Off Armageddon Reef (78 page)

“The best way for them to get themselves back into some sort of order would be to find someplace to anchor, at least long enough to get their squadrons reorganized,” Cayleb continued. “But there's no place for a fleet to anchor between Thomas Point and Rock Point. In fact, if they're looking for a
sheltered
anchorage, there's no place between Rock Point and Crag Hook.

“So, their choices are to continue on their present heading, at least as far as Crag Reach or to try to turn around and go back the way they came. If they get as far as Crag Reach, they might be able to get in behind Opal Island and anchor there. For that matter, the Reach is going to be much more sheltered than the open water, which would suit their galleys a lot better if they want to fight under oars.

“Given how little daylight's left, I doubt they've got time to pass the necessary orders to coordinate any major change of plans, which effectively rules out turning around. So, they're probably going to stay on their present course, spend the night doing the best they can to tighten their formation, and hope we're far enough behind
Spy
that they can get as far as Crag Reach before anything nasty catches up with them. If I'm right, we're going to know exactly where to find them in the morning, and it's important for me to go over our plans with Domynyk one last time and make sure we're in position by dawn to have all day to work on these people.

“And, of course,” he grinned, “if I'm
not
right, it's going to be up to you to tell me about it so I can think up some semi-plausible reason to change
our
course.”

“Don't forget the weather,” Merlin cautioned.

The clouds coming in from the northeast marked the leading edge of a series of low-pressure fronts. His satellite observation indicated that the leading front, which was already almost upon them, was a fairly mild one, without the violent thunderstorms such fronts frequently brought. It was going to dump quite a bit of rain, and the wind was going to strengthen, but it should have passed through by sometime before dawn. His best current estimate was that it would push weather conditions to about Force Six, with winds of around twenty five or twenty-six miles per hour, and ten to thirteen-foot seas.

But the front coming on its heels was more powerful, with winds which might reach Force Seven and seas as high as seventeen or eighteen feet.

“I'm not forgetting it,” Cayleb assured him, and smiled unpleasantly. “But Malikai isn't going to know it's coming, so it's not going to affect any orders he may try to pass before nightfall. And if the weather makes up, it's going to favor us over them.”

“Any changes in the standing orders, Sir?” Lieutenant Zhoelsyn asked. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the sound of the cold, steady rain, but he tried to keep any anxiety out of his voice as he relieved
King Gorjah II
's first lieutenant, Leeahm Maikelsyn.

“None,” Lieutenant Maikelsyn replied. He gazed at Zhoelsyn for a moment, then shrugged. “There's not very much we can do but hold our present course, Phylyp.”

Zhoelsyn started to say something, but he stopped himself and simply nodded, instead. It was a pitch-dark, moonless night, the wind was freshening, the sea was making up, everyone on deck was soaked and miserable, despite their oil-skins, and the lookouts could barely see the poop and masthead lanterns of the closest ships through the falling rain. It was possible Duke Malikai could have ordered a course change before nightfall, if he'd responded promptly to the sighting report, but he hadn't. Now it had become a physical impossibility. All they could do was hold their present course through the rain and hope.

Everyone knew that, but no one knew where that schooner had come from. Or how it could possibly have found them
here
.

It's probably just a scout,
Zhoelsyn told himself for the thousandth time.
For that matter, it might even be no more than one of their merchant ships, swinging wide of the normal shipping routes because there's a war on. A lot of their merchant masters are ex-naval officers, after all. If one of
them
stumbled across us completely by accident, he'd know how important it was to get closer, find out everything he can before he heads back to Charis with his warning.

Whatever it was, surely the Charisians couldn't possibly have diverted enough of their naval strength to waters this far from Rock Shoal Bay to threaten the combined fleet! The very idea was so insane that there was no wonder Malikai had felt no need to risk the confusion of trying to turn his spread-out fleet around. And yet, there that sail had been, heading straight towards them.

“Very well, Master Maikelsyn,” Zhoelsyn said formally. “I relieve you.”

“All right, then. We all understand what we need to do tomorrow,” Cayleb said.

He, Sir Domynyk Staynair, their flag captains, Merlin, and Lieutenant Falkhan sat around the dining table in HMS
Dreadnought
's flag cabin while rain drummed on the cabin skylight and pattered against the stern windows.

