Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,99

shotgun. “Keep going, head for the pavilion!”

I dropped back to the rear of the group and found Sanya, Butters, and the Alphas already there ahead of me. I passed the shotgun to Butters, who reduced the Sword of Faith to a wooden handle again, stowed it, and checked the firearm with, if not professionalism, at least confidence. Without a word, I traded looks with Sanya, and then the three of us spread out and turned to scuttle along backwards, Sanya and Butters with their weapons raised, me holding up the glowing tip of my blasting rod. The Alphas, meanwhile, darted out to our flanks, their furry forms vanishing swiftly into the haze.

The first shapes to emerge from the haze were those hairless canine things, of course, running across the ground at a low rush.

“Get some!” I shouted, and raised my blasting rod. “Fuego!”

Butters’s shotgun bellowed, and Sanya’s Kalashnikov hammered away at a metronome’s pace. Creatures snarled and screamed and fell. Fire bloomed among them, sending dozens running and screaming with their injuries. Our pursuers, though clearly still desperate to reach us, juked back and forth, both exposing their fellows to the fire and slowing the entire mass of them, until we could see the shapes of those broad-shouldered, long-armed, armored figures approaching behind them.

We had discouraged their advance, but we couldn’t stop it. We kept going backwards. And the enemy kept getting closer. I plied my blasting rod without slowing down, hurling one blast of green-gold fire after another, sending some of my foes screaming with dread and pain while others took their place and closed the distance between us.

“That’s it!” bellowed Sanya, somewhere just a bit behind me.

“Dresden, down!” I heard Butters yell.

Something got behind my knees and I tumbled onto the grass.

“Fire!” Sanya bellowed.

And a thunderstorm erupted in the air around me.

I lay there gasping for breath and instinctively raised my arms to shield my head. I saw Butters, who had hit me in the knees in a friendly tackle, lying as flat as he could and doing the same. I realized that we had backpedaled all the way to the fortifications the svartalves had prepared.

Maybe a quarter of the defenders left behind at the fortifications had come to our aid. A hurricane of buckshot swept the field. It wreaked havoc among the charging canines and sent them scurrying. One or two of the armored figures dropped, but the others retreated in good order, dragging the wounded with them.

“Cease fire!” Sanya yelled. “Cease fire!”

The fire trailed off as people emptied their guns, mostly, but it ended, and the survivors managed to clamber into the fortifications all the same.

“Contact!” screamed someone from the other side of the fortifications. “Fire!” Shotguns roared. The spears of the Huntsmen shrieked.

“Sanya!” I shouted.

“On it!” the Russian called back. He vaulted past me, into the fortifications, and headed for the north side to take command of the defense there.

“Find a firing position!” I shouted to the rest of the defenders. “Reload!”

Butters and I got up and hurried inside, where probably too many of the defenders were trying to figure out what had happened to the mobile force. They were gathered around Randy, who was on his knees, sobbing. “They’re dead. They’re all dead!”

“Butters,” I said.

“Yeah,” Butters said. He went to Randy’s side, put an arm around the man, and started speaking quietly.

I looked up to find all the people who had followed me staring down at me. From their expressions, they didn’t want it to be true.

“It’s true,” I said in a firm, steady voice. “The enemy hit us hard. And they bled to do it. There’s a thousand dead bad guys lying on Columbus right now, and the rest of them have to climb over the corpses of their buddies to come forward.” I looked up and down at the people watching me. “I’ve got no claim on you,” I said. “If you want to run, I can’t stop you. But by now, the enemy is pressing us from three sides. Maybe four. It might still be possible to retreat if you leave here and go straight west. If you want to do that, go for it. But if you borrowed a gun and ammo, leave them here. The people who are going to fight will need them. Because if we don’t stop them here, nothing is going to stand between them and the rest of the town.”

On the far side of the pavilion, fire rose into a thunder and died away again,