WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations by Kathryn Veque (reading an ebook txt) 📕

comrades. It started quite by accident. They were standing next to a merchant stall as a wealthy woman and her two guards emerged, walking straight into a group of armed men. As soon as the guards saw the weapons drawn, they immediately unsheathed their own weapons, more than likely afraid that they were being robbed.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

De Alisal and his comrades were charged by the two armed guards. As a nasty fight broke out, de Alisal’s comrades, possibly thinking that this had something to do with Andreas, charged Andreas with their swords lifted. Fortunately, Andreas had some time to prepare, so he was ready when the men ran at him. He easily dispatched one man who ended up with a sword wound to his belly, but the second man was a knight he had seen before, an older man who was quite seasoned but who had never had a decent reputation. Andreas didn’t even know his name, but that didn’t matter. The man had his weapon leveled at Andreas, clearly with the intent to do him great bodily harm.

Dropping to his knees as the man charged him, Andreas was able to bring his sword up in a beautiful move that cut the man right through the middle. As the old knight fell away, more men abruptly entered the fight and Andreas had no idea where they came from. He could see the armed guards fighting de Alisal, but more men were entering still, perhaps the armed guards who protected the many merchant stalls along the avenue.

Though this area was the low rent district, controlled by the church, and there didn’t seem to be many great things of value here for sale, that didn’t mean some of these merchants didn’t have men on their payroll to protect what they did have. It was quite possible they thought some massive robbery was taking place or about to take place. All Andreas knew was that many armed men were entering what should have been a four-man battle.

Without his protection, Andreas knew he was at a distinct disadvantage and it was probably best if he make haste away from the fighting. He was just about to turn back towards the fool’s stage when de Alisal managed to break away from the armed guards he had been fighting. He saw Andreas attempting to leave and he took exception to that. Fortunately, Andreas caught the movement and realized he was about to be attacked from behind, so he swiftly turned about and met de Alisal head-on in a nasty swordfight.

There was chaos going on all around them as the entire avenue seemed to deteriorate into an enormous skirmish. What had been a happy and pleasant afternoon now turned into something deadly and frightening. At this point, Andreas was simply trying to keep his torso from being pierced by the sword that de Alisal was swinging at him.

He simply wanted to make it out of there in one piece.

If he had been wearing his protection, he wouldn’t have been so cautious and the fight would have been over much sooner. Because he was without protection, however, he was being a little more careful than usual. He was using tables and doorways as shields as de Alisal came after him with a vengeance. The man might have been an unscrupulous knight, but he had skill.

Andreas had known that from the start.

That’s what made all of this so very tricky.

In fact, Andreas was trying to get his opponent into a position where he could cut him down and not risk himself doing so, using a small merchant’s stall as a shield. He ducked inside as de Alisal came charging after him. Just as he turned to level his sword against the man’s neck, de Alisal was hit from behind with something heavy. It looked like one of the enormous fire pokers that Andreas had seen in a nearby merchant’s stall, from a man who sold all manner of iron works.

As de Alisal started to go down, Gavriella suddenly appeared. It was she who had been the wielder of the iron bar. As Andreas watched in shock, Gavriella swung the iron implement at de Alisal again, hitting him twice in the head. Once he was on the ground, she swung it yet again and ended up dislodging the man’s helm. Andreas quickly overcame his shock when he realized she was swinging to kill, but before he could disarm her, she swung it twice more as she screamed at de Alisal.

“No more!” she cried. “You’ll not hurt anyone again, you bastard! I hope you die! I shall kill you myself!”

Shocked, Andreas listened to her scream before he finally realized that he should probably stop her from committing murder. As she brought the fire poker up again to brain de Alisal, he managed to grab hold of the iron implement and yank it from her grasp.

But that didn’t stop her. In fact, Gavriella seemed not to realize he had taken her weapon away. They were at a merchant’s stall where the man had imported items from France and Saxony and other points east, including carved wooden walking sticks. They were quite beautiful, topped with brass, and she grabbed one of those and begin beating de Alisal with it as the man lay there, dazed.

All the while, she continued screaming at him.

“That will teach you to attack anyone again,” she yelled. “You’ll never hurt anyone again, you vile fiend. I shall make it so you can never hurt anyone again and ruin their lives!”

Andreas knew he should have stopped her.

He knew he should have taken the walking stick from her hand and stopped her from beating de Alisal, but he couldn’t seem to do it. He was far more interested and, truthfully, more concerned about what was coming out of her mouth.

He was coming to get a bigger picture of her.

She was screaming at de Alisal as if he had personally harmed her or attacked her, the ravings of a