At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.II.

Battery St. Thermyn,

Basset Island,

HMS Eraystor, 22;

HMS Destiny, 54;

and

HMS Hurricane, 60,

Saram Bay,

Province of Stene,

Harchong Empire.

“What’s that, Sir?”

Captain of Spears Thaidin Chinzhou looked up from the cup of tea cradled in his gloved hands at the question. Sergeant Yinkow Gaihin stood on the rampart, pointing out across Basset Channel. The early morning sun gilded Battery St. Thermyn in chill golden light, spilling down from a sky that was crystal-clear to the south and east but layered with steadily spreading, dramatic cloud coming down from the northwest. Chinzhou was a native of Stene Province, and he could almost smell the late-winter snow hiding in those clouds. It wouldn’t be that many more five-days before spring actually put in an appearance, but winter obviously wasn’t giving in without a fight.

He shook that thought aside, handed the teacup regretfully back to the private with the straw-wrapped demijohn of hot tea, and climbed the steps to Gaihin’s side.

“What’s what, Sergeant?”

He really tried not to sound testy, and Gaihin had been with him for the better part of a year now. He was also more than ten years older than his section commander, and he only twitched a shoulder apologetically and pointed again.

“That, Sir,” he said, and for the first time, the concern in his voice registered with the youthful captain of spears.

Chinzhou’s sun-dazzled eyes saw nothing for a moment and he stepped behind the sergeant, peering along the outstretched arm and pointing finger, shading his eyes with one hand. Still he saw nothing … but then he did, and his spine stiffened.

“That’s smoke, Sergeant,” he said very, very softly. “And it’s moving.”

* * *

A hand knocked sharply on the cabin door, and Admiral Caitahno Raisahndo looked up from his plate with a frown. He hated interruptions during breakfast. Especially during working breakfasts, which this one most assuredly was. The rumors about heretic shipping movements were enough to make anyone nervous … and especially the “anyone” who happened to have inherited command of the Western Squadron, the Kingdom of Dohlar’s sole remaining forward-deployed naval force in the Gulf of Dohlar. That squadron had been heavily reinforced since the Battle of the Kaudzhu Narrows, which was a good thing. But those rumors suggested the heretics had been reinforced even more heavily, and that could be a very bad thing.

Unfortunately, while the heretics’ spies and intelligence sources were clearly fiendishly—he tried very hard not to use the word “demonically” even in the privacy of his own thoughts—good, his own were … less good. All he had to go on were those rumors.

So far at least.

“Yes?” he called in response to the knock.

“Flag Lieutenant, Sir!” the sentry outside his day cabin announced, and Caitahno glanced at Commander Gahryth Kahmelka. Kahmelka was his chief of staff—and Raisahndo didn’t give much of a damn whether or not anyone approved of his adoption of the “heretical” Charisian term; it was too frigging useful a description and a function which had become self-evidently necessary—and the commander normally had a finger on the pulse of anything to do with the entire squadron. In this case, however, he only shrugged his own ignorance.

Fat lot of help that is, Raisandho thought, and raised his voice again.

“Enter!” he said, and a short, slender officer stepped into the cabin.

“Message from Captain Kharmahdy, Sir,” Lieutenant Ahrnahld Mahkmyn said, and extended an envelope.

“A written message?”

“Yes, Sir. It just came out from dockside in a boat.”

“I see.” Raisahndo accepted the envelope and looked at Kahmelka again, one eyebrow raised.

“No idea, Sir,” Kahmelka replied to the silent question. “Must be some reason he didn’t use signals, but damned if I can think of one.”

“Not one we’ll like, you mean,” Raisahndo said sourly, and Kahmelka’s answering snort was harsh. There’d been a lot of messages neither of them had liked in the months since the Kaudzhu Narrows action, and with Sir Dahrand Rohsail invalided home minus an arm and a leg, responsibility for dealing with those messages had devolved on one Caitahno Raisahndo.

The admiral looked down at the canvas envelope, addressed in Captain Styvyn Kharmahdy’s clerk’s handwriting, stitched shut, and secured with a wax seal.

