Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

NATE GARRETT

Mordred, Judgement, and I destroyed the wall that I'd jumped off instead of fighting an entire battalion of Horsemen by myself. We stepped into the city as the sounds of battle could be heard from where our allies had engaged with the enemy.

"Mordred, lead the way," I said.

The first group of Horsemen we ran into attacked without pause. There were a few dozen of them, and Judgement was the first to dive into the fray, her blades of light cutting through anyone stupid or unlucky enough to be in her way.

I dodged the swing of a huge maul from a mutant Faceless that had become one of the massive Horsemen, and I drove a blade of lightning into its groin, lifted it up to its heart, and detonated the blade, ripping the Horseman in half.

The dwarves, including their queen, and Tarron did their bit, but mostly they just let the three of us take point and defended rearguard. We fought wordlessly, our magic rending flesh, killing, and maiming, until all the Horsemen before us were dead.

I dropped an ax onto the ground next to the headless Horseman who'd used it, and we moved on without a word.

"Mordred, you okay?" I asked.

Mordred nodded.

"You sure?" I asked. "That guy was a headless Horseman, and you said nothing."

Mordred forced a smile. "I'm saving up my quips for when I face my father."

"You got any good ones?" Judgement asked.

"I thought Die, motherfucker would be my go-to," Mordred said before we ran across a street. I spotted several more Horsemen running toward the battle at the city entrance.

"Catchy," Orfeda said from behind me.

We reached the top of the lift shaft without incident and descended into the prison. I felt on edge, like Arthur was going to do something bad. There was no chance he didn't have a contingency in case the city started to fall.

Freeing the dwarves would be one thing, but actually getting them out of the city... well, that was going to be a whole different ball game.

We reached the bottom of the lift shaft and exited the elevator into darkness. I ignited a ball of flame, and Mordred and Judgement both did the same with their light magic, which was considerably brighter.

"Show-offs," I said, extinguishing the ball of flame in my hand and changing my vision to thermal imaging. If something was waiting for us in the darkness, I wanted to know about it before any light touched it.

We walked through the tunnels, Mordred leading the way, and stopped as we entered a massive cavern, where my thermal imaging lit up like a Christmas tree. There were hundreds and hundreds of dwarves just on the few levels I could see. In the middle of the room was a pile of Horsemen corpses. I walked over, and Mordred threw several large globes of light up into the air, illuminating everything and revealing that the corpses had mostly been decapitated or ripped to pieces.

"What happened here?" Tarron asked, looking around.

"That would be us ... we happened," said a familiar voice.

"Remy?" I asked, looking up.

"Hey," Remy said. "We got bored waiting, so we started without you."

Diana's werebear head appeared over the top floor, and I took a step back so I wasn't craning my neck to look at them both.

"We came back," Irkalla said. "I think we've got pretty much everyone free at the moment; we couldn't do much until you'd left with Merlin, but once he was gone, the other soldiers here weren't much of a problem."

"Where are Lucifer and Zamek?" Mordred asked.

"Zamek is busy trying to remove a lot of runes," Irkalla said. "Now that Queen Orfeda has arrived, I assume you can all help with that."

"Yes, we can," Queen Orfeda said, ordering her guard to do exactly that.

They ran off to either side of the prison and set about working to remove the runes on the cells as several of the dwarves let out cries of relief.

"You need to hear what Dethian has to say," Irkalla said, introducing a hunched-over dwarf.

"I'm Nate," I said.

"It's a pleasure," Dethian said, his hands almost forming claws. Whatever happened to those responsible for this, however brutal and painful, it wasn't going to be enough.

"Tell him what you told us," Irkalla said.

"They had humans," Dethian said. "Tens of thousands of humans. We'd see them brought through the realm gate and marched through the city. Most were screaming as they entered the buildings all around the city. Then there was silence. I don't think they're human anymore. I think Arthur and his people did something to them. I had to work up on the surface for a few moon cycles, and I made buildings that were empty except for runes all over them. Elven runes. I don't know what they did; I wasn't allowed to study them."

"Humans locked up and experimented on," I said. "And elven runes in empty buildings."

Dethian nodded. "I don't know what they have planned, but I know it's a kind of evil that most people can't comprehend."

"Tens of thousands of humans," I said, mostly to myself. "Nothing good comes from that. Thank you for telling us."

Dethian nodded. "And bracelets," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"We were forced to make a lot of things—buildings, roads, weapons—but we also made bracelets. They're made from the same black stone as the buildings. I don't know what was done with them."

"Sorcerer's bands?" Irkalla asked.

"I don't know," I said, concerned that there was a lot more going on in Atlantis than I'd first considered.

"Thank you, Dethian," I said. "Go rest; we'll get you all out of here as soon as we can."

