by Steve McHugh
“Someone who works for Avalon,” Mordred said. “Based on her previous form, it could be Hera.”
“That’s possible,” Wei said. “I heard you swapped sides.”
“Less swapped and more realized I wasn’t exactly fighting the right people.”
“And how’s it working for you now?”
“About the same number of people want to kill me,” Mordred said. “But on the other hand, most of those people probably deserve to die, so I don’t feel so bad about venting my anger in their general direction.”
“Are you going to help us, or what?” Fiona snapped.
Diana placed a comforting hand on Fiona’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “My husband is in that hellhole, and I’m up here discussing niceties.”
“Diana asked me here because I’ve been here before,” Wei said. “It’s nice to see another nine-tails here.”
“Oh, I’m not a nine-tails,” Remy said. “Just the one tail, see.” He wiggled his tail to prove his point.
“Interesting,” Wei said, staring at Remy for several seconds before looking back at Fiona. “I lived in a village close to here just before the Second World War was finally over. Fortunately the arrival of troops gave me the incentive to leave, but I came back a few years later when one of those in the village asked for my help. Avalon shut this place down just before the war, but it reopened in the fifties. Several people were abducted and forced to work here. Humans, I might add.”
“Do you know the mines?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t know too far down, as it was heavily guarded and I was only interested in finding those abducted. For some reason that mountain shields me from tracking people when you’re inside it. I think it’s got some sort of magical quality to it. I scouted the village a little before you arrived. I found nothing of note, apart from a few dozen armed guards patrolling the far end of the place.” She pointed down toward the village. “You see the curve just there? The village opens out just behind there, but you can’t see it from here because it goes around to the opposite side of the cliff. There’s a building there that looks a lot like the one you were interested in. I saw guards going in and out, but I couldn’t get closer. “
“Could people be held prisoner in it?” Fiona asked.
“Yes. I couldn’t get inside to check, but I know for a fact that it’s big enough. When I rescued the abducted humans, they were being held in there. Inside there’s a set of stairs that leads down into the actual prison area. It’s underground. When I checked earlier, though, I saw runes drawn on various places, although I don’t know what they did. They’re new.”
“So, we’ve found our first destination,” Nabu said.
“I’ll go,” Mordred said. “I just need a distraction.”
“You sure?” Diana asked. “No offense, Mordred, but you’re not exactly stealthy.”
“I’ll be fine. Besides, you’re going to be better equipped at making enough noise to wake the dead.”
“You’re going in alone?” Fiona asked. “Because that’s not happening.”
“Fiona, whatever bullshit you think you know about me, push it aside. You want your husband back in one piece? Well, I’ve been sneaking in and out of places for hundreds of years. Normally to assassinate someone, but that’s not exactly the point that’s relevant at this point in time.”
Fiona looked around for an ally and, finding none, resigned herself to the situation. “Fine, but if you do anything to put his life in jeopardy—”
“I don’t plan on putting anyone’s life in anything close to trouble. I plan on getting in, finding out what I can, and getting out. Or, should the need arise, getting in, killing everyone inside, and letting you guys come to me.”
“You want us to take out everyone else in the village?” Morgan asked. “That wise?”
“It’s necessary,” Mordred replied. “If I get in there and someone can’t leave under their own power, we need a clear line to escape.”
“Or hunker down,” Remy said. “This could turn into quite the protracted battle if anything goes wrong.”
“Well, aren’t you just a bundle of sunshine?” Diana said.
“Sunshine fucked off about two days ago,” Remy told her. “Right now I’m a bundle of barely-held-together anxiety, rage, and just a smidge of sexual allure.”
Everyone got a laugh out of that.
“That dreadful image aside,” Morgan said, “we need to make this fast. We also need to figure out how we’re going to get away from here. The chopper wasn’t going to wait around for us.”
“I brought a truck,” Wei said. “A big truck. That should do the trick, yes?”
“It’s better than walking,” Diana said.
Five minutes later and Mordred had removed a sheathed dagger, which he hung from his belt, along with a holster, and Heckler and Koch P30 .40 S&W. Thirteen rounds of hollow-point, silver-tipped bullets. He removed three more magazines and placed them in the pockets of his black hoodie. He didn’t need a silencer—he could always use his air magic to try and make the noise less pronounced, but he was hoping he wouldn’t have to use the gun at all. Knives are a lot quieter, and reusable, too. He tied the bag to a head-height tree branch and dropped his jacket over it. It kept him warm, but it was too bulky and obtrusive.
“Everyone ready?” he asked.
Everyone nodded.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” Nabu said. “Whoever these people are, whoever they work for, will have expected someone to come to free any hostages. And if Elaine is down there, you can be certain they’ll want to keep her that way.”
Mordred nodded.
“Be careful,” Morgan told him. “I don’t think you get to die twice.”
“I’ll be fine,” he promised. “Keep safe.”
“Mordred,” Remy said, calling after him when he’d begun his descent toward the village.
Mordred stopped and turned back.
