Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,84

Mordred said. “The second the dwarf scouts came through, Arthur knew about it.”

“So why hasn’t he attacked?” I asked him.

“That is a question we need an answer to,” Mordred said. “Along with where my father is and where Tommy is.”

“He’s in there somewhere,” I said. “Both of them are.”

I passed Hades the binoculars as he joined us, and he looked through them. “There’s a drawbridge,” he said. “It’s designed to look the same as the stone around it, but it’s there; I can see the gears on either side. Get that down, and we can get into the city in two places. That might be our best shot.”

“Mordred, you coming with me?” I asked as Selene and Persephone walked over.

Mordred nodded, taking the binoculars. “Wouldn’t miss it. We’ll take a team through the forest and into the city, where we’ll split up. I’ll take half of the team to bring down parts of the wall and drawbridge; you take the other to find out where we’re meant to be going. If you can find a map of the city, maybe on a noticeboard or just lying in the open, that would be useful.”

“I think that’s just in video games,” I said.

“Shame. That’d come in real handy about now,” Mordred said.

“Has anyone else considered that this is all far too easy?” Selene asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, there’s an air of trap about the whole thing. The realm gate is in the middle of nowhere, and it’s not guarded by anything larger than a cursory group. Arthur wants us here.”

“It’s now or never,” Hades said. “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

“While that’s true,” I said, “I’d like to know where Arthur and his forces are.”

“They’re over there,” Mordred said, pointing to the city. “See, that was easy.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, and he winked.

“You’d best be quick, then,” Hades said. “We’ll start moving toward the forest here, put some of these trees and hills between us and the city.”

While I agreed that we needed to get this done, and the need to get inside the city and find my friend was almost overwhelming, I couldn’t shake the idea that something felt wrong. Arthur might have sent people to stop us using the realm gates on the Earth realm, but he would have had contingencies for our arrival. And abandoning Avalon was . . . odd.

It was a thought I couldn’t shake off, even as Mordred, Remy, Zamek, Lucifer, Diana, Irkalla, and I crept through the woods, then stopped at the riverbank before walking across where it was shallowest.

We all crouched down behind a rocky outcrop that led forty feet up over the wall. It was a sheer drop from the overhang to inside the city, but it was the safest way in. And while I was sure Arthur knew we were here, that didn’t mean he knew what we were doing. Hopefully the moving army held his attention.

“I’m quite impressed you didn’t make any jokes about Lord of the Rings,” Irkalla said to Mordred as we were scaling the cliff face that looked away from the city, hopefully keeping us hidden for as long as possible.

“I thought it might be too obvious,” Mordred said. “I don’t want people to think I’m just that guy who’s all nerd and nothing else.”

“We’ve always thought that,” Remy said.

Mordred and Irkalla reached the top of the cliff first, and Lucifer came last as the rest of us crouched down on the overhang. We all dropped down into the city, Mordred and I using our air magic to help everyone else land safely.

“All of you, head toward the drawbridge,” I said. “I’m going up around the side of this cliff.”

“No, you’re coming with us,” Irkalla said.

“Yeah, don’t be daft,” Diana said.

“Look, we don’t have time to search this entire place,” I said. “There’s a guard post up there. I saw it through the binoculars. That’s as good a place to start as any.”

Everyone’s eyes followed where I was pointing.

“This strikes me as a terrible idea,” Lucifer said. “But we’re here now, and all of our choices are terrible. It is the least terrible of all our terrible choices.”

“I’m coming with you,” Irkalla told me. “Don’t argue.”

I sighed. “Fine, you come with me, and we’ll go see what we can find. We’ll meet you back here once the drawbridge is down, and we’ll collapse this wall. Hopefully by then we’ll have an idea of where inside the citadel Tommy is and where Arthur is waiting for