What they’d do with her after they caught up with her was another matter, but he’d long since realized they must have friends along. If they hadn’t, at least one of them would have run off to report the Charisian intruder’s course and position.
There’s something nasty on the other side of that horizon, Kahrltyn, my boy, he told himself. Those bastards’re talking to someone, even if we haven’t been able to spot any of their signals from here. And whoever it is wouldn’t be coming after you if he didn’t figure he could do something with you after he caught up!
He didn’t much like that thought. On the other hand, just because someone thought he was big enough to get a job done didn’t necessarily mean he was. The Dohlarans had bitten off more than they could chew on more than one occasion, and there was no reason to think this one would be any dif—
“Deck, there!” The call floated down from the foretopmast crosstrees. “Gunfire! Gunfire from the south-southeast!”
* * *
“God damn those fucking galleys!” Commander Bryxtyn Dahnvyrs snarled as fresh gunfire rumbled across the water.
“Bastards’re a hell of a lot handier’n I ever thought they’d be,” Dahnel Mahkneel, his first lieutenant, agreed bitterly. They stood on HMS East Wind’s quarterdeck, watching the Dohlarans’ gunsmoke roll slowly downwind, like a lost, woolly fog bank, and the sun was hot overhead.
“Faster, too.”
Dahnvyrs’ tone was even bitterer than Mahkneel’s. He’d commanded East Wind for almost a year and a half, and he was proud of the schooner. She was fast, maneuverable, and her sixteen thirty-pounder carronades and pair of thirty-pounder pivot guns gave her a devastating punch, especially firing explosive shells. He loved her dearly, and she’d never failed him, never faltered before any demand he’d made upon her. But while she barely ghosted along under every scrap of canvas he could set, the damned screw-galleys—galleys, damn it!—pursued her at at least twice her own best speed.
“Our turn next,” he told the lieutenant. “Pass the word to load the carronades with shell. We’ll use round shot from the pivots to pound their frigging armor while they close, but if we get a chance to pop a hit in around the damned iron, I want those bastards hurt.”
* * *
Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht stood on HMS Broadsword’s quarterdeck and watched the sudden smoke billow up from HMS Restless. The relentlessly pursuing screw-galleys had gotten close enough to engage Zheryko Cumyngs’ schooner almost two hours ago. It said unflattering things about the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s gunnery that it had taken them more than ninety minutes to score their first hit. After that, though, as more of them came into range, the hits had come quickly, despite a low rate of fire which undoubtedly reflected the weight of the screw-galleys’ guns. According to Seijin Dagyr, they mounted pretty damned massive pieces in those armored citadels of theirs, and he was pretty sure at least one of them had burst. Something had certainly started a massive fire forward on one of the Dohlarans before the vessel had blown up, and it was highly unlikely that it had been a Charisian shell.
He’d felt a wave of vengeful satisfaction as the galley exploded, but so far the exchange rate had been entirely in the Dohlarans’ favor. The single ship which had exploded was their only loss, which was far more than he could say. In addition to Thunderer, he’d lost Restless and her sister ship Foam, and absent a miracle, East Wind would be joining them shortly. At least the slow speed imposed by the miserable excuse for a breeze had allowed boats pulling between the squadron’s other units to redistribute Thunderer’s seamen among the rest of his galleons. He hadn’t lost all of them along with the schooners’ companies, which didn’t make him one bit happier at the thought of all the men he had lost.
And unless the wind comes up, it won’t be so very much longer before you start losing something a mite bigger than a schooner, he told himself harshly.
Every instinct demanded that he stop running, that he reverse course and go to meet the screw-galleys with his far more heavily armed galleons. If he hadn’t already lost Thunderer, he’d probably have given in to that demand, but cold logic told him it would have been a mistake even then. Now, with Thunderer gone, Firestorm and Catastrophe, his two bombardment ships, were the only ships who could probably penetrate the screw-galleys’ armor. The others would be targets, not warships, unless they could somehow get around the Dohlarans’ flanks and avoid that armor. And that, unfortunately, was something they simply weren’t going to do under weather conditions that let them move at no more than three knots while the screw-galleys could make twice that speed … at least.
