Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,109

apart and thrown up all around him as his light magic exploded outward. Mordred created a shield of air as he lay in the ditch he’d created, and he stopped the hundreds of shards of earth that Merlin had conjured out of the cloud of earth and thrown at Mordred.

Mordred’s legs began to heal, but he was now at a serious disadvantage. He activated his blood magic, letting its power wash over him so he could heal, but Merlin kicked him in the legs, causing him to momentarily lose concentration.

Merlin stood above Mordred and tutted. “You always were a disappointment,” he said, a blade of ice in his hand.

Necromantic power smashed into Merlin, who hadn’t been anticipating an attack. “Get away from him, you son of a bitch,” Hel said as she stood beside the injured Horseman and reached out, taking control of its spirit and tearing it out of its body. Hel’s eyes rolled up into her head, and her necromancy swirled around her before being launched at a recovering Merlin, driving him into the building behind him, which partially collapsed from the impact.

Hel was beside Mordred a second later. She placed Excalibur beside him. “I think you dropped this. You okay?”

“Blood magic is healing me,” he said. “I really wish I didn’t have to use it, though.”

Hel knew of Mordred’s past with addiction to the power of blood magic, and despite the concern on her face, Mordred knew that she wouldn’t judge him for its use.

Hel cut across her arm with a dagger from her belt and forced Mordred’s hand over the wound. Her power crashed into him, making him gasp as he tried to steady himself. His legs healed, his body coursing with newly found energy. Hel sat on the ground and took a deep breath as Mordred released her arm.

“That was dangerous,” Mordred said.

“So is fighting Merlin alone,” Hel said. “Dumbass.”

Mordred smiled as he got back to his feet and noticed that Hel’s wound had already healed. He rolled his neck.

The building that Merlin had been thrown inside was torn apart as he exited. “You are not going to throw me into any more fucking buildings!” Merlin screamed at the top of his lungs.

“He seems mad,” Hel said.

Mordred put up a shield of air that stopped the car-size boulder from pulverizing Hel and himself. “Yeah, a bit,” Mordred agreed.

“I’m going to stay here and make sure no more of those assholes interrupt you,” Hel said and immediately sighed when she saw several Horsemen advancing toward them. “Quit playing with him and finish it.”

Mordred and Hel ran in separate directions, Mordred blocking and deflecting everything that his father threw at him. The look of concern on Merlin’s face was compounded when he detonated a sphere of shadow magic that shot tendrils of darkness out like Cthulhu was trying to get into the realm and Mordred created a shield of light magic and started to hum the theme tune to The Legend of Zelda.

The shadows recoiled as they touched the light, and Mordred increased the intensity and power of the shield as he walked slowly toward his father. Occasionally, a tendril of shadow would devour part of the shield, but Mordred simply replaced it, never taking his eyes off his father.

“Stop with that infernal song,” Merlin shouted.

“It calms me,” Mordred said softly. “It makes me smile.”

Mordred was five feet in front of his father, who had stopped the shadows and stood before his son, his mouth open in shock.

“I’m stronger than you,” Mordred said. “Much, much stronger. We could be here all day trading power, but you created me to have your power and my mother’s power. So we both know I’m stronger than you.”

Merlin swallowed and suddenly looked nervous.

“Funny thing is, I don’t want to kill you,” Mordred continued. “I know I should. I know you’re nothing but an utter bastard, but I still don’t want to.”

“Because you’re weak,” Merlin spat.

Mordred detonated the shield, forcing all the power directly in front of him. Merlin couldn’t get his shield up fast enough, and the power smashed into him completely undefended, blinding him, burning his skin and hair. His cries of pain were lost in the maelstrom that Mordred had created, combining his light and air magic into a whirlwind of magical fury that Merlin had no answer to.

The amount of power that Mordred had used left him drained, and when the magic subsided, he had serious issues remaining upright and decided to just drop down to one knee