Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,39
to the ground, remaining just above it as I moved toward Gawain.
“I cut him,” Gawain shouted at me. “Your pet wolf. I cut him good, and I watched as he knitted himself back together. Over and over and over. It was fun.”
I continued toward him without a word, lost in my rage and desire to hurt him.
Gawain got to his feet; a whip of fire grew from his hand.
Shadows sprang out of the ground to hold Gawain’s wrists before he got close enough to be an issue. Gawain was an old sorcerer and, given time, a dangerous one, but his level of power was never going to be anything I needed to worry about. And he knew it. Even so, he swiped at the shadows with the whip of fire, and they shrank away. But it gave me the opening I needed to slam a sphere of lightning into his chest and detonate it.
Gawain was picked up and thrown back fifty feet toward the front entrance of the White House. He’d covered himself in a shield of earth, which took the brunt of the explosion, but it must have hurt.
I caught up to Gawain and punched him in the face before kicking him back toward the White House. He threw a ball of fire at me that I swiped out of the way, smashing an elbow into his ribs before twisting and catching him with an uppercut to the jaw when he staggered forward. He managed to stabilize himself and kicked out at my knee, forcing me to hold back and giving him the opportunity to dive toward me with a dagger of fire.
I hit him in the chest with a gale of air that threw him across the front of the White House steps, where he collided with a column.
Gawain scrambled up the steps and threw a ball of fire at me that I deflected up toward the first floor of the White House. The magic exploded, tearing out a large part of the balcony above us and raining rocks down over the ground.
Tendrils of air wrapped around Gawain, and I dragged him back from the White House door, using my matter magic to enhance my strength. I flung him back across the tarmac, and he skidded onto the lawn as his earth magic kept him from more injury.
Thunder boomed.
“Where is Tommy?” I asked Gawain, using my air magic to ensure he heard every word.
“I can’t say,” Gawain said. “I won’t say. Not even Excalibur can force me to talk. I have runes on my body; I will not give away anything.”
“Then what use are you to us, you coward?” I asked him as the gates to the White House burst open and Roberto, Jinayca, and several dozen others ran toward me. The sounds of people shouting my name were drowned out by the roar of thunder above.
“You won’t kill me,” Gawain said, spitting at me. “I’m not afraid of you. None of us are. You can’t defeat Arthur; he’s too powerful. He will kill you all and drink from your skulls.”
I raised my hand, and lightning streaked down from the skies and hit my outstretched palm. It flooded through me, mixing with my own magic. Lightning poured out of my eyes, my mouth, every part of me trying to contain the power inside.
“Tommy is in Atlantis,” Gawain screamed.
I spotted the tiny red light as it touched Gawain’s face, and I turned, unleashing the power directly into the third floor of the White House, where the sniper was. As the magic hit, it vaporized a large portion of the front of the floor, leaving a massive hole where the Solarium and its balcony had once been. The remains of the sniper toppled out of the building.
I turned back to Jinayca as she arrived with a flustered-looking Roberto. “Apparently, we missed one,” she said.
Roberto continued to stare at the hole in the White House.
“Gawain’s all yours,” I told them. “The president is untouched. As are his senators. There are a few paladins in the West Wing. They all surrendered. Gawain was bounced along the lawn because he decided to open his mouth.”
“Nate,” Jinayca said softly.
“Tommy is in Atlantis,” I said, ignoring her. “We already know that’s where Arthur is, so now we just need Gawain to tell us how to get there. Or if Mordred has already figured it out, we don’t need him at all, and you can just execute the little weasel.”