Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,119

field, there were always storms.

And then my awareness rushed back together again and I got my head back into the game, looking wildly around to determine what had happened.

Battle was raging in the park. The incoming charge of the Winter Lady and her troops had hit the wobbly lines of the Fomor like a wrecking ball, centered around a point of silver-white light and hulking trolls. I could hear the haunting shrieks of the Winter Lady, and the answering screams of her troops, as their offensive punched deep into the enemy formation and devolved into the pure chaos of frantic hand-to-hand combat.

Except that Molly’s troops were cheating: They’d brought pistols and submachine guns and plied them to devastating effect along with swords and axes. Though the enemy still outnumbered them, the Winter Lady’s charge had been potentially deadly, threatening to cleave the enemy lines entirely.

King Corb and his retinue of sorcerers and their bodyguards charged frantically toward that threat, to pit their sorcerous might against the Winter Lady—and to entrap her charge in their own superior numbers if she could be stopped from breaking through their lines.

The great wheeling death machine that was the Wild Hunt rolled over the Fomor legion with frantic abandon the whole while, too frenzied in its lust for blood to care which particular targets it struck, terrifying in the absolute random fatality of its selections.

And standing ten feet off, facing away from me, the Queen of Summer, Titania, faced Ethniu, eye to eye, standing as tall as the Titan. The Summer Queen wore leather armor, all in flickering shades of green, like sunlight passing through fluttering leaves on a warm spring day. Her silver-white hair was braided with ivy and flowers. She carried no weapons, and she stood alone—but the legion of the Fomor, it seemed, could hardly bring themselves to so much as look at her, much less approach.

Titania’s voice rang into the night like a silver bell. “Clever of you, Ethniu, to attack my sister at midsummer, when she is at her weakest.” A growl of thunder added punctuation to the end of her sentence. “But it was shortsighted to assume she would stand alone.”

There was a thrumming in the air, a quivering sensation of nauseated terror that went through me like a bullet, and suddenly the silver-grey eight-legged steed whom the legends named Sleipnir thundered out of the night sky, its hooves digging up mounds of earth to arrest its momentum. The great horse reared, kicking the scorched air with all four forehooves, and the terrible shadow upon its back lifted a hand that suddenly clasped a bolt of lightning.

When the Erlking landed, he did so in total silence, despite the heavy faemetal plate he wore over his usual hunting leathers. He landed in a crouch, flanking the Titan opposite the terrible rider, and drew his antler-handled hunting sword as he faced Ethniu.

I wanted nothing at all to do with this fight, and I started trying to worm out of the immediate blast radius without being noticed.

“I give you this single opportunity,” Titania continued. “Withdraw from the mortal world. Return to your sanctuary. It will end here.”

“As if you could offer or deny me anything I chose to take,” Ethniu snarled. “Petty little demigod.”

And with that she unleashed the power of the Eye.

Titania was waiting for it.

The torrent of destructive fire struck out at Titania—but rather than trying to oppose or endure it, she did the opposite. She spread her arms wide, rolled at her hips and lower back in a peculiarly dancelike motion, and rather than striking her, the torrent of energy bent and twisted, sending all that heat and hate spiraling up into the night sky.

Up into the sky that had, only a moment before, been full of freezing air and sleet, courtesy of the Winter Lady.

To call what happened next “rain” is something of an understatement.

Great, grinding thunder raised its voice in a throaty roar, and the air turned to falling water.

Water and magic are awfully finicky around each other. Enough running water tends to disperse and ground out magical energy, so much so that entities whose existence most depended on magic dared not cross even a running stream.

Titania didn’t so much summon a thunderstorm as she created an improvised waterfall.

Down smashed the rain so thickly that I had to cover my mouth with a hand in order to be able to breathe.

And I felt the shift in power happening.

The terror of the city and its hovering magical potential