Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,96

troops of more modern militaries and were armed with rifles. And at the center of each warband was a knot of Fomor proper, frog-faced jerks in badly clashing clothing, seven feet tall.

There were a couple of thousand of them. And those were only the ones I could see. The haze must have been concealing the rest.

When I was spotted, things got a little crazy.

Shots rang out and my shield lit up like a disco ball. Butters yelped and jumped behind me. I pressed forward. I had to get far enough up the bridge to bring it down.

Someone shrieked something, and one of the groups of those tormented abominations came howling toward me, their locomotion ragged and swift.

Butters peeked out from behind me and said, “Wow, red carats everywhere.”

I blinked and poured more energy into the shield. With this much available, it wasn’t hard to hold it up. “What? What the hell do vegetables have to do with anything going on right now?”

“It’s kind of a Knight thing.”

I crouched low and got out of the worst of the fire. The walls on either side of the footbridge were about five feet high, and there was no way for them to get a clear line of sight to us. I felt clever as I hurried forward.

And then I heard several phoont sounds.

Grenades began to fall.

Some of them went right on by and over. Trying to land a grenade inside the sheltered area of the footbridge was a damned tricky shot. But the enemy did what the enemy always does, and showed up with more skill than they had any right to possess.

I shoved Butters against one of the walls, pressed my lower back against his chest, and melded the shield’s edges against the wall behind us.

Half a dozen grenades went off in the space of maybe fifteen seconds, and the world was just one enormous crunching sound after another.

“Down,” I growled as they stopped falling, and I lowered my shield. We dropped to hands and knees, below the level of the bridge’s walls, and I started crawling forward faster than I would have believed humanly possible. Butters followed.

Evidently, they figured dozens of grenades had done the job, because we didn’t take any more fire—until we rounded a corner and found ourselves face-to-face with fifty turtlenecks in full tactical gear.

“Forzare!” I shouted, and unleashed a broad stroke of pure kinetic force. I hit them harder than I’d meant to. The first three ranks of them went flying back like they’d been on wires, and collided with the men behind them. The impact brought instant massive confusion.

“Butters!” I shouted. “Kill the bridge!”

And I charged, slamming my right hand forward, screaming, “Forzare!” with every stride, knocking the turtlenecks around like ninepins.

“Harry!” Butters screamed.

“Kill the bridge, dammit!” I shouted back.

I heard the Sword of Faith come alight in his hands, and a glance over my shoulder showed him hacking through the bridge at his feet as if it had been made of so many soap bubbles.

I spun back to the enemy, brought my shield up—and stood tall.

“You!” I said, relishing the moment. “Shall not! Pass!”

They replied with a hail of automatic weapons fire. The impacts against my shield all but blinded me.

And a freaking Fomor sorcerer popped out from behind a veil that had concealed him from me and lobbed a viscous-looking ball of quasi-liquid at me.

I’d been burned once before, hah hah, by assuming my shield would be ready to stop whatever came at me. I ducked and skittered forward and to one side, and the blob hit the bridge where I’d been standing.

Whatever that stuff was, the xenomorphs’ blood had nothing on it. It started chewing at the concrete and the steel itself, bubbling and hissing as those substances were dissolved, and a hideous stench filled the air.

The Fomor smiled his froggy smile at me and tossed another, to my other side. I dodged again, but I had less space to do it in—I did not want to walk in one of those puddles. Whatever that vitriol was, it would probably devour my feet in seconds.

And then one of the turtlenecks lobbed a grenade high, aiming for it to come down behind my shield.

A flicker of will and a muttered word, and I batted the grenade out of the air and back down among the turtlenecks.

There was a fine amount of screaming and confusion as it went off, and I checked over my shoulder.

Butters had hacked through the bridge, but the thing hadn’t fallen