Off Armageddon Reef (67 page)

“And even
with
them, we'll still be outnumbered on the order of four-to-one,” Staynair said.

“Exactly, Maikel,” the king agreed.

“If we concentrate on defending the Bay, we could offset a lot of their numerical advantage,” Gray Harbor observed, gazing down at the chart. “If we concede Rock Shoal Bay and make our stand at Lock Island, they'll only be able to come at us head-on in restricted waters.”

“No.” Haarahld shook his head decisively. “Oh, I agree with what you just said, Rayjhis. But if we concede the initiative to them, we lose. If we get a strong easterly—unlikely, I'll admit, but more likely in the spring than any other time—we could be pinned inside Lock Island and the Keys. Besides, a close action in the North Channel would be so constricted it would deprive us of most of the advantages Seamount, Olyvyr, and Merlin built the galleons to exploit. They're designed to stand off and pound galleys with artillery, not for that sort of close-in melee. If we could suck them in—convince them to attack us head-on, as you say—
before
they know about the galleons, the sheer shock of our firepower
might
be able to wreak enough damage—and inflict enough panic—to drive them off. But it might not, too, and if they keep coming, they'll have the numbers to absorb all the damage we can hand out and still beat us. They'll pay a heavy price, but they can do it.

“Or, if they're smarter than that, they may simply refuse to cooperate by seeking battle at all. They'll have the numbers to blockade us where we are and ignore us,
and
they'll have the shipping available to lift an entire army from Emerald and Corisande and land it in Rock Shoal Bay to attack the Keys from the landward side without ever facing us ship-to-ship at all.”

“But if we don't stand on the defensive there, Your Majesty, where can we?” Gray Harbor asked reasonably.

“We can't stand on the defensive
anywhere
and win,” Haarahld said. “The only chance we have is to take the battle to
them
.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty?” Gray Harbor sounded as if he wasn't entirely certain he'd heard his monarch correctly, and Haarahld gave a harsh bark of laughter.

“Wondering if I've finally lost my senses, are you, Rayjhis?” he asked.

“By no means, Your Majesty.” Gray Harbor still sounded more than a little dubious, but there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.

“Oh, yes, you are,” Haarahld told him roundly. “And, hopefully, the other side's going to agree with you.”

“Just what
do
you have in mind, Father?” Cayleb asked, regarding the king intently.

“I doubt very much that Sharleyan's going to be an enthusiastic member of our ‘Northern Force,'” Haarahld said. “And if she's cooperating grudgingly, against her will, her admirals aren't exactly likely to throw themselves wholeheartedly into operations to accomplish Hektor's plans. Which means that, in practical terms, adding her squadrons to Nahrmahn's and Hektor's navies isn't going to affect the balance of power here in home waters nearly as severely as the raw numbers might indicate.”

“I think you have a point there, Your Majesty,” Merlin put in. “I believe Queen Sharleyan intends to drag her heels just as hard as she thinks she can get away with.”

“Hardly surprising, given her history with Hektor,” Gray Harbor agreed, and Haarahld nodded.

“Exactly. So, in realistic terms, until Dohlar and Tarot arrive, what we'll really be facing will be the hundred and fifty or so galleys we always expected Nahrmahn and Hektor to be able to mobilize against us. And, of course, there's the question of just how many of Nahrmahn's will be available, given the apparent interruption of their mail. So the numbers could actually be quite a bit better than that.

“I also doubt that the clever little ‘puppetmasters,' as you put it, Merlin, in the Temple are going to commit Tarot's ships immediately. They're going to rely on the fact that we don't know what they're up to. Gorjah's going to go right on being our loyal ally up until the coin actually drops and they tell him to turn his coat. So, they're probably going to plan on the Dohlarans making rendezvous with the Tarotisians somewhere in the Sea of Justice before either of them enters our waters.”

