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Away from the school. As if they were panicked.

Dan leaned forward. 'What the hell-?'

An instant later, he was shouting new orders. Gretchen saw to it they were carried out. Police recruits were again perched in the windows, their shotguns and revolvers in hand. Screaming with unprofessional rage, they began their new slaughter.

When they reached the driveway, Hans almost overturned the bus making the turn. But he never lost his good cheer. 'Hallooooo!' he shrieked, driving the bus straight through the horde of imperial cavalry pouring away from the school. He crushed several Croats under the wheels and almost overturned the bus again, driving over the corpse of a horse. But the recruits were back at the windows in seconds, blasting away on both sides, wreaking havoc and carnage. Gretchen, in a fury, slammed open the rear window and started firing her automatic at the Croats fleeing toward Route 250 and Buffalo Creek. She only missed twice.

Once he reached the parking lot on top of the slope, Hans slammed on the brakes. Dumbfounded, he stared at the scene.

Equally dumbfounded, Dan stared with him. The entire area in front of the school was a cavalry battle. Bands of Croats were engaged in a desperate struggle with bands of other soldiers. Saber against saber; wheel lock against wheel lock.

The police chief had no idea who the other soldiers were. But he didn't care. He could recognize an ally when he saw one-and his allies were winning.

'Shoot the Croats!' he roared.

As if his voice were a signal, all of the Croats still on horseback in front of school suddenly broke. As it happened, they still outnumbered their Swedish and Finnish opponents-by a considerable margin-but it mattered not at all. Captain Gars' hammer blow from the rear, coming on top of their own frustration, had broken their spirit. Within a minute, leaving hundreds of dead and wounded behind, the imperial cavalry was in full rout. Many more men died or were crippled, spilling from horses driven too recklessly down the slope.

They were sped on their way by gunfire from the bus, but not for long. With Dan leading from the front, and Gretchen driving from the rear, the police recruits stumbled out of the bus and began racing for the school entrance. It was obvious enough, just from the sounds of shouting, that there were still enemies within.

***

Captain Gars and Anders, with dismounted Vдstgцta and Finns following, moved down the narrow space between the line of buses and the side of the school. There were still dozens of Croats in the cafeteria, but none of them were looking at the broken windows. They were all piled against the door to the vestibule, eagerly awaiting their chance to join the charge into the gymnasium. From the splintering sounds accompanying the booming battering ram, the slaughter was finally about to begin.

***

Inside the gymnasium, Jeff stood alone in the middle of the floor. He hefted the shotgun in his hands, staring at the big double doors. The doors were starting to splinter, and he didn't think the lock was going to last more than a few seconds.

Len Trout was still finishing the task of shepherding the students onto the upper rows of the tiers of benches. Only one set of benches had been lowered: the one against the north wall of the gym, farthest from the doors. The principal had crammed as many students as possible onto the top rows. A line of the oldest boys was standing guard on the lower benches, armed with nothing better than baseball bats.

'All we can do,' muttered Trout. He turned and strode to the center of the gym, taking position next to Jeff. He levered the slide on the automatic and checked quickly to make sure the safety was off.

'All we can do,' he repeated.

Jeff said nothing. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound melodramatic and corny. So he decided to spend these last moments of his life simply thinking about his wife, and hoping that their unborn child would enjoy the world as much as he had.

The lock on the door gave way and the doors slammed open. Murder poured into the room, shrieking death and destruction.

***

'Gott mit uns!'

Captain Gars' battle cry signaled the attack. With the captain and Anders leading the way, the Vдstgцta and Finns surged through the windows into the cafeteria.

The Croats still in the cafeteria were caught completely by surprise. By the time they spun around, Captain Gars was upon them, like a grizzly bear savaging his prey, with another roaring at his side. Between them, the captain and Anders cleared a path to the door. The Croats who fell away from that berserk saber charge were swarmed under by the captain's soldiers.

'Gott mit uns! Haakaa pддlle!'

