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go up to your emplacement and watch the show."
    The two commanders, trying to appear outwardly calm, strode across the encampment area. They reached the battery where O'Donald's twelve-pound brass Napoleons were deployed.
    "They're getting closer," Pat whispered. "God, it sounds like thousands of them."
    "There are."
    "Here they come!" came a shout from an excited private down the line.
    A lone horseman, bearing the crossed-sword standard, crested the hill a half mile away. Within seconds he seemed to be engulfed in a human tide as thousands of infantry poured over the hill around him. Farther to the left, the advancing column of horsemen appeared.
    "Worst damn reb infantry I've ever seen," O'Donald sniffed. "No lines at all—must be local militia."
    O'Donald turned to his men.
    "Load case shot, four-second fuse!"
    "Wait on that," Andrew said softly.
    O'Donald turned back to Andrew.
    "Now look, colonel, darling—my boys here know their business."
    "Pat," Andrew said evenly, "I am the senior officer on the field. Trust my judgment on this. You'll see for yourself once they get closer."
    Andrew forced the slightest of smiles, not wishing to appear an autocratic commander. The artilleryman paused for a brief moment, and then called for his men to hold.
    "Colonel, if they're militia, we can break them up real quick before they get into musket range."
    "They don't have muskets," Andrew said quietly.
    "What?"
    "Just watch."
    The host continued to swarm forward, the cavalry keeping pace with the infantry. Gradually, out of the swarming mass, individual forms started to take shape.
    "What in the devil are they?" Pat gasped.
    "Damned if I know," Andrew said, still trying to smile.
    A loud murmur started to break out in the ranks, men crying out in confusion at the sight before them.
    "You're the history professor," Emil said, coming up to join the two commanders, "so please help me retain my sanity and tell me what they are."
    "I was hoping you would know," Andrew replied. "We couldn't have been blown all the way to Arabia, and they look European, not black or eastern."
    "Well, what they're carrying looks straight out of the Middle Ages to me," Emil replied. "Damn it all, look at those weapons and armor! Those things are museum pieces!"
    "I know, doctor," Andrew murmured, "I know."
    Just what in hell was he facing? He still couldn't figure it out. For all the world he felt as if he were facing a host straight out of the tenth or eleventh century.
    "Over there on the crest of the hill! Are my eyes deceiving me?" Pat exclaimed.
    Several teams of horses came into view.
    Andrew found himself breaking out into a nervous laugh.
    "It's their artillery, Pat. Catapults—they're bringing up catapults."
    The three officers looked at each other in dumbfounded amazement.
    "I guess whoever they are, they mean business," Emil replied.
    "He's right, colonel. That isn't any friendly town council coming out to greet us."
    Andrew merely nodded, watching as the host continued to deploy. There was no real order to it. From out of the cavalry column half a dozen horsemen broke away and started to canter across the field in front of the peasant mob. Distant shouts echoed up, and, still several hundred yards out, the enemy army came to a halt.
    A loud chant suddenly went up, drifting on the late-afternoon breeze.
    From out of a high-wheeled cart traveling with the cavalry there appeared several men, dressed in long flowing robes of gold and silver. Each carried a smoldering pot on the end of a length of chain. Swinging the pots over their heads, they started to walk down the length of the line. As one, the thousands of men fell to their knees.
    "They're blessing themselves," Pat whispered, and even as he spoke he made the sign of the cross, most of the men in his command following suit.
    Raising his field glasses, O'Donald scanned the line.
    "Looks like they're doing it backward, though," he mumbled as if to himself.
    "We'd better do something, colonel,