“Just don’t die, okay?” Remy said. “We’ve had enough deaths. I can say from experience. We’ve all become somewhat fond, if sometimes through duress, of having you around. Stupid songs aside, we’d like to keep you in one piece. Besides, if you get killed here, Nate will never let any of us live it down.”
Mordred smiled, turned, and continued down the side of the hill, keeping to the dense forest while he checked ahead for signs of enemy combatants. Mordred had told the rest of the group to count five minutes and then launch an attack on visible guards patrolling the furthest side of the village. He’d hoped that would be enough to draw away however many people were hidden from view. He didn’t want to run around a corner into a battalion of heavily armed assholes.
Mordred reached the tree line and glanced back up at where his friends had been but saw nothing. The forest was too thick, and even so, he hoped they’d started to make a move. It was sixty feet across open ground to the first building in the village. If he got spotted, he was dead. It was that simple. He looked around, saw no one, and risked it.
He sprinted with everything he had, running toward the first building. As he got closer he saw that the door was ajar, and he slammed into it at full speed, rolling into the one-room building and coming to a stop by the far wall. The building had a bed, kitchen, and bathroom in one small space. It gave Mordred the impression of a jail cell more than somewhere someone might live. The kitchen consisted of a small stove and pans. There was a sink that had long since turned brown, an old mattress that Mordred wouldn’t lie down on for all the money in the world, and several holes in the wooden floorboards.
Mordred placed a hand against the floor and pushed his air magic out, across the floor. The magical air seeped into the cracks between the floorboards, and when he’d used enough, he pulled the magic back toward him, tearing several boards free in an instant. He paused and looked out one of the grime-covered windows to ensure no one had heard. He could use his air magic to muffle sounds, but he couldn’t have done that and used the magic to pull up the floor.
When he was certain he was okay, he dropped through the floor to the cold, hard ground beneath the small building. Like most of the buildings in the village, it had been built above the ground, leaving a gap big enough for him to crawl under. He’d thought about diving straight under the crawl space to begin with but wasn’t sure what was under there, and diving headfirst into a dark crawl space was on his list of things he didn’t want to do unless completely necessary.
Once under the hut he crawled to the edge of the building and pulled himself out of the crawl space so that he was between the hut he’d just broken and the one next to it. It was dark between the two buildings, and Mordred moved around the second hut, darting from cover to cover as he made his way through the village, thankful that the slope of the cliff became higher and higher until it cast a shadow over the huts. He’d moved past seven huts and was preparing to run to the eighth when he heard voices.
He stopped at the edge of the hut and peered around the corner. There were three guards twenty feet in front of him. All three of them huddled around a metal barrel, which had been used to start a fire. They wore dark-gray uniforms, sturdy boots, thick trousers, and thigh-length coats. And they weren’t cheap clothes, either. Mordred couldn’t remember the last time guards wore expensive coats and boots. None of them had any kind of insignia on their clothes, but all of them carried Sig SG 553s. He considered going out there, killing all three of them to take one of the assault rifles, but decided it wasn’t worth the agro it would clearly cause.
He waited for several seconds, using his air magic to pick up what the men were talking about, but it became clear that it was mostly about how cold they were, how long they’d have to be here, and how they all really wanted to get drunk.
Mordred moved on, putting distance between him and the guards, but the further he moved around the cliff, the more guards were on patrol. Eventually he made it to a hut that allowed him a good visual of the large building at the end of the village. As Wei had said, it looked like a place to put prisoners. There were bars on the windows, and four guards stood outside the only entrance. If Elaine, or anyone else, was going to be held somewhere, it was in there.
Mordred took a step around the corner, almost directly into the path of an approaching guard, whose eyes widened in surprise. The man’s hand dropped to his sidearm, but Mordred was too fast for him and used his air magic to wrap around the guard, pinning his arms in place, before dragging him back over. Mordred grabbed the man and threw him up against the rear of the hut he’d been hiding behind, slashed open the guard’s throat with his dagger, and pushed him to the floor, rolling him under the hut.
Mordred cursed himself for moving too quickly and not checking for approaching guards. He looked around the corner and was thankful that none of the other five guards out in the clear had seen what had taken place. He wiped the blood off his dagger but kept it in his hand as he continued toward the edge of the hut just as an explosion rocked all around him.
CHAPTER 21
Mordred
Shouts and screams filled the air as Mordred’s friends descended on the unaware guards. It didn’t take long for the guards in front of the prison building to charge off, leaving only one concerned-looking guard to protect the entrance. These weren’t Avalon agents, and they certainly weren’t blood elves. Mordred would have guessed they were human mercenaries, hired to keep people in one place. But that left the uneasy question of the location of those who took Elaine and the others. There was zero chance that any of them were going to be taken out by a group of human thugs, no matter how nice their guns were.
Mordred looked up at the cliff behind the prison building. The dense forest covered a large part of it, and the mountains could clearly be seen behind it. A winding path had been carved into the cliff. It sat behind the prison building, and Mordred figured it for the best place to take the prisoners in their attempt to escape the village. Certainly better than running back through the firefight going on behind him.
