Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

NATE GARRETT

Realm of Atlantis

"So I'm guessing that Arthur knows exactly where we are," Remy said as Merlin and his forces got closer.

"This building will not be able to sustain huge damage," Irkalla said.

"It would appear our choices are to fight or run down that tunnel," Lucifer said. "Neither is particularly pleasant."

"No," I said. "No, it's not."

"I'll stay and fight them," Mordred said. "Merlin is my father, and maybe I can keep him busy."

"No,"several people said at once.

"We take the tunnel," Irkalla said.

Zamek emerged from his exploration of the tunnel. "It's solid, no runes, no explosives—not that I'm sure they'd work here. Basically it seems to be pretty safe. Safer than going out to fight Merlin and whatever those things are."

"Tunnel it is," I said as a blast of something hit the building, dislodging it and tipping it up onto its side, throwing me across the room through the window with a crash. "Run," I shouted to everyone and used my air magic to fling myself back across the gap between the guard post and the top of the rampart. I had to use more air magic to lower myself safely to the rampart just as a second blast of bright-red power smashed into the cabin, destroying it in an explosion of power.

I was on my hands and knees when the doors on either side of the ramparts I'd landed on opened, and a total of six of the red-and-gold-armored soldiers appeared.

I got to my feet and cracked my knuckles. "Let's see what you've got."

I created a sword of lightning and parried the first attack from the closest soldier, which used a sword with a black blade. I avoided a jab from the spear of a second soldier, using my shadows to wrap around the spear, drag it from its hand, and throw it into the soldier opposite. The sword of lightning ended its life a moment later, and a third soldier died after I used it to remove its head.

One of the soldiers smashed its fist into my face, and a second drove a steel boot into my ribs. I rolled away, but they started throwing magic at me, and it was all I could do to wrap myself in a shield of air and then detonate the magic outward to blast them all away.

They were all up on their feet almost instantly.

"Three down, three to go," I said.

One of the three charged toward me, a blade of ice in its hand. I stepped back, grabbed its wrist, and twisted, breaking the bones, but the soldier refused to let go, and suddenly shadows burst out of the ground, wrapping around my legs, trying to trip me. I cut through them with a blade of fire, but it meant letting go of the soldier with the dagger.

The blade of ice passed over my rune-scribed leather armor, and there was a hiss of power as the runes succumbed to the damage inflicted on them.

I rolled across the floor, throwing a ball of fire at the ice-blade wielder while whipping up tendrils of air behind me to stop the two soldiers there from causing me any problems. I charged toward the soldier in front of me, avoided the blade of ice, stepped around the creature, and stabbed it in the head with a blade of fire that was hot enough to melt the armor. I detonated the fire inside the helmet, and the soldier fell forward as steam rose from its head.

"So, just you two," I said. "How do you see properly with those helmets on?"

Both soldiers took a step toward me.

"Fair enough," I said as the soldier closest to me darted forward, its sword striking out to try to get me to move toward its friend.

Shadows leaped from the ground, wrapping around the blade of the sword, dragging the soldier off balance. I stepped around the sword, smashed a sphere of lightning into the soldier's ribs, and detonated it, sending both soldiers flying off the ramparts and into the forest.

I sighed. They had not been an easy fight, although I now had more questions about who they were than I'd had beforehand.

I looked over the ramparts at the remaining hundreds of soldiers, although I didn't spot Merlin, and the soldiers themselves stood there without making any attempt to throw any power my way.

I heard the door open before I turned, and shadows sprang up from the ground, wrapping themselves around me as I dodged an eight-foot version of the soldiers I'd just fought. Its massive metal maul smashed into the stone, obliterating it. Its armor was identical to the other soldiers' except much bigger and covered in spikes. The giant reached out with a barb-covered glove and tried to grab me, but I was already moving back, putting some distance between us, as I felt the change in the air behind me as the door opened.

A shield of air stopped the newly arrived masked soldier from stabbing me in the back with a blade of fire, but it detonated the magical blade, and I had to throw myself aside into the path of a kick from the large soldier. It caught me squarely in the ribs, sending me flying across the ramparts into the wall next to the door.

I dropped to the floor and lashed out with a torrent of lightning, but the smaller of the two soldiers wrapped them both in a shield of lava, which exploded a second later, only my own shield of air stopping me from taking the blast full on.

"What are you?" I asked.

"Horsemen," the smaller soldier said, its voice sounding rough and full of venom, even through the mask.

