’s father demands, though his face has lit up at the promise of her suggestion.

Landric motions between him and Signy. “Darium soldiers destroyed our home a few days ago. We’ve had enough. It’s time to send the invaders running.”

Weiland’s wife eases closer to the cart. “What exactly is the plan? We can’t all fit in the cart.”

My mind has already been spinning through the possibilities, but Jostein is the most natural leader among us. He probably took stock before they even introduced themselves .

He points to the casks. “We can have three people hiding in the barrels—they’re empty. The women are the smallest, so I’d suggest the three of you for that task. Iko will drive the cart, since he’s the best at bullshitting his way through tense situations.” He shoots me a wry smile.

“Guilty as charged.” I salute him and then turn to our new allies. “I’ve stocked the casks with several homemade incendiary devices and flints. You’ll have about ten seconds from when you light the rags to throw them before the glass bursts on you. I’ll signal you when it’s time—I’ll stop the cart partway through the door and say, ‘I almost forgot something.’”

Signy points to the one woman’s bow. “You can stash that and your arrows between the sacks and grab them when you need them. And we also have these.” She hands over the pouches of lemon juice and tosses the last to me. “Throw it in the soldiers’ faces when they get close. It’ll blind them for a little while.”

Clever as well as brave. I attach the pouch to my belt. “The three of you can use the casks as shelter for as long as the situation allows. Just keep lighting and tossing out the bottles—the more fire and smoke we can get going, the more confusion there’ll be that works to our advantage.”

Jostein walks over to the horses. “As soon as we see the first spurts of fire, the rest of us will charge in from over the nearest hill. I’ll ride… and it’d be good to have someone else particularly skilled with arms at the front of the charge.” He beckons Otmar over. “Landric will lead everyone else on foot. Just get in there as quickly as you can and stop any soldiers who try to run or ride off. Any concerns?”

The newcomers have gone wide-eyed, taking it all in, but I can tell it’s as much excitement as anxiety flushing their faces. Jostein sounds so confident I already believe we’ll pull the whole plan off without a hitch .

Signy leaps into the cart, her eyes glinting fiercely. “They won’t be expecting a thing. They figure they’ve got us all cowed. We’re about to show them different.”

Her words propel everyone into action. Otmar strides over to join Jostein at the horses.

Landric motions for the other men to follow him. “Come on, we need to get going to make sure we’re in position ahead of the cart.”

They set off at a brisk tramp, and Signy and I help the two women into the cart. They slide tentatively into the barrels, their feet setting the bottles clinking quietly, and crouch down.

“You’ve found the flints?” I check. “We jabbed a few discreet air holes so you should be able to breathe just fine, and the lid will pop off the moment you smack it. Let’s try it just so you know how it’ll feel.”

Signy ducks down into her own cask, and they practice a couple of bursts out of hiding. By the second time, the other women are laughing breathlessly.

“It’s really going to work,” one of them says.

I smirk. “The assholes aren’t going to know what hit them.”

With the lids in place, I take my seat at the front of the cart. I touch the blanket I laid there, which is covering the new weapon I spent a few hours last night constructing after a flare of gift-given inspiration, and then twitch the reins.

The stallion heaves forward, and the abandoned wagon rolls after him.

Even with our mostly false load, it’s enough of a burden that our pace is about the same as if we were walking. I expect we’ve given Landric and his followers a solid enough lead that they’ll be in place in time even with their roundabout route.

Jostein really was quite astute in how he divided us up. Every group has at least one of our original four in it, so our new allies won’t be unsupervised.

As I direct the horse onto the lane that leads to the fort, I glance toward the nearby hill. A flash of black cloth atop it confirms that the others are ready.

But this next step depends entirely on me.

I keep my posture straight as the horse clops up to the gate and draw the cart to a stop a few paces away. The two guards posted outside peer at me with vaguely puzzled expressions.

“Xaver fell off a ladder and broke his arm last night,” I say, using the name I gathered with a little chatting around town. “He sent me instead. Wanted to get that pork roast to your commandant bright and early.”

I motion to the hunk of meat, dribbling a bit of blood through the folds of the paper.

One of the guards walks over and then nods. “Thank you. He’ll be glad to hear it.”

They move to open the gate.

No expression of condolences for the grocer’s supposed injury, but I didn’t expect one. And barely a hint of caution.

How very complacent they’ve gotten. So sure every Veldunian is too beaten down to stand against them.

I’m looking forward to proving how wrong they are.

The gate creaks open. I tap the horse forward. The cart’s wheels crunch over the pebbles embedded in the dirt.

When we’re as far inside as we can get while still blocking the gate from shutting, I tug the stallion to an abrupt stop. My pulse thunders, but I manage to say the words loud and clear.

“I almost forgot something.”

I yank my doctored weapon out from under the blanket and spring to my feet. In the few seconds it’ll have taken for the women to light their first rags, I’ve aimed the morphed crossbow at the guards by the gate and shot three arrows with one press of the trigger.

One of the men was already starting to duck. The arrow pierces the center of his forehead. The second flies wild, but the third strikes the other guard in the chest.

Then the women erupt from the casks, and flames streak through the air.

Amid the shattering of glass on the hardened earth, shouts ring out all through the fort. I jump into the shelter of the cart and jam three more arrows into my bow.

More bottles careen through the air. Flames roar up from the splotches of spilled lantern oil. The tangy smoke prickles in my lungs.

The second the women duck into their casks again, I fire off another round of arrows toward the men rushing from the fort’s main doorway.

All three hit their mark this time, though two are hardly fatal injuries. More soldiers are hurtling toward us.

