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Awesome / Battle Ground (2020)

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WARNING UNMARKED SPOILERS BELOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

The entire book could arguably count, given that it's almost entirely a Big Badass Battle Sequence. However, stand-out moments include:

Prelude

  • The first two chapters gives the reader, and Harry, a good idea of what to expect from this book. Seven words:
    Harry: The Fomor had released the freakin' Kraken.
  • When preparing for the coming invasion, Harry gets the idea to gather up the Little Folk, led by Toot-Toot, to take out flying squid-like things attempting to attack the leaders of The Alliance. He does so by telling the little guy the fate of pizza itself is at stake. An outraged Toot-Toot responds with a ferocious Battle Cry for summoning up reinforcements with a Skyward Scream. Harry was expecting Toot's small contingent of soldiers; what he wasn't expecting was every Little Folk in the entire city to unite in defense of pizza. It's mentioned that a ballpark estimate of Little Folk present is in the hundreds of thousands.
    • The Queens of Faerie present even manage to look impressed and Mab just stares at Harry with absolute pride at what her Knight accomplished.
    • This seriously unsettles everyone present save Harry's friends, as they realize that Wild Card Harry Dresden has a huge Badass Army at his beck and call, and from the look of it, with zero magic involved.
    • And later in the book, Corb expresses frustration as, among other things, the Little Folk are proving to be far more of a hazard than anticipated; they cut off his communication with the southern force, which gets it wiped out by Marcone's men and allows them to turn the tide at the Final Battle.
  • A joint one for Vadderung and Lacuna. She spears one assassin creature heading for him Just in Time. Vadderung, without even blinking at the near death, lifts the creature via her spear, flicks it off of the weapon, wipes it and hands it back to her like a true gentleman.
  • A subtle one for the Svartalves: When they're setting up defenses, everyone, up to and including Mab, steps out of their way when necessary.
  • A quiet one for Ebenezar as well: When Mab tells him to brief Harry on the plan, she adds, "if you please."
  • The fact that the coming battle is one of attrition against Ethniu and her alone. Her army, a ragtag band of monsters that remain from thousands of years ago, is just an obstacle to the true goal of getting Harry close enough to seal her away on Demonreach. Not kill or destroy her, but simply to lock her away where she can't do any more harm.
    • Ethniu's bronze appearance is from a layer of metal covering her skin, made of a composite of Olympian bronze and mordite (material from Outside our reality). Harry is told repeatedly that the metal's invulnerability comes from Ethniu's sheer belief that she's invulnerable; aside from great celestial (or infernal) power, the only way to pierce it is via Death of a Thousand Cuts to shake said belief. Thus, this city-wide battle of monsters, wizards, and ancient beings is one long Victory by Endurance Psychological Combat...just to seal her away.
  • A subtle one for Ebenezar: When Mab starts bossing Harry around, he steps in between them, and confronts her. In turn, she shows a certain amount of respect for him, even telling him to brief Harry "if you please." This makes him the only character in the entire story she has ever shown anything even resembling deference to.

