Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,105
dodged and parried weapon attacks while throwing magic at those close enough. Fighting against a never-tiring mass of armored psychopaths was not a fun experience.
The bodies of the Horsemen littered the ground, but for every one Mordred and I killed, two more arrived to fill the void, leaving us both constantly on the back foot.
I parried an ax attack, but a Horseman appeared out of the shadows beside me and drove its fist into my jaw before I could stop it. The axman twisted the sword out of my grip and kicked me in the chest hard enough to send me back a dozen feet. I crashed to the ground near Mordred, who removed the hand of one Horseman who was reaching for me.
“This sucks,” I said, getting back to my feet. I’d been taking Horsemen into my shadow realm when possible to continue to feed my power, but it wasn’t going to be a long-term solution to fighting dozens of well-trained, heavily armed monsters.
“When it happens, catch it,” Mordred said, swinging Excalibur down into the neck of the closest Horseman. Dodging the next attack, he drove the sword up into the Horseman’s chest before blasting it away with his air magic.
Mordred spun and tossed Excalibur toward me, and I used my air magic to guide it to me before catching it in one hand and driving it up into the head of my closest attacker. I swapped hands, pulled the sword free, parried another strike, and stabbed the Horseman in the heart. A whip of lightning in one hand and Excalibur in the other, I killed two more Horsemen before I threw the sword back to Mordred, who caught it without looking and impaled a Horseman by his side before spinning under a second attack and removing the leg of the assailant.
We carried on like that for a while, each killing several Horsemen with Excalibur before bouncing it over to the other one and repeating the process. Excalibur didn’t dull; it didn’t get stuck—it drove home true, and nothing stopped it. Every time I held the sword, I felt my power increase, I felt the overwhelming need to use that power to destroy, and giving it up was incredibly difficult, but I did it nonetheless.
We’d killed a few dozen before the Horsemen stopped coming, and Mordred and I stood back to back, exhausted.
“These assholes just don’t know when to quit,” Mordred said.
“Are you both done?” Merlin asked.
I took a deep breath. “Nah, just getting a second wind,” I said.
Merlin laughed. “I would have enjoyed working with you, Nate. It’s a shame things didn’t work out.”
“You murdered people,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s less ‘not working out’ and more down to you being a psychopath,” Mordred said.
While Merlin was engaged with Mordred, my shadows crept around the dead Horsemen, stretching out until they were under the feet of everyone standing before us.
“You done?” I asked.
Mordred nodded.
The shadows leaped up off the ground, engulfing everyone within reach. They had dragged half a dozen down into the shadow realm before they were stopped, and while the pain of having my shadows severed or burned was less than pleasant, the power that those dead Horsemen gave me more than made up for it.
“You play video games?” Mordred asked.
Merlin’s expression was the picture of rage. “Of course not. I’m a grown man.”
“Well, this will be new to you, then,” Mordred said.
Lightning tore out of my hands, smashed into the first Horseman, and exploded. It bounced from Horseman to Horseman, exploding with every new one it touched. Charring armor, breaking inside, and obliterating the living being.
One of the explosions bounced to Merlin, who wrapped himself in fire as the lightning detonated, throwing him twenty feet back across the face of the citadel. He impacted with a nearby building and vanished from view.
Mordred raised his hands high above his head and created a huge sphere of light magic.
The lightning died down, and I took a step back as Mordred unleashed the light magic. It turned into hundreds of daggers of light, which smashed into the remaining Horsemen with frightening speed and power.
“Chain lightning, bitch,” Mordred shouted to his father, who still hadn’t emerged from the hole he’d created in the wall of the building.
“There a name for the light-dagger thing?” I asked as the remains of most of the Horsemen steamed on the ground.
“Light-death-dagger thing,” Mordred said. “I’m thinking of copyrighting it.”
I offered Mordred a fist, which he bumped while smiling.