Chapter Twenty-Two

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.

Hades and Persephone, both looking like they'd been through a war, were busy trying to find out just how many had died in the explosion. Multiple dead Horsemen littered what had once been the plains and were now charred and overturned, as if all life had been taken from them.

"Nate," Persephone said, hugging me. "Where's everyone else?"

I explained what had happened inside the city and how Tommy had met me outside it.

"Where are Selene and the others?" I asked.

"We were on opposite sides of the explosion," Hades said. "The entire earth erupted, and this fog was cast over it. It killed people before we could do anything to stop it, so we ran. The fog seems to be concentrated around the realm gate, though—there's no movement away. It's kept there somehow. When we thought we were safe, then these red-and-gold-armored things burst from the ground and attacked."

"I'll go look," I told him.

"Whoa," Persephone said. "Sorcerers died there too, Nate. I'm not sure how your magic will cope with this."

I nodded. "I understand. Still going to take a look. Mordred and the others are in the city. I imagine Merlin is going after them. If those ... Horsemen of his find them, it's not going to be a fun fight. We need to get to the city and help. We need that fog gone, or at least to know what it is."

"Horsemen?" Hades asked.

"That's what these things are," I said. "What one of them called itself. They're monsters. Barely alive but full of power."

"Arthur's new Horsemen," Hades said with a sigh. "His evil never truly ends."

"I'm coming with you," my mother said, getting to her feet.

"Me too," Olivia told me.

"I assume you will be with me too, Kase," I said.

Kase nodded.

"Tarron," I shouted. "You up for a wander?"

Tarron picked up his dual swords and stood, stretching. "Sure, why not?"

The five of us ran through the forest and stopped at the edge of the clearing after several miles of terrain to watch the fog as it swirled around the realm gate. There were hundreds of bodies littered around the gate, most of them either our soldiers or wearing the armor of the Horsemen.

"Goddamn it," I snapped.

"The gate appears to have fixed itself," Tarron said. "I doubt even Arthur thought that it would have done so as quickly as this, but anyone coming through there is going to be dead in seconds."

"And the fog could go into other realms," Brynhildr said.

"And Nanshe will be bringing her people through from Olympus soon," I said. "They'll walk straight out into that ..."

"I've never seen anything like it," Kase said.

"I have," Olivia said, her tone like steel.

"Me too," I agreed. "Hera was making something like it back in Mars Warfare. It was a shitty substance that I'd hoped I'd never see again."

At the tree line on the other side of the massive clearing were a dozen allies, including Selene. I waved, and she waved back, and my heart fluttered a little bit. She was fine. Hopefully she'd stay that way.

I pushed out my air magic, trying to move the fog down toward the city or up into the air, but it just stayed where it was. "It's like trying to grab something covered in oil," I said. "It's not behaving like normal fog. Which I know it isn't, but still, I'd have liked it to behave like it was."

"When you saw it last time, how was the fog used?" Brynhildr asked.

"It was pumped into rooms," I told her. "I assume it was kept in canisters or something along those lines, but that could be affected by my magic. Apparently, they improved upon its use."

"How do we get over there and find out how to remove it?" Brynhildr asked.

"It looks like the fog is being kept in place with runes," Tarron said.

"So your plan is?" my mum asked.

"Nate," Tarron said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "The plan is Nate."

"And what am I going to do?" I asked him.

"Throw a fireball at it," he said.

I did as he asked, and the fireball hit the gas and ignited it, the blue-and-red flame shooting up into the sky.

"The gas caused the explosion I saw," I said. "Someone threw fire at it."

Tarron nodded. "Yes. One of the sorcerers there did it. I think your air magic won't work, but fire might. Unfortunately, the amount of power you'll have to keep pouring into the fog to burn it away depends on how much of it is stored under the ground there."

"Just once, I'd like it to be easy," I said with a slight sigh.

I looked across at Selene and spotted Judgement standing beside her. "Judgement," I said, letting my air magic carry my words. "You think you can give me a hand with this one? We need a constant stream of flame."

Judgement smiled. "Sure thing."

Judgement wrapped me in a shield of dense water as I poured flame into the fog. It immediately ignited, causing a massive explosion of power that forced me back, the water shield vanishing in an instant. We tried again, bracing for the explosion this time, and began to walk toward the realm gate. The closer we got, the less fog we saw as the flames managed to ignite it the second they touched.

Eventually, we were both twenty feet from either side of the realm gate, and the earth was a scorched mess. The fog, however, was still coming up, albeit slowly.

"We need the earth lifted up," Tarron shouted.

"Is he taking the piss?" Judgement asked.

"Apparently not, no," I said with the sigh of someone who had been having several exceptionally long days in a row.

"You got this?" Judgement asked me. "You keep burning; I'll do the lift thing."

I nodded, using all my concentration to keep the flames focused on the fog, almost crushing it, while at the same time using the flame to shield the explosions from hitting both Judgement and me. It was hard work, and sweat poured down my face through sheer exertion of power as Judgement slammed her hands onto the ground and the water tore the earth apart, revealing half a dozen large metal barrels, each one with runes on it that allowed the gas to escape through a hole in the top.

"That's not dwarven," Judgement shouted.

Tarron was next to us in an instant, looking over the barrels, while I forced the flame to change into six different streams and stuffed them over the barrels to try to stop the fog. Each barrel was the size of a large bathtub, so after a few seconds of this, I was already on my knees, my entire body telling me I really needed to stop.

"Stop," Tarron shouted after he'd spent several seconds writing over the runes that were on the barrels.