I draw my sword instead and vault over the side of the cart.

Another round of bottles with burning rags smash to the ground, one setting a soldier’s pantleg on fire. I swing my sword across another man’s throat before he can get close enough to stab at Signy.

The woman who brought her bow hurls one last bottle and scrambles out to retrieve her weapon. She bobs in and out of shelter, firing at the approaching soldiers.

My sword clangs against a longer one. I shove my attacker backward with a kick to the gut.

And Jostein barrels through the gate with a thunder of hoofbeats, his own sword flashing through the air.

He cuts down two Darium soldiers in quick succession. Otmar gallops in right behind him, shooting from his single but totally acceptable crossbow .

At the corner of my eye, Signy clambers out of her cask and leaps right over the front of the cart.

With a lurch of my pulse, I spin around. She’s already darting between the patches of flames, two more burning bottles in her hands.

She ducks under the sweep of a soldier’s dagger and flings her cargo through the open door of the fort.

Toward the wooden floors.

Fire roars up within the building. Within seconds, the shouts take on a frantic edge.

I spring forward and grab Signy’s arm, throwing myself between her and an attacker. As our blades clash, she whips out her hunting knife and rams it into the Darium soldier’s gut.

When she steps back, it’s not just exhilaration but pride shining in her face.

The fort is falling into ruin around us, and it’s all because of her. She should be fucking proud.

Gods know I’m proud to have been here with her, making the triumph she envisioned real.

Jostein lets out a menacing yell and topples another foe. His stance radiates power and passion—all that fire our superiors have liked to claim he lacks.

Maybe my friend needed this rebellion just as much as Signy did.

With a barrage of thudding feet, the last of our number charges into the fort. Knives flash, and the older man adds his crossbow arrows to the projectiles soaring through the air.

A Darium archer from a high window risks shooting into the melee and carves a bloody line through Landric’s bicep. The man barely flinches—and then Otmar has launched his own arrow straight into the enemy’s throat.

I don’t know how many we’ve already felled. I keep slashing and stabbing while the fire crackles through the fort, until flames lick at the second-floor windows.

All at once, I realize the onslaught has stopped. There’s no one around me except my co-conspirators.

We wait for a minute, our chests heaving with the exertion, our breaths rasping from the smoke. Then a triumphant laugh bursts from one of the women’s throats.

She raises her fist in the air. “For Barba!”

Sepp imitates her gesture. “And for Krissem!”

Jostein’s jaw tightens. “For Dirk and Fritzi!”

A lump clogs my throat. I propel the words past it. “For Lutza!”

For the first time, I really do feel like I’ve taken back some of the power Dariu has stolen from us for so long. Dealt back some of the horror they’ve inflicted on us for centuries.

We withdraw from the wreckage of the fort on shaky legs. Otmar dismounts to hand his horse over to me. He presses his arm against his side, where blood is seeping through his shirt.

“Just a scratch,” he protests when his friends exclaim and hurry to bandage it. “More than worth it.”

He turns to Sepp and his father. “We shouldn’t let it stop here. Gods smite them all, we need them right out of our country. If we could manage this with just eleven of us…”

Sepp’s father nods. “We’ll go to Vadan and see who we can rally.”

The woman with the bow taps her husband. “We could go to Childeric and do the same. We have to spread the word that the assholes can be beaten.”

I grin at their enthusiasm, but Jostein looks abruptly concerned. “Spread the word,” he says, “but lay low for now. If all goes well, the Veldunian army will mobilize in our favor. When our soldiers come to help you, you’ll be able to do so much more damage.”

With the elation emanating from our newly turned rebels, I’m not sure they’ll listen to his caution. But then, I’m not even sure they should.

We don’t waste time clearing out from the area of the fort and heading our separate ways. There’s no evidence left behind to indicate who was responsible for razing the fort.

As far as the Darium empire is concerned, it might as well be all of Velduny. That seems fitting.

Our band of four rides south for most of the day, back toward Feldan where we can regroup with our squadron. We stop only to rest, graze the horses, and to wash off the worst of the battle grime at a pond. After the latter, I find a small clearing in the forest where I can let the sunlight bake some of the dampness from my hair and shirt.

Jostein follows me there. He swipes his dark hair back from his forehead and leans against the tree opposite me.

His gaze slides back in the direction of the stream, where we left Signy still washing to offer her some privacy. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”

There’s more than awe in his voice. As I sit up straighter, a prickling sensation runs through my gut. “She is. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman like that.”

My friend’s attention returns to me, his bright eyes evaluating. “You’ve certainly dallied with enough of them before tossing them aside. She deserves better treatment than that, Iko.”

I bristle at his implication. “There’s a difference between two people knowing it was never anything worth keeping and ‘tossing aside’ someone. I hadn’t met anyone I wanted more than that with.”

An edge creeps into his voice. “But you have now?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Have you ? Since when do you let yourself get distracted by a pretty face?”

Jostein lets out a rough guffaw. “She’s leagues more than that, which you know as well as I do. Gods smite me, I’ve never gotten in your way. You can’t give me a chance the one time I want it?”

I push to my feet, the prickling heat that’s a mix of anger and jealousy spreading up through my chest. “It’s hardly up to either of us, is it? I’m pretty sure she’s the sole decider of who she’d end up kissing and whatever else. And she should know what her options are.”

Jostein’s shoulders tense. “Iko?—”

At the crunch of footsteps in the brush, we both jerk around.

Signy stops a few paces from the clearing. Her arms wrap loosely around her chest as if she needs the reassurance of an embrace. “What are you two talking about over here?”