Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,105
supernatural weapons inflicted, their bloodied lengths bubbling as new-drawn blood hissed into plumes of vapor. The light of the Sidhe’s armor and weapons and eyes was terrible in the vision of the Fomor’s slave-soldiers, and the abominations howled and tried to shield their eyes from the painful hues.
We plunged entirely through the enemy’s front line in seconds, taking them completely off guard in the thickened haze—and I almost didn’t see what had really just happened.
Behind me, I could see one of the abominations, reeling back from the surprise attack from Mab’s flying wedge, clutch at a long, shallow, frost-covered wound in its arm, probably Mab’s work, and suddenly begin to scream.
The creature clutched at its wounded arm, holding it straight up, rigid, as if it had been holding a mannequin’s arm.
I saw the skin along the edges of the wound writhe and suddenly turn black.
And that black began to spread.
The abomination screamed in piteous terror for several seconds, as the black color from the edges of its frostbitten wound raced throughout its body—bringing a terrible stillness in its wake. By the time the black had wrapped around the abomination’s torso, the screaming had stopped.
It died screaming.
And a second later, all that was left was an agonized-looking statue of dark stone.
I heard more, even more painful screams behind us, and realized that the weapons of the Sidhe had apparently carried the same curse. We had cut a swath through the enemy, and those we had wounded had . . . simply turned to dark, rough, sandy-textured stone.
And it had, as a consequence, split the group of abominations into two much smaller groups of abominations, separated by a wall of statues.
Without hesitation, Mab wheeled on the nearest group, screamed again, and led the charge through it, her scream carrying me, Butters, and the Sidhe warriors forward, through another round of desperate nightmare time. And once that group had been split, whatever will drove them could no longer keep them on the field. The abominations began to flee, screaming, vanishing into the Winter mist around us.
The Sidhe cut them down without mercy. Lethal blows were kinder: They left nothing but a dead horror upon the ground. Mere wounds began to blacken and petrify, carrying those struck to an agonizing final ending.
Die swiftly or die slowly. That was all the compassion Winter was willing to show.
Mab whirled on her steed the moment the enemy broke, and lifted a hand. As she did, a cold wind descended upon Chicago from the north, the scent of it dry and sharp like at the beginning of proper autumn. It howled across the park, and the billowing vapors of mist and frost fled before it, sweeping the field clean of dust and smoke and mist, leaving the park suddenly clearly visible.
And I saw what Mab had really been up to.
As I watched, about fifty yards away, Mab led a cohort of Sidhe into a formation of octokongs, their weird arquebus weapons bellowing to little effect. A dozen yards beyond that, Mab led a cohort of Sidhe into a formation of dog-beasts and their handlers. Beyond them, maybe four or five more Mabs were hammering their way through several formations of those heavily armored ape-things.
And behind us, more Mabs were doing the same thing. The enemy screamed and fought. From one side of the battlefield, sorcery suddenly struck, with a sound like a thunderbolt and a spreading cloud of bilious green smoke that . . . just dissolved a pair of hapless octokongs that got in the way.
Glamour.
All of the other Mabs, all of the other cohorts of Sidhe, all the casualties inflicted upon the enemy by them—they were illusion. Figments of Mab’s imagination, given life by all the energy in the air.
I stared in awe. Producing an illusion is, honestly, a task that might be slightly more difficult, magically speaking, than actually creating the illusory effect for real. Every detail, every wrinkle in fabric, every stray hair, every blade of grass that bent beneath an illusory boot, every footfall, every exhalation, every faint scent—they all had to be held and wielded by the conscious thoughts of the source of the illusion.
Imagine one person running two thousand puppets at once.
Mab was doing that in the back of her mind, while hacking at the enemy with her frozen sword. She took stock of the battle and lowered her hand, and mist and haze once again fell like a curtain as the cold wind ceased.