Kharmahdy commanded the Dohlaran shore establishment: not simply the Dohlaran manned batteries protecting the immediate base area, but also its warehouses, dockyards, service craft, powder magazines, sail lofts, and everything else associated with keeping the Squadron in fighting trim. Under other circumstances, he would have been accorded the title of “port admiral” and given the rank to go with it, but Duke Fern had decreed otherwise in this case. Apparently the First Councilor had worried it might offend their Harchongese hosts in Rhaigair. But if Kharmahdy remained a mere captain, he was also a very capable—and levelheaded—sort of fellow. It wasn’t like him to go off into fits of anxiety or panic, but this envelope was far heavier than usual. Obviously, the commodore’s clerk had tucked a handful of musket balls into it before he handed it to the messenger. That was a security measure designed to carry it to the bottom if it strayed out of authorized hands, and Raisahndo’s sense of trepidation sharpened as he wondered why that had seemed necessary.

The most probable answer was that Kharmahdy was relaying a message from Dohlar which had just arrived by coded semaphore or messenger wyvern, and if it was important enough to send by itself rather than waiting for the regular afternoon mail delivery, it was unlikely to contain good news. Which, given what had happened to Earl Thirsk’s family a few months ago—and how it had happened—was more than enough to send his heart down to somewhere in the vicinity of his shoe soles.

Stop procrastinating, he told himself. Sooner or later, you have to open the damned thing!

He exhaled, picked up the cheese knife, and slit the envelope’s stitches. Then he laid the knife down, extracted the single sheet of paper, and unfolded it.

His face tightened, and he made himself reread the brief, concise note a second time.

At least it’s not an announcement that the Earl’s been arrested, Caitahno, he thought. Be grateful for that much! Not that this is any better.

“Well, I suppose I understand why he didn’t use signals.” His tone was dry, but his brown eyes were very dark as he looked up at Kahmelka and extended the message. “No point spreading panic any sooner than we have to. But it would appear the question of the heretics’ intentions has just been answered.”

* * *

“Finger Cape off the starboard bow, Sir,” the lookout called, then bent over the pelorus mounted on HMS Eraystor’s bridge wing and peered through the aperture in the raised sighting vanes. It was another of the plethora of new devices coming out of Charis these days, and he measured the angle carefully against the lubber line before he looked back over his shoulder.

“Seventeen degrees, relative, Sir.”

“Very good,” Zhaikyb Gregori said and turned to the bridge messenger at his elbow.

“My respects to the Captain and Admiral Zhastro,” he said. “Inform them Finger Cape is now visible from the bridge, a point and a half off the starboard bow. I estimate we’ll be abreast the battery there in approximately forty minutes.”

* * *

Captain of Swords Raikow Kaidahn stood in the observation tower atop Battery St. Thermyn, gazing through the tripod-mounted spyglass at the bizarre-looking vessels making their way steadily—and with complete disregard for wind or current—through South Channel into the broad waters of Saram Bay. He’d waited for the last half hour, holding his followup reports to Rhagair until he had something more definite than smoke to report. Now he did, and he wished to hell he didn’t. Or that he could have done something more effective than sending in reports about them, anyway.

Unfortunately for anything he might have done, however, those ships were at least seven miles from his battery’s site on the very tip of the long, thin ribbon of Finger Cape. Known with very little affection to its occupants, who deeply resented being given their current assignment, as “the Finger” (after the hand gesture which expressed much the same meaning it once had on Old Terra), the cape projecting into the channel from Basset Island was over ten miles long, but less than a mile and a half across at its widest, and its highest elevation was little more than forty feet above sea level at high tide. That made things … interesting when heavy weather blew up the channel and sent seas crashing clear across it. In fact, in Raikow Kaidahn’s considered opinion, the Finger was a miserable, waterlogged sandbar at the best of times … which winter in Stene Province wasn’t. Just building a battery on it had required more than a little ingenuity out of the Imperial Harchongese Army’s engineers.

And keeping the damned thing here’s required a hell of a lot more, he thought moodily.

The winter’s storms had not been kind to him or his gunners—they’d had to evacuate the battery twice, and each time repairs had amounted to effectively rebuilding it afterward—and he couldn’t really understand why Lord of Horse Golden Grass had stuck them out here in the first place. They hadn’t even been equipped with any of the new rifled artillery pieces, since the navigable channel between the Finger and Saram Head was almost fourteen miles across. No one was coming into range of Battery St. Thermyn unless he was one hell of a bad navigator or wind and weather gave him no choice. For that matter, the channel was literally impossible to defend at all; there was simply no place to put the guns that might have engaged an intruder.