The Battle

  • The long battle kicks off when Harry spots enemy forces — the Huntsmen of Annuvin — attacking the nearby neighborhood, his old stomping grounds. Everyone present warns him not to interfere so as to not waste the strength he needs for the clash with Ethniu herself, but he isn't having it — he calls upon the Winter Mantle in full, lunges off the castle's roof, and charges forth to meet the enemy, with River Shoulders gleefully accompanying him. They proceed to wreck the monsters attacking the place, free all the civilians they can, and bring them to the castle, where Harry calls Marcone out on his inaction and talks him into letting them in for refuge.
    • And for bonus points? Shortly before this happens, Molly has left Harry with a change of clothes: his classic outfit, down to the black leather duster. Moreover, when he jumps into the fight, the Winter Mantle is working in concert with him, not trying to corrupt him. This isn't Sir Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, waging war against the enemies of Queen Mab — this is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Motherfucking Dresden, Professional Wizard, fighting to defend his home as he's always done, just on a larger scale. This, more than anything else, proves that not only is he still the same man at his core despite the worries of certain characters, but He's Back! in action with a vengeance.
  • On their way to the front lines, Harry and his band — including four Wardens, River Shoulders, and Listens-To-Wind — make a detour to take on a group of Necromancers attempting to raise an army of undead. They get the drop on them and Harry gets a shot at one of them; the cloak falls down to reveal Mavra of the Black Court. Suddenly Harry and his team find themselves up against eight Black Court vampires, the most cunning and dangerous example of vampire in the whole series, and realizes the necromancer drum beats were just an epic Batman Gambit to capture some of the top players of the Alliance. And the bastards succeed, killing poor Wild Bill and Yoshimo (and also likely turning them in the process).
    • Oh, and who's there leading them? Only the father of the Black Court's creator, a Humanoid Abomination who is literally one of The Old Gods accidentally sealed in human form, and one of the biggest Ghosts in the Dresden-verse: Drakul.
      • For those not up on their Dresden Files lore, the Black Court's creator and Drakul's son is Count Dracula. Yes, that Dracula.
      • And he more than delivers, as Drakul takes on first Harry, then Listens-To-Winds and River Shoulders, the latter two at the same time. Heck, kudos to Listens and River for even surviving the damn fight against him. Also, special mention must be given to Drakul giving an Offhand Backhand to the Warden Chandler followed up by tossing him into a dimensional portal, completely removing him from the whole battle.
    • invoked In one of the greatest (and funniest) Call Backs in the whole series, Harry insta-kills a vampire by weaponizing his conjuritis and creating a gigantic anvil above its head, crushing it. Followed by him telling them I Told You So.note 
    • Toot-Toot saving Harry by attacking Mavra from behind and flinging garlic on the resulting wound, setting her internal organs on fire.
    • Drakul actually implies that Harry showed more willpower when in the midst of a psychic fight than the actual Dracula.
    • And as an indication of how ridiculously intense the whole damn novel is, the events with the Black Court, which previously could be the climax of an entire book, are only a three-chapter-long detour in the first act of this book.
  • Harry and Ebenezar teaming up and entrapping an army of Jotnars. Followed by the Einherjaren strapping on loads of explosives and going to town on them, killing all of the Jotnars along with themselves by exploding whenever they're killed.
    • Before that, Ebenezar mowing down Fomor troops with exploding fireballs fired from his palms.
      Einherjaren: Do it again, seidrmadr!
    • And in a brief great aside, Harry recalls a rumour than Ebenezar's magical shields once managed to stop a shell from a battleship cannon back in World War I. Though it's unknown whether or not it's true, the fact that it's seriously considered to be possible is pretty darn impressive.
  • Murphy taking out the Jotun Svangar with a rocket launcher. While unfortunately, it's all a deluded Rudolph needs to decide to shoot her, Gard later states that it was still close enough to her time of death to constitute a Dying Moment of Awesome and earn her a place in Valhalla.
    • Harry takes on the same Jotun first and they start off their battle the way old-school Vikings did, by introducing themselves and giving respective Badass Boasts. Harry lists off some of his accomplishments, including his robbing Hades' vault. Svangar counters all of Harry's boasts with a single ten-word statement that even Harry admits is way more impressive than any of his:
      Svangar: I fought the Odinson and lived to tell the tale.
    • To be clear, in old Norse Mythology, Thor was the Jotun killer and The Dreaded. Which means that Murphy not only took down a Jotun that even Thor couldn't kill, she took down a Jotun who survived a fight with his race's equivalent of the Boogeyman.
