Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,92

standing to attention. Merlin strolled into the prison and stood in the middle of the lowest floor with fifty soldiers behind him.

“Mordred,” Merlin shouted. “I know you’re there.”

“Bollocks,” Mordred said, ducking back down.

“That right there is a massive bucket of fucking dicks,” Remy said. “I know he’s your dad and all, but he really is a giant sock of wank.”

Mordred stared at Remy for a few seconds. “No, that sounds about right,” he said eventually.

“Do you have a plan?” Irkalla asked. “Just curious. I’m okay with winging it.”

“I’m going to hand myself in,” Mordred told them both.

“That’s a stupid plan,” Remy said.

“Yes, probably,” Mordred said. “But it’s also the only plan we have at this exact moment, so stupid or not, here we are.”

“What about Excalibur?” Irkalla asked.

“It’s okay with me,” Mordred said. “I don’t think Arthur can use it. It’s sort of bonded with me. I think I have to let people use its power, otherwise it doesn’t work.”

“If you don’t come out, Mordred,” Merlin said, “my Horsemen will happily come find you. And they have no problem killing a few dwarves on the way.”

Remy turned to Dethian. Several of the other dwarves in the cell and those surrounding it had woken up and were staring at Mordred, Remy, and Irkalla with a mixture of curiosity and outright fear. “We really are going to save you,” Remy said. “It just might take a while.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dethian said. “Thank you for even trying.”

“Get everyone out of here,” Mordred said, standing. “Hey, Dad. Still a contemptible bellend, I see.”

Mordred walked to the staircase and descended slower than he usually might, ensuring that he gave his team time to get back together and get out of the prison before the mass of red-armored soldiers—Mordred refused to call them Horsemen—were sent after them.

“And your friends?” Merlin shouted after there had been silence for several minutes while Mordred made his way down two more floors of cells.

“We were separated,” he said when he reached the ground floor, where Merlin had walked over to meet him. “The tunnel collapsed. I was on one side, they on the other. I told them to create a tunnel and go elsewhere. I imagine they’re either back in the city or outside of the walls by now.”

The look of irritation on Merlin’s face made Mordred quite happy.

“Go check,” Merlin said to one of the soldiers, who immediately obeyed like a good little lapdog.

“You’ve made your own set of mindless drones,” Mordred said. “Do they sit and do tricks too? Or is it just the murdering?”

“Do you want to know something interesting?” Merlin asked. “You helped create them.”

“What?” Mordred asked as two of the soldiers grabbed his arms.

Merlin’s smile was unpleasant. “You remember when you worked for Hera? You were still under the control of what had been done to you all those years ago, but somewhere in your brain you knew you wanted to kill Hera for the part she played. You remember?”

“Mars Warfare,” Mordred said. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You remember a doctor who worked there? He tried to re-create the Fates, but you helped him create a method to use children and put them through the Harbinger trials. You remember the trials, yes?”

“Yes,” Mordred said, nodding bitterly. “You get put under, and you live in your mind for months while your body goes through changes to make you more powerful, more used to using your abilities. And yes, I remember what I helped the doctor do. We created a lot of monsters, and then Hera sold them to the highest bidder.”

“Which was me,” Merlin said. “We bought them all. We then made some . . . modifications, but they’re still the same people you helped create. Your work helped create the Horsemen. This is your doing.”

“And you did this to adult humans?” Mordred asked.

“Well, the method has a few issues. We had to burn away their eyes, but as a bonus, they have extra sensory perception. It’s quite clever.”

“You burned away their eyes?” Mordred almost shouted.

Merlin smiled.

“You turned them into a really shitty version of Daredevil,” Mordred said and burst out laughing. “And then you put them in red armor. Holy shit, you’re so getting sued if you ever take these to the Earth realm.”

One of the soldiers punched Mordred in the stomach, doubling him over, before driving a knee into Mordred’s exposed ribs, breaking at least one. Mordred dropped to the ground and tried to remember how to breathe properly as his magic started to mend