Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,6

of crew alive,” Diana said. “Sounds like a lot of passengers too. Why keep them alive, though?”

“Food,” Zamek said. “I’m beginning to think there are a lot more sirens down there than we’d anticipated. Also, it sounds like the marines filled them up for some time, so there are more passengers alive. Sirens eat once a month at most.”

“How do you know all of this?” Remy asked.

“I read,” Zamek said. “I watch videos online.”

“I bet your search history is all kinds of messed up,” Remy said.

Mordred ignored the others and looked out of the huge wraparound windows. The water moved unnaturally, as if disrupted by something beneath the waves. He continued to stare for several seconds, until a siren launched from the sea toward the ship. A second later dozens more did the same.

“I think we have company,” Mordred said. “Any chance we can get those doors on first class unlocked?”

“I have a key. The one leading them is in room 102,” one of the people on the bridge said, fishing it out of her pocket and passing it to Chloe as the sirens reached the deck and screamed as one up toward Mordred and his team.

“I think they spotted us,” Zamek said.

“All of you, get somewhere safe,” Mordred said to the crew. He touched his fingertip to the comm unit in his ear. “Room 102. First class. We’ll give these creatures something to think about.”

“See you soon,” the male voice on the other side said.

None of the crew needed to be told twice, and all of them on the bridge left through a door that took them outside onto a balcony, around to where the rest of the bridge crew had been kept.

“Good thing these assholes didn’t lock the door,” Remy said, drawing his swords.

“No one needs locks when there’s nowhere to escape to,” Diana said.

“We need to make some noise,” Mordred said. He placed a hand on the window of the bridge and used his air magic to shatter it before capturing the huge amount of glass from the massive windows and flinging it at the sirens like a thousand daggers as they swarmed up the walls, scurrying like insects in their haste to get to Mordred and his team.

Mordred leaped out of the window, blasting half a dozen sirens away. Remy and Zamek leaped out behind him.

Remy landed next to Mordred and began shooting anything that moved, as Zamek unsheathed his ax and removed the heads of two sirens before they could get close enough to be a problem. Diana landed in her werebear beast form, larger and more terrifying than any normal bear that Mordred had ever seen. She tore into the sirens as if they were made of paper.

Hel used the necromancy power inside of her as pure force, blasting sirens over the side of the ship before they’d even managed to touch down on the bow.

Mordred hit an incoming siren that had leaped toward him—deceptively strong arms stretched out to plunge its claws into his body—with a blast of light hot enough to rend flesh from bone. The creature dropped to the deck and screamed in pain, only silenced when Mordred put a round from his MP5 into its head. He fired at the attackers, taking out a dozen sirens in less than a minute as they continued to scramble over the deck of the ship.

When the gun ran dry, instead of reloading, he created a sword of light in one hand and cut through the sirens that continued to attack, until they were almost overwhelmed by numbers.

A siren sliced across Mordred’s cheek, and another barreled into him, knocking him off his feet and into the swimming pool. The siren opened its mouth, showing the dangerous teeth, and screamed, the blast hitting Mordred in the face just as he raised a shield of air in defense.

The water around them boiled as Mordred’s hands turned bright white before he detonated his light magic, causing the siren to cry out, even underwater. It swam for the surface, with Mordred on its heels.

He reached the siren just as it was leaving the swimming pool, only to watch the creature fall back in, a huge chunk of its chest missing. Chloe reached out and offered Mordred a bloody hand. She noticed and offered the other hand instead, giving Mordred a sheepish look of apology as he climbed out of the pool.

Mordred created a sphere of light in one hand and threw it into the air. “Eyes covered,” he