Battle Ground

by Jim Butcher

  We went up the stairs together. Ramirez had a bruise forming on one cheek. There were ligature marks, sharp bruises, forming on his neck where his cloak had hauled him around.

  Injuries I’d decided he needed to have.

  Right before I’d lied to him.

  Dammit.

  I felt awful.

  Chapter

  Six

  You look a little green, Hoss,” Ebenezar said.

  The old man was holding down one corner of the castle’s roof, along with Martha Liberty and Listens-to-Wind. Martha Liberty was seated in a chalk circle, speaking to about half a dozen poppets—dolls, forms that spirits could animate to communicate with the mortal world—and then reporting in crisp, terse sentences to Warden Yoshimo, who lurked outside the circle with a notepad and pen.

  Listens-to-Wind sat on the corner battlement of the castle, his legs hanging over the edge. He’d taken his sandals off and his feet were swinging idly. Every few moments, some kind of animal would come fluttering or sprinting up to him, mostly small birds and squirrels. They would chitter or tweet and the old shaman would tilt his head and listen gravely before nodding and speaking in quiet replies and sending the animal messengers off again. Wild Bill lurked at his shoulder, leaning in and tilting his head with a scowl, as if trying to pick up a new language and having only moderate luck. He also wrote down messages.

  Both Wardens would tear off notes and pass them back to Senior Councilman Cristos, who was moving back and forth between them and Childs and Riley, each of whom was operating a ham radio.

  “Ran my boat as hard as I could for a couple of hours,” I replied. “My stomach didn’t care for it.”

  The old man lowered his voice. “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you, boy. You’re a goddamned fool.”

  Ebenezar didn’t much care for the White Court of vampires. My grandfather had objected to my “helping” my brother. When I’d told him that he had another grandson, he had objected to that, too. He’d objected loudly enough to sink several boats in the harbor, and the only reason one of them hadn’t been the Water Beetle was that I had stopped him, and gotten away with it.

  The anger around him was still a crackling cloud of unreleased lightning.

  But the old man was no fool. And he’d taught me how to reason when it came to supernatural conflict. He knew the direction of my thoughts, and what priorities would help us survive the night. “How far can you snare her from, do you think?” he asked me.

  I made an effort not to put my hand on the knife at my side. “The lakeshore. If we get her there, she’ll be in range.”

  Ebenezar grimaced. “And that’s just close enough for you to make the attempt?”

  I nodded. “From what the island says, it’s a standard binding.”

  “Whoof,” Ebenezar said, breathing out. “That changes things.”

  “Why?”

  “Ethniu is a Titan, boy,” he said. “Can you imagine trying to bind Mab?”

  I shuddered.

  “Well, she’s an order of magnitude beyond that in power and will,” Ebenezar said. “You can’t just go straight up against a mind like that. Not when she’s wearing Titanic bronze.”

  “Why not?”

  “The stuff . . . it affects Creation on a fundamental level,” he said. “As long as it has enough will behind it, the physical world is going to have a very limited effect on her.”

  I squinted at the old man. “So as long as she thinks she’s invincible, she is?”

  The old man lifted his eyebrows. “Haven’t ever heard it summed up that way before. But, yes, that’s accurate enough for our purposes.”

  “Denial armor,” I muttered. “Hell’s bells. So how do we get through it?”

  “We’ll have to soften her up first.”

  “How?”

  “Whole lot of fighting, I reckon,” the old man said. “Wear her will down.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Think of it like a bunch of farmers fighting an armored knight,” he said. “The knight can take plenty of hits from us, but she’ll hit just as hard or harder, and none of us can take a hit back.”

  “So we have to get her where we can come at her from multiple sides,” I said. “Pack tactics. One attracts her attention and another hits her when she isn’t looking.”

  “And enough hits will wear her down,” Ebenezar replied. “Of course, the armored knight knows this. She’ll play to avoid it if she can, but she has an objective to complete, so she can’t afford to stay where it’s safe. But if too many of us gather in one place, we’ll be juicy targets for the Eye.”