"You're the Faceless," I said. "You're what Arthur did to the bodyguards of the powerful." It wasn't a question, but there was a chuckle from beneath the mask of the soldier.

I felt sick.

"Not quite," the soldier said with a laugh, drawing a black-bladed dagger from its back.

There was a huge explosion in the distance, and blue and red flames leaped up into the sky. Taking the opportunity while they were distracted, I jumped over the ramparts to the forest below and sprinted through the shallow river into the dense underbrush as the shouts swept over me from Arthur's soldiers. His Horsemen. What the hell had he done? What the hell were those things?

My body hurt, but the thought of what was happening to my friends shot to the front of my mind. Some trapped in a tunnel, and others who knew where now. I hoped that everyone there had managed to get through before whatever Arthur's people had done to the realm gate and that those who'd come through were far enough away to be safe. My last thought as I got to my feet was the hope that the realm gate wasn't completely destroyed.

I looked up at the ramparts above me. There was no way I was going back up that way only to fight Merlin, Arthur, and several hundred psychotic superpowered soldiers. I looked behind me at the forest and wondered if I could follow it back around to where Hades and everyone were going to go. At least then I'd have some idea of what our options were.

I ran into the forest and stayed behind a large tree as more of the giant soldiers appeared on top of the ramparts. That way was out. Irritatingly.

As I ran through the heavy woods, the sky darkened, and it began to rain. I took shelter under a large tree with a thick canopy of leaves that meant I was at least moderately dry. I used my fire magic to keep warm and listened to the sounds of the forest. Or rather the lack thereof. There were no birds, no insects—it was just silence, except for the winds as they howled through the night. I ignited my night vision and continued moving, managing a few minutes before there was the howl of a creature.

I stopped dead in my tracks, looking around, trying to pick up anything that might tell me where it was coming from and what it belonged to. It happened again, and then a third time, although it was now from a completely different part of the forest. Or maybe it wasn't; it was hard to tell where sound came from during the night in the woods.

I turned in a complete circle and saw nothing in the distance. No heat print, no movement. Nothing. I had the unnerving feeling I was being watched. There was another howl, further away than before, or at least I hoped it was. Maybe Hades had sent out a pack of werewolves to track for anything useful, or maybe Arthur had sent a pack to start hunting people on the run.

There was movement a few feet in front of me as something darted past my field of vision and disappeared into the thick bushes that were all around me. The howl happened again. The werewolf was massive as it stepped out from behind a tree. It looked at me and roared. There was nothing that had belonged to the human inside of it; it was all animal. The beast set free. It wore a collar around its massive muscular neck, and I could see the little spines on the inside of it as it dug into the fur and flesh of the werewolf.

"Tommy," I said softly. "Oh God, Tommy."

Tommy let out an almighty howl, which changed into a low, menacing growl.

Tommy was, without doubt, one of the most powerful werewolves I'd ever met. He was exceptionally dangerous in the best of circumstances, but having to decide whether or not to hurt my best friend before he could hurt me was one of the worst things I'd ever had to do.

"Tommy," I said softly. "Man, come on, you know me; you're my best friend. I've spent the last year trying to get here to get to you. I'm so sorry it took so long."

Tommy, eyes on me, moved slowly toward me. In his werewolf beast form, Tommy was a foot and a bit taller than as a man and weighed maybe a hundred pounds more.

"Naaaaaaaaaaate," Tommy said, as if the word couldn't quite leave his mouth. "Paaaaaaiinnn."

"Tommy," I said softly. "Come on, let me get that collar off you, and then we can go home. You can see Olivia and your children. They've missed you."

"Naaaaaaaate," Tommy said before snapping his jaws toward me. "Deeaaath."

He dived toward me, all muscle and power, and I blasted him in the chest with air, dropping to the side and rolling away. Tommy fell to the ground and sprang back toward me, forcing me to wrap myself in a dense shield of air or risk being eviscerated by his razor-sharp claws. Even with the shield, he drove me back, forcing me to reapply the magic as he punched and slashed away at it, tearing through my magical shield with no regard for himself. He just wanted me dead. Nothing else mattered.

I turned the shield into a battering ram and smashed it into his chest, throwing him back, away from me. He collided with a tree, but he was soon back on his feet and charged at me once again. I dropped to my knees and smashed a torrent of air into his legs, tripping him and throwing him into the darkness of the forest beyond. He hit something hard and howled in pain.

Tommy was soon back in the clearing, looking at me with hatred.

"Tommy," I said. "Please don't do this. Please."

