Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,78
march into. And I knew about how hard it is to convey even simple ideas in a fight. We’d be lucky if the volunteers could follow even those limited orders reliably.
Sanya turned back to the crowd. “Everywhere we go tonight, assume that you have orders to kill the enemy on sight. If standing, and enemy comes, kill enemy. If retreating, kill enemy. If following officer and enemy comes, kill enemy.” Sanya considered. “Basically tonight we are always killing enemy.”
Another laugh at that. But he was playing to an easy room. People who are scared need to laugh, and the scarier things are, the more they need it.
“Okay!” Sanya called. “Officers will divide you into groups! Everyone keep quiet so you can hear them!”
Sanya and his officers started getting them sorted out.
I shivered a little and stepped over to one side, where I could close my eyes for a second and try to process everything that was happening.
I felt Murphy come up behind me and then lean against me. I leaned back.
“This is going to be ugly, isn’t it,” I said quietly.
“Yes,” Murphy said simply. “Just remember whose fault it is.”
There was a horrible shrieking sound, and the haze flared red. This time, I could hear the building falling again.
Ethniu was walking straight down Lake Shore, knocking down buildings like a kid kicking over anthills. She was coming for Mab.
Who was in essence using herself as bait to keep the Titan from noticing me.
I found Murphy’s hand and squeezed gently. “What’s going to happen after this, do you think?”
“I don’t,” she said. “Because I’m doing today first.”
I snorted quietly.
Murphy squeezed back. “Harry. You can’t fix tomorrow until it gets here.”
“Which is weird, because you can screw it up from decades away.”
I heard her laugh gently. “I got used to weird. It’s not so bad.”
“Flattery is unworthy of you,” I said.
“It’s definitely unworthy of one of us.”
I opened my mouth to fire back like Sir Benedic would have wanted me to, but instead I had to deal with a sudden harsh, twisting feline voice radiating through my skull.
Sir Knight, mewled the unsettling voice of a malk, this is Grimalkin.
Right. Grimalkin was Mab’s . . . personal aide, in some ways. He was an Elder of the malks, which meant he was bigger and stronger and meaner than most, and had access to a number of powers, foremost of which was the ability to creep me out with his damned weird voice.
The enemy comes from the north, Sir Knight. I am also advised, by this irritating pixie, to inform you that there is a still-occupied child-care center in its path with a number of young mortals inside.
I clenched my jaw so hard that I chipped a tooth.
I looked around. Sanya was ordering the volunteers, but it would take time for him to get it done. If I shouted, “Follow me!” and started moving, I’d probably just walk them into a meat grinder. Sanya needed more time to get the volunteers organized.
“Harry?” Murph asked.
“Get the bike,” I said.
She swung around and did. “Butters, Alphas, on me,” I barked. “Sanya, incoming from the north. Get them organized first, then bring them after me. I’ll try to slow the Fomor down.”
“Da, go!” Sanya shouted. He turned and started bawling at the troops in a voice that could have been heard a quarter mile away.
Murphy rumbled up on her bike, and I swung a leg over. Will and Georgia loped out of the darkness and took up position on one side of the bike, and Andi and Marci took the other. Butters came trotting over. You’d never have guessed the little guy had been galloping all over the damned town all evening, from the spring in his step. I had to give it to him—Butters was never going to be a powerhouse, but the little guy didn’t have an atom of quit anywhere in him.
From the north, maybe two or three blocks away, I heard the scream of Huntsmen’s spear blasts, and a sudden sonic razor blade of ripping, tearing sound that was the simultaneous war cry of a dozen malks going into battle.
And then, flattening that sound was the bone-shaking blare of a Jotun’s horn, the same one from before.
And my stomach fell out. Because shotguns were not going to help against something that big, no matter how many of them we had. They’d only make it mad.
Hear me, Winter, I thought. Converge on that engagement. Kill anything that tries to harm those children.