Rout, rather. There was no discipline or order in the mob of horsemen galloping off to the east. Just five hundred panicked cavalrymen, leaving two hundred dead and wounded behind, driving down a road which led to no destination they knew. Just—
away.
Dan heard the engine of the bus blocking the bridge start up. He spun around.
“Goddamit, Gretchen—
wait for me!
”
Gretchen had positioned all the German police recruits in the bus, ready at the windows to cover Dan’s retreat if necessary. Then, seeing the way the battle was going, she ordered the driver to start the bus.
The driver was an elderly man, confused and frightened by the situation. Seeing that he was useless, Gretchen seized him by the scruff of the neck and manhandled him out of the bus. Then, scanning the large crowd which had gathered south of the bridge, she bellowed: “I need someone who can drive this thing!” She repeated the words in German.
“
I can! I can!
”
Gretchen recognized the voice even before her little brother forced his way through the mob. Hans was grinning from ear to ear. “I can drive anything!” he called out proudly, racing toward her.
Gretchen hesitated. Her brother loved to drive and was very good at it—measured, at least, in his ability to get from one place to another in a minimum amount of time. But he had an extremely nonchalant attitude toward what the American driving instructors called “defensive driving.” His operating motto behind the wheel was:
You can’t live forever, anyway, so why not get where you’re going?
Her hesitation was brief. Time was of the essence, and she could think of no one who would get the bus to the school quicker. “All right,” she growled. “But be careful.” Even to her, the words sounded absurd.
Hans clambered aboard and flung himself eagerly into the driver’s seat. “Where to?” he demanded, starting the engine.
Scowling, Gretchen studied the main intersection. The plan which Dan had developed, to pursue the fleeing Croats directly, was obviously impractical. The street was so littered with the bodies of horses and men that it would take a quarter of an hour—at least—to clear a pathway. Already, she could see that the buses which Dan had held waiting a few blocks away were arriving on the scene, ready to load the deputies and other armed men in the buildings. But until the obstacles were removed, her bus was the only one which could go into immediate action.
She was about to order Hans to follow the road just south of Buffalo Creek, running parallel to the street down which the Croats were retreating, when she spotted Dan racing toward them. The police chief was supposed to ride one of the other buses, but he had obviously reached the same conclusion as Gretchen.
For a moment, so great was her furious determination to punish the invaders and protect the school, Gretchen almost left him behind. But she managed to restrain herself. Dan Frost was the best pistol shot in town, for one thing. And she’d
never
hear the end of it.
“Wait a moment,” she said. In the few seconds it took Dan to reach the bus, Gretchen hurriedly explained her new battle plan to Hans and the recruits.
As soon as Dan came aboard, Hans closed the door and sent the bus lurching ahead. Dan grabbed the upright post by the door to keep from falling.
When he saw Hans at the wheel, the police chief hissed,
“Oh, shit.”
“He can drive anything,” stated Gretchen firmly.
The bus careened around the corner. Frantically, Gretchen grabbed the overhead rail. “Anything,” she repeated. Not as firmly.
Hans took the next turn like a charging cavalryman. The rear right wheels of the bus hammered over the curb, half-spilling the recruits out of their hastily taken seats.
“Oh, shit,”
repeated the police chief. He was now holding onto the upright with both hands. His knuckles were white.
On the next turn—
whang!
—Hans massacred a stop sign. “Anything,” prayed Gretchen. “
Gott mit uns.”
Chapter 58
Harry Lefferts was so distracted by the news coming over the radio that he almost lost control of the vehicle. The road down which the column of APCs was racing, Harry’s in the lead, was very far from a modern highway. The coal truck’s front tires hit a huge pothole and Harry hastily fought the sudden skid.
Mike held his breath but didn’t say anything. Once he was sure that Harry had the vehicle back under control, he leaned forward and returned the radio to its bracket.
“So the town’s okay,” he sighed, with some relief, but not much. And that little relief vanished almost instantly. In truth, Mike had not been too concerned about the town. Between Dan and his police force, and the fact that the town’s residents were heavily armed, he had expected the enemy to be driven off readily enough. Grantville had become a seventeenth-century German version of a Wild West boom town. The Croats had simply discovered what the Dalton gang or any number of old American outlaws could have told them:
“Treeing” a town is a lot easier said than done.
Harry echoed his worried thoughts. “What do you think about the school?”
Mike rubbed his face. “I don’t really
want
to think about it. They don’t have many weapons. And even if they’ve blocked off the entrances like we were told, that still won’t hold off the Croats for more than a few minutes.”
Silence followed. Halfway between Eisenach and Grantville, a column of APCS drove to the east. All the men and women in those vehicles—crammed with every soldier who could possibly be fit inside—were silent. There was nothing to say. The fate of their children was out of their hands.
The horde of Croats milling around on the parking lot south of the school was bellowing like a herd of enraged bulls. Enraged—and terrified. Many of them were already dismounting, and the rest were frantically trying to force their horses away from that hideous window.
For a time, they had tried to return fire. But it was hopeless. Twice they had managed, by sheer weight of hastily “aimed” pistol volleys, to drive the terror away. But destruction returned, almost at once. Four rounds to a magazine, fired as rapidly as James could reload. And while the school only had two rifles, there had been plenty of ammunition.
Crackcrackcrackcrack. Crackcrackcrackcrack.
Like Death, wielding his unstoppable scythe, reaping men with each sweep like so many fistfuls of grain.
A few of the Croats, by now, understood that the murder was being rained upon them by a demon. A monster taking the form of a girl. A pretty one, too, to make the horror worse. But not many. Those Croats who were foolish enough to spend time studying the window usually died within seconds.
As he kept reloading and swapping the rifles, James Nichols was almost in awe. Abstractly, he could understand what he was seeing. The girl had trained for the biathlon, after all. The emphasis in that sport was on short-range shooting, not long-distance. And there was an absolute premium on firing quickly and moving to the next target. But the doctor still knew that he was in the presence of something truly special.
Julie Sims’ face held no expression at all, beyond concentration. None. She was completely in the zone. A pure killing machine. At that short range, even shooting rifles she had not sighted in, she never missed. Not once.
To James Nichols, watching, it was almost like a religious experience. An angel had materialized, and declared every man within a hundred yards to be hers by God’s will.
The scythe swept again.
Crackcrackcrackcrack.
The angel of death reaped and reaped.
Coming out of a side road, the bus careened onto U.S. Route 250 just behind the last fleeing Croats. They were approaching the eastern outskirts of the town. The school was two miles away.
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 Jönsson 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 päälle!
”
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.