He removed his pistol and fired two rounds into the guard’s head, killing him, the gunfire muffled by Mordred’s air magic. After searching his immediate surroundings and finding no guards, he ran over to the prison door and tried the handle, finding it locked. He searched the dead guard at his feet for a key and eventually found one in a pocket on his vest.
Mordred unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing a set of stairs leading down into a dimly lit corridor beneath the ground. He descended the stairs slowly and about halfway down felt his magic vanish. He paused and looked around, but it was too dim to see any runes that might have been drawn on his surroundings. Instead, he removed the pistol from its holster and continued.
He checked the corridor and found nothing of concern before stepping out into it. There were five shut doors along each side of the corridor, and he tried the first, finding it unlocked, so he pushed it open, revealing a small cell. The smell of blood and death hung around the cell, and the floor was wet where it had been cleaned. A drain sat in the center of the room, and Mordred remembered the werewolf nightclub and Elaine’s tortured guard he’d found there.
Mordred left the cell and tried the next door but found it locked. After the third locked door, be began to hear noises coming from one of the rooms at the far end of the corridor. He moved toward them, making sure to keep low and quiet, just in case the door suddenly opened and he had to react quickly.
It didn’t take long for him to reach the cell door, which like the others was made of thick metal. He placed his ear to the door but heard nothing apart from the muffled sound of someone being repeatedly hit. With his pistol ready, Mordred pushed on the door a little until it revealed two men standing with their backs to him. A third man sat tied to a chair, although Mordred couldn’t make out that man’s face. He was clearly male, though, seeing how he was naked.
“Where are they?” the guard questioning the prisoner asked.
“I don’t know,” the man said, his speech slurred. They’d clearly done a number on him.
“Lies,” the guard said, and punched the man in the face.
Mordred stood up and saw who was being tortured, and a cold rage filled him. With two steps he was behind the first guard. Mordred buried the dagger in the back of the guard’s neck, killing him instantly. He stepped around the falling guard, firing twice into the second guard’s head. Both men were dead, and Mordred ran to the prisoner.
“Mac,” he said, his voice soft. “Mac, you hear me in there?”
Mac mumbled something unintelligible. Mac was a water elemental, and without a supply of water, there was no way he was going to heal himself. The amount of cuts and bruises over his body suggested he’d been subjected to a prolonged beating.
Mordred looked around and found a pitcher of water on a nearby table. He picked it up and threw it over Mac, drenching the man before cutting the plastic ties that held his wrists together.
Mordred waited for a minute as the worst of the wounds on Mac’s body healed, until his eyes were no longer puffy and closed. Mac blinked. “Mordred?”
Mordred nodded. “You up for walking?”
“They removed my toenails. Fingernails too. Broke my knees and let me heal. Point is, I hurt, but not enough to stop me from removing their spines.”
Mordred helped Mac to his feet. “It’s been a long time, old friend.”
Mac smiled. “We’re friends now? I thought you wanted to kill everyone.”
“Yeah, we’ll say that’s a bad judgment call on my part.”
“I’m naked, Mordred.”
Mordred propped Mac up against the nearest wall and removed the clothes from the first guard, passing them to Mac. “You good to get dressed?” he asked.
“If I say no, will you hold it against me?” Mac asked after fumbling with a pair of trousers. “I think my hands haven’t quite healed yet.”
Mordred helped Mac into a pair of trousers, shoes, and a jacket. It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable of clothes for him, and they
were a little larger than he was probably used to, but Mordred figured too large was better than too small.
“Anyone else in these cells?”
“They killed the whole lot of them,” Mac said. “Made us all watch as they killed them. Eight good people, dead.”
“Where’s Alan?” Mordred asked, feeling a ball of hurt inside him at the possibility of losing more people.
“He escaped into the mine. They took humans from some of the nearest villages and made them work in there.”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever they needed. I don’t really know. I don’t understand why they’d go to all this trouble to dig around in a mountain. They thought I’d know where Alan escaped. Thought we’d made a pact to escape and I got caught.”
“And?”
“We did make a pact, and I did get caught, but I don’t know where Alan is apart from in the mountain. Although I can’t say that for certain. He could be anywhere by now. Maybe he went for help. Is that why you’re here?”
Mordred shook his head. “No, we came to find you all. Elaine, too.”
“She’s closer to the mountain. There’s a camp up there. It was built by whoever these bastards are. I saw lorries driving up there on the road around the cliff. If Alan hasn’t gone for help, he’s up there.”
“How long ago did he escape?”
“Few hours.”
Mordred helped his friend up the stairs to be greeted by Diana and Wei, both in human form.
“Mac,” Diana said, picking him up and carrying him out of the prison building.
“Everyone okay?” Mordred asked as Diana helped Mac lie in some nearby snow.
Mordred didn’t bother asking Mac if his light magic would heal him; he already knew that it would have no effect on the water elemental.