Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Signy

“ G ods save us,” Bertha mutters where she’s crouched on the hilltop next to me. “Here they come.”

The mass of figures in their white-on-black uniforms has appeared on the horizon. They march forward across the landscape like a rigid flood—perfectly regimented, perfectly steady, but with a momentum that feels inevitable.

Unstoppable.

My lungs constrict. I have to force myself to drag in a deep breath of the warm air to try to loosen the tension.

The Darium army isn’t unstoppable. We’ve cut down soldiers like these more than once in the recent past.

But never anywhere near so many. Never when they were utterly bent on our destruction.

At my other side, Landric shifts his position with an air of restlessness he’s trying to suppress. “Don’t move until they’ve almost reached the crossroads. We’ve got a little time left.”

When they come up on the crossroads, they’ll have the option of veering north and laying waste to the first village on this side of the border. It’s a quaint place without even a temple to call its own, only a cluster of houses and a couple of common buildings surrounded by farms.

When we warned them, a few of the inhabitants opted to join our cause. A few fled to camp out in the forest farther north. Others refused to leave their homes at all.

They’ll all lose those homes if the army heads that way. We’ve seen how thorough Dariu likes to be in dealing out revenge.

There won’t be a single building left standing.

So we have to make sure they come this way.

I scan the fields on either side of the road for any splotches of orange we missed. With a waft of relief, I find none.

Most of our “army” spent the better part of the past day ever-so-carefully plucking any lissweld blooms we could find and adding them to the thicker field that’s currently at our backs. We didn’t want the Darium soldiers stumbling on a patch early and realizing the danger the flowers pose.

It isn’t just our familiarity with our country that works to our advantage. The Darium forces are ignorant in all sorts of ways.

They don’t know that our numbers have doubled since the last time one of their representatives confronted our resistance. They don’t know how organized we’ve become under the guidance of our own military leaders.

Let them think we’re merely a scruffy band of resentful townspeople who can barely handle a knife, let alone a sword. They’re marching on us assuming there’s no way we can stand against them.

Their arrogance is our greatest advantage of all.

A large man on a massive stallion rides in the center of the army, several scarlet plumes jutting from his helm. That must be High Commander Livius, the one we were warned about.

The man who’s given the ultimate orders to every Darium soldier in this half of the continent. The man who’s overseen our subjugation.

As Landric watches the army approach, he twists his fingers into the grass by his knees. He’s pulled a brown cap over his distinctive reddish hair so it doesn’t catch the sunlight, but a few ruddy tufts poke out along the nape of his neck.

I shouldn’t notice things like that. I shouldn’t want to talk to him—but I don’t really know what to make of him these days.

He smiled when I explained my plan and told me it was brilliant. He volunteered to be on the front lines of this mission before we even asked who’d take that risk.

How much is he the same man he used to be, after everything we’ve been through?

“I suspect this isn’t the kind of exploring the world you were thinking of when you imagined your future,” I murmur to him.

His mouth slants into a crooked grin that takes his face from handsome to breathtaking. “No, not quite. It’s certainly more exciting. And it’ll matter leagues more than anything I ever pictured myself doing.”

Bertha snorts. “ Exciting. ”

Landric lifts his shoulders in a slight shrug. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t skip the hand-to-hand combat parts if I could. But… my whole life, I just wanted the chance to roam around the countryside freely. Now we could be part of giving everyone in Velduny their freedom. Nothing else seems all that important.”

The tightness in my chest creeps up to my throat. “Yeah.”

Those words resonate with me more than I’d have expected. What do statues and paintings matter when I’m helping create a more beautiful future for all of us who’ve lived under the Darium empire’s thumb?

What we’re going to do here today will be a kind of masterpiece, and I’m the one who sculpted it.

The Darium army has continued their relentless advance. Iko’s voice carries from behind us. “It’s almost time. Is everyone ready?”

Voices lift in answer all across the hillside. Several dozen of us have gathered for this first part of the plan.

We need to present a big enough force that the Darium soldiers will be sure we’re part of the main resistance without putting too many of our people in the most extreme danger.

Captain Amalia, the only higher officer who joined us, treads across the grass behind me. “Be fast on your feet, everybody. Just harass them—don’t get any closer than you need to. Just enough for them to follow. Now. ”

At her command, we spring to our feet and hurtle down the hill toward the road. Up ahead, the Darium army is little more than ten paces shy of the crossroads.

A shout goes up the moment we race into view, but there’s nothing panicked about the sound. They won’t see our small group as a significant threat.

Their mistake. I bet we can take down a few of them even now.

The Veldunian soldiers among us in their plain clothes and a few of the ordinary civilians with hunting practice brandish their bows of all sorts. As they send a volley of arrows shrieking through the air toward the enemy, the rest of us holler insults at the top of our lungs. I pull back the slingshot Iko constructed for me and fling one sharp stone and then another with all the force I can bring to bear.

The Darium soldiers on the front line jerk up their shields—black painted with interlaced bones to match their uniforms. Most of the arrows and other projectiles glance off the steel surfaces of those and their helms, but I see one plunge into a man’s shoulder, another catching a woman in the throat. A few figures stagger amid their comrades.

I reach for another rock, but High Commander Livius jerks a rigid arm forward. His booming voice carries across the terrain, amplified by magic. “Crush these pathetic miscreants!”

The Darium army surges toward us at his command. Captain Amalia yells the order for us to retreat.

We could have fled faster on horseback, but presenting ourselves as an armed cavalry rather than common rabble would make the Darium force more cautious. So we dash away on foot, our boots thumping along the road between the low hills.

