Page 4 of Heart of Defiance

I launch myself at him so quickly he’s obviously not prepared. Rather than push forward to meet me, he flinches backward.

My knife swings wide, but I heave my fist forward too, clocking him in the nose. He recovers with a snarled curse. I barely dodge under the swipe of his blade.

He wheels toward me, murder in his gaze, and the realization penetrates the blare of adrenaline in my veins that I might actually die today. My name might be the next added to the memorial on the hill. The other soldiers storm toward me?—

And a metal bowl flies through the air to clang against one of their helmets.

“She’s right!” the baker’s assistant yells, wielding a steel tray like a weapon. “Get out of here and leave what’s ours alone.”

All at once, more dishes and other odds and ends—rocks, shoes, a hammer—pelt the soldiers along with a barrage of shouts.

“Go away!”

“There’s nothing for you here!”

“Get back on those horses and ride!”

A crowd of townspeople has emerged from the buildings around the square, their faces taut with the same fury and anguish I was feeling. No one else would have wanted to see the fountain destroyed any more than I did.

They were just too afraid to say anything until someone else did it first.

“Back off,” one of the soldiers growls, and jabs his club at the people closing in around him. It smacks into a little girl’s jaw.

At her yelp of pain, the crowd surges forward. They punch and shove at the soldiers, heedless of their weapons.

Bertha from the butcher shop lunges forward and stabs a skewer straight into one skeleton-painted chest.

The soldier jerks and collapses, blood gushing from the wound. As Bertha yanks the skewer free, the Darium leader must decide his squadron is too outnumbered.

Hedoesn’t have any intention of dying today.

“Pull back,” he calls to his underlings, already retreating.They hustle to the horses they left at the edge of the square and haul themselves into the saddles.

“That’s right!” a woman next to me hollers. “Run like the beasts you are!”

The leader yanks his horse around. “You’re going to pay for today, peasants.”

Then they canter off the way they came.

A cheer goes up through the crowd of townspeople. Exhilaration rushes through my chest alongside it.

Excited voices babble all around me, friends gripping each other’s arms and exclaiming over our victory. With a grin on my face, I start to ease back to the fringes.

But Bertha grabs my arm and peers at me. “Are you all right, Signy? That was impressive, the way you came at them.”

As I blink at her, a man speaks up from behind me. “It really was. You showed them they can’t get away with whatever they want.”

An older woman who’s eased into the crowd aims a quiet smile at me. “Your mother would be proud.”

My voice comes out in a stammer. “I—thank you. I just couldn’t stand seeing them break her fountain.”

“There’s a line,” someone mutters.

Someone else gives me a hasty pat on the back. “You did good.”

Despite the ache where the soldier bruised my jaw, a smile stretches across my face. All at once, I feel like I did as a kid, spun around giddily by Dad like maybe if I wished it hard enough, I could actually fly.

“We kicked them out,” I say, barely able to believe the words. “We kicked them right out of town.”

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