  “So this is as much a deception as anything else,” I said. “We’ve got to get her to commit somewhere hard enough that we can pound her enough to wear down her will. But she’ll be expecting that—so it has to be a juicy enough target that she can’t resist exposing herself.” I shook my head. “That’s not a good situation for us. We’re depending on her to make a mistake.”

  Mab was suddenly there, in her battle gown, a sheath of mail beneath a cloak of flawless white and silver. Her hair spilled down around it like white clouds and silk.

  “I assume, my Knight,” she said, “that you consulted with your island?”

  I produced the binding crystal from my pocket and showed her.

  “Excellent,” she said. “I do not believe Ethniu is aware of the danger the island could pose to her. She has no concept of professionalism. We can expect more mistakes from her.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “She is here,” Mab said. “She could have chosen any city and accomplished her greater goal. But instead she is here.”

  I tilted my head and frowned before I understood. “Because you’re here,” I said. “It’s personal.”

  Mab’s mouth ticked up at one corner. “It is an old score, between her people and the Sidhe. An old hatred. The hardest kind to resist.”

  I glanced aside at my grandfather. The old man didn’t react.

  “She must cast down what I have wrought,” Mab said. “And she seeks to drive away my peers and allies by demonstrating my weakness—now, on the shortest night of the year, when my power is at its nadir.”

  I looked over at the other side of the roof, where the Summer and Winter Ladies both stood in the center of a swarm of glowing, winged Little Folk that came streaking in and away in blurs of colored light. Both Molly and Sarissa had their eyes closed, and their lips were murmuring.

  “Given the power of her will,” I said, “I’m not so sure the island is that big a threat. It’s still got to be me who shoves her in the bottle.”

  Mab gave me a look that reminded me of why she was the Queen of Air and Darkness, and her eyes were as cold and grey as chains. “Any will can be broken.”

  I shuddered a little. On the inside. Because I really didn’t want Mab to see it.

  “A lot is going to rest on his shoulders,” Ebenezar said gruffly. “So it’ll be critical to keep him out of the fighting until it’s time.”

  Mab gave Ebenezar a glance and what could only be in the most technical sense considered a tiny snort. “If you wished an instrument of careful precision and restraint,” she said, “you chose the wrong champion, Blackstaff.”

  The old man glowered at the Queen of Air and Darkness and said, “Nonetheless.”

  “When horrors begin to tear apart the people of this city,” Mab said calmly, “when its women and children cry out for help, I should find amusement in seeing you attempt to restrain him.”

  I lifted a hand and said to Mab, respectfully, “He’s right. If I’m the play, then I’ve got to be ready when it’s time.”

  Mab gave me a look with something in it that was almost like pity. Or possibly contempt. “As if you could restrain yourself any more ably than he could.” She shook her head. “Be comforted, my Knight: I chose you for times pr
ecisely such as these, when an elemental of destruction is what is most needed.”

  “What?” I said.

  Mab did something more frightening than most monsters could.

  She smiled.

  It was genuine.

  “Harry,” she said, her voice almost warm. “From the first time I laid eyes upon you, I saw a being who had the potential for true greatness.” She laid a slim, cool hand on my forearm, and pride joined the smile already on her face. “It is almost time for you to begin to understand it yourself. And once you do, once you understand, we will do great things together.”

  The old man stepped between us, between the Queen of Air and Darkness and me. And he said, in a voice like granite, “He is not your weapon, Mab.”

  Mab’s smile gained a hungry, wolfish edge. “He is exactly my weapon,” she hissed. “By his own choice. Which is more than your people ever gave him. And they call the Sidhe wicked and deceitful.”

  I blinked and shot a glance at Ebenezar.