Tommy roared at me before charging once more. I wrapped tendrils of air around his arms and legs, stopping him in place, but he roared again and charged forward, snapping the air and forcing the feedback up my arms. He was only a few paces from me when shadows leaped out of the ground, dragging Tommy down to a kneeling position.

"I don't want to do this," I said. "I need you to come to your senses. I need to know that whatever they've done to you, you're fighting it. I need to know my best friend is still in there. Please."

Tommy's jaws snapped over and over again as I walked toward him, making sure that the tendrils of shadow were intact, that he wasn't about to break free.

I stood before Tommy, trying to figure out how to snap him out of whatever had been done to him. It had taken Mordred's death to break him free, but I wasn't about to kill Tommy to test out if it would work with him.

"Naaaaaaate," Tommy said. "Kiiiilllll yooooouuuu."

"No," I said. "You're still in there somewhere. I know it."

"Ennnnnnd yoooouuuu," Tommy said. He snapped forward, testing the bonds of shadow.

"You're not going anywhere," I told him.

Tommy roared and took a step back before springing forward, his incredible strength snapping the shadows. He tackled me and threw me back across the clearing. I hit a tree hard and dropped to the ground as Tommy sprinted into the darkness again. I got back to my feet, my head spinning from the smash into the tree, only to be punched in the jaw by Tommy as he ran back into the clearing. I'd only just managed to put a shield up in time, but even so, it was a hard enough punch that it spun me around on the spot, and my shield vanished.

Tommy picked me up by the back of my armor and slammed my head into the tree, over and over again, before he drove his knee into the side of my head and threw me casually into another tree.

I felt blood pouring down my face from an untold number of cuts. I got back to my knees and felt a kick in my ribs that the remaining runes on my armor absorbed, but they flashed once and went dead just before I got a second kick that lifted me off the ground and broke my ribs.

Tommy slammed his fist into the small of my back, picked me up by the scruff of the neck, and broke my arm with one hand. He continued to twist it until I threw a small ball of flame into his face, which forced him to drop me as he scrambled back.

My armor was useless, my vision was fucked from the amount of blood in my eyes, my arm and ribs were broken, and I could barely breathe due to what I suspected was a punctured lung. My magic would heal me, but I didn't know how long it would take.

I activated my blood magic. There had been a time when I was certain that my use of necromancy meant I wouldn't have blood magic anymore, and while I couldn't use it much and it was greatly depowered, I'd been wrong that it was impossible to use. It was nowhere near the level of power that Mordred had, but it was enough to heal my lungs so I could at least take a breath. It took ten seconds for my blood magic to heal my lungs and the cuts on my face and head, but it would take much longer to heal broken bones.

Images of Selene and Astrid came to the forefront of my mind. Astrid. My daughter was not going to grow up without a father. She was not going to grow up in a world of tyrants and death, and I was damned if I was going to let my best friend kill me in a shit heap of a realm and thus stop me from making the realms a better place for her.

I wiped my face with my good arm and pushed out a shield of air in front of me, but it was almost immediately destroyed when Tommy ran through it like it wasn't even there, ignoring the pain it must have caused him. He raked his claws across my side as I dodged out of his way, and he kicked me in the knee. I drove a blade of fire into his side and twisted it.

Tommy screamed, grabbing me by the throat as I removed the blade and drove it back in under his armpit. I cut through the collar around his neck and tore it free, half expecting it to explode, but it did nothing. Even so, the moment of split concentration allowed Tommy to lift me off the ground, roaring in pain the whole time. He headbutted me, breaking my nose, and threw me into a tree.

"I'm not playing now," I said, spitting blood out of my mouth, along with several teeth. Thankfully, they'd grow back.

Tommy winced as he took a step toward me, before the wounds I'd given him healed. Even the most powerful of creatures took a little bit longer than a few steps to heal like that.

"Fucking hell," I said.

There was a blur in the forest to my left, and a werewolf sprinted past me, charged into Tommy, lifted him off his feet, and practically threw him away. The werewolf stood between me and Tommy and roared in defiance.

"Tommy," I said softly. "Come on, man."

Tommy turned and sprinted into the forest.

I crashed to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief as Kase changed back into her human form. "After the explosion in the city, I decided to track the forest for familiar scents."

She looked after her father with tears in her eyes. "I don't know how much of my dad was left in that creature," she said. "I want to help him, but we need to get to the others."

I knew it must have been a hard decision, but our friends needed us. We'd come back for Tommy—and no matter what, we'd save him. Even if it meant ending him.