by Steve McHugh
Enyo stared at Mordred and smiled. “Just me and you left? The last time we met we were on the same side.”
“That was a long time ago,” Mordred said. “You get one chance to end this. Or I end it for you.”
Enyo flung a tendril of blood magic at Mordred, who froze it in place. Enyo’s eyes widened in shock.
“Yeah, you’re not going to win this,” Mordred told her, running forward and freezing two more tendrils before hitting her in the chest with a blast of light that sent her careening over the nearby table.
The smell of burnt flesh touched Mordred’s nose. He couldn’t use his light magic in quite the same way as another sorcerer would be able to use fire, but it still had its uses in a fight.
Enyo shot a plume of flame at Mordred, who wrapped himself in a shield of air and continued walking slowly toward her. She poured more and more magic into the plume, until it engulfed Mordred, who put more magic into his shield.
After a few seconds the fire stopped, and Mordred took no small amount of joy in the expression of utter disbelief on Enyo’s face. He wrapped air around her and squeezed it tight, but snakes of blood magic cut through the air and took hold of Mordred’s wrist.
Mordred dropped to one knee and cried out in pain as the blood magic slowly moved up his arm, wrapping itself around his chest and making him feel as though his entire body was on fire. A second blood magic snake took hold of Mordred’s other hand, and soon both were wrapped around his arms and chest, pinning his limbs to his side and causing him more pain than he could ever remember.
“Blood magic is so delicious, isn’t it?” Enyo asked, her face inches from Mordred’s. “My minotaurs are killing your friends, and then you’ll feed my power with your own. You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Cerberus,” Mordred managed to say.
“He should have given me what I needed. He was punished for it.”
Mordred dropped to all fours, his hands in the blood of the guard who had died as he’d entered the room with his team. He felt it slick on his hands, sliding between his fingers as the pain in his body became more and more distant. Mordred looked up at Enyo’s smiling face, took hold of one of the snakes, and cut it in half with a blade of blood magic that he’d created.
Enyo’s screams filled Mordred’s ears as she felt the feedback of the blood magic being stopped. The snakes dropped from around Enyo, who scrambled to get away as Mordred got back to his feet, albeit shakily.
“I don’t like using blood magic,” Mordred said. “I certainly don’t like using so much that I could break your hold, but if you think that my use of it isn’t considerably more powerful than yours, you must not have been paying attention to the kind of person I was.”
Enyo got back to her feet and charged Mordred, a blade of fire extending from her arm. Mordred created a sphere of light between his hands and poured power into it. When she raised the blade to strike, he detonated the magic sphere, aiming every bit of it at Enyo, who was thrown forty feet toward the rear of the room.
Mordred walked toward her, where she was partially stuck into the wall, and ignored the sounds of the others fighting. He needed his focus to be on her: she was too powerful, too devious, to allow her even a second out of his sight. The moment he saw her trying to claw her way out of the wall, he ran toward her, reaching her just as she detonated a wall of flame. He wasn’t quick enough with a shield of air and inhaled some of the super-heated air that Enyo’s magic had created.
Coughing, he staggered back just in time to avoid a swipe at his heart with a silver dagger.
“If I can’t overpower you,” Enyo said. “I’ll just make you bleed.”
Mordred wrapped air around Enyo’s arm, holding it back as he drove a blade of light into her chest. She dropped the silver dagger, which Mordred grabbed before it fell to the ground and plunged into her head. “You first,” he said, removing the dagger and cutting her throat in one movement.
Mordred watched Enyo die, before turning to find Hel taking a defeated minotaur’s spirit into herself. Diana’s minotaur was missing an arm and looked like it had been fed through a combine harvester. Diana was drenched in blood and one arm hung uselessly at her side, while she used her other hand to press against a horn wound in her ribs, but she would live.
Hel walked over to Mordred. She had a bruised face and looked pained, but like everyone else seemed to be okay.