***

'That's it, Julie,' said Nichols, handing her the rifle. 'You've got a fresh magazine. The rest of the ammunition is gone.'

Julie leaned the empty.30-06 against the wall, seized the other, and charged for the door. By the time she got to the corridor, she was already shrieking her own battle cry.

'Make way! Make way! Goddamittohell-clear a path!'

In her frenzied drive through the mob of students and teachers in the corridor, Julie did not actually use the gun butt to hammer herself a path-though the claim would be made afterward, by students knocked down by her charge. But the truth was quite otherwise. A hundred-and-forty-pound cheerleader was simply doing an excellent imitation of a fullback twice her size.

James followed. For all his concern-he knew the damned girl was heading back into action-he couldn't restrain a smile. Then, as he neared the end of the corridor where Julie was frantically clambering over the barricade at the stairwell, he caught sight of Melissa's pale face and the smile vanished.

She saw him at the same time. 'Oh Jesus, James-hurry. Ed's been shot!'

***

'Get those fucking buses out of the way!' bellowed Dan Frost. When he saw Hans squirrel into the lead bus through a broken window, he cursed under his breath. That bus was the one which Jeff had planted directly in front of the school's main entrance.

'Not that one, Hans! It's blocked by the others.'

He started toward the bus, pointing with his finger to the ones further down the line. 'You gotta move those others first before you can-'

Hans had his own ideas about how to move a bus. His theory leaned very heavily on kinetic energy, and gave short shrift-no shrift, actually- to repair costs. Half a minute and much wreckage later, the bus pulled away. The entrance to the school was open.

Croats began pouring out, desperate to escape the furious charge of the Swedes coming through the cafeteria. But by the time they emerged, Dan and Gretchen had already formed the police recruits into a new line, standing to one side, shotguns reloaded and ready, leaving an apparent path to freedom and safety.

It was a firing squad, for all practical purposes. Of the hundred or so imperial cavalrymen who managed to get out of the school building before the Swedes and Finns cut them down, less than half ever made it out of the parking lot.

When the firing ceased, Dan and Gretchen led the police recruits into the school. Tried to, at least. But there was no way to force themselves past the men who now filled the vestibule. Captain Gars' Vдstgцta, those were, still following the madman.

***

Coming down the stairs, Julie met four Croats coming up. The Croats were not even looking at her. They were coming up the stairs backward, frantically trying to fend off twice their number of Finns.

The scythe swung-crackcrackcrackcrack-and her way was clear. The Finns at the bottom of the stairs, gaping, simply moved aside. There was something inexorable about the way the young woman came down the stairs, trampling over the bodies she had put there. Christianity was more than nominal, among Finns, but they still retained memories of their pagan traditions.

No man in his right mind will stand in the way of Loviatar, Goddess of Hurt, Maiden of Pain.

***

Jeff blew the front rank of Croats into bloody shreds. Rate of fire. At that range-less than fifteen yards-the heavy shotgun slugs punched through the light armor of the imperial cavalrymen as if it were tissue paper.

Frantically, he started reloading the shotgun. Len Trout stepped in front of him and leveled the automatic. Again, the Croats charging into the gymnasium encountered that incredible rate of fire.

But Len was no marksman. For all his courage, he was not an experienced gun handler. Half his shots missed.

Five Croats went down, true, even if three of them were only wounded. But there were still more than enough to drive through the hail of pistol bullets. Less than a second after he fired the last shot in the magazine, the first saber cut Len Trout down. A head wound, bloody but not fatal. But the next saber slash almost removed his head entirely, hacking halfway through his neck.

Trout's killer died himself, then. He and all the men at his side. Jeff's shotgun was reloaded and back in furious action. Rate of fire. Clickety- boom, over and again, coming so fast it sounded like thunder.

And now the shotgun was empty, and it was over. Jeff still had a full magazine's worth of ammunition left in his pockets, but he would never have the time to reload