  • invoked Triples as a Tear Jerker and as Nightmare Fuel, but God damn, Harry's Roaring Rampage of Revenge in response to Murphy's death is satisfying: fully giving in to the Winter Mantle, everything has been washed in grey. Except for Rudolph, who stands out as nothing but red. The corrupt detective takes one look, realizes how fucked he is, and bolts.
  • Harry and Marcone (and at least in Harry's case, instinctively) summoning magical banners that display their command over the people of Chicago.
    • The above mentioned banner allows them to tap into the emotions and knowledge of those under their command to increase power, but also has the downside of feeling every injury, pain and death of their subordinates as if it was their own. The fact that both manage to keep their sanity by the end is astounding.
    • Additionally, Harry summons the Malks of the Winter Fae and lets loose just a dozen of them on an entire building filled with the Huntsmen of Annuvin. The Fomor troops are wiped out in an utter Curb-Stomp Battle that only lasts seconds.
  • Apparently, Mab had commissioned the creation of the Bean, and took advantage of that to hide an extensive weapons cache inside it, just in case she ever needed to arm several thousand Chicagoans in a hurry.
  • Things understandably go pretty poorly for the humans of Chicago at first. The only warning of the impending attack is a mysterious blast that turns every electronic and vehicle into junk (which would have been a disaster in itself). Then, while the police are spread thin and too disorganized to respond, a horde of otherworldly monsters pour out of Lake Michigan and start slaughtering anyone they see. Yet even with no direction, modern devices, or the slightest context as to what the hell is going on, thousands of able-bodied people manage to arm and rally themselves within hours and start killing the monsters right back. The impromptu militias take down so many of the Huntsmen of Annuvin that the latter start avoiding the former like the plague.
    • Of special note is the Columbus Street Ambush in chapter twenty five. As a bloodthirsty Fomor horde charges across the road, eight hundred men and women of Chicago pop up from behind a concrete barrier, level just as many shotguns, and pull the triggers till their weapons run dry. Almost a thousand enemy warriors die in seconds.
    • An offscreen MoA for the vanilla mortals of Chicago's South Side, for managing — by dint of sheer toughness, from a lifetime's residence in some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods — to hold back the invasion on their own until Marcone's forces could mop up the stymied invaders, then trek north to the Battle of the Bean.
    • After the climax, as the Fomor horde is falling back toward the lake, the sound of approaching helicopters is heard from the east. The defenders realize what's coming and immediately break off their pursuit. The Fomor don't recognize the noise and charge headlong into a massacre as a fleet of Apache Attack Helicopters from the National Guard sweep in over the water and reduce all but a handful of the invaders into a gory mess.
  • The Battle of the Bean. Or as the fans would call it, several chapters of nothing but one Big Badass Battle Sequence.
    • Mab goes to war, most prominently shown by her standing up to a direct hit from the Eye of Balor and tanking it effortlessly. Possibly even more awesome is how she managed it — she explains to Harry that the Eye was powered by hate and fear and that contrary to what others believed, love is not its antithesis: that would be logic. And as the Queen of Air and Darkness, Mab is in some ways logic personified; she just believed the Eye could not destroy her, and so it couldn't. She may have not walked away from it unscathed but to reiterate, Mab basically No Selled a Fantastic Nuke by simply believing it couldn't hurt her.
    • Just as Ethniu overpowers Mab, "Welcome to the Jungle" starts playing, and then Molly shows up with reinforcements in the form of her own army and The Wild Hunt, which begin tearing through the Fomor.
    • Titania, at height of her power, faces the Eye of Balor, and redirects its emotion fueled energy to air, which was frozen by Winter Lady's troops, using conflicting energies to summon torrential outpour of rain to ground the magical aura of dread and fear that powered it. In a single move, she avoids the Fantastic Nuke and disarms it for almost the rest of the battle. Oh, and also stops some fires around the city. Mab was impressed.
    • Titania, Vadderung, and the Erlking, all at once, vs. Ethniu. The latter wins (albeit just barely). The duel is so epic that even Harry, an experienced wizard, can barely comprehend what's going on.
    • Butters standing up to Ethniu, deflecting and neutralizing lightning from her via Gungnir on Fidelacchius.
    • Marcone leading the combined remaining forces of The Alliance, including thousands of armed Chicago Muggles into the Final Battle, just in time to turn the tide.
    • Marcone and his team crippling Ethniu.
      • Marcone pulls out his blunderbusses with enchanted shells and lets loose one after the other at Ethniu, hurting and staggering her, followed by Sigrun getting a spinning strike with her enchanted axe at Ethniu's ankle, breaking it, having her screaming in pain.
      • Hendricks, Marcone's right-hand man, Taking the Bullet for his boss by putting himself between Marcone and Ethniu as the latter brings down Gungnir on the former's head. The big guy takes the legendary spear of the All-Father to the chest and has just enough strength in him for a Spiteful Spit before dying. Sigrun later confirms that this earned him a place in Valhalla.
