He waved the cavalry and soldiers into the next attack.
They needed every man now.
Sitting down heavily, he slammed the door shut and accelerated once more towards the enemy line.
The other vehicles did their best to keep up with him. But now, with the pass wider and with fewer autos, the line was more widely spaced. Some of the Bluebeards would dodge the oncoming cars and pass through the gaps.
That, Sam hoped, was where the troops following behind would join the fray: picking off the enemy before they made it away from the pass.
He looked from left to right. The bus and the cars, their bodies dented and crumpled, smeared with barbarian blood, raced through the snow.
A group of Bluebeards in front of him parted before the Range Rover could plunge like a torpedo into their bodies.
A series of bangs sounded along the car.
He glanced down. From the door panel, arrow heads and shafts pointed at his leg and hip.
Hell, he thought in amazement, those brutes can fire arrows with such force they pierce steel doors.
Behind him the soldiers fired from the back seats. One of the bowmen slumped onto the snow.
Sam looked ahead to see the dense main pack of Bluebeards emerging from a flurry of snowflakes.
A second later the vehicles once more smacked into them.
The battle had become a dream. Or at least it seemed like that.
In an unearthly way it had actually become quiet. Sam spun the car round, aiming it at individual groups of Bluebeards. Behind him the rifles fired.
He glanced back. One soldier lay back in the seat, head twisted at what would have been an uncomfortable angle if the man had been alive. An arrow jutted from his face just below the cheekbone.
Sam saw cars looking like hedgehogs as arrows bristled from their bodywork.
There, a car had been turned over, the occupants spilled out in a bloody jumble. Flames erupted from the back of the vehicle. Seconds later its store of grenades exploded and a ball of orange rose into the sky like a sunrise.
All around him, bodies looking like crushed strawberries were scattered across the snow.
To his left, the bus moved slowly. Its field guns roared every few seconds or so, blasting explosive shells into the mass of the Bluebeards as they pressed towards the vehicle in a huge tightening noose of men.
Sam realised they were trying to box the bus in so it would eventually become bogged down in the snow.
Arrows cascaded onto it, piercing its flimsy sides of steel sheeting.
Sam looked round. There was precious little in the way of reinforcements. There were perhaps two dozen cavalrymen riding furiously to and fro, killing the enemy with lances and swords.
The bus stopped. Instantly the Bluebeards rushed forward.
Lee flung the bus into reverse, backing it towards the cliff wall as fast as he could, catching and crushing a few of the barbarians in the process. Then the vehicle lumbered forward again, but it was all too slow.
If Lee stopped once more the Bluebeards could probably rush the bus and hold it fast with their own body strength. Once they’d stopped it, even for a moment, they could flood on board and finish off the crew with knives.
Sam edged the car forward, watchful lest any Bluebeards should rush him. But most seemed to be interested in the bus now. Its flanks were so streaked with blood that even its name, Thunder Child, was obliterated.
Sam laid heavily into the horn, attracting the attention of the cavalrymen.
He pointed at the Bluebeards circling the bus, then he let out the clutch. The Range Rover fishtailed as he aimed the car like a missile. ‘Brace yourself!’ he called back at the surviving soldier in the back. ‘I’m going to hit them as hard as I can!’
The slipstream whipping by the window tore at his face, plastered his hair against his forehead, then pulled it away again.
The car had reached 60 when he hit the barbarians at their densest point.
Most wouldn’t even know what killed them: they were pushing towards the bus, their backs to the car.
The concussion was terrific.
Sam threw his arms in front of his face to protect his eyes, But he still saw enough.
Bodies exploded across the bonnet, turning the windscreen crimson, then smashing it.
In front of the car more bodies fell. The first ones went under the front tyres. But then, as the bodies were bulldozed into a mound, the front end of the car lifted.
Sam glimpsed the speedo.
Forty.
The engine still roared.
The falling men formed a ramp of blood and bone, lifting the nose of the car even higher. A split second later it took off and flew.
The car screamed clear above the heads of yet more men. Then, rolling to the right, it fell on its side.
Dazed, hanging by the seatbelt, Sam looked to his right and down. A carpet of dying men, crushed by the car, lay on the other side of the driver’s window.
He felt a hand push at his shoulder.
The surviving soldier was signalling him to get out.
He nodded.
Unbuckling the seatbelt, he wriggled from under the steering wheel that had collapsed into a figure-eight shape.
More bodies were pressed against the windscreen that was now a crazy frost-pattern of cracks.
As far as Sam could tell, the car had come to rest on the driver’s side. That meant he had to climb out of the passenger door.
His whole body ached.
Gritting his teeth, he scrambled over the seats. Deciding not to even try and lift the heavy passenger door up and open, he worked his body out through the shattered window.
The soldier’s rifle barked.
Sam saw that the soldier was standing on the passenger side of the car that now faced the sky.
Sam stood there too, his legs shaking badly.
All around him, Bluebeards pressed towards them, ready to tear the two men limb from limb.
‘Sir, take this.’ The soldier handed him a revolver. He had one of his own. Sam took the gun, cocked it, then aimed at the face of a Bluebeard standing on the ground below. The barbarian was just about to swing a sword at Sam’s legs.
Sam squeezed the trigger.
The gun recoiled in his hand.
And the Bluebeard rolled back onto the snow, arms flung out, blood pumping from a hole in his forehead.
Sam chose another target, fired again.
Then again.
Three rounds left.
When they were gone he’d be dead.
Already a spear jab had punctured the soldier’s leg just above the knee. With one hand holding the wound closed, the man carried on firing.
Then came a sound like the bellow of an angry bull.
Dazed, Sam looked up to see a wonderful sight.
Slowly, foot by foot, the bus was pushing through the crush of barbarians.
Lee was pumping the horn, sending out that bellowing note.
Seconds later the bus was alongside the Range Rover. At this height, standing on the side of the car, the bus windows were almost level with Sam and the soldier.
Straightaway a crop of hands appeared. Sam saw Jud’s and Zita’s anxious faces. Even Rolle and Thomas Hather reached out their hands.
Sam grabbed at them and was pulled on board.
He collapsed into a seated position as the bus powered across the snow to break out of the Bluebeards’ line that Sam had smashed through earlier.
Sam glanced across at the soldier who’d saved his life.
The man had been less lucky. The swipe of a barbarian axe had taken away his hand.
Another soldier bound the wound as the bus bucked and heaved across the snow-covered meadow.
He noticed that Jud’s leg was bandaged at the knee where an arrow had perhaps found a target. Although limping badly, he managed to light the fuses of some grenades and hurl them out at the Bluebeards.