  The old man wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  Mab laughed, low and amused. She stepped around Ebenezar, running a hand along my shoulder as one might the fender of a car one was particularly proud to possess. “Do what you can to stay within sight during the battle, my Knight. And be what you are. Ethniu will be what she is. She has no other alternative.” She nodded to Ebenezar and said, “Br—”

  There was a harsh buzzing sound that started faintly and grew louder in a rush. I moved without thinking. I swept my right arm out and shoved Mab behind me as my left came up, my will coalescing into a shield aimed primarily at the sky. I barely got the shield together in time for something behind a veil, diving at approximately peregrine falcon speeds, to splatter itself across a good three-foot-radius area of invisible force.

  Even as I watched, maybe six or seven pounds of . . . meat, mostly, kind of appeared from behind a shattered veil and slid slowly down the sphere-shaped plane of my shield. It landed on the ground with a wet, slapping sound. I stared down at the remnants of the thing. It looked like some kind of mix of a bat, a lizard, and a squid, all rubbery and leathery and grey and pink, like ground beef left out too long. It smelled absolutely foul, as if some kind of venom bladder had been ruptured. Parts of some yellowish mucus were actively dissolving the flesh of the creature as it died, and its tentacles were thrashing, sliming more of the stuff onto the castle’s roof, where it sparked and sputtered against the warded stone.

  I lowered the shield warily and rose from my crouch. “What the hell was that?”

  Suddenly I became acutely aware that the Queen of Air and Darkness was pressed against my back, and I was holding her there with one arm in a fashion that could accurately be described as undignified. I moved my hand hurriedly and glanced back at the monarch of the Sidhe. “Are you all right?”

  Mab met my gaze, her eyes all but glowing. I looked away quickly. Her eyes shifted to Ebenezar, something triumphant in them, and she murmured, “Yes. Well done, my Knight.”

  “I mean, you’re immortal, right?” I said. “Why would you need a bodyguard anyway?”

  She nodded toward the yellowish mucus sputtering on the stones. “Something meant to weaken or incapacitate me for the coming battle, doubtless,” she said. “Immortality offers a significant advantage, but it is no substitute for intelligence. Remember that, young wizard.”

  Ebenezar scowled and opened his mouth.

  “Should it for some bizarre reason ever be necessary,” Mab said smoothly, before he could speak.

  I stared back and forth between the pair of them for a second.

  Yeah. Time for things to change. Just as soon as we dealt with Ethniu and the Fomor.

  “I find Corb’s assassins wearying,” Mab said calmly. She narrowed her eyes in thought for a few seconds before nodding firmly. “Very well, fishman. Have it your way.” She snapped her fingers, and over by Molly, the Redcap whipped his head around as if Mab had called his name. The Sidhe warrior, tall and lean and good-looking in that wickedly youthful, long-haired way, the jerk, approached immediately and bowed, sweeping off his Washington Nationals baseball cap.

  “Loose the malks,” Mab said.

  Holy crap.

  Malks were . . . not so much cats as nightmares that happened to be shaped like cats. Imagine a lynx, only a little taller and thicker, weighing in at about fifty pounds, with human intelligence and a serial killer’s bloodlust. Whatever you’re imagining, unless you’ve been up to some damned peculiar things, the real deal is worse. Malks had claws that could shred through stone and some metals, were supernaturally stealthy and approximately as strong as a chimpanzee, and they resented taking orders, even from the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.

  They might get the job done. But they’d hurt a lot of other people on the way, just for kicks. It was in their nature. If Mab turned a pack of those little psychos loose on Chicago, it would be a bloodbath, and they wouldn’t care who got slashed to ribbons.

  “Wait!” I said.

  Mab’s eyes turned to me like gun turrets.

  The Redcap stared at me with wide eyes and shifted his weight slightly away from me, as if he was getting ready to dive for cover.

  Even Ebenezar gave me a look that doubted my mental capacity.

  “Uh, please,” I added hurriedly. “There’s a better way.”

  Mab’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

  “You’re irritated with Corb, and that might have had an effect on your judgment,” I said.

  The air grew several degrees colder in the immediate area. Mab didn’t move.