      • And seconds before that, having lost his weapons, Hendricks full body tackled a Physical God, and had enough audacity left over to throw himself at her again.
    • Credit to Ebenezar for pulling a Catch and Return on a lightning bolt. One that Ethniu summoned from Gungnir, no less. Then he physically fights her off for a brief period.
    • Listens-To-Wind really gets to flex his shapeshifting muscles in this one, including pulling a Colony Drop as a bear. Twice.
      Harry: Doesn't matter how Titanic you are, nobody expects an orbital-drop grizzly.
      • Hell, even Ethniu deserves mention here, as her reaction to Listens' second Colony Drop is to effortlessly break his back while he's in bear form, completely taking him out of the rest of the fight.
    • With Butters out of commission, Sanya takes on Ethniu solo and is the first one to draw blood from her. Sadly, she defeats him and sets her arm on fire to cauterize the wound.
    • Molly takes an iron sword to the shoulder, ignores it, and contemptuously flicks away the attacker.
    • Despite being rendered just barely conscious, Vadderung is able to remotely seize control of Gungnir and force it into the Eye of Balor just as Ethniu is about to discharge it. The resulting explosion partially cripples her (including blasting her left arm off of her body), and provides an opening for Lara to kick the Eye out of her head.
  • And then, Marcone has his neck broken by Ethniu after he throws the Eye of Balor into Lake Michigan... only to calmly sit back up and snap his neck back into place. Turns out, Marcone had stolen Thorned Namshiel's coin from way back in Small Favor, and has been operating as a rogue Denarian ever since the events of "Even Hand". And it's clear that he's mastered some serious magic in that time, especially since he appears to be working with Namshiel as an equal partner rather than letting the Fallen do all the magical heavy lifting, what with him basically using a Hellfire-empowered Teleport Spam against the Last Titan.
    • Both Marcone and Namshiel also take turns to mock Ethniu's attitude, and all she can do is basically throw a tantrum as she fruitlessly tries to kill them.
    • Which, if you think about it, is basically Marcone borrowing one of Harry's signature combat habits.
  • Harry matches wills with Ethniu as he's sealing her, and through The Power of Love and Bob's assistance, is able to overpower her and lock her away.
    Harry: Bound, bound, bound! Thrice said and done! Begone! Alfred!
    • Molly having the foresight to not only relocate her family and Maggie to someplace that Listen's mercenaries won't look for them, but leaving behind illusions of all of them sans Mouse. Not only do the villains wrongfully believe they've succeeded, but when Ethniu tries to use this to break Harry during their battle of wills, he notices Mouse's absence and realizes what actually happened, which encourages him to keep fighting. Funnily enough, this also screws over Listen a bit, since Ethniu is stupid enough to think he betrayed her, which means if she's ever freed, he would suffer as well. Harry, of course, calls her out on that stupidity to her face while sealing her away.
    • Ethniu has now joined the currently exclusive club of beings stupid enough to threaten Harry's child and earn the appropriate response: being sealed in a Physical Hell prison for major magical threats for all eternity. The best part is the delicious Book Ends nature of it all: When Harry first explains Ethniu's backstory, he mentions that she was locked away by her father to prevent a prophecy that foretold her child would kill him. She's now been locked away (possibly permanently) by a father who will go to any lengths to protect his child.
    • It's also worth noting how Harry seals her. After using Bob to create and preserve a magic circle around Ethniu (and honestly, Bob himself deserves a CMoA for managing to match wills with the Last Titan), he binds her to a green crystal taken from the Well under Demonreach. After he tosses the crystal in Lake Michigan, a massive tidal wave crashes down upon Ethniu and Demonreach itself arrives, with the old Genius Loci physically dragging the screaming Titan into the depths of the lake, never to be seen again.
    • One for Demonreach. Four of the most powerful and skilled characters in the series—Vadderung, the Erlking, Titania at almost the height of her power and Mab—were only able to go toe-to-toe with Ethniu for a brief period, if that, and the former three were crushed even when they all took her together. The moment Harry's got Ethniu bound, though? Demonreach shows up, grabs Ethniu, and tows her away in seconds.
  • Listen, The Dragon of King Corb, is a walking, talking, villainous CMoA. He is thoroughly appreciated by Ethniu despite her Fantastic Racism so much that she lets him take over command from Corb, talks down to Ethniu and reminds her that she needs him as he's a Starborn and runs covert missions behind everybody's back. Every time he takes the field, his skills and strategy result in Chicago's defenders being forced back, and Harry has to personally counter him to prevent losing the battle. He finally loses after being blasted by Harry but not before managing to get a gut shot with his hand gun, which would've left Harry at Ethniu's mercy if not for him summoning Titania as backup. And he even escapes scot-free at the end.

