Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,136
and it was Slate who screamed and reeled from the blow.
"You hurt her!" Fix screamed. His next swing hit Slate in the side of his left kneecap, and dropped the Winter Knight to the ground. "You hurt Meryl!"
Slate tried to roll away, but Fix rained two-handed blows of the monkey wrench down on his back. Evidently, whatever power it was that let Slate shrug off a bolt of lightning had been expended, or else it couldnt stand up to the cold steel of Fixs weapon. The little changeling pounded on Slates back, screaming at him, until one of the blows landed on the back of his neck. The Winter Knight went limp and lay utterly still.
Fix came over to me and helped me up. As he did, wolves surrounded us, several of them bloodied, all of them with teeth bared. I looked blearily over them, to see the Sidhe warriors regrouping, dragging a couple of wounded. One horse lay on the ground screaming, the others had scattered, and only one warrior was still mounted, another slender Sidhe in green armor and a masked helm. Weapons still in hand, the Sidhe prepared to charge us again.
"Help me," Fix pleaded, hauling desperately at Meryls shoulder. I stepped up on wobbly legs, but someone brushed past me. Billy, naked and stained with bright faerie blood, took Meryl under the shoulders, and dragged her back behind what protection the pack of werewolves offered.
"This is going to be bad," he said. "We had an edgetheir horses were terrified of us. On foot, I dont know how well well do. Almost everyones hurt. Hows Harry?"
"Dammit," Meryl growled thickly. "Let me go. It isnt all that bad. See to the wizard. If he goes down none of us are going home."
"Meryl!" Fix said. "I thought you were hurt bad."
The changeling girl sat up, her face pale, her clothing drenched in blood. "Most of it isnt mine," she said, and I knew she was lying. "How is he?"
Billy had sat me down on the ground at some point, and I felt him poking at my head. I flinched when it got painful. Sitting down helped, and I started to put things together again.
"His skull isnt broken," Billy said. "Maybe a concussion, I dont know."
"Give me a minute," I said. "Ill make it."
Billy gripped my shoulder, relief in the gesture. "Right. Were going to have to run for it, Harry. Theres more fight coming toward us."
Billy was right. I could hear the sounds of more horses, somewhere nearby in the mist, and the hammering of hundreds of goblin boots striking the ground in step.
"We cant run," Meryl said. "Aurora still has Lily."
Billy said, "Talk later. Here they come!" He blurred and dropped to all fours, taking his wolf-form again as we looked up and saw the Sidhe warriors coming toward us.
The waters behind them abruptly erupted, the still surface of the river boiling up, and cavalry, all dark blue, sea green, deep purple, rose up from under the waves. The riders were more Sidhe warriors, clad in warped-looking armor decorated in stylized snowflakes. There were only a dozen of them to the Summer warriors score, but they were mounted and attacking from behind. They cut into the ranks of the Summer warriors, blades flickering, led by a warrior in mail of purest white, bearing a pale and cold-looking blade. The Summer warriors turned to fight, but theyd been taken off guard and they knew it.
The leader of the Winter attack cut down one warrior, then turned to another, hand spinning through a series of gestures. Cold power surged around that gesture, and one of the Summer warriors simply stopped moving, the crackling in the air around him growing louder as crystals of ice seemed simply to erupt from the surface of his body and armor, frozen from the inside out. In seconds, he was nothing but a slowly growing block of ice around a gold-and-green figure inside, and the pale rider almost negligently nudged the horse into a solid kick.
The ice shattered into pieces and fell to the ground in a jumbled pile.
The pale rider took off her helmet and flashed me a brilliant, girlish smile. It was Maeve, the Winter Lady, her green eyes bright with bloodlust, dreadlocks bound close to her head. She almost idly licked blood from her sword, as another Summer warrior fell to one knee, his back to the water, sword raised desperately against the riders confronting him.