Merlin sat back in his own chair, nodding thoughtfully. Nimue Alban had been a tactical specialist, and a good one. But Merlin recognized his clear superior as a strategist—at least in this particular sphere of operations—in King Haarahld VII.

“Which route would you expect them to take
after
they make rendezvous, Father?” Cayleb asked.

“That's harder to say.” Haarahld shrugged. “Hopefully, Merlin's visions will tell us that. And also, hopefully, keep track of where they actually are at any given moment.”

He looked at Merlin and raised his eyebrows, and Merlin nodded back.

“I can't guarantee how close a watch I'll be able to keep on all their various fleet commanders, Your Majesty,” he said, “but I ought to be able to track the fleets themselves fairly well.”

“Good,” the king said. “But to get back to your question, Cayleb, the shortest route would be the northern one, up through the Cauldron and the Tranjyr Passage and around the Stepping Stones.”

His finger traced the route as he spoke.

“But that's also the route they'll expect us to be scouting most carefully,” he continued, “so they might opt for the southern passage, especially with the prevailing northeasterlies in the Sea of Justice that time of year.” His finger moved back to the south, down along the eastern coast of Armageddon Reef, across the Parker Sea west of Tryon's Land, and then up past MacPherson's Lament and across Linden Gulf. “It's the longer route, but they might actually make a faster passage. And February's the start of summer in these latitudes, so they'll have the best weather they're likely to get for the crossing. For all the good it's likely to do a fleet of Dohlaran galleys.”

He paused again, gazing down at the map, then looked up, eyes gleaming in the lamplight, and smiled. It was not a pleasant expression.

“But it doesn't really matter which route they plan on following,” he told them. “Either way, they still have to get across at least the southern reaches of the Sea of Justice, and they still have to make rendezvous somewhere. And they don't know Merlin will be able to tell us where they are and when. Which means they won't be expecting us to intercept them several thousand miles from their destination.”

“
Intercept
them, Your Majesty?” Gray Harbor didn't really sound very surprised, Merlin noticed.

“It's the last thing they'll be looking for,” Haarahld said, “and reasonably so. Even assuming we knew they were coming—which I'm sure the geniuses planning this operation will expect we
don't
know—there shouldn't be any way we could even find them. And they won't expect us to split our forces just to run the risk of missing them at sea and letting them past us unintercepted, even if they thought we'd have enough strength to make the attempt.”

“Which means we'll turn
their
surprise around on them,” Cayleb said, and as his eyes brightened, he looked more like his father to Merlin than he ever had before.

“Precisely,” Haarahld agreed. “Sea battles aren't fought by ships, Rayjhis; they're fought by
men
. And the men commanding and crewing those galleys will be dumbfounded when they see Royal Charisian Navy ships standing in to attack them five-days away from Charisian waters. That's likely to produce the sort of panic that takes a fleet halfway to defeat before the enemy fires a single shot.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, it had better produce it,” Gray Harbor said wryly. “I'm assuming you're planning on using the galleons for this?”

“It's the sort of blue-water battle they were designed to fight,” Haarahld said. “It would play to their advantages—and the galleys'
disadvantages
—more strongly than we could arrange anywhere here in home waters.”

“I agree. But to get them there, assuming your worst-case estimate that the ‘Southern Force' could be in our waters by the second five-day in February, the galleons would have to sail by the middle of November. How many of them will we have
then?
”

“Merlin? Cayleb?” Haarahld looked at them, and Merlin glanced at Cayleb.

“What if we abandon work on the ships furthest from completion and concentrate on the ones closest to launch and the conversions?” Cayleb asked him.

“That…might work.” Merlin stroked a mustachio for a moment, then nodded. “If we do that, we could probably have thirty of them ready to sail by the middle of November. Maybe one or two more. But they're still going to be pretty green, Cayleb.”

“The gun crews will be the
least
green,” the prince countered. “And they'll have at least four or five five-days for sail drill—and more gun drill—before we can reach the enemy.”

“That's true enough.” Merlin considered it for a moment, and then they turned as one to face the king.

