Dan had already used a shotgun butt to smash out the front window on the opposite side from the driver. "Step on it!" he commanded. Then winced.
"Hallooooo!" shrieked Hans, shoving the gas pedal to the floor. The bus surged ahead, rapidly gaining on the Croats.
"God help us," muttered the police chief. He braced himself in the stairwell of the bus and brought up the shotgun. Behind him, Gretchen stood ready with another. Behind her, perched in their seats, all the German police recruits had their own shotguns ready.
Seconds later, the bus came within range and Dan fired. Another angel of death began sweeping its scythe.
Hans was forced to slow the bus while he steered around-and over, often enough-the bodies littering the highway. But he was able to speed up again soon. The panicked Croats had now left the highway and were desperately trying to escape the terrifying machine behind them.
Those who fell off to the north side of the road made their way to safety. The area there was wide enough to allow them to escape. But those who drove their horses off the south embankment found themselves in a death trap.
Buffalo Creek paralleled Route 250 not more than thirty yards away. As soon as he saw the road was clear of corpses, Hans stepped on the gas again. Within a minute, the bus was pulling alongside the mob of imperial cavalrymen pounding along the bank of the creek, looking for a ford.
By then, Dan and Gretchen had a recruit positioned in every window on the right side of the bus. At Dan's command, the recruits started blasting away with their shotguns. The Croats were driving their horses much too fast-along treacherous ground-to even think of returning fire with their wheel locks. And there was nowhere to escape.
Hans slowed down again. The bus rolled up the road at thirty miles per hour, while the recruits poured slugs and buckshot into the Croats stumbling their horses down the creek bed. The result reminded Dan of a photograph he had once seen; old, sepia images of buffalo herds slaughtered by hunters firing from a train.
Now desperate, the imperial cavalrymen drove their horses into the creek and tried to force their way across to the wooded hills on the opposite bank. But there was no ford here. True, since the Ring of Fire the water level had dropped considerably, but Buffalo Creek was still more in the way of a small river than a stream. A number of Croats drowned in the attempt, as did an even larger number of their horses.
Dan let them go. It was plain enough that these enemies had been whipped senseless. They had no thought at all beyond making their escape. He was much more concerned for the school, still a mile away.
"Step on it!" he commanded.
Hans did; Dan went back to muttering prayers.
A large number of Croats had finally pushed their way into the narrow space between the buses and the front wall of the building. They were packed like sardines, but at least here they were safe from that incredible rifle in the upper window.
It was the work of but seconds to smash in all the windows of the cafeteria with pistols and sabers. A moment later, the Croats surged into the school building.
Captain Gars led the charge up the slope toward the school, Anders Jцnsson by his side. He could see hundreds of Croat cavalrymen milling around in apparent confusion.
"Not too late," he grunted. He grinned at Anders. "Good, no?"
Then, waving his saber: "Forward! Forward!"
Behind him thundered the battle cries:
"Gott mit uns! Haakaa pддlle!"
Some of the imperial cavalrymen wasted time searching the kitchen. But most of them poured out of the cafeteria into the vestibule. From there, led by subofficers, they began fanning out.
Some of them charged down the corridor leading to the technical center. But they immediately encountered an obstruction. Other Croats, by now, had smashed their way into the glassed-in walkway between the school proper and the tech center. Within seconds, they were trying to force the door into the center itself.
Trying, and failing. The door had been blocked by the simple expedient of backing a fork lift against it. Outside, the imperial cavalrymen slammed their shoulders into the door with futile fury.
The cry went up: "Find a battering ram!"
Other Croats charged up the stairwells leading to the classrooms on the upper floor. They could hear the shrieks and screams of frightened children coming from above, and knew that their target was finally within reach.
But at the top, they encountered barricades and men armed with pistols and revolvers. Flurries of gunfire erupted-sharp crack versus the boom of wheel lock.
One of the schoolteachers was shot in the arm. Ed Piazza, firing over the barricade with his pistol, was also struck down. A heavy wheel-lock bullet punched between two filing cabinets and ricocheted into his chest, shattering his ribs and penetrating a lung.
Instantly, Melissa was kneeling at his side, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood. To her relief, Sharon Nichols pushed her way forward carrying a first-aid kit. Between the two of them, they fought to save Ed's life while yet another schoolteacher took up the pistol and entered the bloody fray at the top of the stairs.
The battle was brief. The gunfights, again, were entirely uneven. The Croats coming up the stairwell were in the open, completely unprotected, and the disparity in rate of fire was impossible to overcome. Wheel-lock pistols took even longer to reload than arquebuses, whereas the schoolteachers were wielding automatic pistols and revolvers.
Soon enough, the Croats retreated to the vestibule, where they vented their frustration wherever possible. A dozen Croats charged into the library and began smashing the furniture, the computers, and spilling the books. Others visited the same wreckage on the administration center. Still others, in the vestibule itself, went at the huge display case lining the west wall. Smashing glass instead of skulls, spilling athletic trophies instead of blood, and carving photographs instead of faces.
Other imperial cavalrymen, meanwhile, had been slamming shoulders and boots into the wide doors on the northeast side of the vestibule which led into the gymnasium. They could see through the cracks of the doors, and knew that their prey awaited them beyond. But the doors were too solid to push through.
Again, the cry went up: "Find a battering ram!"
Julie spotted the motion of the oncoming new cavalry at the same time as she heard them shouting. Something about those battle cries seemed familiar to her-quite unlike the screeching of the Croats.
But her mind was entirely on her shooting. She had a fresh magazine in the rifle. Julie brought the iron sights to bear on the huge man leading the charge, and started to squeeze the trigger.
Stopped. There was something She lifted her head and peered. Julie's eyesight, as might be expected in a sharpshooter, was phenomenal-considerably better than 20/20.
"Jesus Christ," she whispered. "I don't fucking believe it."
The corner of her eye caught motion. A band of Croats-perhaps ten in all-had also spotted the new threat and were charging to meet it.
Julie swung the rifle. Crackcrackcrackcrack.
"Switch!" she squealed. James had the other.30-06 in her hands within seconds. The angel of death went back to the field, reaping with a fresh scythe.
Desperately, Anders tried to drive his horse ahead of Captain Gars, in order to shield him from the oncoming Croats.
No use. The captain always rode the finest horses in Europe.
The madman! cursed Jцnsson.