No. No, he had to keep the range open for as long as he could, hope a wind came up, hope he could avoid them until darkness fell and then, possibly, give them the slip. It galled him bitterly to avoid action with such small opponents, but the Imperial Charisian Navy itself had demonstrated that size and combat power weren’t always synonymous.
He started to pull out his watch, but he made himself glance up at the sun instead rather than stare at the watch face and demonstrate his anxiety to anyone watching him. At least another five hours, he calculated, and looked back at the oncoming screw-galleys.
They’d be within range of his rearmost galleon in no more than three hours, and what did he do then?
* * *
“That’s three of their schooners, Sir!” Captain Mahgyrs announced exultantly as the shattered, dismasted hull of HMS East Wind vomited flames and smoke. “We’ll be up with their galleons in another hour or two.”
At least some of the Charisians’ crew had managed to take to the boats once the hammering shells of no less than three of the squadron’s screw-galleys had set her ablaze, and Pawal Hahlynd was just as glad they had.
Or am I? We had Charisian prisoners once before. If I take these people home, what’s Lywys going to do with them? It stuck in his craw sideways last time, and somehow I doubt handing them over to Clyntahn’s going to go down any easier this time.
Fortunately, that wasn’t his decision, he told himself, trying not to feel like a coward. And Mahgyrs was right; they would be close enough to engage the fleeing galleons soon, although he suspected his flag captain’s estimate was at least a bit overly optimistic.
So far, the screw-galleys’ armor had stood up well to the Charisians’ fire. As far as he could tell, not a single shell or round shot had penetrated it yet, although he couldn’t absolutely rule that out in Pike’s case. Given the timing of the explosion, however, it seemed more likely that one of Pike’s hundred-and-fifty-pounders had burst catastrophically. Dohlaran gunfounders had improved the quality of their products enormously, but guns with ten-inch bores crowded the very limit of what they could accomplish, and cast iron was still far more brittle than bronze or steel. The guns being cast for the additional screw-galleys building in Gorath would be banded like the army’s Fultyn Rifles. Hopefully that would improve the situation, but for the moment, he and his men had to fight with the weapons they had.
And at least you won’t be firing them with double charges, the way you’d’ve done against one of their ironclads, he reminded himself grimly, and shook his head.
Lance had passed close enough to Sword for Lieutenant Seevyrs to inform Hahlynd what had happened to Tymythy Snelyng. He was going to miss Captain Snelyng. He’d been the squadron’s third ranking officer, and Hahlynd had come to know him well. He would have expected nothing less out of Snelyng, given even the remotest possibility of capturing one of the ironclads intact. Which was unlikely to be much comfort to the captain’s widow and two young children.
“Let’s reduce the tempo, Captain Mahgyrs,” he said. The flag captain seemed a bit surprised, and the admiral shrugged. “We’re faster than they are in this wind, even without the cranks,” he pointed out. “We’ll overtake them well before dusk whatever happens, and I’d prefer to have the cranksmen as fresh as possible when we do, so go to standard tempo.”
* * *
“Sir! Sir Bruhstair!”
&nb
sp; Ahbaht turned as Lieutenant Zhaksyn called his name. Thunderer’s second lieutenant had stepped into an illness-caused vacancy in Captain Tydwail Zhaksyn’s chain of command when Ahbaht and twenty-five of the ironclad’s company had come aboard the sixty-gun galleon. Now the lieutenant pointed up at Broadsword’s maintop.
“Captain Pymbyrtyn’s just signaled, Sir! It’s Dreadnought!”
“What?” Ahbaht blinked.
Lywelyn Pymbyrtyn’s Vindicator was leading his line of galleons, if one could call the untidy, clumped formation—the best even Charisian captains could manage under such fluky wind conditions—a “line.” Any signal from him must have been relayed through at least two other ships to reach Broadsword, here at the rear of that formation. That was his first thought. Then the ship’s name penetrated.
“It’s Dreadnought,” Zhaksyn repeated, eyes blazing. “It’s Captain Haigyl! Captain Pymbyrtyn estimates he’ll rendezvous with us within four or five hours.”
