Page 12 of Heart of Defiance

“It’s not,” I insist. “Not if we show the rest of Velduny what’s possible. There’s—there’s a Darium guard post just an hour’s ride southeast of here. That’s probably where some of the pricks who burned our town are holed up now, rejoicing their ‘victory.’ I say we burn the guard post down to the ground as payback. I’ll go do it even if I have to by myself.”

“And what would they do to us next?” Norbert demands.

I pause, and a laugh hitches out of me with the obvious answer. “What could they do? How would they even know who attacked them, or where to find us? They took away the place where we lived. Now all of Velduny is our home.”

A burst of more emphatic conversation erupts, voices clashing and colliding, but a note of excitement reverberates through some of them.

They’re listening. They’re seeing what I see.

The captain steps in, her square jaw tight. I suppose I should be glad she hasn’t brought out the gag she threatened yet.

She glowers at me. “All right, you said your piece. Butyou’re not burning anything down while you’re tied to a tree. What your neighbors need is rest and healing, not a call to arms.”

Jostein shifts his weight from one foot to the other and glances over at her. His expression has tensed even more than before. “Captain… She has made some good points. I think she could see them through.”

As I clamp my teeth to avoid gaping at him in shock, his captain’s head jerks toward him. I’m even more shocked that she doesn’t snap at him for contradicting her but studies him pensively.

“Let’s not hear any insubordination out of you, squad leader,” she says, but her voice is simply terse, not outright cutting.

The blond man who seems to be Jostein’s friend rocks back on his heels with an air of restless enthusiasm. “One little guard post, hit it in the middle of the night, no one the wiser… Wecouldjust see what happens. Baby steps rather than diving in headfirst.”

The captain lets out a growl of irritation. “Iko, you can’t call instigating war a ‘baby step.’”

He shrugs and offers her one of his crooked grins. “I think I just did.”

The captain glares at both him and Jostein for a moment. Then she points at me. “I think this one is stirring up enough trouble with her neighbors. You two, bring her over to my tent so she can’t disturb them any more while we figure out what to do with all of these people. I trust between the two of you, you can keep her restrained.”

She marches off through the trees. A hush has fallen over our makeshift camp.

An ache expands in my stomach. So now I’m going to be set apart from the rest of my town all over again, when we don’t even have a town left?

Jostein and Iko exchange a look I can’t read. Jostein crouches next to me to untie the rope that binds me to the tree trunk while Iko kneels by my ankles. I guess I should be glad they’re going to let me walk rather than carting me over like a trussed pig.

They leave my wrists tied and yank me to my feet by my elbows. My legs wobble after so long sitting in that cramped position.

Landric is still on his feet. “You’re not really going to?—”

Jostein aims a hard look at him. “Captain’s orders. No one’s going to hurt your woman.”

I sputter indignantly. “I’m not his.”

Iko hums in apparent amusement and tugs me forward.

We tramp between the trees in silence, past a few small tents the soldiers have set up to a slightly taller one with a little Veldunian flag waving from its front post.

Inside, we find the captain sitting on a stool by the far end. She has a map unrolled on her lap.

At our entrance, she nods and makes a brief gesture for the men to sit me down across from her. They let go of me, Jostein a little warily. “Do you want us to bind her legs again? She does have a habit of running off.”

The captain shakes her head. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

The men move to leave, but she clears her throat. “Actually, I’d like to speak to both of you too.”

Something in her tone sharpens my attention. I peer at her as she sets the map aside and considers me in return.

Jostein and Iko stay where they are, Jostein’s posture stiff with tension and Iko slinging his thumbs in his belt in a casual stance.

“You raised some interesting points,” the captain says to me. “I see the guard post you mentioned. There wouldn’t bemore than ten soldiers stationed there at any given time, if that.”

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