Cayleb had no idea of the real reason Merlin had suggested that particular name for the first of the purpose-built gun-armed galleons, but he and his father had both agreed it fit perfectly.
Dreadnought
was almost forty feet longer than the Charisian Navy's older galleons. Admiral Staynair had retained HMS
Gale
as his flagship, but
Dreadnought
carried fifty-four guns to the older ship's thirty-six. She'd also been designed from the beginning with an unbroken sheer, without the exaggerated castles at either end. Her forecastle and quarterdeck were only about six feet higher than her maindeck, connected by bulwarks and spar decks for line handlers, and she carried all of her guns at maindeck level or higher. Despite the fact that she was generally sleeker and lower slung than her older sister—in proportion to her length, at least—the lower sills of her gunports were almost fifteen feet above her waterline, compared to only nine feet for
Gale
. And her greater ratio of length to beam and more powerful sail plan meant she was faster, as well.

Her greater size had also made her a logical choice as a flagship, and she'd been provided with the sizable (for a cramped, crowded, sail-powered ship, at least) quarters to accommodate an admiral. Or, in this case, a crown prince acting as an admiral.

“I think we understand, Your Highness,” Admiral Staynair replied. He looked a great deal like a younger version of his older brother, although his beard was considerably less luxuriant. Indeed, he favored a dagger-style rather like Merlin's, except for Merlin's waxed mustachios. Now he smiled at his crown prince.

“If we don't, it's not because you haven't made it sufficiently clear, at any rate,” he added.

“I don't mean to nag, Domynyk,” Cayleb said with a rueful smile of his own. “And I'm not trying to pretend I know your job as well as you do. It's just—”

“It's just that the ultimate responsibility is yours, Your Highness,” Staynair interrupted, and shook his head. “I understand that, too. And, believe me, I don't feel at all as if you don't trust me. For that matter, you've probably got as much experience in handling squadrons of gun-armed galleons as
I
do! But, all the same, it's time for you to relax as much as you can.”

Cayleb looked at him in surprise, and the admiral shrugged.

“You need to have your head clear tomorrow, Your Highness,” he said firmly. “And you need to remember it's not just your squadron commanders and captains who understand what we have to do. By this time, every man in the fleet understands, just as they know you've led them straight to the enemy. Believe me, they also know just how close to impossible that was. They have complete confidence in you and in their weapons, and they know exactly what the stakes are. If mortal men
can
win this battle, they
will
win it for you.”

He held Cayleb's eyes for several seconds, until, slowly, the prince nodded.

“So, what
you
need to do right now, is to get as much sleep as you can,” Staynair continued then. “You're going to have decisions to make tomorrow. Be sure your mind is fresh enough to make the decisions worthy of the men under your command.”

“You're right, of course,” Cayleb said after a moment. “On the other hand, I don't know how much sleep I
can
get tonight. I'll do my best, though.”

“Good. And now,” Staynair glanced up at the cabin lamp, swaying on its gimbals above the table, and listened to the sound of the rain and steadily freshening wind, “I'd best be getting back to
Gale
before the sea gets any higher.”

He grimaced as a harder gust of rain drove against the skylight, then smiled at Captain Bowsham.

“Khanair and I are going to get soaked enough as it is,” he added.

“Of course,” Cayleb agreed. He glanced around the table one more time, then picked up his wineglass and raised it. “Before you go, though, one last toast.”

All the others reclaimed their own glasses and raised them.

“The King, Charis, victory, and damnation to the enemy!” Cayleb said strongly.

“
Damnation to the enemy!
” rumbled back at him, and crystal sang as the glasses touched.

Merlin Athrawes stood with Ahrnahld Falkhan and Captain Manthyr behind Crown Prince Cayleb on HMS
Dreadnought
's quarterdeck in the strengthening gray light and windy predawn chill as Father Raimahnd raised his voice in prayer.

Raimahnd Fuhllyr was Charisian-born. As such, it was unlikely he would ever be permitted to rise above his present rank of upper-priest, but he was still an ordained priest of the Church of God Awaiting. And he was also a priest who knew, just as Cayleb had made certain everyone else aboard his ships knew, who had truly orchestrated this unprovoked attack upon Charis. Not just upon their king, but upon their homes and families, as well.

Now Merlin watched the flagship's chaplain's back carefully. Fuhllyr stood beside the ship's bell at the quarterdeck rail, facing out towards the assembled ship's company, which meant Merlin couldn't see his face and expression. But what he saw in the under-priest's ramrod-straight spine, and heard in Fuhllyr's voice, was satisfying…and perhaps as troubling as it was reassuring to the man who'd brought such changes to Charis.

“And now,” Fuhllyr brought his prayer to a close, his voice firm and strong against the wind's whine through the rigging, “as the Archangel Chihiro prayed before the final battle against the forces of darkness, we make bold to say: O God, You know how busy we must be this day about Your work. If we forget You, do not You, O Lord, forget us. Amen.”