* * *
“Well, damn,” Kahrltyn Haigyl said mildly, gazing down at the written copy of Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht’s message.
In a way, he really wished the Emeraldian had waited rather than pass the news by signal, where every signalman with a spyglass could read it and undoubtedly share it with his own ship’s company. He grimaced at his own thought. It wasn’t like all the rest of Ahbaht’s squadron didn’t already know, was it? And Ahbaht was damned well right that it was more important to get the news of Thunderer’s loss into his hands as rapidly as possible than to worry about how his message might affect people who already knew about it.
Wish I could blame this all on him, Haigyl thought grimly. Not his fault, though—I’d’ve done exactly the same damned thing every step of the way in his place. But we’re in one hell of a mess now, and I’m senior. At least the frigging wind’s picked up a little. Of course, that brought along its own little complication, didn’t it?
Relative seniority wasn’t really something he’d spent a lot of time thinking about as he pursued Ahbaht towards Hahskyn Bay, but it wasn’t something he could avoid thinking about now. Ahbaht was junior to him. That meant it was up to him to decide what they were going to do, and he didn’t see a lot of good options lying about.
He dropped the message on his desk and looked across it at Lieutenant Stahdmaiyr. The lenses of the lieutenant’s spectacles gleamed as a sunbeam found the skylight and penetrated the day cabin’s dimness.
“Hell of a mess, Dahnyld.”
“One way to put it, Sir,” Stahdmaiyr agreed. “I have the latest count, if you want it?”
“Might’s well tell me.” Haigyl shrugged. “I’m going to find out anyway soon enough.”
“Well, in that case, the masthead’s counted at least twenty-five galleons. There’s more behind those, though; we just can’t make out how many.”
“Are they still overhauling?”
“I don’t think so, Sir, and Master Gyllmyn concurs.” It was Stahdmaiyr’s turn to shrug. “They must’ve brought the wind down with them to’ve made up on us this way. Now that we’ve got the same wind, I believe we’re actually opening the range a bit again.”
“But unless the wind picks up even more, we’re still going to be a hell of a lot slower than these goddamned screw-galleys,” Haigyl pointed out. “And that’s a lot of galleons, Dahnyld.”
“Yes, Sir. It is.”
Haigyl scowled at the chart, but there were no answers there, either.
If that was only Rohsail and the Jack’s Land squadron behind him, then it would be Ahbaht’s surviving galleons plus Dreadnought against no more than twenty to twenty-five Dohlarans. Stiff odds, but not too stiff to handle with Dreadnought to lead the Charisian line. But if Rohsail had combined with Raisahndo’s Saram Bay squadron, there could be at least forty or fifty galleons coming down upon him … and the screw-galleys were in front of him. The wind hadn’t picked up enough to pose any sort of problems for them—not yet—and he was caught squarely between them and a superior number of conventional galleons.
It was not a winning situation.
He folded his hands behind him and began pacing, rubbing the patch over his empty eye socket with one forefinger while he wondered how adventurous the screw-galleys were likely to feel overnight. They were smaller than the Charisian galleons, closer to the water and undoubtedly harder to see. Would they feel emboldened by that and try to actually penetrate his formation under cover of darkness? That was what he’d do in their place—get in close and blaze away with those heavy guns at point-blank range. Maybe even try a run with those “spar torpedoes,” if they’d brought any along.
But despite his reputation as a bull dragon with a toothache, Kahrltyn Haigyl really did think before leaping straight into the fire. Sometimes, anyway, and this was damned well a time for thinking first. And for not assuming the other fellow would do what he’d do in the same situation.
He was well aware that he tended to be more aggressive than most. Not everyone was as likely to charge in as he was, and those screw-galleys had just proved they represented the closest thing to a winning card any of the Imperial Charisian Navy’s opponents had come up with yet. True, their present success owed a great deal to the fact that they’d found themselves with ideal weather conditions. Had Ahbaht been given a lively breeze to work with, one that would have allowed his heavier galleons to maneuver while simultaneously making heavier going for the fragile galleys, things could have been different. For one thing, he probably wouldn’t have destroyed Thunderer and run for it. But that lay in the world of might-have-been; in the world that actually was, he’d done exactly the right thing, as the screw-galleys had unfortunately demonstrated all too clearly since. So far, they’d cost Ahbaht’s squadron—Haigyl’s squadron now, he supposed—four schooners and HMS Sickle, a fifty-four-gun galleon.
