Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,124

said. “And I’m not alone.”

“Look around you, fool.”

I heard the smile come into his voice, though it grew no less hard. “I. Am not. Alone.”

I shed a tear for Butters and his courage.

But the Titan was right.

The horn of the Jotnar, of doom, sounded again, nearby. It was the sound of my city’s death.

I saw a massive silhouette appear in the haze bordering the south side of the park.

Ethniu glanced that way, then turned back to us, contempt scorching the edges of her smile.

But the fool, the Knight of Faith, held his ground.

And it turned out that I was wrong, and the fool was right.

Sometimes that’s all faith is.

Sometimes that’s enough.

The enormous form in the haze dwindled with the rapidity of a backlit shadow, and suddenly River Shoulders staggered out of the pall of destruction into the clear air of the park. His old tuxedo had been torn away completely. One of his shoulders hung as if dislocated, and his fur was singed and matted the grey of falling ash, darkened in places with blood. But he’d apparently found his spectacles, and one of their lenses was sharply cracked.

And over his good shoulder, he lugged the horn of a Jotun.

The Sasquatch’s gaze swept around the park and his expression lit with an abrupt fierceness. The enormous muscles of his arm bulged and strained and hauled the horn into position, and he blew three long, wailing blasts from the instrument that shook the air with the clarity of their tone and sent fresh cracks spreading through the bone of the horn.

And in response, there was a throaty roar from beyond the wall of vision-obscuring haze, and golden white light suddenly burned the pall away.

From the south rose a light like the first of morning, as if a star had fallen to the street level. There was a flutter of silver motion, and then standing atop an abandoned refrigerated truck was the breath of dawn in the shape of something like a horse. Rivers of light poured from it like water in the shape of its mane and tail, and the sword of light atop its head shone like visible music. Astride his back was Sarissa, the Summer Lady, clad in falling swaths of curling silver hair and random flower petals. She held a staff of living wood covered in freshly bloomed flowers—and tipped with a copper spearhead stained with blood.

Seated behind her was an armored figure bearing a flaming sword. Fix, the Summer Knight, my opposite number. As the Summer unicorn stirred and reared, forehooves flashing color, he lifted the sword in defiance.

At the same time, the Summer Lady threw back her head and let out a scream that was a single vibrating note, and a column of glorious golden light suddenly burned a hole in the haze and the cloud cover, turning the few remaining raindrops to spectrum-shattered mist and steam.

From the desperate clash of battle came an answering shriek—and a column of cold, defiant blue light rose into the night, centered on the darting, tireless form of the Winter Lady.

Movement stirred around the truck at ground level.

And the Baron of Chicago led the way.

Marcone strode into the light and clarity provided by the Summer Lady and came forward as though he meant to walk through a steel wall. He had shed his suit jacket in exchange for a pair of freaking pirate bandoliers hung with, I kid you not, what looked like seventeen or eighteen flintlock weapons—and he was carrying one in either hand.

To his right was Hendricks, dressed in a mix of tactical gear and what looked like samurai armor, carrying one of those automatic shotguns in one hand and a broadsword in the other. To his left, Gard strode along in silver armor that gleamed even when there wasn’t any light shining on it, over a mail coat that flowed like silk rather than steel. She carried her battle-axe in her hands, its blade shining with the power of glowing runes, so bright they left afterimages blurred into my vision. The two champions followed Marcone.

And I could feel, from there, the banner of his will streaming behind him.

Following in his wake came hundreds of Einherjaren, including that poor bastard on guard duty whom Lara had taken out, looking furious and still a little blurry with apparent drink. With them came Marcone’s troubleshooters, cold professionals whose job it was to find trouble—and shoot it. Behind them came the svartalves, or what I presumed were the svartalves—a block of