Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,63

The Riders were turning and coming back again. There were people on the ground now, knocked down and maybe hurt. And the Riders were between them and the school buildings. There was no way to get to safety except through them.

She heard a shout of rage in a voice she recognized. Burke! She looked around for him and couldn’t spot him. A moment later, something white shot through the air and hit one of the Riders in the shoulder. It couldn’t have been a snowball; the missile didn’t disintegrate when it hit. The Rider cursed, grabbed for his shoulder, his club dropping out of his hand. Whatever Burke was throwing was pretty solid.

Burke’s famous fastball … It was followed by another, this time to the head. The Rider reeled—but the others charged.

But Burke’s rage had infected her. Furious, she spotted a metal scaffolding pole in a pile of others and ran for it. It was just about the length of her kendo staff, if not the same weight. She seized it and turned to face the Riders, screaming at them at the top of her lungs.

She wasn’t the only one. Addie, Muirin, and Loch had taken up Burke’s tactic, and now Spirit realized what it was Burke was using as a weapon.

Ice balls.

Addie was making them; Burke, Muirin, and Loch were throwing them. Murr-cat and Loch didn’t have the lethal precision Burke did, but they were making up for it with volume, and aiming, not at the Riders, but at their horses.

The horses didn’t like getting pelted one little bit. They fought their bits and their Riders. Spirit took advantage of this and charged, screaming like a banshee.

At least three of the horses won the fight with their Riders and bolted.

Spirit ended up beside the unlit bonfire; the remaining Riders milled around, fighting for control of their horses. Some of the other students were helping the ones on the ground; the rest responded sluggishly, as if they weren’t quite sure what they should do. In that moment of uncertainty on both sides, Spirit glanced over at the bonfire and saw two things: an empty gallon of kerosene, and a fireplace lighter. Someone had been about to light the bonfire when the attack started.

Horses liked fire even less than they liked being pelted with ice balls.

Time to finish the job!

She dropped the pole, grabbed the lighter, and struggled with it for a moment, trying to get it to light. When she finally succeeded, she saw some of the wood gleaming wetly, reflecting the flame, and smelled the kerosene fumes, thick and choking. She bent down and put the flame to the kerosene-soaked wood.

The bonfire went up with a roar; she jumped back barely in time.

She took another glance at the Riders; now the horses were rearing and bucking, whinnying shrilly. That made up her mind; she seized a piece of burning two-by-four and charged them, waving the end that was on fire in front of her in wild arcs.

The Riders couldn’t hold control of their mounts now. The horses had had enough. More of them peeled off, racing into the west. The leader fought his own horse for a moment, then must have decided to give up. He whistled shrilly and gave his horse its head. It galloped off after the first escapees, and the rest of the Riders followed.

Spirit dropped the burning board into the nearest snow pile, and sagged to her knees.

* * *

Mr. Bowman, Ms. Holland, and Mr. Krandal, the three teachers supposed to go on the field trip, were all hurt. Not badly, but they’d been ordered to the Infirmary along with the students who were injured. Most of those seemed to be Proctors.

Spirit sat with the others in the lounge, both hands wrapped around a big cup of hot chocolate, sipping at it. Her stomach was feeling very queasy after that confrontation. Murr-cat was on her third cup; evidently fighting didn’t harm her appetite in the least!

Spirit watched the door, waiting for Addie to come back from the Infirmary. “There she is,” she said, as Addie appeared in the doorway, a neat bandage on one hand.

Addie made her way over to them. “No one’s seriously hurt, but they could have been,” she said as she sat down with them. “One of the Proctors has a concussion. Those people wanted to hurt us.”

Spirit nodded, and started to say something, but Addie forestalled her.

“I don’t know if those Shadow Riders have anything to do with the Wild Hunt