Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,130

hadn’t come quite as unprepared as I’d expected.

I grabbed the arm that had driven the blade just under my ribs and wrapped tendrils of air around it, crushing the limb and trying to block the agony as I moved. Arthur removed his hand and tried to twist away, but I snaked the air around his arm, crushing the limb further before unleashing an electric shock as I activated my lightning magic.

Arthur stepped back again, and I raised my hand to the sky. Lightning streaked down, hit my hand, traveled through me, mixing with the magic inside, and exited through my other hand directly into Arthur.

I kept hold of Arthur as the lightning magic tore into him as if it were a hungry predator. His roars of pain were lost in the maelstrom of noise from the power I threw at him. I didn’t see until too late that Arthur had created a sphere of pure magic and detonated it between us.

I was thrown back fifty feet, bouncing along the monument—I hit the ground hard. The pure magic hadn’t hurt me; I was as immune to its devastation as Arthur.

I rolled onto my front and got back to my feet. The KOA had all but scattered now, leaving only a few, and they had bigger problems than me.

My hand was a ruined mess but was healing itself quickly enough. Most of the Washington Monument lay on its side along the ground. I started after Arthur, whom I’d last seen running along the remains. I climbed the monument, using air magic to punch holes in the side of it until I’d reached the top. Arthur was gone.

I sprinted toward where I’d last seen him and spotted him running back toward the Lincoln Memorial. I sank into the shadows and darted from light to light, hitting four before I dragged myself back up into the daylight above. I hadn’t seen the wraith, but I knew it was there and would always be there when I needed it.

I was thirty feet behind a fast-moving Arthur when the shadows tripped him and he fell to the ground. He saw me running toward him and activated his matter magic, the purple glyphs burning across the backs of his hands as he got to his feet. I activated my own matter magic and slowed to a walk.

“Where’s your spear?” I asked him, having only just remembered that he’d had hold of it earlier. “Did you drop it?”

Arthur got to his feet, brushing the grass and dirt off his trousers. “I don’t need it to kill you, whelp.”

I laughed. “Whelp?” I asked. “That’s it? All of these years of hating me, and that’s the best you can come up with, you contemptible piece of weasel shit?”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed.

“I know—I can do better,” I admitted. “And Remy has a whole dictionary of words for you.”

I was only a few feet from him now, and if I started throwing around magic, there was no telling what his matter magic would let him do with it. All I knew was that while he had it activated, he couldn’t use his blood magic. That was enough.

He threw a punch, which I avoided, and I hit him in the jaw with one of my own, causing him to stagger back. Instead of staying back, he immediately sprang forward, and I couldn’t avoid the knee to the chest, which picked me up off my feet and threw me back. I landed in front of a tree and rolled aside as Arthur sprinted toward me and tried to drive a knee into my face. He missed and hit the tree, which was all but vaporized from the power, showering me with thousands of tiny blades of wood.

Arthur didn’t stop, and I was forced to block or dodge punch after punch and, when he got close enough, kicks and knees. He kicked out at my knee and the outside of my thigh, trying to cause me to slow, to give him a chance to close the gap between us, but I continued to block. My matter magic ensured that I was stronger, but occasionally a blow got through and caused me to retreat. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Arthur was not about to tire, and I spotted a number of KOA agents who were holding back and watching the fight with interest.

I sidestepped Arthur’s punch and drove my fist into his jaw, snapping his head aside, and followed up with a knee to his ribs,