“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