She pressed her lips to his in clear appreciation of his rhymes—or to stop him from spouting more sonnets. He didn’t mind either way. Kissing her was poetry in motion.
41
NORA
Arow of snipers was positioned on the wall of the city; their guns were loaded, but their knees were shaking. There were only one hundred of them. Two thousand and seven hundred swords were stationed inside the city walls. The last five hundred fighters were in the keep protecting Elea. Nora and Matteo stood together on the wall. She knew that the gate to the city would not hold for long against her father’s men. Their volunteers were too inexperienced and scared. The scout had been right. There were at least seven thousand green uniforms surrounding the city in perfectly formed square companies. Nora thought the number was closer to eight thousand. She hoped that their morning march tired them a little. They desperately needed any advantage they could get.
The greencoats stood outside the gates and yelled taunts. Her own volunteers did not respond in kind but stood silently. Fear was as thick as smoke in the air.
“These aren’t trained soldiers,” Matteo said in a low voice so that only Nora could hear. “They will run when the blood starts to flow.”
She breathed in sharply. “There is nowhere for them to run. They will hold their positions or they will die in the city.”
Matteo gave her an encouraging smile and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We really ought to have hired a poet laureate to write an epic tale of our battle against unbeatable odds. We could have been memorialized in print forever.”
Nora pushed down the fear rising within her. “Live and you can write the epic poem yourself.”
“It’s a bargain.”
A quiet fell over their enemies. They no longer yelled insults.
It was time.
She watched Matteo pull back the hammer of his gun to cock it. Nora prepared her own weapon.
“Wait to shoot until you can see their faces!” Nora yelled. “Make every bullet count.”
The men and women gunners around her shuffled on their feet. She knew that they weren’t good enough to shoot at distance. They would be the most effective at short range, where any stray bullet would hit someone.
Nora saw her father in the distance. He was standing near the back of his soldiers. It wasn’t hard to spot him. He was a giant among his men. How she longed to meet him one-on-one and fight to the death. But that would not happen today. Laird Lochdon would not charge the city. He would send his most expendable soldiers first. The young and inexperienced.
The sound of a bugle broke the silence.
A rumbling sound of thunder filled the air as thousands of soldiers ran with their swords raised toward them. In the middle she saw a wagon with a battering ram, guarded by two companies of men. Their shields were held over their heads and they were protecting the four oxen who pulled the cart.
She glanced at Matteo. “Go for the oxen.”
He gave her a sharp nod before standing up to make the shot. Releasing the trigger, the bullet sailed through the air and into the leg of one of the first pair of yoked oxen. The large beast teetered on one leg before crashing into its partner bull. They both fell hard to the ground.
“Good shot.”
Matteo smirked at her. His confidence calmed her racing heart.Hewas beside her.Togetherthey could do anything. She raised her own gun and let off a shot; it didn’t hit the oxen but one of the men guarding them. She quickly reloaded her long gun and let the next bullet fly. It hit one of the second pair of oxen in the eye, causing it to fall to its knees. Their shared yoke brought its partner oxen down.
The wagon with the battering ram was not going anywhere.
Nora pulled out her sword and held it high. “Attack!”
She watched as the snipers lifted their guns and shot. Smoke and bullets filled the air.
Laird Lochdon’s army responded with gunfire of their own. There were so many bullets that it looked like rain falling down on them. She heard the sound of metal clanking against armor and shields. Pieces of bullets found their way to flesh and her smaller force was already beginning to dwindle.
Matteo and the other snipers continued to shoot as quickly as possible. But they were only a tithe of gunners compared to the army before them. Nora reloaded her gun and tried to pick off the soldiers guarding the wagon, one by one. They were attempting to unhook the injured oxen from their yoked partners. But for every soldier she hit, another one took his place, forming a large shield barrier to protect the animals.
Still, she continued to shoot, knowing that as soon as the battering ram reached the city gate, all of their advantage would be gone.
Nora heard a gasp. The woman beside her dropped her gun. Blood poured from her neck. Before Nora could grab her, the woman fell off the wall and onto the soldiers below. Glancing around, she saw that only half of their original gunners remained.
There was the sound of a boom.