Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,138

sit up.

Sudden wind slashed at me, slamming me back down to the earth, and tore the Unraveling from my hands. I looked up to see Aurora take the bit of cloth from the air with casual contempt, and start back up the hill. I struggled to sit up and follow, but the wind kept me pinned there, unable to rise from the ground.

"No more interruptions," Aurora spat, and gestured with one hand.

The ground screamed. From it, writhing up with whipping, ferocious motion, came a thick hedge of thorns as long as my hand. It rose into place in a ring around the waist of the hill, so dense that I couldnt see Aurora behind it.

I fought against Auroras spell, but couldnt overcome it physically, and I didnt even bother to try to rip it to shreds with sheer main magical strength. I stopped struggling and closed my eyes to begin to feel my way through it, to take it apart from the inside. But even as I did, Fix started screaming, "Harry? Harry! Help!"

One of the werewolves let loose a high-pitched scream of agony, and then another. My concentration wavered, and I struggled to regain it. Those people were here because of me, and I would be damned if I would let anything more happen to them. I tried to hang on to the focus, the detachment I would need to concentrate, to unravel Auroras spell, but my fear and my anger and my worry made it all but impossible. They would have lent strength to a spell, but this was delicate work, and now my emotions, so often a source of strength, only got in the way.

Then hooves galloped up, striking the ground near me. I looked up to see the warrior in green armor, the only rider of those original Sidhe cavalry to stay mounted, standing over me, horse stamping, spear leveled at my head.

"Dont!" I said. "Wait!"

But the rider ignored me, lifted the spear, its tip gleaming in the silver light, and drove it down at my unprotected throat.

Chapter Thirty-three

The spear drove into the earth beside my neck, and the rider hissed in an impatient female voice, "Hold still."

She swung down from the faerie steed, reached up, and took off the masked helm. Elaines wheat-brown hair spilled down, escaping from the bun it had been tied in, and she jerked it all the way down irritably. "Hold still. Ill get that off you."

"Elaine," I said. I went through a bunch of heated emotions, and I didnt have time for any of them. "Id say I was glad to see you, but Im not sure."

"Thats because you always were a little dense, Harry," she said, her voice tart. Then she smoothed her features over, her eyes falling half closed, and spread her gloved hands over my chest. She muttered something to herself and then said, "Here. Samanyana. "

There was a surge of gentle power, and the wind pinning me to the ground abruptly vanished. I pushed myself back to my feet.

"All right," she said. "Lets get out of here."

"No," I said. "Im not done." I recovered my valise and my staff. "I need to get through those thorns."

"You cant," Elaine said. "Harry, I know this spell. Those thorns arent just pointy, theyre poisonous. If one of them scratches you, youll be paralyzed in a couple of minutes. Two or three will kill you."

I scowled at the barrier and settled my grip on my staff.

"And they wont burn, either," Elaine added.

"Oh." I ground my teeth. "Ill just force them aside, then."

"Thatll be like holding open a screen door, Harry. Theyll just fall back into place when your concentration wavers."

"Then it wont waver."

"You cant do it, Harry," Elaine said. "If you start pushing through, Aurora will sense it and shell tear you apart. If youre holding the thorns off you, you wont be able to defend yourself."

I lowered my staff and looked from the thorns back to Elaine. "All right," I said. "Then youll have to hold them off me."

Elaines eyes widened. "What?"

"You hold the thorns back. Ill go through."

"Youre going to go up against Aurora? Alone? "

"And youre going to help me," I said.

Elaine bit her lip, looking away from me.

"Come on, Elaine," I said. "Youve already betrayed her. And I am going through those thorns, with your help or without it."

"I dont know."

"Yeah, you do," I said. "If you were going to kill me, youve already had your chance. And if Aurora finishes what shes doing, Im dead