I shut off my magic, collapsing back onto the dirt.

Judgement's smiling face appeared above me. "That sucked, eh?"

I nodded. "Let's not do it again."

"Is it safe?" Judgement asked Tarron as I accepted her hand and got to my feet.

"There's still gas in here, and they need moving, but I've disabled the runes," Tarron said. "These are elven."

Selene walked over to us all and gave me a brief kiss. "How is it you're always wherever it's most dangerous?" she asked.

"Luck or I'm cursed," I said. "You pick."

I told her what had happened in the city.

"So Mordred is still in there?" Judgement asked. "I'm going to go find him, then."

"I'll join you," I said. "Tommy ran off, too, and I have no idea where he is, but I don't know if my friend is still in there. I don't know how I can break whatever was done to him."

"Excalibur," Selene said. "That might work."

I nodded. "It's worth a shot."

Once the barrels were moved and the area was declared safe, the two groups remained apart, but a third was created further away from the realm gate so that they couldn't all be seen from the city. We'd lost 106 people. Their bodies had been destroyed in the initial explosion or melted by the fog. Hera's legacy of creating horror continued.

Arthur had lost nearly a hundred Horsemen, but I got the feeling they were acceptable casualties to him.

I remained by the realm gate with Judgement, Selene, Hel, and Loki.

I looked down toward the city. It was a fair distance away, but there was a blast of something that caught my eye, and I was pretty sure that the large plume of smoke that was thrown up into the air had something to do with it.

"More trouble?" Loki asked me.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure yet, but probably, yes."

"Nothing is happen—" Loki said just as the drawbridge to the city evaporated in an explosion of light so big it also took out a large chunk of the wall on either side. Pieces of debris rained down into the river, and a bridge of ice appeared through the smog and dust that were thrown up. Mordred walked across it.

"I knew it," Hel and I said in unison.

We all walked out from the trees, and I threw a ball of flame into the air, letting Mordred know where we were. He saw us and started running. It was a long run, and it took him a few minutes, but he reached us, dirty, exhausted, and looking less than happy.

"Where's everyone else?" Judgement asked.

"Long story," Mordred said and proceeded to explain what had happened since we'd last seen him.

"So everyone else is still in the city?" Loki asked.

Mordred nodded. "I think so. I'm going to go back and find out. I just wanted to make sure we had a way in."

"Yes, it was very subtle of you," Hel said with a smile.

"That's me," Mordred said, looking back as hundreds of soldiers, their red armor standing out against the black stone walls, stood amid the remains of the drawbridge.

"I think we might have to fight our way back in," Loki said.

"Good," I said. "They know we're here; we know they're here. Tommy is no longer a factor in that he's not a prisoner, so they can't use him as leverage. I say we go give them a fight."

"There are thousands of dwarven prisoners in there," Mordred said. "If we can set them free, we can hopefully make sure these assholes have two fronts to fight. I'm not sure how prepared centuries of imprisonment is going to make these dwarves, but we need everyone we can get."

"They're dwarves," Tarron said. "They'll keep fighting."

"We have people in the city," I said. "We do whatever it takes."

The realm gate hummed and activated, and Orfeda, her dwarves, and several others started to move through it. By the time they were done, there were thousands of very angry-looking people who had come through the realm gate and were standing beside it. Nanshe stood at the front, saw me, and raised her sword and shield in greeting. I nodded a hello and turned back to the oncoming army.

"Hades, get everyone ready to fight," I shouted as the Horsemen continued to march slowly toward us, more and more of them flooding out of the city until there were thousands of them, although I was pretty sure our numbers were greater.

Hades looked my way and gave me a thumbs-up.

Hades, Olivia, Persephone, Loki, and my mother quickly arranged the thousands of troops into platoons, each one a set distance away from the others. The dwarves were at the front; their ability to use alchemy was going to be necessary once we were inside the city. The sorcerers were at the back with the elementals and anyone else who could throw magic around at distance. Griffons flew above our heads, as well as several dozen Valkyries on any of the flying horses that had still been alive after the battle in Asgard.

"We go in and end this," I said.

"How are you all getting in?" Hades asked.

"We're going to get in the same way I got out," I said. "But this time, I'm not too concerned about making noise."

"Good luck, my friend," Hades said, and we grasped forearms.

"I will see you inside," I said.

My team set off at a run through the forest. It was still dark, and it was a fair distance, but it was going to take the army we'd brought together some time to make their way down toward the partially ruined front wall.

"I never did say well done on the drawbridge," I told Mordred.

"Yeah, I may have lost my temper a bit," he said. "I saw my dad. I sort of dropped him off a building."

"Is he dead?" Orfeda asked.

"I doubt it," Judgement, Mordred, and I said at the same time.

"You three are weird," Tarron said. "Not bad weird, just ... odd."

"That's fair," Mordred said.

"So you know where this prison is?" Orfeda asked Mordred.

"Under the city," he said. "There's a lift that takes you down there. Not sure where the stasis part is, but I assume the dwarves know."

There were several huge explosions of power from the city, and we all stopped for a second as the sky was momentarily filled with jets of fire.

"It's begun," Mordred said. "I was never sure we were going to make it this far."

"Whatever happens now, we'll make sure Arthur remembers it," Tarron said.

"No," Judgement said. "He won't remember anything. It's hard to remember something when your head is no longer attached to the rest of you."

The dwarves banged their axes and swords against their shields in agreement, and we continued on toward the ramparts I'd fallen from. To bring war to Arthur. To end his tyranny. Once and for all.