The Lore Of The Evermen (Book 4) (19 page)

23

Miro stood at the wooden dock of Castlemere’s harbor, feeling the sea breeze cool on his skin and watching Deniz as he tacked back and forth, bringing the
Seekrieger
into the harbor against the wind. He heard the Veldrin commodore’s crisp commands as he barked orders, the crew reefing the sails and taking them in all the way, bringing the ship up against the dock with a gentle nudge.

Deniz’s men lowered a gangway, and Miro walked up to the foot of the ramp, waiting impatiently. “What news?” Miro demanded as the commodore came down to meet him.

“They’re two day’s sailing away,” Deniz said. “We could see the command ships—they’re the ones flying golden pennants—but we stayed clear of them. We had a brief engagement.”

“You were supposed to wait for support . . .” Miro interrupted.

“We know what we’re doing,” Deniz stated. “Some of their ships were drifting. Easy pickings. We sank two, and we took a prisoner.”

Deniz motioned and two of his men dragged a struggling, disheveled, pale-skinned man in a gray robe down the gangway. Miro’s eyed widened when he recognized an Akari necromancer. The pale-skinned man glared at Miro and spat a curse. Miro heard something about the Nightlord taking him but closed his ears to the rest.

“You want him?” Deniz said.

Miro smiled grimly. “Apologies,” he said. “Well done. We
certainly
do.”

Miro gestured and two bladesingers came forward to take the necromancer from the Veldrins. “Take him up to the main camp, behind the killing ground,” Miro said to the two men in green armorsilk.

“Be careful,” Deniz said. “He’s a handful.”

“Don’t worry,” Miro said. He grinned at Deniz. “We know what we’re doing.”

Miro left the prisoner in Beorn’s capable hands while he discussed strategy with Scherlic and Deniz. When dawn came, the two men would lead their forces against the armada.

In just a few hours, the naval defense of the Empire
would begi
n.

Miro kept turning to ask Beorn’s opinion, forgetting he was absent. He tried not to think about the grisly task he’d assigned his loyal commander.

“Our chances are not good,” Scherlic said. “We have eight Buchalanti vessels, and the commodore here has fourteen Veldrin warships. Twenty-two in our two squadrons all told, fighting an opposing force five or six times that number.”

“We have a few advantages,” Deniz said. “Their ships are heavy in the water. When we sank the two ships today, revenants spilled out; each ship carries hundreds of them. We were able to outsail them and broadside them with our cannon before they could react. They are heavily armed, though, and their warships have more
cannon
than ours. They sail in proper formation, with fast scouts at the sides and cruisers deployed around the warships. The occasional ship drifts, but someone among them knows naval tactics.”

“How is that possible?” Miro said. “I can understand using
revenants
to man the cannon, but naval strategy?”

“I don’t know.” Deniz shrugged. “But we’ll soon find out.”

“Do you think we can stop them in the sea?”

Commodore Deniz hesitated. “No. Scherlic is correct. They’ll wear us down with sheer numbers.”

Miro looked from one face to the other. Both men were stone-faced. “I understand,” Miro said.

He knew what he was asking these two brave men and their crews to do. They all knew that every ship sunk meant several
hundred
revenants the enemy would lose to the ocean. Even so, Miro didn’t know if the Buchalanti and the Veldrins would fight to the end; it was something only they could decide for themselves.

“High Lord.” Miro turned when he heard a voice. Beorn entered the command tent with his mouth set in a thin line, blood staining his lord marshal’s uniform.

“What news?” Miro said.

“He’s dead,” Beorn said flatly. “He lasted to the end, the wretched creature. Fanaticism like that makes me sick. I hope his soul rots wherever it is now.”

“So you found out nothing?”

“He gave us something, but I have no doubt he was holding a great deal back. There are over a hundred vessels in the armada. Among them are different factions from across the sea: Sentar
Scythran
has enlisted three kings into his service. Each brings his own ships, along with his own men. One has a red flag with blue crossed swords. Another device is a white trident on a field of blue. The third king’s flag is black-and-white checked.”

“Farix, the pirate king of Torian,” Deniz said. “He is the first, the one with the red flag and blue swords. Diemos of Rendar is the one with the white trident on blue, and the black-checkered flag can only be Gorain, the king of Nexos.”

“What do you mean ‘enlisted?’” Miro asked. “Why would
anyone
in their right mind follow the Lord of the Night?”

“They’re revenants, just like the others, but under duress the necromancer said Sentar personally brought them back. They’re almost the men they were in life, and can give orders and plan
strategy
. Sentar has made promises in return for their service.”

“What promises?” Miro wondered.

“Does it matter?” Beorn said.

“My guess is Sentar Scythran says what he needs to in order to control his subordinates,” Deniz said. “These men will be dangerous opponents.”

“What else?” Miro asked Beorn.

“The necromancer said Sentar plans to drive all the way through from Sarostar to Seranthia overland,” Beorn said, scratching at his beard. “He ranted a lot about the Lord of the Night’s rightful place as god of all Merralya. You know, the usual stuff.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Deniz said. He glanced at the Buchalanti sailmaster. “We face the hardest day of our lives
tomorrow
. I must rejoin my men.”

“Deniz,” Miro said. “Before you go”—he paused, not knowing what to say—“I’ll see your people returned to Veldria. You have
my wor
d.”