“I think we might count on thirty, Your Majesty,” Merlin said.

“Against somewhere around a hundred and sixty galleys,” Gray Harbor said.

“Just comparing the numbers looks bad,” Haarahld said. Gray Harbor gave him a politely incredulous look, and the king snorted once more. “All right,” he conceded, “it looks bad because it
is
bad. But it's not
as
bad as it looks. Either this entire new concept of ours works, or it doesn't. And if it's going to work, these are the best conditions we're going to be able to come up with. And don't forget that element of surprise.”

“Indeed,” Bishop Maikel put in. “As you've already pointed out, Your Majesty, surprise begets panic. If the galleons can inflict sufficient damage, and create sufficient panic, the Southern Force may well turn back even if its actual losses are less than crippling. At which point, the galleons can return to home waters, allowing you to concentrate your full strength against the Northern Force.”

“Assuming our own galleys can successfully play tag with them until the galleons
get
back,” Gray Harbor said. The bishop looked at him, and the first councillor smiled crookedly. “I used to be a sea officer, Your Eminence, and every sea officer knows the first law of battle is that what can go wrong,
will
go wrong.”

“True,” Haarahld said. “But that law applies to
both
sides.”

“That's fair enough,” Gray Harbor acknowledged.

“I must be on to something if
you're
prepared to admit that much, Rayjhis!” the king said with a laugh. Then he shook himself and looked around the council chamber more soberly.

“I'm sure there are a lot of points we'll need to refine,” he said, “but I've been thinking about how to deal with Dohlar ever since Merlin first warned us Trynair was talking to Rahnyld. I'm convinced this is our best response. And I'm also convinced that it's imperative that our captains and our crews be as confident and motivated as possible. Especially given the possibility that the fact that the Council of Vicars is really behind all of this, whatever it says, may leak out. Even the most stouthearted are going to feel a few qualms if they think Mother Church has decided we need to be crushed.

“Bearing that in mind, I think it will be necessary for me to take personal command of our galley fleet. Oh,” he waved one hand as Gray Harbor stiffened in his seat, “I know it's been
years
since my own Navy days, Rayjhis! I won't attempt to exercise actual tactical command. That will be up to Bryahn—that's why he's High Admiral! But it's going to be important for our people to know I'm there with them, live or die.”

“Your Majesty, if something were to happen to you—” Gray Harbor began, but the king shook his head.

“If we don't manage to defeat this combination of forces, and defeat it
decisively
, it's over, Rayjhis,” he said quietly. “We've got to at the very least win another six months or a year, more preferably two or three years, to get more of the new ships into commission. And, if
they
defeat
us
, it doesn't matter where I am when it happens. If having me there, if knowing I'm with them, helps our people fight more effectively—and you know as well as I do that it will—then that's where I have to be.”

Gray Harbor stared into his monarch's hard, unyielding eyes for a long, silent moment. Then his own eyes fell.

“And me, Father?” Cayleb asked, breaking the silence.

“And you, my son,” King Haarahld said soberly, meeting Cayleb's gaze steadily, “will be with Admiral Staynair—and Merlin—with the galleon fleet.”

Cayleb's eyes brightened. Gray Harbor, on the other hand, seemed to hover on the brink of a fresh protest, and the king smiled at him without any humor at all.

“Everything I just said about the importance of our galleys' morale is even more true of the galleon fleet, Rayjhis,” he said. “However confident they may be, no one's ever fought a battle like this one will be, and they'll be outnumbered much more heavily than the galley fleet will be. They'll
need
to have someone from the royal house there, and Cayleb's spent the last year learning everything there is to know about the new ships and the new artillery.”

“And me, Your Majesty?” Gray Harbor asked very quietly. “Where do
I
fit into this master strategy of yours?”

“Exactly where you're afraid you do,” Haarahld said sadly. “Right here in Tellesberg, as the head of the Privy Council and as Zhan's regent if something should happen to Cayleb and me.”