Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,125

one knows where he is or what he’s doing, but whatever it is, he wanted us out of the way for it.”

“You might still get your chance,” Hel said. “He still needs to be stopped.”

Mordred nodded. “I know. I just hope we can stop him before he gets whatever he’s after.”

Chapter Thirty

NATE GARRETT

Realm of Atlantis

I’d been watching more and more people heading into Shadow Falls when the realm gate had simply stopped working. Despite Zamek and the other dwarves trying to fix their realm gate, nothing was working. Whatever was happening in Shadow Falls, we were going to take no part in it. To suggest that I was frustrated was an understatement. To suggest that I was more frustrated at being reduced to a human again was probably something only Remy could find the right amount of swearing for.

As it had become quickly apparent that the realm gate wasn’t going to be working anytime soon, the dwarves had taken Tommy away to try to figure out exactly how they were meant to stop him from trying to kill me once he took werewolf form.

In the meantime, I discovered a patch of rubble that had once been a building housing untold numbers of monsters and searched for more of the bracelets in the hope that I’d find one that wasn’t used. I gave up after a few minutes of finding exactly nothing to help.

It was the end of the war, and I couldn’t even get to the right realm to help. So I went to assist in defrosting the shadow elves and helping the dwarves out of their prison. I’d been there at most half an hour when Zamek shouted to me from across the prison, my name echoing all around the chamber.

“Mordred,” Zamek said, out of breath.

“What about him?” I asked.

“Summoning circle,” he said. “They’ve turned the realm gate into a summoning circle.”

“You can do that?”

“Apparently,” Zamek said. “The attack on Shadow Falls was to keep everyone busy. They destroyed the realm gates, all of them, and cost thousands of lives doing it, but the dwarven gates are fixing themselves, and they used the power inherent in the gate to turn it into a summoning circle. Frankly, it’s quite astonishing; I’ve never considered using the power—”

“Zamek,” I said softly. “Maybe not the time.”

Zamek nodded as if his brain was finally catching up with his enthusiasm. “Right, well, Mordred wanted to let you know.”

“Okay, so how’s the elven realm gate working?” I asked, looking around to find Tarron.

“He’s working on it,” Zamek said.

We found Tarron nearby, along with two dozen shadow elves and more than a few dwarves. They were all staring at the floor.

“So it’s going well, then,” I said.

Tarron looked over at me.

“We have a problem,” he said. “We can get the realm gate to work; we’ve got enough blood and runes, but . . . well, it won’t work for long.”

“Define long,” I said.

“We’re not sure—probably seconds, if that. The number of runes that were destroyed in the city to collapse those buildings has caused unpleasant things to happen to the soil in the city,” Dethian the dwarf said. “It’s going to take time to create runes that will bypass the problem, or anyone who uses the gate and isn’t human is going to fry their power stepping through it.”

“That’s convenient,” I said.

“Well,” Dethian said, “it was probably a by-product of their plan. We can’t use any realms; we can’t make more. We’re sat here until we figure something out.”

“Okay, I’ll go,” I said. “Can you link it to the realm gate under the Lincoln Memorial?”

Zamek nodded. “I can. Easily. But I shouldn’t, because it’s insane. You’re human.”

I looked at my friend and nodded. “I know. But we know where Arthur is, and we know that we have people in Washington who are going up against an army. They need help. I can at least pick up a gun or something. I’m not helpless. Once I’m through, you need to get that realm gate fixed and get through too. We’re going to need backup. A lot of it.”

Zamek sighed and passed me his battle-ax, which hummed with power. “You’re going to need it. It should help keep you in one piece.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“We’ll be there when we can,” Zamek said as the runes on the earth burned brightly. “They’re working as fast as they can to get the dwarven realm gate operational. Normally, it’s minutes, but the blast from Shadow Falls really did a number on the