“Amen!” rumbled back from the assembled crew with an angry ardor.

Merlin's amen sounded right along with the others, as fervent as any he'd ever uttered, despite the reference to “the Archangel Chihiro's” plagiarization of Sir Jacob Astley's battle prayer. Yet Fuhllyr's very sincerity, the fact that there'd been no reservations in any of his sermons to
Dreadnought
's company from the day they sailed, only underscored something he felt certain the Group of Four hadn't counted on.

Merlin didn't know how much of their decision to destroy Charis had sprung from genuine concern about the kingdom's orthodoxy and how much had been simply the cynical power calculation of an arrogant, thoroughly corrupt hierarchy. He suspected that
they
probably didn't know. But one thing he did know, was that it had never occurred to them for an instant that their plan to crush Charis might not succeed. Nor, whatever they might have
thought
they feared, did they have any true conception of what a genuine religious war might entail. But if they'd been able to hear Father Raimahnd this morning, perhaps they might have recognized in the sound of his firm, angry,
consecrated
voice, the death knell of their undisputed mastery over Safehold.

It was exactly what Merlin had wanted, although he'd never wanted it this soon, before he—and Charis—had had time to prepare for it. But Nimue Alban had been a student of military history, and so, unlike the Group of Four, Merlin
did
know what all-out religious war could be like, and as he listened to that hard, powerful “Amen!” and joined his own to it, the heart he no longer had was cold within him.

Cayleb turned his head, surveying his flagship one last time. The decks had been sanded for traction. The guns had already been run in, loaded with round shot and a charge of grape, and run back out. Marines, armed with the new muskets and bayonets, were positioned along the spar deck hammock nettings and in the fighting tops, along with sailors manning the swivel guns Safeholdians called “wolves” which were mounted there. Buckets of sand and water for firefighting, should it prove necessary. Boat chocks, empty where the boats had been swayed out to tow astern. Above the deck, the rigging and sails stood in sharp, geometric patterns, capturing the power of the wind itself. And
below
decks, Merlin knew, as he watched one of the younger midshipmen swallow hard, the healers and surgeons waited with their knives and saws.

“Very well, Captain Manthyr,” Cayleb said finally, deliberately raising his voice for others to hear as he turned to his flag captain. “Please hoist that signal for me.”

“Aye, aye, Your Majesty!” Manthyr replied crisply, and nodded to Midshipman Kohrby. “Hoist the signal, if you please, Master Kohrby.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” Kohrby saluted, then turned to issue sharp, clear orders of his own to the signal party.

The hoist rose quickly to the yardarm just as the rising sun, with perfect timing, heaved itself over the cloud-girt eastern horizon. It illuminated the signal flags in rich, golden light, and a huge, hungry cheer went up from
Dreadnought
's company. Few of them could read that signal hoist, but all of them had been told what it said, and Merlin's lips twitched under his mustachios.

If I'm the only person on this entire planet who remembers any of Old Earth's history
, he thought,
I might as well go ahead and crib all the good lines I can think of!

Cayleb had loved the message when Merlin had suggested it to him last night, following Staynair's departure.

“Charis expects that every man will do his duty,” those flags said, and as the rising sun picked out the signal, Merlin heard
Dreadnought
's cheer echoing wildly from her next astern, frayed by the wind but powerful.

Cayleb turned to him with a smile.

“Well, you were certainly right about that,” he said. “In fact, I—”

“Sail ho!” The shout from the lookout echoed down.

“
Enemy in sight!
”

Earl Thirsk heaved himself up into
Gorath Bay
's crow's-nest, panting from the exhausting climb up the ratlines. He was too old—and too out of shape—for that sort of exertion these days, but he had to see this for himself.

He settled his back against the vibrating tree trunk of the mast, and forced himself not to wrap one arm about something to steady himself. The galley's roll was far more pronounced this high above the deck, and the crow's-nest seemed to be swooping through an even wide arc than he knew was the case.

It's been too long since I had to climb up here
, a corner of his mind thought, but it was only a very distant reflection as his own eyes confirmed the lookout's impossible reports.

The wind had freshened steadily overnight and veered around perhaps one point to the north. The waves were high enough to make rowing far worse than merely awkward, especially for the Dohlaran galleys, with their lower oarports, and shallower hulls. In fact, he knew he was driving
Gorath Bay
harder than was really safe under these conditions, and if he'd dared, he would have considered ordering his squadron to take a third reef to reduce sail area further.

