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Then, after circling, the Croats discovered the buses blocking off the entrances. For a moment, they milled around in confusion, hundreds of horses stamping their hooves on unfamiliar pavement. Within a minute, the large parking lot south of the school was covered with soldiers, staring at the bizarre yellow contraptions barring their way.

The officers gathered in a knot around the general commanding the entire expedition. Angrily, the general was stroking his mustachioes, examining the unexpected barricade.

"There must be a gap!" he snarled. "Between those-those things-and the building. Dismount and-"

***

James waited until the officers had gathered. He and Julie were positioned at the open window of a classroom on the second floor, facing to the south.

"I'll take the guy in the middle," he said, sighting down the barrel of the.30-06. "You take-"

Julie started firing. Crackcrackcrackcrack. By the time James took out the general-a perfect shot, right in the middle of the sniper's triangle-four of his officers were already dead.

Julie ejected the magazine and slapped in another. Crackcrack. Two more. Crack. Another.

The sole surviving officer spurred his horse into motion. It did him no good at all. Julie tracked him for not more than a second.

Crack.

"Jesus Christ," whispered James. He turned his head and stared at the girl next to him.

She responded with a glare. As she started reloading her rifle, she chanted in a little singsong: "'Can you handle a.30-06 semiautomatic, Ju-lie?' "

Nichols grinned. He extended his own rifle to her. "Tell you what, Julie. Why don't you do the shooting and let me reload for you?"

"Good idea," she growled.

***

Captain Gars heard the first shots just before he reached the road. A wide road, it was, paved with some peculiar substance. Perfectly flat. The finest road he had ever seen in his life.

He turned his head to the northwest, listening. Anders Jцnsson drew his horse alongside.

"Not far," stated Anders. Captain Gars nodded. He reached down and seized the hilt of his saber in a huge hand. Anders sighed. The captain, obviously enough, had no intention whatsoever of using his wheel-lock pistols. Saber, as always.

The rest of the Swedish cavalry was pouring onto the road. Captain Gars drew his saber and lifted it high. "Gott mit uns!" he bellowed, and spurred his horse into a gallop.

Within less than a minute, four hundred West Gothlanders, Finns and Lapps were thundering down what had once been-and was still named-U.S. Route 250. Heading west, following a madman.

"Gott mit uns!"

"Haakaa pддlle!"

***

The Croats hit Grantville's downtown like a log hits a saw.

As soon as his horse debouched onto the main street, the commander spotted the figure of a lone man in the plaza to the east. The man was standing still, facing them. One hand was holding an object-a weapon, perhaps-while the other was planted on his hip. He seemed to be wearing some sort of uniform, with an odd-looking breastplate, and his hat had a certain "official" air about it.

The open target was irresistible, after the frustration of the past quarter of an hour. The commander drew his wheel lock and waved it forward. "Attack!"

As he led the charge, some part of the commander's mind noted that the entrances to the buildings had all been blocked off by various means. The sight filled him with good cheer. Blocked doors meant that people were hiding inside. Like chickens in a coop, waiting for slaughter.

***

Dan hefted the pistol in his hand, watching the oncoming cavalrymen. For a moment, he was tempted to draw the weapon in his holster and shoot two-handed. The notion appealed to his sense of history. Sid Hatfield, by all accounts, had fought so at Matewan. A weapon in each hand, as he gunned down the company goons from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency.

Firmly, he suppressed the notion. True, family legend claimed that Sid Hatfield, the sheriff who led the coal miners in their shoot-out with the company goons at Matewan, had been a distant relative. But Dan was skeptical of the tale. Practically everyone he knew claimed to be related to the Hatfield clan, the West Virginia half of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Still, Dan was tempted. Whether or not Sid Hatfield was a blood relative, he was most certainly an ancestral spirit. Company goons or Croats, his town was under attack.

But that was in the old days, when police officers were not really professionals. So Dan resisted the amateurish whimsy, and brought up the.40-caliber automatic in a proper two-handed grip. The first line of horsemen was forty yards away.

The first wheel locks were discharged at him. Dan ignored the shots. As inaccurate as the weapons were, especially on a galloping horse, he would only be hit by blind chance.