It’s half a mile. Half a mile past the field of lissweld to where the rest of our allies are waiting.

Half a mile before we’re out of pollen range and our gifted companions can cast out their magic.

We aren’t the only ones with bows. As the pounding of tramping feet reverberates from behind us, arrows plunge into our midst. There’s a cry and a thud of a falling body behind me. A bit of fletching grazes my ear as a shaft twangs by.

I swallow a yelp and push myself faster. “Come on, everyone!” I call out, but my voice sounds hoarse.

More arrows whir through the air. More gasps of pain and ominous thumps carry from around me.

I glance over just as one pointed shaft rams into Bertha’s back. A noise of protest breaks from my throat as she crumples.

“Signy!” Landric grabs my elbow, yanking me to the side. An arrow that might have speared me through my own back slices across my bicep instead .

Pain sears all through my arm with a spurt of blood. I can’t do anything but keep running.

Orange blooms flare at the edge of my vision. We’re passing the field. We’re leading the Darium soldiers straight toward it.

I throw myself forward, my companions charging onward as if we’re one being. There isn’t time to look around and see how many we’ve lost.

We knew this was a dangerous gambit, but it wasn’t half as dangerous as trying to face the army on even ground.

“Anyone injured, continue back behind our front lines,” the captain is hollering.

Iko appears beside me, his eyes widening as he takes in my wound. He slings his arm around my back and urges me the last short distance to where our larger force is waiting.

The rest of the rebels don’t charge to meet the Darium soldiers, not yet. The moment our contingent acting as bait races past the field, a smattering of figures raise their hands.

Their magic propels the very air.

A wind whips up over the field and flings the lissweld’s pollen away from us, toward the advancing soldiers. A flurry of pale yellow whirls across the landscape like a sudden blizzard.

The tiny grains patter against shields and helms—and slip through the gaps in the visors.

All at once, the first barrage of Darium soldiers lurch and stumble. One and another claw at their helms. Watching, I’m barely aware of the army medic who’s stopped by my side to murmur a little healing magic over my arm. A smile curves my lips.

I can just imagine the agony they’re feeling, the stinging sensation digging into their eyeballs, the world around them turned into a vague blur as their vision fogs with irritation and tears .

Take that, you vicious pricks.

More wind gusts over the army, sending the searing pollen all through their ranks. Their strict formation is shattering into chaos.

High Commander Livius wheels on his horse, hollering orders I can’t make out. Then our major flings his hand forward.

Several hundred soldiers and armed civilians dash forward to attack our disabled opponents. Blades plunge into guts and slice through throats. Clubs bash in helms and fracture bones.

Blood splatters scarlet across the grass next to the sea of orange flowers.

I step forward, reaching for the short sword at my hip, but the medic catches my arm. “The injured stay back. Captain’s orders.”

So I simply watch the carnage with grim satisfaction. The bodies of our colleagues, struck down on our mad dash here, have been lost amid the swarm of soldiers. But we’re taking down so many more of them than they stole from us.

The high commander must realize they’re currently outmatched. More shouts ring out, and the soldiers at the back of the march start retreating, just a few at first and then in a more orderly mass, surging away from the scene of destruction even faster than they swept down on us. The plumed helmet bobs away from us.

As my fellow rebels continue to carve through the nearest enemies, a cheer of victory goes up. We’ve sent them running. We’ve taken down hundreds of our foes.

A swell of triumph fills my chest, but it’s dampened by the sight of all those dark uniforms pulling away from us.

There are still thousands more of them, and now they know we’re a force to be reckoned with. We’ve won this battle, but we haven’t won the war.

We leave the Darium corpses where they fell, murmuring a prayer for our fallen comrades among them, and draw back to the shelter of the nearest forestland. While we roast deer and wild boar our allies have hunted down, our sentries report that the Darium army has withdrawn all the way to the border to regroup.

That gives us at least a day’s buffer before they can strike at us again. A day to come up with another plan that’ll let us come out ahead—and most of us alive.

The voices and laughter that resonate around the campfires have a celebratory vibe, but I keep seeing Bertha slumping with the arrow in her back. Keep searching the faces around me to try to determine exactly how many people we lost today.

How many people died carrying out my plan.

I’m not the only one with loss on my mind. My eyes catch Jostein’s through the crowd for the first time since the attack, and he barrels past the figures around us with a frantic light in his bright blue eyes.

The squad leader comes to a halt in front of me, his gaze darting over my face, his bronze-brown skin looking grayed. “You’re all right? I heard you were injured—I’ve been looking for you.”

The intensity of his concern makes my pulse stutter. I motion vaguely toward the torn, bloody fabric of my sleeve, the pink line where the medic healed the broken flesh beneath. “Just a minor wound. They patched me up.”

Jostein’s mouth twists. “It came so close.”

He touches my arm, his expression so fraught it wrenches at me. There’s blood speckled across his tunic too, and a deepening purple bruise on his cheek that wasn’t there before .

We all toed a perilous line today. We’re all lucky not to be one of the few wrenched over the edge.

Gods help me, what would I have done if the Darium soldiers had murdered this man in front of me?

The anguish that rushes through me at that thought reflects back at me from Jostein’s face. His hand rises to touch my cheek. Heat tingles across my skin, both from his touch and the mix of fear and longing in his gaze.

“I’ve just found you,” he says in a strained voice. “There’s so much we haven’t had time for… I can’t lose you.”

I know he’s talking about more than finding me just now in the crowd. My body sways toward him of its own accord, my hand coming to rest on his chest. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

A raw sound thrums from his throat, and then he pulls me into a kiss.