But the one thing he couldn't possibly do was to reduce speed. Not when there was already such a gap between his squadron and Duke Malikai's flagship.
King Raynahld
was hull-down from
Gorath Bay
's deck, almost completely out of sight, and White Ford's ships were even further ahead. This was no time to let the gap between them widen…especially not when at least twenty-five galleons of the Royal Charisian Navy were bearing down upon the spread out, straggling “formation” of the combined fleet.

They couldn't be here. Despite the evidence of his eyes, despite the golden kraken on black flying from their mizzen peaks, his mind insisted upon repeating that disbelieving thought. Even if Haarahld had known what was coming, he couldn't possibly have predicted where to find the combined fleet! And only a madman would have sent so much of his own navy out into the middle of this vast wasteland of saltwater on some quixotic quest to find the enemy.

And yet, there they were.

The rain which had soaked the fleet all through the night had started to taper off as the overcast began breaking up shortly before dawn. There were still a few lines of showers following behind it, though, and fresh clouds were billowing up along the eastern horizon, promising still more rain by nightfall. And the earlier rainfall had reduced visibility to no more than a few miles until it cleared, which explained how those galleons could have gotten so near without being spotted.

Of course, it
didn't
explain how those same galleons could have known exactly where the fleet was through that same curtain of rain.

He drew a deep breath and raised his spyglass to examine the enemy.

He'd never seen sailing ships hold such precise formation. That was his first thought, as the lead ships of the two columns bearing down upon him swam into focus through the spyglass.

I've never seen that many
gunports
before, either,
he thought a moment later as he watched them surging boldly through the whitecaps and ten-foot waves in explosions of flying spray. Obviously the rumors about how many guns the Charisians were putting aboard their galleons had been accurate. In fact, it looked as if they'd probably
understated
the ships' armaments.

As he continued to study them, he began picking out differences between the individual ships. At least half of them must be converted merchant ships, he decided. All of them had the new, Charisian-invented sail plans, but the conversions were smaller, although some of them seemed to have more gunports even than ships considerably bigger than they were. He was willing to bet they didn't all handle equally well, either, although there was no evidence of that yet. Still, they were approaching at least half again his own ships' speed, and they were doing it under topsails and headsails alone. It was obvious they still had speed and maneuverability in reserve…unlike his own laboring, foul-bottomed galleys with their single sails.

His mouth tightened at the thought. These weather conditions hugely favored the more seaworthy, more weatherly galleons. Almost worse, he knew his own stunned disbelief at seeing those ships here must be echoing through the entire fleet as the sighting reports were confirmed, demoralizing his officers and crews. The morning's prayers and exhortations from his ships' chaplains, for all the fervor with which they'd been delivered, weren't going to change that. And when those already frightened and apprehensive crews realized just how great a maneuver advantage the enemy held, their demoralization was going to get still worse.

Stop that!
he told himself.
Yes, it's going to be bad
.
Accept that
.
But you've still got over a hundred and fifty ships against no more than thirty! That's an advantage of five-to-one!

He nodded sharply, crisply, and lowered his spyglass, then swung down from the crow's-nest and started clambering back down the ratlines to the deck. All the way down, he repeated the numbers to himself, over and over again.

It didn't help.

His feet finally touched the deck, and he handed the spyglass to a white-faced midshipman, then walked gravely, calmly, across to Captain Maikel.

“There are twenty-five or thirty of them,” he said levelly, waving one hand in the direction of the clutter of topsails appearing against the blue-patched, shredding gray rain clouds to the northeast. “They're formed in two columns. It looks to me as if they're planning to cut straight through our line—such as it is, and what there is of it”—his mouth twitched in a smile which held at least a ghost of genuine humor—“and then try to chew up whatever they catch between them.”

He paused, and Maikel nodded in understanding, his expression strained.

“If they hold their present course, their weather column's going to cut across
our
course at least five or six miles ahead of us. I suspect—” he smiled again, tightly “—that
King Rahnyld
's sheer size has attracted their attention and they're planning to make her their first objective. If that happens, all we can do is maintain our present heading and try to come to the Duke's aid as quickly as we can.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Maikel said when the earl paused once more.

“Signal the rest of the squadron to maintain course and close up on us. I know most of them won't be able to, but every little bit will help.”

“At once, My Lord.” Maikel nodded to Lieutenant Mathysyn. “See to it,” he said.

“After that, Captain,” Thirsk said, “all we can do is prepare for battle.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Maikel bowed, and as Thirsk walked across to the weather bulwark and gazed up to windward at those oncoming topsails, he heard the deep-throated drums booming out the call to battle.