Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [65]
Elizabeth gave her a dubious look. “If you say so,” she replied, in a tone that said clearly she didn’t believe it.
Some of the snow sculptures, like the castle, had been built on wooden scaffolding. With the packed snow evaporated by another team, Burke and several others were tearing the scaffolding down and piling it on the unlit bonfire. The thing was going to be huge. They’d probably be able to see it in Radial.
At least it would be warm.
She got a cup of hot cider from the knot of kitchen staff setting up the grills and the tables with food on them. They didn’t look very happy, and she didn’t blame them. But at least once they got the grills going, they’d have a little warm patch where they were. She wrapped her cold fingers around the cup and sipped slowly. The cider tasted … thin, somehow. As if some vitality had been drained out of it.
She rubbed her eyes and stared at Addie’s team. There seemed to be a gray fog between her and them, and the sounds they were making as they took down another ice sculpture weren’t as loud as they had been a moment before. And were the electric lights getting weaker? She rubbed her eyes again. This was weird, very weird; it was like everything was getting dimmed down.
Someone shouted; she turned, and saw a line of cloaked and hooded riders silhouetted against the night sky, just beyond the lawn of the school. There was something wrong about them; it wasn’t just that they were wearing black, it was that the light somehow was sucked into them. She felt cold, horribly cold, staring at them.
Is this some prank from the kids in Radial? Please, let it be a prank …
But of course, she knew in her heart it wasn’t—which was only proved a moment later when one of the Riders let out a piercing whistle and they all plunged toward the students.
Someone screamed. That made everyone turn to look.
Spirit just knew that the terrible, paralyzing fear was going to clamp down over them all. She even braced herself for it, getting ready to fight it, even though fighting it hadn’t worked very well the last time.
But no—no, all that erupted was just plain old-fashioned panic.
People started shouting hysterically, and there was more screaming as the students scattered before the charge. As Spirit darted out of the way, something whistled over her head. A club of some kind, heavier than a bat, but swung expertly. It missed her, but not by much, and it forced her to take a tumble in order to escape the deadly hooves of another horse.
Who are they? She got no time to think about it. 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