On the other hand, you’re in a good position to warn Rhaigair they’re coming, aren’t you? Not that they’re being particularly stealthy. For that matter, it’s hard to see how those … smokepots could sneak up on Rhaigair, whether we were sitting out on this Shan-wei-damned sandspit or not!

He sighed, straightened his back, and turned to the anxious-faced young captain of spears at his elbow.

“I make it five of the bastards, Thaidin. I don’t see any topsails tagging along, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere. I imagine their galleons’ll keep their distance unless the wind shifts to favor them.” His lips twitched under his pencil thin mustache. “Not like these fellows will need them anytime soon.”

Captain of Spears Chinzhou’s face tightened. For a moment, Kaidahn thought the younger man would accuse him of defeatism. Young Chinzhou was a very devout fellow, who spent too much time with the local inquisitors, in Kaidahn’s opinion. After a moment, though, the captain of spears nodded unhappily.

“I suppose not, Sir,” he acknowledged. “May I?”

He gestured at the spyglass, and Kaidahn nodded and stepped back to let him look through it. His shoulders tightened as the image of the smoke-spewing heretic vessels swam into sharper focus, and Kaidahn didn’t blame him. They were huge, easily two or three hundred feet long, and the enormously long guns protruding from their stepped-back, armored superstructures were enough to strike a chill in any heart.

Especially if the possessor of that heart had read the reports of what those same guns had done to the Desnairian fortifications at Geyra Bay.

Chinzhou gazed at them for at least two minutes before he stood back, shaking his head.

“What do you think Admiral Raisahndo will do, Sir?”

“Whatever he can,” Kaidahn said. “I’ve never met him personally, but I understand he’s a brave and determined man, so I have no doubt of that. As to what he can do against something like this—?”

He gestured at the columns of smoke steaming steadily past their position, and Chinzhou nodded somberly.

I know what he damned well ought to do, though, Kaidahn thought. The wind’s fair for all three channels, and unless those heretic bastards have enough of these things to cover all of them, I’d damned well be getting my ships the Shan-wei out of their way. Of course, the heretics probably have some of their armored galleons waiting out to sea, but I’d a hell of a lot rather take my chances with them than face these things inside the bay.

He considered what he’d just thought for a moment, then smiled grimly.

Maybe young Thaidin would’ve had a point about my “defeatism.” But—any temptation to smile disappeared—in Raisahndo’s shoes, I’d really like to keep at least some of my men alive.

“Well, all we can do is see to it that he’s as well-informed as possible,” he said out loud, and looked at the signalman standing respectfully by the tower rail. “Signal to Admiral Raisahndo, General Cahstnyr, Captain Kharmahdy, and Baron Golden Grass.”

“Yes, Sir,” the signalman replied, pencil poised above his pad.

“‘Have confirmed five—repeat, five—heretic steam ironclads entering Saram Bay. Present position—’ be sure to insert the present time, Chyngdow ‘—approximately seven miles due south of Battery St. Thermyn. Estimated speed ten—repeat, ten—knots.’” He paused a moment, considering whether or not to add something more, then shrugged. “Read that back,” he said.

“Yes, Sir,” the signalman said, and read it back word-for-word.

“Excellent. Get it off immediately.”

“Yes, Sir!”

The signalman bowed in salute and headed for the observation tower’s stairs and the signal mast at the far end of the long, narrow battery. Kaidahn watched him go, then drew a deep breath and turned back to the spyglass.

* * *

“I don’t suppose anyone’s come up with any brilliant ideas in the last couple of hours?” Caitahno Raisahndo asked, smiling with very little humor. Captain of Swords Kaidahn’s message, relayed by the semaphore stations on Basset and Shipworm Island, lay on the chart table aboard HMS Hurricane.

His 60-gun flagship was the lead ship of the most heavily armed class of galleons the Royal Dohlaran Navy had ever built, fitted with the new 6-inch shell-firing smoothbores. That made her one of the most powerful warships in the world … and meant absolutely nothing against the threat steaming towards them.

“I’m afraid not,” Admiral Pawal Hahlynd replied heavily. His armored screw-galleys had been the decisive factor in the Kaudzhu Narrows, but like Hurricane, they were utterly outclassed by the Charisian ships which had demolished the fortifications at Geyra. And these had to be the same ships.

Unless, of course, the bastards have managed to build even more of the Shan-wei-damned things, Raisahndo reminded himself grimly. Don’t forget that delightful possibility.