“He broke my ribs,” Hel said. “Still healing.”
“I’m glad you’ll be okay. Where’s Remy?” Mordred asked her.
Remy walked through the entrance they’d come through only a short time ago. “Orcus tried to escape,” Remy said. “He didn’t make it very far.”
“He dead?” Diana asked.
“Very,” Remy said.
Hel stopped by the realm gate guardian, who was still cowering on the floor, holding on to the gate. He looked like he’d not enjoyed being in Enyo’s company.
“Activate the gate,” Hel said. “We’re not done here.”
“Take me with you,” the man said.
“Did you work with Enyo? Or were you here because you were forced?” Remy asked.
“Forced,” the man said.
“He’s lying,” Hel said. “I can tell. He worked for Hades and betrayed him to Avalon.”
“She offered me money to come here,” the man managed to splutter. “But I didn’t expect this.”
“Open the gate, then run like hell,” Mordred told him. “The way is clear. Leave. Don’t come back.”
The man nodded enthusiastically and opened the realm gate without another word. All four members of the team stepped through, leaving the carnage behind them. Mordred took a deep breath as he found himself on Tartarus, exhaling when the realm gate closed behind him.
Just beyond the realm gate, Tartarus was a place of fog. To Mordred’s mind it was exactly what he’d expected the place to be, but he knew that the fog eventually ended. They walked down to the shore and found several wooden boats moored there. Each one had oars and room for half a dozen people to sit comfortably. Remy and Diana got in one, with Diana taking up the oars.
“We’ll take this one,” Mordred said. “Don’t drink the water, it ages you.”
“Yeah, I’ve been here before,” Remy said.
“We all have,” Hel told him.
Diana shrugged and pushed the boat away, beginning to row.
Hel and Mordred climbed into the second boat, and Mordred picked up the oars, settling into a comfortable position as he began to row.
“So, I assume you wanted to talk,” Hel said after Mordred had been rowing for twenty minutes. “We’ve got a little while to ourselves, so let’s get this done.”
Mordred had prepared himself for this moment for some time, but now that it came to it, he couldn’t quite figure out how to start.
“We were having fun together,” Hel said, starting the conversation for him. “And then out of the blue you tell me you need to leave, and I ask you to wait until I return from a mission. I return, and you’re gone. No word from you, nothing. You just upped and ran away.”
“I did,” Mordred said, continuing to row.
“If you wanted to call things off, I’d have been okay with that. I would have found it odd, considering you appeared to be enjoying yourself, but things don’t always work out. Instead, you didn’t even do me the courtesy of actually talking to me.”
“True.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Also not disagreeing.”
“You know, I thought I’d tell you that I don’t care what you have to say, but actually, I’m kind of curious.”
Mordred took a deep breath before exhaling slowly. “I lived over a thousand years with essentially no moral compass whatsoever. I hurt, I killed, I did whatever I liked. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was in a prison cell trying to figure out how to escape, so I could go and hurt, kill, and terrorize all over again.
“And after centuries of that, I was free
. And I didn’t really know what that meant. I threw myself body and soul into defeating Arthur, Avalon, Abaddon, my father, my brother, and any number of assholes who joined them. And then you came along and I felt something else.
“I was having a good time with you. I enjoyed your company. But after a few months, I started feeling something else. I started wanting to go along on missions with you, not because I thought you needed my help, but because the idea of you being taken or killed, those thoughts hurt.
“I’d found someone else to fight for. And that scared me. And I didn’t handle it very well.”
“You were a dick.”
“Yes, that’s a fairly good way of putting it. At the end of the day, I love you, Hel. I’ve loved you for a while now, and I don’t really know how to tell you that. I don’t really know how to express what I’m feeling because I spent so long just stabbing and hurting things that I didn’t have feelings for anything that didn’t involve rage and hate. Feeling afraid for you utterly freaked me out. Like, utterly.”
