Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,131
where I pushed out my matter magic into a physical force. Arthur’s ribs snapped like kindling, and I followed it up with a punch that he blocked, wrapping his arms around mine and snapping my elbow before kicking me away.
We stood there as the rain began, both of us hurt, neither of us giving up. I activated my blood magic, and it set about healing me, the magic fading the longer it lasted.
A KOA agent ran over to Arthur to check on him, and Arthur tore out his throat with his teeth, drank the blood down, and pushed the body away. “One of the benefits of being a vampire,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leaving a smear of red on his face.
“Not sure your KOA fans will enjoy that,” I said.
“Fuck them all,” Arthur said. “They’ll enjoy what I tell them to enjoy. If I want them to give me their blood, they’ll willingly do so. This isn’t a democracy. They get no vote, no say.”
I moved my neck from side to side as my arm reset itself. “Wow, we’re onto the hard sell of your shitopia, are we?”
“We can do this all night,” Arthur said. “But you don’t have all night, do you?”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“The creatures have run off into the city. They will tear it apart in search of sustenance.” Arthur laughed. “And there are still thousands of angry KOA over there. Watching us. Waiting. If you succeed, you die. If you lose, you die. You cannot win here, Nathaniel.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I think killing you would be winning enough for me.”
“You’ll never see your loved ones again,” Arthur said, pushing himself off the tree he’d been leaning against. “Let me tell you something, Nate. When you’re dead, I am going to murder everyone you love.”
“You keep saying that,” I told him. “You’ve had chances to kill me, and yet here we are. You either want my approval, or you just suck at killing me. What is it? Do you still think I’m going to join you? Do you still think I’m going to stand by and watch? You put a sorcerer’s band on me, and I survived it. You made sure that the only way to get that off was to kill myself. No key needed. And I survived it. You can’t kill me, can you?”
My arm was fixed, and I tested it, hearing the joint crack. My blood magic faded to nothing a moment later. At least it had gone out with one last use. “You ready to go again?”
“I will stand alone,” Arthur said. “Against you all. I will stand alone.”
I shook my head sadly. “Come die, you little cretin.”
Arthur unleashed a torrent of fire and air at me, tendrils of blood magic slithering through it all, while I wrapped myself in air and shadows and stood, bracing myself against the power. And then it stopped, the trees around me reduced to ash, the ground now a charred mess.
I removed my magic as one of the KOA presented Arthur’s spear to him. Oh shit.
Arthur’s smile was cruel, and I spotted a sword on the ground that had belonged to a now-dead Horseman and picked it up. It was a wicked, dark-bladed weapon with a slight curve. It was less than ideal quality-wise, but I wasn’t about to complain. Arthur had the gall to laugh before he launched his spear at me.
The spear moved faster than I’d have thought possible, and I had to throw myself aside to avoid being skewered. Arthur strolled casually toward the spear, and I charged him, hoping to reach him before he could get his weapon back. But blood magic snaked to the spear and pulled it back to Arthur just as I launched my attack, and he blocked the sword swipe to the neck. The side of my sword hit the shaft of the spear, and the sword broke from the impact. He twisted the spear and drove it up toward my chest; I had to dart back and swipe it away.
“I always loved this weapon,” he said smugly. “It increases my power; it removes your power. It’s frankly wonderful.”
I ignited a ball of flame in my hand. “Your spear is broken,” I said and pointed to the fact that I’d hit the spear so hard that the sword had cut into it, removing one of the runes there.