  “Save the malks for something more important,” I said. “You want these . . . squidwards dealt with? Let me handle it. Until Ethniu is put down, Corb can only be a diversion of your resources. Right?”

  Mab narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. Then she said, her lips stiff, “From the mouths of babes.” A gesture toward the Redcap was apparently enough to convey the order to stand the malks down, at least for the time being.

  “For the sake of your health and happiness, my Knight, it is an excellent thing that you are necessary to my design. But there will be more of these attacks. See to the matter your way, or I will do so in mine.” Then she stepped back and inclined her head slightly to Ebenezar. “Excuse me. I must coordinate with my sister’s forces. Brief him on the plan, if you please.”

  The old man clenched his jaw, but he gave Mab a respectful nod nonetheless. The Queen of Winter turned away from us as though we were of no more concern, and approached a table where Vadderung and one of Mab’s highest vassals, the Faerie huntsman known as the Erlking, lord of the goblins and master of the Wild Hunt, were poring over a map of Chicago.

  The Erlking wore his helmet, and its shadows hid his face, but he was taller than human and lean in his hunting leathers and mail. Vadderung looked like an ancient seafaring pirate gone corporate, with his scarred, lean face and his roguish black eyepatch paired with his excellent double-breasted suit. Both were there to fight.

  I swallowed and looked around the roof. River Shoulders came swarming up the outside of the castle wall and flipped himself onto the roof. The Sasquatch must have weighed a thousand pounds, but he landed with hardly a thump. His Victorian-era tuxedo had taken a bit of a beating during the climb—his calves had flexed and split the lower legs of his trousers at the seams. The Forest Person straightened, lifting his shovel-sized hands to carefully straighten the little spectacles he wore across his nose, and nodded down to Listens-to-Wind. The old Native American’s hair looked a little more rumpled than usual in its long braid—the old man was the most skilled shapeshifter on the White Council, and he’d probably been out and about while I’d run to the island and back.

  The Sasquatch dropped casually to his haunches near the shaman and the two began speaking in quiet, earnest tones while Wild Bill drew back an apprehensive step from River’s sheer ma
ss.

  Even as I watched, a troop of svartalves simply melded out of the stones of the castle’s roof, carrying tools and poles and spools of wire. They began setting down their burdens, looking up at the sky and muttering darkly as they began measuring out distances on the roof, displacing high nobility and supernatural royalty alike without apology as they worked—and all of them, Mab included, moved when necessary without complaint.

  Rapidly and efficiently, metal base plates were screwed into the stone of the roof, poles erected, and razor wire strung overhead in a canopy maybe ten feet high. Ah. The svartalves had recognized the danger of Corb’s flying assassin creatures and were taking steps to limit their avenues of approach.

  Sharp bunch, those svartalves. No wonder even Mab herself didn’t complain. Doesn’t matter where you go in the world—if you’re good at your job, people who are good enough at theirs to see it will respect you for it.

  Though it would also seem to be an indicator of how much trouble we were in.

  “How you doing, Hoss?” Ebenezar asked me in a gentler tone.

  “Um,” I said, and licked my lips. “I’m not sure I’ve been involved in anything quite this . . . overblown, before.”

  The old man grunted. “You figure Chichén Itzá was a quiet little tea party, I guess.”

  “Hey, that was just the Council and the Red Court.” I had to take a step back to let a ghoul walk past me. The thing was half-shifted into its feral form and was struggling to fit into mail it must have acquired from Marcone’s people. I felt a familiar stab of hatred go through me at the sight of the thing. I set it carefully on the back burner. “This is everybody.”

  Ebenezar snorted out a quick laugh. “Not everybody, boy. Not even close.” He looked around the rooftop and nodded. “But I’ll allow as it’s been a while since there was a dustup quite this big.”

  I couldn’t just stand there talking shop with the old man. “Sir,” I blurted, “when this is over, you and I should probably talk about some things.”

  Ebenezar glanced up at me. His eyes were like granite. “We got to the end of talking, boy. Remember?”