Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17)

by Jim Butcher

“Gotta tell you, Murph,” I sighed back. “I got a bad feeling about this.” “Speak for yourself,” Murphy said. “I just gave my last grenade to a Valkyrie and ordered her to blow up a kraken. I’m having a ball.” Well.

I might be the dumb kid with the sledgehammer from his father’s toolshed, compared to the sword-saint samurai who were the Senior Council—but I had discovered, in my time, that no matter how skilled and elegant a foe might be, a sledgehammer to the skull is a sledgehammer to the skull.

I realized that I was watching something that I had never seen or even much heard of before. The Little Folk were mobilizing for war. For pizza. Hell’s bells. Well.

As I watched, he shrugged into his suit shirt and began buttoning it up. “Did you forget the next step in the dressing process, Dresden?” he asked, without looking up at me. “Or is this some sort of awkward sexual reconnaissance?” With massive dignity, I put on my pants one leg at a time. “Locker room talk? Really?” “It seemed something you would be capable of appreciating.”

Marcone to Harry while sharing a locker room before battle.

I remembered the cold, fearless core of him, of an apex predator who happened to wear a human form. Then he, too, did something eerie. He smiled. A wolf would have been jealous. “Excellent,” he said. Then he left.

Marcone.

A couple of the largest Einherjaren fought the thing with six-foot claymores and made a bloody mess of the street, laughing uproariously the entire time. I’m not kidding. Laughing. The freaking eternal soldiers were having a ball tonight. That poor lunkhead Lara had left unconscious in the basement was missing Viking Christmas.

“Be kind of a lousy friend, I counted the beans between us that close,” the Sasquatch said. I blinked at that. “Friend, huh.” “Helped me with my kid,” River Shoulders said. “With family. You been my friend. Now it’s my turn.” Again he showed me the terrifying smile. “Besides. This is kinda fun, eh?” I started to sputter. But instead I found myself just grinning back at him. Taking out a bunch of monsters and saving a bunch of people had damned right been fun. Terrifying and nightmare inducing and fun—and right. Hell’s bells, it felt good to be doing something I knew was right. I held up a fist. He eyed me for a moment. Then he made a fist and, carefully, bumped knuckles with me. The shock of it threatened to dislocate my shoulder again, but being all manly I didn’t make any high-pitched noises or anything. And you can’t prove otherwise.

Drakul regarded me for a second. Then he made an exasperated little sound and put one hand on his hip. “I’ll be open with you, starborn. At this point of conversations like this one, I often offer the dark gift of immortality to someone in your position. It’s occasionally a way to obtain a useful tool, but mostly I just want to see how they react. One sees people for who they truly are when they face death . . . but, honestly, five minutes of you in my life has been quite enough. You’ve no . . . gravitas. No decorum. No style at all.” He knelt over me and lifted the knife toward my throat. “But I suppose your blood will call to the dead as well as anyone’s.” “Knock-knock,” I said. Drakul frowned down at me and arched an eyebrow. “Oh, come on,” I said. “Here I am facing death and telling you a knock-knock joke. Why would I do such a thing?” I gave him the best grin I could while clenching my teeth. “Eternity is a long time to wonder about a punch line. Knock-knock.” “Who,” said Drakul, in his mellifluous accent, his eyes narrowed, “is there?” “Thousand-pound gorilla,” I rasped. “Thousand-pound gorilla who?” asked Drakul. And River Shoulders roared and hit him with a twelve-foot-long concrete obelisk.

The octokongs weren’t as much of a threat—until they got closer. The ape-squid things had the upper body of a gorilla mounted on the lower chassis of an octopus, hence octokong. Good thing they hadn’t used chimps, or I’d have had to call them octopongs. And that just sounds silly.

The old man stared down at the park thoughtfully, heedless of the incoming fire, then nodded once, held out a fist, spoke a word, and gathered a sphere of white-hot light into the palm of his right hand. He flicked his wrist, and the sphere of light streaked over to the park and set the nearest tree there violently ablaze. Octokongs screamed and poured out of it—to where they were well-lit by the fire on open ground. The Einherjaren let out whoops of excitement and approval as their weapons roared, absolutely withering every octokong on the ground. “Do it again, seidrmadr!”

Ebenezer.

I felt my hands shaking in pure, unadulterated fear. Doesn’t matter how good you are in a fight—mass matters, and I had more sheer tonnage of angry bad guy coming at me than maybe ever before. “Hoo boy,” I said.

Harry facing Jotun Giants of Muspelheim.

Some things should hurt. Some things should leave you with scars. Some things should haunt your nightmares. Some things should be burned into memory. Because that was the only way to make sure that they would be fought. It was the only way to face them. It was the only way to cast down the future agents of death and havoc before they could bring things to this. The words never again mean more to some people than others.

