Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,133

pain.

Darkness had reached the edge of my vision when a massive werewolf charged into Arthur, picked him up, and threw him away. The magic around me stopped, and the werewolf looked back at me.

“Tommy?” I asked.

Tommy nodded. “Brought friends,” he said as dwarves charged over the crater, dropping down and running toward Arthur, who was back on his feet and killing anyone who got close enough.

Hundreds and hundreds of dwarves charged down the steps toward the KOA as I got to my feet and saw Zamek and Tarron.

“We had to help,” Tarron said. “My people needed to help.”

The shadow elves were at the rear of the charge and moved considerably more slowly than the dwarves, but they still wanted to help stop the people who had used them for centuries.

“Thank you,” I said. “The creatures ran off into the city; they need to be hunted.”

“On it,” Tommy said and ran off with dozens of shadow elves and dwarves following him.

“How?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“A conversation for later,” Zamek said and ran off.

Tarron ran into the fray and helped several dwarves and elves who were keeping Arthur busy.

My body felt weak, and I needed a moment to catch my breath, but in that time Arthur killed three dwarves and plunged the broken spear through Tarron’s throat. The elf staggered back, and Arthur drove the spear up into his heart, killing him instantly.

“You keep getting your friends killed,” Arthur shouted, pushing Tarron’s body aside as he walked toward me.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

“I’d suggest that you could end this now,” Arthur said, parrying the strike from an elf and killing her where she stood before moving on as if nothing had happened, “but you can’t. You will all die.”

Arthur was only a few feet away from me when a sword struck the ground in front of me. Excalibur. I looked up to see Mordred standing above me. “Kill him,” Mordred said.

I gritted my teeth, took hold of the hilt, and raised the sword as I got to my feet, and Arthur charged me. I felt power flow through me, and lightning left my fingers, smashing into Arthur and throwing him across the crater.

I ran after him and activated Excalibur’s ability to remove the power in another. Arthur, realizing what had happened, threw the broken spear at me, but I moved aside and kept on coming. He turned to run, and I reached him and drove the sword through his back, pinning him to the stone.

“You always wanted this,” I whispered in his ear as I kept hold of the hilt. “You always wanted Excalibur. Well, congratulations—you got your wish.”

I twisted the sword, and Arthur let out a cry.

“No power, no magic, no army, no nothing,” I said. “I just want you to see how much you’ve lost.”

Arthur turned his head toward me. “I always hated you,” he said as blood flowed freely out of his mouth.

“Feared,” I said softly. “You always feared me.” I pulled Excalibur out, and Arthur crashed to his knees. “And you were right to do so.”

I swung the sword down, cleaving his head from his neck. Magic exploded out of him, throwing me back across the crater. Excalibur was still in my hand as I landed next to Mordred’s feet.

“I would have tried to fight him on his terms,” Mordred said, taking Excalibur from me. “I would have tried to beat him fairly. I knew you wouldn’t. You’d just win.”

“How’d you get here?” I asked.

“We got one of the realm gates working. It’s not everyone, but it’s enough.”

“Tarron is dead,” I said.

Mordred nodded and offered me his hand to help me to my feet, which I accepted. “So are Jinayca, Roberto, and thousands of others.”

Hearing Jinayca’s name among them hit hard.

“Arthur is dead,” Mordred shouted at the top of his voice as hundreds of others began to run past: Diana, Irkalla, Hades, Layla, Loki, Hyperion, and so many other friends and allies.

“We still have a lot to do,” I said.

“Yes, my friend,” Mordred agreed. “Yes, we do.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

NATE GARRETT

The KOA who had come to cheer Arthur on folded like a bad hand of cards. Turned out that when you got a few hundred exceptionally pissed-off dwarves running at you, you tended to reevaluate where you’d gone wrong in life.

Arthur’s body was taken by Hades, Loki, and Persephone back to Shadow Falls. It would be destroyed. No trace left for people to try to track down or turn into a martyr. He’d died hard, and he’d deserved every