Battle Ground (The Dresden Files 17)

And something happened that I had not expected.

The stars fell on Castle Marcone.

One moment, the bustle of the command center was proceeding along. The next, glowing lights, some as tiny as the little elements inside Christmas lights, some as large as beach balls, all began descending from overhead, emerging from corners and crevices of houses, rising from gardens and bushes and gliding from trees. In moments, the torchlit night, full of shadows and uncertainty, had become filled with an ambient aurora that bathed entire blocks around the little castle in multicolored radiance. They weren’t coming by the handful or by the dozen, but by hundreds and thousands, with more gathering from every direction.

In a particular circle around Toot-Toot, thirty or so of the largest and fiercest of the pixie warriors had gathered, each of them armed and armored like their leader, in finely made fae plate, bearing small and wickedly sharp weaponry. The Za Lord’s Guard had turned out for battle, but it was more than that.

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.

You always find support for your causes by making them relatable to people where they live, I guess.

“Idiots,” Lacuna breathed. “We could just hide and then take all the teeth we wanted from the dead.”

“You are a highly creepy little person,” I said.

“Thank you,” Lacuna said gravely.

“Where’d they get the armor?” I asked.

“Lady Molly had it and the new weapons delivered with the pizza, at the solstice,” she said.

I eyed her armor. “What happened to all the barbed fishhooks that were welded on yours?”

She sniffed and gave me a haughty, disgusted look. “The general kept cutting himself. Because he knew I would be honor bound to nurse him back to health after. It was necessary.”

“Toot and Lacuna, sitting in a tree,” I chanted, grinning. “K-I-S-S—”

The tip of Lacuna’s lance landed firmly in the space between my two front teeth.

“Attempt to complete that enchantment, wizard,” she said, “and I will ram this lance through your uvula.”

I couldn’t stop smiling without the blade of the lance cutting my lips. So I stood there carefully with my teeth together and my lips lifted away from them and said, “Okay.”

There wasn’t a visible signal, but Lacuna looped up into the air, joining the Za Lord’s Guard and then, in a coordinated streak of light, all thirty of them came zipping down to the roof of the castle and hit the ground in formation, in unison—in the classic superhero landing, before straightening to slam tiny fists to tiny breastplates, the faemetal ringing like a chorus of wind chimes.

“My lord!” Toot shrilled. “Your Guard stands ready to serve and to lead our people in defense of the pizza!”

I looked up and . . . the sky was full of a wheel of tiny lights, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of the Little Folk, in an aerial field half a mile across and slowly rotating, as if that entire circle, that entire . . . pizza of tiny fae, was deliberately, precisely centered.

Above me.

The talk and chatter died away as light bathed the grim, dark little castle. Silence spread across the rooftop. I looked down to see Mab and the Ladies regarding me with small, knowing smiles. Everyone else, from ghouls to White Council to svartalves to Sasquatch, just stared up at the sky and then at the focus of the whirling mandala of Little Folk, at the kneeling formation of warriors, awaiting my word.

They all stared at me.

Mab’s eyes glittered with fierce, bright pride.

I didn’t really know what else to do. So I just got to work.

I dropped to one knee to address my little fighters, like a football captain in a huddle. I pointed at the body of the dead assassin squid and said, “See those things?”

Toot growled, and the Guard followed suit. It was kind of adorable.

“The bad guys are sending those things to kill the big people trying to protect the pizza,” I said. “They fly and they’re under a veil. We need your help. Only the Little Folk can protect us against them. I want a cohort stationed here and at the svartalf embassy to intercept any of these creatures coming in. Everyone else should hunt them down wherever they can be found. The littlest of your folk can help us by watching out for veils. If they see any bad guys moving around under veils or being sneaky, they should swarm them and make sure the big folk can see them and fight them.”

“Kill these things,” Toot said, gesturing at the fallen assassin squid. “Guard this house and the svartalf house. And point out any sneaky bad guys to the poor, stupid bigguns.”

“Exactly, General,” I said. “Can you do it?”

Toot shot to his feet and up to my eye level, and the rest of the Guard came with him. He shouldered his lance and slammed a little fist over his heart, making the faemetal chime again, and whirled to begin giving orders. He pointed and gesticulated wildly, speaking in too rapid and high-pitched a tone for my poor biggun ears to clearly understand. Individual members of the Guard sped out into the night, up to the cloud of Little Folk above, to gather a constellation of glowing lights around them and speed off in different directions.

Within minutes, the effects could be seen. Clouds of determined Little Folk, too small to fight individually, would zip around darting assassin squid in little swarms, creating streaks of light across the sky. When the first one was sighted, Toot himself zipped out with his lance gripped tight, Lacuna on his wing. Within a moment, the pair of them flew a dead squid back to the roof and dropped it proudly at my feet. Their armor and lances were stained with ichor, their little faces satisfied and proud. “Like that?” Toot asked.

“Good work, General,” I said firmly. “Carry on until we’ve driven them all away or the battle is lost.”

“We will not lose the pizza,” Toot-Toot said grimly.

Lacuna sighed.

Then the pair of them zipped off into the night.

“Impressive,” the Redcap said, once they were gone. He glanced at his pistol with a faint expression of disappointment and then slipped it into his waistband at the small of his back. “How did you manage to bind them all?”

“Trade secrets,” I said. I tried not to think about how much pizza it would take to pay off that many of the Little Folk. Maybe I’d send Marcone the bill. It was technically his stupid territory we were defending. “I’m done with you.”

The Redcap narrowed his eyes but nodded at me politely and went back over to Molly, who had returned to running her own communications through her own Little Folk crew.