“Thank you, Miro,” Deniz said. “But for me Veldria is dead.”

The fourteen Veldrin warships left Castlemere in a
precise
line, each captain knowing his duty, and every crewman leaping to follow orders. The faster Buchalanti ships would follow on
their hee
ls.

As Deniz left the placid waters of the sheltered harbor behind, he felt a strange sense of calm and pleasure as the
Seekrieger
easily met the larger waves, and looking up, he saw the great sails
snapping
in the wind. It was a good day for a fight.

The dawn sky was brilliant and beautiful, with shades of peach and orange spreading across to banish the last of nighttime blue as the rising sun in the east shone on the
Seekrieger
’s stern. Deniz’s ship flew the blue and brown colors of Veldria tall and proud, with a second gold flag indicating this was the squadron’s flagship, with the commodore as effective admiral.

Deniz had been denied a naval engagement when the revenants came to Veldria. Emirald had been taken by surprise. Today he would show his enemy what they’d missed.

The wind came across his beam, and when he turned to meet the armada, he would have the all-important wind gauge. Deniz’s ships would be able to broadside the enemy with impunity for the first moments of the battle. The guns were out, and the weather was good. His marines were ready with grapples and muskets, and he even had a bladesinger, one of the fierce Alturan swordsmen he’d heard so many rumors about, standing tall and proud with his hands on the rail.

Deniz heard a cheer and saw his crew look to the left. The Buchalanti ships flew past him as if he were standing still, and Deniz raised a fist into the air and cheered along with his men. The three storm riders led the graceful vessels, with the
Infinity
foremost, sails blazing as runes activated and deactivated, and Deniz could swear he heard the sounds of sonorous chanting from the sailmasters.

Two blue cruisers followed the storm riders: these were
bigger
than the
Infinity
, and Deniz classed them as merchantmen,
somewhere
between a cargo ship and a war vessel.

Finally, the dreadnoughts passed by close on the
Seekrieger
’s port side.

The two lumbering ships, each nearly as big as a Veldrin
warship
, followed in the wake of the Buchalanti blue cruisers. Deniz corrected himself: they weren’t lumbering; they easily out-distanced the
Seekrieger
, but in comparison with the storm riders, they were slow. Deniz had yet to see the dreadnoughts in action. Scherlic said they needed to conserve their power.

The nimbler Buchalanti ships would approach the enemy from the rear. It was deemed best for the two fleets not to get in each other’s way, and when the enemy came to meet the
Veldrin
fleet, the Buchalanti would hopefully surprise them from the other side.

Deniz watched as the Buchalanti vessels grew smaller and finally disappeared into the distance. Hours passed by in a blur, the ocean beckoned, and Deniz tacked to gain speed, noting each of the following warships tack behind him in perfect synchronization. The waves grew in size, and the color of the water changed until it was the deep blue of the open zone. Deniz put on all sail and felt his ship lean forward like a Narean racing horse at the gate.

“Sails, ho!” the lookout called.

“Where away?”

“Dead north, Commodore!”

Deniz risked one more tack, drawing close at an oblique angle to confuse the enemy, and he watched the incredible vision of countless sails appear out of the horizon. He checked the line behind him and nodded, then returned to watching the armada.

He could now make out individual ships on the fringes; these were smaller scouts, faster than Deniz’s warships, and they fled as he approached, heading for the safety of the larger cruisers and
warships
, huddling close to the bigger ships like a duckling seeking its mother’s protection.

“Send the order! Close ranks!” Deniz cried.

He turned a point closer to the wind and bled speed to give his fleet time to draw up into battle formation. Deniz didn’t want any gaps in his line when he fired the cannon.

Deniz was now close enough to make out individual men, and he gasped.

Every ship, large and small, swarmed with men. They were in the rigging and clustered on the decks, the vessels wallowing so heavily they no doubt filled the holds. As Deniz’s Veldrin
squadron
approached, he could now make out the glow of runes on the enemy ships’ planking, though he didn’t know what the purpose of the lore was. He put it out of his mind; there was nothing he could do about it now.

Their cargoes of revenants would make these ships slow, and the warriors on the decks would get in the way of the sailors, Deniz reminded himself. The advantage was his.

“Ready . . . Tack!” Deniz cried.

The
Seekrieger
heeled over, and the snapping mainsail swung the heavy boom from one side of the ship to the other with deadly force. The sound of more sails resounded like the cracking of whips, and Deniz almost laughed with the beauty of it; these men were the best crew he’d ever sailed with. With perfect precision, every
following
warship in Deniz’s line tacked at just the right moment, turning hard from one keel to the other, close enough now that a daring man could leap from one Veldrin warship to the next. The ships now traveled bow to stern, moving past the prows of the enemy vessels, the cannon murderously facing just where they needed to be.

There was no point in parlay. This army was the same force that had destroyed Veldria. This was war.

“Fire!”
Deniz roared.

The report of the cannon crashed through the air, a booming thunder that shook the
Seekrieger
and sent her heeling before she righted herself.

Behind him he heard another boom, and then after a
heartbeat’s
pause, another growl of thunder. If they’d fired together, their strength would have been wasted; the task was to launch each salvo one after the next. Deniz’s captains knew exactly what to do.