Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,111

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Then, out of nowhere, she knew, she knew, the terror wasn’t all there was going to be this time. “They’re coming—” she said, breathlessly, then tugged on Burke’s hand, and repeated, more urgently, “They’re coming!”

And a moment later, they were there.

Shadow Knights.

Some on horseback, some on foot, a few on ATVs and snowmobiles, they surrounded the bonfire and the Oakhurst kids. They were all wearing the same outfit the attackers who’d come after the endurance riders had been wearing: gray hooded parkas, gray scarves over their faces. This time, Spirit could tell that there were illusions on all of them to keep their faces in shadow, because the bonfire was throwing off so much light there was no way their faces could have been hidden otherwise.

The terror increased exponentially.

One of them charged the sound system; somehow he must have figured out where it was. It was one of the ones on a snowmobile; he gunned the engine, and the snowmobile careened toward the station. He just ran the machine over everything, ice forming ahead of the skids to give him a surface to drive on, his passenger whacking at everything in the way.

He managed to connect with something vital. The music cut off, alerting even the kids who were still dancing that something was wrong.

Silence and the fear descended.

But this time was different. This time they could all see, there was light, light that the Shadow Knights couldn’t put out.

Before the Shadow Knights could move, Dylan grabbed a piece of burning wood, and charged the nearest Knights with a bellow of fury. The three Knights might have been ready to fight, but their horses weren’t ready to face a screeching maniac flailing at them with fire. They bolted.

At that, almost the entire student body broke out into shouts of defiance and anger. The fear strengthened; people stopped shouting, and started to back away—but there was nowhere to back up to except the fire.

Do something! Spirit thought, desperately.

“What are you waiting for?” Dylan screeched, his voice sharp with hysteria. “Are you a bunch of sheep, or what?”

The Knights struck first. They raised their arms as one, and a howling wind filled with ice fragments sprung up behind them, cutting everyone off from anyone not around the fire.

“Not this time!” Kelly screamed, and picked up a snowball and threw it at one of the Knights. It hit him in the middle of his chest. He looked down at the splotch of snow. Looked up at her. Started to raise his hand.

Somehow that was the one thing that the paralyzed students needed. Kelly was as popular as anyone could be at Oakhurst; she was fair, and when you got caught at doing something minor, more often than not she would cut you a break.

Instead of hammering a helpless teenager with his magic, the Knight suddenly found himself and his friends the focus of a school full of terrified, but angry, young magicians. Again, Spirit felt that strange sensation of being the conduit for something—and it all erupted at once.

It was like being in the middle of that attack on the endurance riders, except this time, both sides were playing. Those who had Combat magic used it. Those who didn’t looked for a weapon of any sort. Fueled by energy frantic for any sort of outlet, the Combat magicians of Oakhurst filled the air with spells. Fueled by—what? The fear? According to Ms. Groves, the fear of someone else was a great fuel for spells. Spears of ice, gouts of fire, deadly little tornados and fierce blasts of straight-line wind pummeled the Shadow Knights who’d been expecting to confront a huddle of terrified youngsters.

And at first, the unexpected attack worked. The Shadow Knights actually stood there, stunned, for a long moment. Then they were forced to duck for cover under the barrage of magical weaponry.

But a moment later the Shadow Knights were rallying. The ice-weapons were vaporized by shields of fire; fireballs impacted planes of force. And the little tornados found themselves sucked into a greater whirlwind. A hurricane-force wind whirled around the Oakhurst kids; the Air Mages were forced to give up their offense in order to keep the kids and the bonfire shielded from it.

Fireballs arced toward the Oakhurst line, joined by lightning out of the whirlwind. Spirit gasped as one kid was hit by lightning and went down; another had to drop and roll in the snow when a fireball struck him and set his coat ablaze. All around her, she