Page 69 of Wolves’ Witch

Chapter Thirty-Five

The hum of a spell, of magic being used, had warned Isobella of trouble, but Edmond, Aubert and D’Artagnon were faster to react. They’d had her and Remi corralled in the doorway of Didier’s hut before she’d identified there was a threat. A powerful magic, a darkness that had oozed over cobblestones and rough mud-brick huts with malignant intent.

A fine witch I am.

She’d missed it. Had stood in the alleyway near it, had passed it in the narrow street, had searched a cottage ignoring the dead man on the cot buzzing with flies while it’d waited outside. She’d been oblivious to its lethal presence. She had been the one to insist they’d need a witch along for the ride. They did. Just not her.

Isobella stood within the Langeais wolves’ protective circle. Her magic was useful—if you were in need of a salad. Her witchcraft helped the plants in the nursery thrive, but against another witch, one as powerful as Cordelia…

She eyed the chevaliers from House Allard emerging from the dissipating shadow. Neither was she of any use against armored men with swords. Or anything in the tenth century.

“There are too many of them,” muttered Aubert.

D’Artagnon drew his sword. “I would wager it is most, if not all, of House Allard’s chevaliers.”

There had to be sixty or more of them blocking the street at both ends and the alleyway. There was no escaping as they converged, cautious, but determined.

Edmond stood with his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. “Lothair will a have thing or two to say about that, I would imagine.”

Aubert snorted. “If he knows.”

The three men stilled, then glanced at Remi. He’d ducked back into the hut and was hidden in the shadows within. Were the chevaliers aware he was there at all?

“Do you think you could slip away?” Edmond turned back to the chevaliers and kept his voice low. “Find Lothair?”

“Or Gaharet and Aimon?” asked D’Artagnon. “With any luck, you will find them all together.”

“I can do it.” Remi’s voice was full of confidence. “But I am going to need a distraction.”

“We can kill a few of them?” said D’Artagnon. “I could use a good bloody battle.”

Edmond chuckled. “Happy to oblige.”

They would go into battle? Three of them against sixty chevaliers? Isobella searched for something, anything, in the hut, in glimpses of the street between Edmond and Aubert’s broad shoulders that could aid them. A chair? A pot? No. A broken shutter? No. The flame in the flickering oil lamp across the street? Nope. That could burn the entire village down with them in it. A straggly stinging nettle pushing up between the cobblestones. No.

Wait.

She was good with plants. She’d used one of her plant spells in the forest and killed three men. She could do it again. “I have an idea that doesn’t involve any of you dying today.”

A chevalier stepped forward, the aura of command surrounding him as surely as his chevaliers flanked them. “Drop your weapons.”

Isobella reached for Edmond’s dagger and his sword. He let her have them, the trust in his eyes making her lungs seize. She might not be strong enough to take on Cordelia, or an army of tenth-century warriors, but a distraction? That she could do. She would not let him down. “Get ready, Remi.”

The chevaliers closed in, a menacing force, obscuring her view of the nettle plant. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need to see it for her spell to work.

In a show of submission, she placed Edmond’s dagger and sword at their feet. D’Artagnon and Aubert followed her example. She eased back behind the protective barrier of the twins and cast her spell. The magic flowed through her veins as she channeled every bit of power she could muster into the plant. She wanted that straggly little stinging nettle to become a giant behemoth, spreading a burning fire across the skin of any chevalier who brushed against the needle-fine hairs of its leaves.

Her magic surged, more powerful than before, but she didn’t have time to contemplate the reasoning. Murmurs filtered through from the back ranks. An exclamation of pain, curses. Warriors shuffled about, a new wariness in their eyes. The commander ordered his men to hold steady.

The plant grew, towering over them, shoots sprouting from its stem as thick as a man’s arm, slithering further and further into the ring of chevaliers.

“A burn nettle?” Edmond chuckled as they retreated into the hut. “That is going to hurt.”

Chevaliers were ducking and weaving, avoiding its reach. Several lay on the ground, writhing in pain. Her stinging nettle was potent.

The commander sneered at her. “You think to kill us all with a plant?”

The stinging nettle swayed, too big for its stem and its roots. It dipped lower, swooping precariously near the commander’s head. He snarled at it, raised his sword and cut it in half. It flopped to the ground. The chevaliers regrouped, speared on by their commander, hacking at the stem, butchering the plant until it was a mess of shredded leaves on the cobblestones. Isobella mourned its loss, but it had served its purpose. Remi was gone.