Harry seeing the havoc wrought on Chicago by the Fomor and Ethniu, and not giving into the numbing power of the winter mantle.

I could feel uneasiness ripple through my friends, and through the crowd behind me. Not even the monsters of Winter could hear those horns without feeling a sense of slow, inevitable dread. I didn’t feel it, of course. I was a mighty wizard of the White Council, monarch of mental mastery, pharaoh of fickle fear. I didn’t pucker up at all.

My scrotum attempted to travel back in time.

How Harry describes being afraid... of a unicorn.

I had to give it to him—Butters was never going to be a powerhouse, but the little guy didn’t have an atom of quit anywhere in him.

“Friendlies?” “Yeah,” I said. He heaved a breath. Then set his jaw, nodded, and said, “Got it.” “Good man,” I said. “You’re handling this well.” “I am not,” Bradley said without slowing his steps. “I am not.” “Then you are freaking out in the most useful way possible,” I said. “Keep it up.”

Detective Bradley of internal affairs coming to face the suprnatural in the middle of the war.

“Drittsekk?” I asked her. “Norwegian for, ah, scumbag,” she said. Then she glanced at my expression and said, “I’m a cop, Harry. There’s tradition to consider.”

Asshole might be a more accurate translation.

I dropped the wind spell, struck a cheesy karate pose, and said, “Waaaaaah!” in the style of Bruce Lee. “Which one of you has brought me my nunchucks?” My humor is wasted, wasted upon most of the supernatural community. I mean, my God. They really need to get out into the world more.

“Mortal wizards,” Mab sighed. “Forever meddling in things you do not comprehend.” I dredged up a quote from someone I rarely agreed with about anything. “What’s the point of free will, if not to spit in the eye of destiny?” “How to phrase this so you will understand,” Mab said calmly, facing the night. “Ah. Destiny is a . . . stone-cold bitch.” Which, given the source, was really saying something.

Originally said by Marcone in Dead Beat, after saving Harry from Corpsetaker's ghouls.

I’m what you might call oppositionally defiant to authoritarian figures. Someone who doesn’t always do as he’s told. Maybe even a little bit of a troublemaker.

Harry.

In that moment, I knew what Michael had meant when he said that the most powerful part of the Sword of Faith had nothing to do with the word sword. Or even with the artifacts the two men held in their hands. Neither of the Swords could have done anything without the minds and hearts and hands of the men bearing them.

Harry watching and following Butters through the battle of Chicago.

River Shoulders screamed. Lightning struck, a hawk cried in fury, and then a goddamned grizzly bear fell out of the night sky and onto Ethniu’s head. Don’t care how Titanic you are. No one expects an orbital-drop grizzly.

Listens-to-Wind coming to Harry and River Shoulders aid.

“I take it your weapon can accomplish that?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. We’d reached the beach by then, and clambered down the slope of broken rock to the edge of the water. “But it was good enough for the Son of God. I figure it’s in the right league.” Marcone’s eyes widened. One of his hands twitched. “And the adults let you have it?”

Harry needing the blood of Ethniu to bind her, and having the tip of the spear that killed Jesus on the cross.

“Do you at least have a gun?” I asked. “Maybe you can distract her.” “I have a knife,” Marcone said. “Jusht like a gangshter,” I said. “Bringsh a knife to an apocalypshe fight.” Marcone gave me a level look and then said, in a much more conversational tone, “Honestly, Dresden. If you used your mind half as much as your mouth, you’d be running the place by now.”

I agree with Marcone here - HARRY YOU ARE LITERALLY FLEEING FROM / FIGHTING A PROTOGOD!

Her eye locked on Marcone and she let out a low, cackling exhalation. “The mortal who thinks himself a lord,” the Titan purred. “Fool,” Marcone replied by way of greeting, his tone polite and pitched to carry loudly. “What?” Ethniu demanded. “If you had a mind,” Marcone said, “you would have used restraint. You would have arisen from the water with no warning to anyone. You would have unleashed a wave of expendable troops on the city, blown down a building or two, and returned to the sea to watch the havoc unfold.” He shook his head. “I will simply never understand the need some people seem to feel to be proven correct in front of their enemies. It’s quite childish.” I blinked. Was Marcone . . . talking smack? “Give me what is mine, mortal,” Ethniu snarled. “And I will kill you swiftly.” “Your negotiating skills would seem to need work as well,” Marcone added. Behind us, there was a series of roaring detonations, from back by the park. Sorcery, maybe. I was an idiot. An exhausted, terrified idiot. Marcone didn’t do anything just to be doing it. He was providing cover for me.