Aftermath

  • Harry deduces that Justine is possessed by Nemesis and responsible for Ethniu's invasion, all so she could manipulate Harry into taking her to Demonreach. Having figured this out just in time, Harry jumps off the Water Beetle and lets the island's defenses blast the boat away.
  • When Ramirez grimly informs Harry that the White Council have taken advantage of Listens-To-Wind and Ebenezar being hospitalized to hold the vote evicting him and are banning him from openly operating as a wizard under penalty of death, even ordering Ebenezar in his capacity as Blackstaff to kill him if he disobeys, Harry firmly tells him that he doesn't give a damn about the Council's orders anymore and he'll do whatever he sees fit to help people. And if they don't like it, they should remember just how powerful and connected he is now.
    • Ramirez counters with one heck of an Armor-Piercing Question when Harry ends his boast by ask "If I let you boss me around who am I?" that for once leave even legendary wise ass Harry without a joke or quip to counter with: "Yeah. Who are you?"
    • Doubling as a Funny Moment, when Harry tells Michael afterward what the Council has done, the latter is so furious at their vile treatment of his friend that he curses them out.
  • Harry barges into a meeting of the Accorded Nations' leaders and convinces them to discreetly pay off the damages of everyone who suffered because of the invasion by invoking Sacred Hospitality (as they were technically guests in Chicago), pointing out that they need to better their ways for when The Masquerade does eventually fall and they don't want the mortals to collectively string them all up for seeming to be no better than any other supernatural predators.
    • Related to that, Harry invokes the fact that he defended what is technically Marcone's domain, and as the Winter Knight, he is owed a debt. What does he ask for? His basement back. Which means that he gets Marcone's entire enchanted castle, since it's on the same lot.
      • When Marcone tries to protest and claim that Harry has the Eye of Balor, which should be payment enough, Harry throws his own words right back in his face and subtly exposes him as a Denarian: "Prove it, Sir Baron."
    • Harry has just been kicked off the White Council due to Poor Communication Kills and associating with monsters a few days before. When at the gathering of these supernatural powers, he looks around and realizes none of them are showing concern for the human loss. So what does he do? He does something about it. In this moment, Ramirez is proven wrong; Harry's not being corrupted by monsters... Monsters are being corrupted by Harry.
  • A small but incredibly effective one is given by proxy; this book reveals that those two slightly dickish FBI agents from back in Dog Men were actually part of the Dresdenverse's Men in Black — as in, the "Special Collections Division under the Library of Congress". Now, they can't be that impressive, right, especially given the Dresdenverse's Extra-Strength Masquerade? Wrong. As it turns out, they're actually amazingly competent, with it being all but stated that they took down the loup-garou video from way back in Fool Moon after it was released online, were the ones who ordered the aforementioned National Guard helicopters into Chicago so as to turn the Fomor's surviving forces into glorified sushi, and have been the primary reason why The Masquerade is so strong in this universe. To put it into perspective, when Vadderung suggests that these "Librarians" are already in the city and might have already identified each and all of the Accorded Nations' representatives in their post-battle meeting, Lara corrects him and says that he's being optimistic in thinking that they weren't identified faster. Keep in mind that Chicago is still profoundly trashed by the previous battle and all modern tech still isn't working thanks to the lingering effects of Ethniu's ultra-hex with the Eye of Balor.
    • Even better? Harry's aforementioned What the Hell, Hero? moment to the rest of the Accorded Nations, where he's able to convince them to make reparations to Chicago and the world at large, is mentioned as working in large part because these supernatural entities that include the Faerie Queen of Air and Darkness, the queen of the succubi and incubi, and the Allfather himself all show nothing but naked terror at the mere thought of the Librarians getting involved in supernatural politics.

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