“You love me?” Hel asked.
Mordred opened his mouth to speak, and then ran through what he’d just said. “Yes,” he eventually replied. “I wasn’t sure what it was I was feeling, but just seeing you makes me happy. Even angry you who would like nothing better than to tear off my testicles. You make me happy.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes, probably, but I was terrified that if I unloaded my feelings for you, you’d reject me, or tell me that I was getting too close too soon, or anything that involved my heart being ripped out and used for keepy-uppy.”
“Keepy-uppy?”
“It’s a football thing,” Mordred said. “When we’re back on the Earth realm, you need to find an internet connection and search it.”
“You like football?”
“Oh, my word no, I’m not really a sports person. The last sport I played had people throwing axes at one another. It was not something they’d show on the BBC.”
Hel nodded. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“It’s a lot to say,” Mordred told her.
“You love me?”
Mordred nodded. “I do. And if you hate me, or just don’t feel the same, then that’s fine, but I couldn’t go around pretending everything was fine because it clearly wasn’t considering I had no idea how to deal with those emotions.”
“Because you love me,” Hel said with a smirk.
Mordred nodded and sighed. “That was harder than killing a troll,” he said.
“That doesn’t make it okay for you to run off and not tell me, you get that, right?”
Mordred nodded. “Yeah, I do. I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I screwed up. I’m sorry. And I get it if you decide that we can’t go anywhere from here. But I wanted to try to explain what’s going on in my head, even if I don’t always understand what’s going on in my head.”
Hel stared at Mordred for some time. “You seem to be under the impression that I didn’t know what I was getting into when we started whatever it was we started. I knew full well. I expected some . . . issues, which is why I didn’t want to push you. I didn’t expect the response I got, to be honest, but we live and learn. I’m not just going to jump into a relationship with you, Mordred.”
While Mordred felt hurt by that, he also understood where Hel was coming from. “I get that,” he told her. “I’m sorry I screwed it up.”
“When we’re done here, and by here I mean with trying to save my realm, me and you are going to have a long talk about this some more. And once I’m satisfied that you’re going to act like an actual grown-up, we’ll move forward from there.”
Mordred smiled. He hadn’t been expecting anything even close to a second chance, and he was certain he wasn’t going to blow it. “Thank you,” he said.
Hel leaned toward Mordred, until she was inches from his face. “You hurt me when you ran. I don’t usually give second chances, but I think we could be something special. In other words, get your shit together, and we’ll put this in the past and just look forward.” Hel kissed Mordred on the lips, pulling away after a second. “Now, get rowing.”
Mordred did as he was told and they reached the bank soon after, where the glory of Tartarus revealed itself. It was a beautiful place with rolling hills, and while it was currently overcast and drizzly, it was usually bright and warm. The Titans had been placed there thousands of years ago and had made a city their home. Over time, more and more people had come to the realm to live, away from Avalon’s influence, and the population exploded as a result. Last Mordred heard, over twenty thousand people lived in Tartarus, and most of them hadn’t left the realm for centuries. The only residents who were not allowed to leave were the original Titans because of a binding agreement with the Olympians that Mordred had every intention of breaking.
Mordred climbed up onto the pier, where Charon stood with Remy and Diana. Charon had the appearance of an elderly man because he’d drunk the water of the lake, and it had irreversibly aged him.
“Mordred,” Charon said, walking over and shaking his hand. “It’s been a few years.”
Mordred smiled; he liked the old ferryman. He was grumpy and took no shit from anyone, which was sort of how Mordred hoped he would be when he was grown up.
“The fox tells me that you’ve come to piss everyone off,” Charon said.
“I didn’t quite say that,” Remy shouted. “I said ‘mostly’ everyone. Get it right.”
Charon flipped Remy his middle finger, making the fox-man laugh in response.
“If you keep doing that at your age, the digit might seize up,” Remy called back.