He paused in his pacing, gazing at the bulkhead-mounted barometer for a moment, then started walking again.
It was hard to be certain from Ahbaht’s tersely worded signal, but it sounded as if Raimahnd Tohbyais, Sickle’s captain, had deliberately turned back into the midst of the pursuing Dohlarans once he realized he was going to be overtaken anyway. If he had, more power to him. His ship had been pulverized by the screw-galleys’ heavy shells, and in the end she’d caught fire, as so many wooden ships did when shells began tearing them apart. In the process, though, Tohbyais had forced them to concentrate on him, maneuver to keep their armored citadels facing his guns rather than flow around him and pursue Ahbaht’s other ships. They hadn’t dared to expose their vulnerable flanks to his gunners, and Haigyl wondered how hard it had been for Ahbaht to resist trying to come to Sickle’s aid. He knew how hard it would have been for him, and he found himself respecting Ahbaht’s decision not to turn upon the screw-galleys even more because he did.
He might’ve gotten a couple of them, but not if the Dohlarans fought smart. They only closed in on Sickle because they could. If Ahbaht’d tried to concentrate his galleons against them, they’d have backed off, stayed out at a range where he couldn’t hope to fire at anything except their armor. And whether they know it or not, he knows what’s coming up behind me.
But the key point was that the screw-galleys had beaten Sickle to death in less than forty-five minutes of close action … and without losing a single one of their own.
He stopped pacing again and strode back to the chart, glaring down at it.
“The wind is going to pick up,” he said.
Dahnyld Stahdmaiyr blinked at him. It hadn’t been a question, and it hadn’t been a prayer. It had been a statement, and Haigyl bared his teeth as he looked up and caught the lieutenant’s expression.
“Haven’t lost my mind yet,” he said, “but the glass is falling and the wind’s been strengthening for the last three hours now. Not a lot, I’ll grant, but it’s been picking up steadily, Dahnyld, and the temperature’s dropping, too. I’d give one of my balls for a good heavy storm, but I’m sure as Shan-wei not going to count on that. W
hat I think will happen, though, is it’ll come up enough we can dance with the fucking screw-galleys. I don’t know what they’ll do if that happens. Doesn’t seem likely they’d just turn around and go home after coming this far, but whatever they do, they won’t do it as well as they’ve been doing it. Probably won’t have anywhere near the same speed advantage, either.”
“If the wind comes up, Sir,” Stahdmaiyr conceded.
“Well, if it doesn’t, we’re so screwed nothing else’ll matter,” Haigyl replied. “So I’m going to figure it will. Oh,” he waved one hand, “I’ll allow for the chance that it won’t, but you know as well as I do that if it doesn’t, all the planning in the world’s not going to change what happens. Way I see it, we might’s well plan for the best.”
“Can’t argue with that, Sir,” Stahdmaiyr agreed.
“Of course, ‘best’ isn’t always all that damned good, is it?” Haigyl glowered at the chart some more, then looked back up at his lieutenant. “Even if the screw-galleys’re more or less out of it, that still leaves us with Rohsail. More likely, we’ll have both of ’em on our arses, assuming each of ’em figures out the other one’s there. Most probably they don’t have a clue about that—yet—but you can be damned sure that’ll change soon’s they get close enough to hear each other’s gunfire.”
He paused, and Stahdmaiyr nodded in grim agreement.
“Well, in that case we’ve got some signals to send, and it’s going to take a while, because we’re going to have to spell a lot of it out instead of relying on the vocabulary,” Haigyl said. “And we’ve got to get them all passed before it gets too dark for Ahbaht to read them, so let’s get Zhasyn and Master Trymohr in here and start figuring out what to tell him.”
.IV.
The Kaudzhu Narrows, Hahskyn Bay, Shwei Province, South Harchong Empire