Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,94

clicks. “What kind of monster you think we get to kill now?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “If it bleeds, we can kill it. And they all bleed. Let’s go.”

“Da,” Sanya said firmly, and raised his voice as Randy finished with the bandage. “All right, everyone! Offense, time for us to make them sorry! Defense, stay here and kill anything that comes from the north!”

Sanya’s chosen officers started calling out to their groups, and they began to spread out in a line, facing east. The officers weren’t being subtle about it. They physically shoved people into position. There were a lot of worried faces on that line. I could feel their fear, the kind that makes your limbs feel hollow and your forehead bead in a cold sweat.

But through the banner, I could also feel their determination, and the aggression radiating off that hideous unicorn that was seeping into them. They were terrified and furious and ready to spill blood.

Sanya came up beside me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Sanya snorted.

“Thanks,” I said. I lowered my voice. “They’re amateurs. If we run into enough trained professionals, like Listen and his people, they’re going to be slaughtered.”

Sanya gave me the side-eye. “You think they do not know that?” He clapped a hand to my shoulder. “We all must die, Dresden. There is no shame in dying for something worthwhile.”

“I’d rather the Fomor died for something they thought was worthwhile, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Hah,” he said, grinning. “Da. That is plan. And it is time.”

I held up a hand, sharply. “Wait.”

Reports came in from the malks, through my banner. They were once again out ghosting through the haze. I tasted stagnant seawater on my tongue, there was so much of the scent in the air. Malks were not, on the whole, very bright—too much of their brain was devoted to bloodshed. But my scouts’ estimates were not optimistic, and in some cases almost fearful.

Grimalkin, I thought. I need an accurate assessment of enemy position and numbers.

The Elder malk’s reply came buzzing through my head in his creepy, creepy voice. They are legion. Between five and seven thousand. They march west through the park.

Holy crap.

There was no way for about eight hundred amateurs with shotguns to fight that and win.

Unless . . .

“Dammit,” I said. “They’re coming right at us. We have to beat them to Columbus. It’s a double-wide separated roadway, and it’s at ground level, maybe fifteen feet lower than the park. There’s a pedestrian bridge across. The bridge is higher than the park and it will give them a firing position down onto our people, as well as an easy way across Columbus—otherwise, they’ll have to climb straight walls under heavy fire.”

“Destroy bridge?” Sanya asked.

“And hold the line for as long as we can, do all the damage we can,” I said.

Sanya took a deep breath and then looked at the volunteers. “Da,” he said quietly. “Then we must move quickly.”

“Yeah,” I said. Then we jogged out in front of the volunteers, and I called, “Follow me!”

And we took off at a trot across the Great Lawn, our northern flank shielded by the defensive positions at the pavilion, with stealthy little monsters moving in a screen in front of us, serving as my eyes.

What I had not considered was that eight hundred people running together make a thunder of their own. As we ran, I heard the alien clicking sounds stop—and then resurge in a furious, faster tempo.

Hah. They hadn’t been expecting something like this. And now that I thought about it, I wouldn’t want to run into eight hundred angry people with shotguns on an average Chicago evening, either.

The retaining wall on this side of Columbus came into sight, and I poured it on, aiming for the pedestrian bridge. Sanya started screaming orders to his officers, hard to hear over the sound of that many people moving.

I didn’t see the enemy team holding our end of the bridge through the haze until they popped up from under cloaks like ghillie suits and opened fire. Angry wasps hissed through the air and someone hit me in the stomach with a baseball bat and drove the wind out of me.

For a second, I couldn’t tell what was happening. Some of my volunteers had raised their weapons and returned fire immediately, but most were confused. I knew the feeling. Getting shot at often confuses the hell out of me, and only training and experience allow you to respond with the kind of instant aggression