“Good, then I can just do it to everyone who’s a smart-ass little bastard like you,” Charon retorted.
“As fun as this is,” Hel said, “it’s not getting us into Tartarus. We need to talk to Hyperion and the others.”
Several griffins landed close by the group and stood wordlessly, their normally gleaming sliver-and-golden armor splattered with blood. “I’m coming with you,” Charon said. “We had a few . . . issues with interlopers. A bunch of blood elves and minotaurs turned up a short while ago, although Hyperion and the others in town managed to kill them all. The bastards used my boats to row over. They deserved to die just for that. You know anything about them?”
“Avalon wants control over this realm—they sent Enyo and Orcus to do the job,” Hel said.
“Really?” Charon asked. “They were the best they had? I assume they’re not currently a problem.”
“They’re pretty dead,” Mordred said.
Mordred looked over at the four griffins and was impressed by the power and elegance they exuded. The griffins walked around on two legs, their top half an eagle with massive wings that were easily the width of two adult men standing on top of each other. The bottom half of the griffin was a lion, complete with massive paws and a long tail, although their paws had huge, retractable talons instead of claws. They were the jailers, protectors, and guardians of the inhabitants of Tartarus, and they were not a species that anyone in their right mind would want to fight. Not only because of their razor-sharp beaks and the talons on their hands and feet, but also because each of them carried a spear and sword, and they were—in Mordred’s eyes—some of the most dangerous users of those weapons he’d ever seen.
“We will fly you,” one of the griffins said. It looked at Mordred. “You can use pure magic?”
Mordred nodded.
“Your presence will be tolerated, but if you use it, you will die.” There was no suggestion in the griffin’s tone that there was another option.
“Sounds fair,” Mordred said.
“My name is Lorin,” the griffin told everyone. “I was guarding the realm gate when several of the creatures came through. I held them off as best I could and raised the alarm. Unfortunately for the invaders, they assumed that swimming here was the best way forward. They aged terribly and were easy prey.”
“They didn’t die i
n the lake?” Diana asked.
“No, we took them to the killing grounds to the south,” he told her. “They will be dispatched there and left for the creatures that roam those lands. Each of you will be carried by a griffin. One of us will take the fox and a second passenger. Charon will make his own way.”
“I have a horse,” Charon said. “Also, I don’t like being carried a hundred feet in the air.”
“We have never dropped anyone,” Lorin said. He paused. “I don’t think.”
“Is that a joke?” Mordred asked Charon.
The four griffins made a weird noise in their throats.
“Yep,” Charon said. “Goddamned hysterical, aren’t they?”
The griffins took one person each in their talons and lifted them off the ground by their shoulders. Mordred had to admit, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he’d imagined it would be—he didn’t feel like he would lose an arm with one wrong move.
The griffins flew over the ancient-Greek-inspired houses with white stone walls and bright orange-and-red-tiled roofs. People looked up and several children waved, which made Mordred feel better about asking them to leave. When Avalon eventually broke through to this realm, they were unlikely to spare anyone, children or not.
The griffins landed and they were met by Hyperion, who was, the last Mordred had heard, now in charge of the Titans. Hyperion looked to be in his mid-fifties with a short, gray beard that matched his hair. Everything about him screamed power and danger, and Mordred knew that the dragon-kin could do a lot of damage to the team before they’d be able to stop him.
“I am all for visitors,” Hyperion said. He wore a long, purple cape over deep-red leather armor. He looked like he was going to war. “But we’ve already had some issues with guests today, and I’d rather not add to them.”
“We need your help,” Hel said.
“Why?” Hyperion asked.
“Abaddon and her troops are going to take Helheim,” Remy told him. “We want you and your people to help stop them.”
Hyperion laughed. “You think we can do that? Look around you. We are not warriors anymore. We fought the Olympians and we lost. Now we live here, until someone comes along to try to kill us all. We have hundreds of children here—you want them to go to war?”