Dethian turned to walk away but paused. "If you see Arthur, kill him. He shouldn't be."

"You'll get no argument from me," I said, and Dethian slowly made his way to the side of the cavern.

"And Lucifer?" Judgement asked.

"There's a tunnel back there," Irkalla said. "There were more dwarves in there in stasis. Elves too."

Tarron set off at a sprint that caught me by surprise, and I found myself running after him. I stopped as the entire place shook.

"What the hell was that?" I called back to Irkalla.

"No idea," she shouted back. "It did it a while ago."

I turned and continued on after Tarron, adding the shaking foundations of an underground prison to the list of problems I needed to go deal with.

I stopped when I entered a room with a deep blue-and-purple glow. There were thousands and thousands of hatches on the ground, and Tarron stopped by one of them, dropping to his knees and rubbing away the frost on the glass window. He gasped and began to weep.

"Tarron," I said, my voice echoing around the chamber.

"My people," he said softly. "My people."

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "We'll get them out."

"Yes, we will," Lucifer told me. "I just don't know how."

"These are a mixture of dwarven and elven runes," Tarron said. "They're a modified version of what was used to keep me in stasis. I'm staying here to help deal with this."

I nodded. "Get these people out of here," I said. "I'm not leaving the realm without them."

Tarron looked back down at the hatch, stood, and walked to another, then another, until he was hundreds of feet away from me.

"How many?" I asked Lucifer.

"Each hatch is atop a cell that is several dozen feet deep," he said. "I think there are about a quarter of a million people here. There's a second and third chamber to the end, both with a similar number of hatches as this one. They kept their slave labor on ice until they needed it."

I turned and marched out of the chamber just as Remy ran toward me. "Mordred and Judgement left," he said.

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"The shaky thing," Remy said. "Apparently, it might be Merlin trying to bring the prison down on top of everyone in it."

"Of course it is," I said and started to run back toward the main prison. "Where'd they go?" I asked.

"Back to the lift," Irkalla said.

"Stay here; help get everyone out and back to the realm gate," I said. "Tarron and Lucifer found a lot more down there. No one gets left behind."

"And what are you going to do?" Diana asked me.

"I'm going to go find Arthur and kill him," I said. "And then I may have a bucketful of whiskey."

"I could go for a whiskey," Remy said. "Or just pure ethanol at this point. With a little umbrella."

I turned and looked at him.

"Because I'm classy," Remy said with a smile, and I turned to leave.

I was halfway up the lift shaft when the tunnel above my head started to collapse, large pieces of rock striking the top of the lift and disengaging it, flinging it forward into the abyss a hundred feet above the ground. I was launched out of the front of the lift and used my air magic to latch on to the side of the shaft before swinging myself across to one of the metal columns that kept the lifts in place.

More rock fell down onto where I'd been standing only moments ago, and the lift itself was ripped apart and sent plummeting down the shaft. I held on to the column, my air magic keeping me in place in the darkness, and looked up to see three faces above me looking down. I activated my fire magic, using night vision to look up at them. They were only forty feet above my head, and I made out their faces easily. Two of the three belonged to the Furies—Alecto and Megaera—and the third was a shadow elf, his face longer than Tarron's, with a missing ear and horrific scarring over one side of his face, as if someone had held it to a white-hot plate and burned it away.

"You think he's dead?" one of them asked.

"Probably," another one said as I moved across the metal beam that connected the columns to the wall of the lift shaft. A light came down from above, and one of them called out my name as I sank into my shadow realm.

I immediately spotted the light I needed to move toward and headed in that direction as the wraith flittered around inside the darkness. I could feel its need—its need to eat and grow powerful.

"Will protect you," it said in the darkness.

I exited the shadow realm behind the two Furies and the shadow elf, all three of whom were still looking over the edge of the tunnel.

I drove a blade of lightning into the back of Alecto and removed her head as she fell forward into the shaft.

The shadow elf turned toward me first, a hatchet in one hand and sword in the other. I hit him with a sphere of air that threw him a few dozen feet back, where he connected with a wall and slid down it, motionless. Shadows leaped out around him, dragging him under to be devoured by the wraith.

"You bastard," Megaera screamed and leaped at me. I moved aside and blocked her attack, kicking out the back of her knee and dropping a ball of flame onto her. She rolled aside, almost falling over the edge of the tunnel, and got back to her feet as the ball of flame detonated and spread flames out toward her.

Megaera dived over the flames toward me, her clothes catching fire in the process, and cut me across the cheek with a silver dagger that caused me to gasp in pain.

"I'm going to have your eyes," Megaera screamed and lunged again.

