Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,94
when you have thousands of prisoners being forced to work for you and you murder a bunch of them, the rest behave exceptionally well.”
“Ah, aren’t you the lovely boss,” Mordred said. “Do they give you cookies at Christmas for being awesome?”
Merlin ignored his son again and pointed across the city.
Mordred squinted to try to see what he was being shown. “I don’t get it,” Mordred said. “It looks like a smudge on the . . .” Then he realized what he was looking at. The plains were scorched, the realm gate missing from where it had once been. There were bodies littered over the landscape. Even from this distance, Mordred knew that a lot of people had died.
“We sent a group of Horsemen out to attack your people,” Merlin explained. “Thousands of them in tunnels underground. They collapsed large parts of the plains and went to work,” Merlin said with a smile. “Did you think we didn’t realize you’d come? We planned it. Gawain knew what to say. We wanted you here, Mordred. Arthur wanted you here. Wanted to gather you all together and wipe you out in one go. He has other plans, too, but to see you all die—that will be his glory.”
“The shaking,” Mordred said.
“That was the explosion,” Merlin said. “The realm gate itself isn’t actually gone. It’s still there; you just can’t see it because that fog is blanketing everything. The fog kills people. It was poisonous to pretty much everyone, something that Hera also created at Mars Warfare all those years ago. The realm gate was fitted with enough explosives underground that it killed pretty much anyone standing too close. And then that fog was released. Your friends are either dead, wishing they were dead, or scattered to the winds. There’s no backup coming through that gate while that fog remains, and the one thing that might be able to remove it is strapped to your back.”
Mordred reached for Excalibur.
“Your friends and allies are no more, Mordred,” Merlin said with a chuckle.
Mordred turned to look at his father. “You really shouldn’t have brought me up here.”
“Because you’re sad?” Merlin asked.
Mordred took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “No, Dad. Because your arrogance will eventually be your undoing, and you’ve just sealed your fate.”
“Are you going to kill me, Mordred?” Merlin asked with a laugh. “Do you know how powerful I am?”
Mordred nodded and looked back over at the distant field. The trees that had kept them hidden were gone, the ground turned over, the fog swirling. He had to find out how many of his friends had survived. He needed to find them. To help them.
Mordred turned back to his father. “Where’s Arthur?”
Merlin laughed again. “You want to be dead that quickly?”
“You loved me once,” Mordred said. “That’s what I was always told—that your hatred of me grew as your love of Arthur did. You’re going to hand me over to him to kill me; I just thought I’d like to know where I’m going.”
“The top of the citadel,” Merlin said. “It’ll be a long journey. And then the pain that started in that dwarven realm all those centuries ago will feel like a gentle kiss.”
“I wish it had been different,” Mordred said. “I wish we could have had an actual father-son relationship. I think I would have liked that.”
Merlin stared at Mordred for several seconds and then twitched slightly. “I wish I didn’t have such a disappointment for a son.”
“I know,” Mordred said with a sigh. “But tough.” Mordred blasted the roof beneath their feet with pure magic, destroying a large portion of it and sending Merlin and Mordred falling the long distance to the ground. Mordred wrapped himself in a shield of air, but when he hit the ground, he immediately started springing through the city to the drawbridge. He would find his father later. He would end all the hate and pain that Merlin had caused, but first, he had to help his people. He was their king, and he was damned if he was going to let them fight and die without being by their side.
Chapter Twenty-Two
NATE GARRETT
Realm of Atlantis
Kase and I moved through the forest as fast as we could. My body had mended itself, although I was still sore and would continue to be so for a while. We found the first group of our allies after running almost flat out for ten minutes. There were hundreds of them, all in small groups tending to the wounded.