Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,68

of intensity on his face.

“These are dwarven and shadow elf runes,” he said as Zamek joined him. “Do you know what this symbolizes?”

No one did.

“The elves and dwarves made this place together,” Zamek said. “These realm gates are neither dwarven nor elven but a combination of the two. When we have time, I’d very much like to come back here and spend time deciphering this writing.”

I looked around the cavern. There was a lot of writing on the walls. I understood a lot of Elvish and Dwarvish, but some of it was even earlier than the ancient dwarves. It appeared to mix words with pictures and dots, and frankly, the whole thing was far beyond my understanding.

“So is this like some kind of communal meeting place?” Selene asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Tarron said. “I think it might also be some kind of prison. I think we may need to send some people here to look around, check there’s no nasty surprises.”

“That’s going to have to wait,” I said. “Sorry.”

“I think it’s safe,” Tarron said. “I just can’t be certain.”

“You’re the oldest one here,” I said to Lucifer. “You ever hear of anything like this?”

“I didn’t even know there were realm gates here,” he said with a shrug.

“How do we get out of here?” Remy asked. “Because I assume, despite Zamek and Tarron having some kind of brain boner over all this, we do actually need to leave.”

“I vote the words brain boner are never used again,” Zamek said.

“Ever,” I said to Remy.

“I calls them like I sees them,” Remy said with a grin.

“This is the way out,” Tarron said, pointing to an archway at the far end of the cavern. “Each of these archways leads to a different realm gate. I don’t know which one goes where, but there must be a hundred caverns here.”

We rode up and out of the cavern without a word, continuing until we exited the mountain. It was raining, but stretching far before us was the city of Camelot.

“It’s going to be a bit of a ride to get there,” Lucifer said. “Do you really think that we can get into the palace and talk to whoever is in charge, getting them to surrender, before we bring everyone down on us?”

“Not really,” I said.

I continued to look at Camelot for several seconds. “We know there’s no Arthur, no Merlin, no Gawain, no Abaddon, no one powerful enough or stupid enough to wage a war, but we need to know the lay of the land, and we need information. Remy, you worked here—any chance there are people you trust who still live here?”

“Trust?” Remy asked. “No, not really. But there are people here we can get information out of. They work in the palace, last I heard.”

“So that’s where we go first,” Isis said.

I nodded just as part of the city exploded, black smoke and flames billowing out into the dank sky.

My team raced onward toward the city as the sounds of battle echoed all around the plains. It took us some time to reach the outskirts of Camelot, only for us to find a multitude of people wounded or dead on the cobbled streets.

“Help who you can,” I said, getting down from my horse as everyone else did the same.

“Go—we’ll help,” Isis said, rushing over to a large number of people who were trying to keep safe behind a makeshift barricade of stone and wood.

I ran over to a young woman in a dark three-piece suit, who was trying to help up a middle-aged man who’d been badly cut through the legs. “What’s going on?”

“The people rebelled,” she said as we dropped the man next to two young men, who set about trying to heal his wounds. “The Blade of Avalon . . . they executed a hundred people in the main square. They said that they had betrayed Arthur. Some of them were just kids. That was a few hours ago, and now we’re in the shit.”

“Where are the BOA?” I asked her.

“Near the palace,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, but if you go there, they’ll kill you.”

“We’ve got a lot of dead and hurt,” Remy said, poking his head through the door. “A lot more people angry.”

“Remy?” the young woman asked.

“Bethany,” Remy said, hugging her. “We worked together for the Shield of Avalon, before, you know, I left and found out that Arthur was psychotic.”

“You got out in time,” Bethany said. “Most of us were trapped here, forced to work,