I stepped aside, created my battle-ax soul weapon, and drove it into her chest. She gasped and blinked at me as I removed the soul weapon, leaving no mark, and swung it up over my head to bury it in her skull.

She pitched forward onto the dirt, and I reached out with my necromancy, sensing for any traps that might have been laid for anyone trying such a thing but finding none, and I claimed her soul.

I immediately dropped to my knees as Megaera's entire life flashed through my mind. Every cruel, awful, evil act relived as if it were me carrying it out. I didn't like to take the souls of those who had carried out evil acts, as it did little but hurt my psyche, but I needed information, and I needed it a lot quicker than I could get it through any other means.

When the visions subsided and the death toll of Megaera's life had ended, I saw the bodies left in the wake of the Furies. Erebus had died at their hand inside the citadel. Erebus, who had given part of his soul to be placed inside of me and bond with my magic—who had helped me, taught me, and been someone I'd called a friend. Erebus's spirit had vanished once my true power had unlocked on Mount Hood what felt like a lifetime ago, but I'd always hoped I'd be able to find the man and say thank you. Now that wouldn't be possible. For that, I wished I'd taken longer to end their lives.

I blinked and found myself on my hands and knees, sucking in air. I coughed and sputtered and spat a nasty taste out of my mouth. Necromancy was never the most fun thing to do when dealing with the recently dead, and the more powerful my victim, the worse it was for me.

Megaera and the other Furies had been involved in the torture and corruption of Tommy's mind and the murder of hundreds of dwarves and elves who were slaves in the realm and dozens more prisoners inside the citadel. Arthur's throne room was near the top of the citadel. I stood, and the image of Demeter came to me. She was working with Arthur and, from a few of the memories, doing a lot more than just working.

"Now I need some bleach for my brain," I said.

Images of Demeter and Arthur caught in a compromising position notwithstanding, Megaera was a wealth of intel. Athena had been chained to the roof of the citadel to be attacked by harpies over and over again, until finally she'd been unable to heal. She'd died up there, alone and angry.

The last thing that I saw was Lamashtu, Megaera, and the elves being told to go to Washington, DC. To punish those who were there while we were here in Atlantis. Arthur's plan. To get us in one place and then murder everyone we'd left behind on the Earth realm. To leave no one standing. No one to stop him.

I turned toward the front gate, wanting to sprint there and tell everyone about the imminent attack on Washington, DC, if it wasn't already happening, but a Horseman ran toward me, lance in hand, ready to run me through. Tendrils of shadows leaped out of the ground, taking hold of the lance and pulling it down to the ground, forcing the Horseman to let go or be catapulted.

"I really don't have time for this," I told it through clenched teeth.

It ignored me, which I'd pretty much known it would, but before I could do anything, a large werewolf barreled into it, taking it off its feet, ripping its head off, and tossing it aside in one movement.

"We can't keep doing this, Tommy," I said. "You turn up, try to kill me; I hurt you; you run away, only to jump out like some crazed eighties slasher killer. It's going to get old fast."

Tommy roared at me and leaped the distance between us, but a blast of ice from beside me drove him away. I turned, expecting to see Kase again, but Mordred stood several feet back and drew Excalibur.

"People need to stop saving your life," Mordred said to me as he stood beside me.

"I can't kill him," I said. "I just ... can't. I can't go through what I went through with you. Again."

Mordred laid a hand on my shoulder. "I know," he said and took a step toward Tommy, Excalibur held before him.

Tommy got back to his feet and rolled his shoulders before running at Mordred, who raised Excalibur above his head and activated the power it held.

Tommy stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked twice and let out a scream of pain. He clawed at his head, drawing blood, then turned and fled into the city.

"Let him go," Mordred said to me as I moved to chase him. "There's no telling what Excalibur can do to someone under the kind of curse I was under. If he returns, we'll make sure to try again."

"I saw a memory of Lamashtu," I said, explaining the vision about Washington.

"Oh God," Mordred said. He turned to several allies who were running up behind him and gave orders to get people back to DC.

The idea of Lamashtu's attack in DC, where so many people were recovering, sent a shiver up my spine. And Layla was out there somewhere ...

The soldiers ran off toward the realm gate.

"Nate, they'll get the message to people who can help," Mordred said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I nodded, but a cold pit of fear sat in my stomach as we ran through the deserted streets of the city.

"I think Judgement went this way," Mordred said.

One of the floors high above us exploded with magical power, and three soldiers fell the several hundred feet to the ground and hit with an unpleasant sound.

"Right, well, I think we found her," I said.

We took a step toward the front of the citadel as Merlin stepped out of the doors. More and more Horsemen flooded out until they almost surrounded him. "I think you'll find this a lot harder than you were expecting," he said as energy crackled all around him.