Page 3 of Heart of Defiance

I stick to my high perch, following their progress into town. For a minute or two here and there, I lose sight of them amid the buildings. But it’s always easy to pick them out again as soon as they pass into view.

When they reach the edge of the main square, they dismount. The nearby townspeople stiffen and slip into the nearest buildings as surreptitiously as they can manage.

One of the soldiers motions to his companions as if he’s in charge, and a couple of the others march over to the bakery.

My stomach knots. I don’t need to be in hearing range to figure out what’s going on.

No money will be exchanging hands. The soldiers of our long-time conquerors simply point and take.

The men come out of the bakery with a couple of bundles of rolls and pastries. They lift the visors of their helms to eat, and the leader’s mouth glints metallic in the fading sunlight.

He sacrificed a few teeth at his dedication ceremony for a gift. Assuminghissacrifice was accepted by his chosen godlen.

Which most are. I’m the rare exception.

One of the soldiers saunters over to the fountain and fills his canteen from the water streaming from the jug. Another follows him and peers up at the figure. He turns to say something to the leader.

I can’t read the leader’s expression from here, but he strides over to a couple of townspeople who’ve just jarred to a halt across the square. Before they can hurry away from the intruders, the soldier asks them something with jabs of his hand toward the statue.

What’s going on? What could they possibly be upset about?

The tension in my gut winds even tighter with the sense of some impending horror. My hands ball at my sides.

Whatever the townspeople answer, the leader shakes his head. He peers up at the statue for a moment and turns to walk back to his underlings.

For the space of a few heartbeats, I think it’s over. Everything’s okay.

Then he waves his hand toward Mom’s fountain in a flippant gesture as if to say, “Do what you like with it.”

Three of the solders retrieve spiked clubs that were dangling from their saddles and barge forward. With a brutal swing, the first smacks his club down on the statue’s arm.

A cry breaks from my throat. Even as the sound bursts into the air, another soldier attacks the statue, battering it with thumps that carry all the way to my hilltop. The third hangs back with a hint of hesitation, but she doesn’t move to stop her colleagues either.

With a few more strikes, the statue’s arm cracks. Chunks fall off the mouth of the jug, tumbling into the basin’s water. The first soldier hops right onto the platform, his boots scuffing against the delicately carved flowers, and bashes at Adelheid’s marble head.

The tension bottled inside me explodes through my body. It knocks every thought from my head but a silently wailedNo!

My legs propel me forward. I’m running down the hill at full tilt, my patched boots smacking the cobblestones, my breath searing my throat.

No, no, no.

My sprint to the square passes in a blink in the haze of my panic. I’m barely aware of the buildings I’m rushing by,the road falling away beneath my feet, the instinctive splaying of my remaining toes ensuring my balance.

I careen into the square just in time to hear one of the soldiers muttering to the others. “All these years and everything we’ve done for them, and they still think they should celebrate the time before the empire.”

He swings his club at what’s now a stump of the statue’s arm, and I hurl myself at him.

Somehow, my pocket knife is in my hand. I barrel into the soldier, slashing out with it, my voice crackling up my throat. “That’sours. You can’t take it. You can’t take everything!”

My knife skids over the leather covering his upper arm before tearing through the fabric and flesh below his elbow. The soldier grunts and heaves me to the side with a smack of my jaw.

I stumble and manage to stay upright, brandishing the blade, breathing hard. “Get the fuck away from our fountain. It belongs to this town, not to you.”

The fact that anyone’s objected at all has apparently bewildered the soldiers. All five of them have turned to stare at me, the two at the fountain momentarily lowering their clubs. The one I cut has his hand pressed to the wound, the cloth around his fingers turning even darker with blood.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” the leader snarls, drawing his sword.

I’m too angry to be scared. “I live here. This is my home. And I don’t want you here.”

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