Holy crap. Direct point-to-point translocation was something that the White Council kept in a section called “Highly Theoretical and Dangerous Magic” in the wizard’s library at the complex in Edinburgh. I knew, because years ago when I’d asked about it, I’d been put on the no-access list for the entire section. Which . . . well, to be fair, probably wasn’t entirely unwise.

“Oh hell no!” Bob declared. I had to reach across to fumble in my opposite pocket with my good hand and withdraw the crystal I’d brought from Demonreach for the purpose. It flickered, deep down, with the faint green light of the crystals in the catacombs under the island. “Bob,” I said. “We’re going to bind a Titan.” “Fuck that!” the skull sputtered. “I’m going to Utah! Stuff like this never happens in Utah!” “Buddy,” I said, turning the skull to look at me. “I need you.”

Bob upon seeing newly revealed Black Knight Johnny Marcone fighting a literal Titan.

The Titan fought, but her strength was spent. It was like watching a seal get pulled down by something big and dark and unseen—a desperate struggle with a foregone conclusion. Not because the Titan was strong enough to fight something like Alfred—but because this was what Alfred did. This was the purpose of its creation. Ant lions aren’t all that much bigger or stronger than ants. But ant lions kill ants. It is what they do. This was what Alfred did.

Demonreach claiming Ethniu to be bound in its vaults.

“Yeah, well,” I panted, gasping sweet, sweet air. “That’s because you suck. And you’re an amateur. Who sucks.” “I didn’t see you doing anything about it.” “Yeah, because I was holding the freaking Titan!” I shot back. “I was doing the grown-up stuff.” “You just almost killed us both as an unintended side effect of that binding,” Marcone snapped. “And you call me an amateur.” “I saved your life from a Titan,” I panted, exhausted. And I think I had picked up a couple of cracked ribs, despite the last-second shield of concrete that had risen to stop most of the force of the wave. “You almost drowned us. Fake wizard.” “I just broke down the molecular structure of concrete and then chemically re-formed it inside a mold of pure will, saving both of our lives from that wave in the process.” “Fake,” I said. “Sad.” Marcone let out a low, weary chuckle. My stomach twitched a lot while breaths went in and out of my exhausted body. We did not laugh together. And he was no less an asshole. But we won.

“This creature is your hireling?” Lara demanded of me. I fumbled in my pocket and found the envelope with the crumpled, baked dollar. I passed it over to Grey. “I mean. Barely.” He snatched the envelope, muttering darkly. “. . . running all over the damned city, fighting every damned thing that popped up, all for a pretty face . . .” He gave me a dark glower, then one for Lara, turned with a limp, nodded politely to Justine, and stalked lopsidedly away.

“Well. That was terrifying,” Justine said a while later. “It wasn’t like being on a horse at all, really. More like . . . riding a living train. That might eat you.”

Riding a unicorn.

“All warriors die, Dresden,” Gard replied. “And if they die in the course of being true to their duty and honor, most would count that a fitting end to a worthy life. She did.” I nodded. “Fuck worthy,” I said quietly, miserably. “I miss her.” Silent seconds went by while I went briefly blind.

Harry and Gard about loosing Murphy and Hendricksen, and them being claimed to the halls of Valhalla.

Back at the car, Michael said, “That looked grim. What happened?” “Rest of the White Council was pretty nervous about the guy who soloed a Titan, I guess,” I said. “They voted. I’m an outlaw. Like the old days.” Michael considered that for a moment. Then he said, quietly and firmly, “Those fuckers.” I stumbled on the slippery grass in the rain and fell on my ass. And it didn’t stop there. Michael swore. My friend cursed a blue streak like a dozen sailors picking a dozen fights. He swore profanities that would have made a fallen angel blush. He swore in three different languages that I recognized, and in a dozen I didn’t. He swore like a man with a forty-year pent-up hurricane of ranting profanity in his chest that had been looking for a way to come out. When he was finished he looked up at the rain and said, “I’ll be happy to do penance, Lord. But some things need to be said.” Then he turned to me, extended his hand, and said, firmly, “You are always welcome in my house, Harry Dresden.

Okay go off king.

“At Mab’s suggestion, I took it upon myself to run the keys down to you,” Lara said. “I pointed out to the good Baron how it made everything happen in front of witnesses, very official and aboveboard, and avoided any possible moments of . . . negative emotional interaction between the two of you.” I grunted and said, “Between the two of us, eh?” “Oh, Marcone is furious with you, in his own way,” Lara said. “I’d say you won the round.” Which did not make me feel a little surge of petty satisfaction. At all. Ahem.

“I wouldn’t have punched him in the nose. I would have been nice. As long as he was.” “Of course,” Lara said, nodding firmly. “You’re both very mature.” I sniffed haughtily.

Harry and Marcone.

There are a lot of ways to get ready for trouble. You get ready to fight. That’s one of them. But it’s even more important that you build something worth fighting for.