“Sir,” Commander Kahmelka said in a very careful tone, “the Squadron can’t fight them. I mean, it literally can’t.” He looked at the far more senior officers hiding their thoughts behind faces of stone. “If the Harchongians are right about their speed, not even Admiral Hahlynd’s screw-galleys could hope to maneuver with them. And according to the reports from Geyra, their guns have a range of at least ten thousand yards. With all the courage in the world, our ships would never live to get into our range of them.”

“We can’t just run away, Commander!” Captain Bryntyn Mykylhny said sharply. “And the bastards have to get into the bay in the first place before we start worrying about how we get at them!”

Mykylhny commanded HMS Cyclone, Hurricane’s sister ship, and he’d stepped into a dead man’s shoes to take command of one of Dahrand Rohsail’s divisions at the Kaudzhu Narrows. His promotion to acting commodore had been confirmed by Rohsail as one of his last actions before he went into hospital in Rhaigair, and he’d always been one of Rohsail’s favorites. Raisahndo tried not to hold that against him, reminding himself—again—that however big a pain in the arse Rohsail might be, the supercilious, arrogant, aristocratic son-of-a-bitch had always been one hell of a fighter. And the same was true of Mykylhny … including the arrogant, aristocratic attitude.

“I’m not advocating ‘running away,’ Sir,” Kahmelka said in an even more careful tone. “I’m simply pointing out that if we try to engage them ship-to-ship, we won’t be able to. We’ll be physically unable to, Sir. And, frankly, I don’t think the batteries will keep them out of the inner bay, either.” He shook his head, his expression grim. “I know they’ll give a good account of themselves, but based on the reports from Geyra—and even more on our own analysis of Dreadnought—I don’t think they can hope to get past the heretics’ armor before ships this fast sail right past their muzzles. If they had more elevation, if they could shoot down at their decks, where the armor’s almost certainly thinner, they might be able to inflict some serious damage. But firing directly into their thickest armor?”

He shook his head again.

“They’re coming through, Sir. One way or another, unless we want to assume they won’t have the guts to try, they’ll be off Rhaigair by this time tomorrow.”

He paused, looking around the cabin, but it was obvious no one cared to suggest anything that damned silly where Charisians were concerned. After a moment, he shrugged and continued.

“Under other circumstances, we might do some good by anchoring to help cover the channel exits.” That was, in fact, precisely what the Western Squadron had intended to do in the event of an attack by more conventional opponents. “In this case, I doubt we’d accomplish anything except bringing them into their range of us even sooner. And much as I hate saying this—and, believe me, I do—just one of those ships could easily destroy the entire Squadron … and they have five of them.” He shook his head a third time. “Captain, no one has more respect for the courage and the determination of our officers—and men—than I do. But this isn’t about courage or dedication, or even about devotion to God. It’s about the fact that the Squadron represents sixty percent of the Navy’s entire remaining strength … and that if we stand and fight—try to fight—against the ironclads that destroyed Geyra as a port, we’ll lose it in return for nothing.”

Mykylhny glared at him, and Raisahndo frowned. Kahmelka had been one of Ahlvyn Khapahr’s close friends, and Mykylhny, unfortunately, knew that. He wasn’t quite ready to accuse Kahmelka of guilt by association—Khapahr had had a lot of friends in the Navy, and they couldn’t all have been traitors—but the captain was undeniably … less confident of Khamelka’s fighting spirit than he’d been before Khapahr was unmasked as a Charisian spy.

Personally, Raisahndo wondered if Mykylhny suspected that his admiral’s chief of staff—and his admiral, for that matter—had never believed for a moment that Ahlvyn Khapahr, of all people, could have been a traitor to the flag officer he’d served so long and well. They’d never specifically discussed it, but Raisahndo was fairly positive Kahmelka shared his own suspicions about what Khapahr had really been doing—and the reason someone who’d supposedly been a hired assassin had shot Earl Thirsk in the shoulder, instead of the heart.

And a hell of a lot of good it did in the end, he thought harshly. That bastard Clyntahn still ordered the Earl’s daughters hauled off to Zion. And then the goddamned ship blew up! He shook his head mentally. God knows they—and the Earl—deserved better than that. In fact, I’m pretty damned sure God knows exactly that … whatever that fat fornicator in Zion thinks. And I’m not the only Dohlaran sea officer who thinks that!

He made himself back away from that dangerous thought and focused on Mykylhny, instead.

“I don’t like it either, Captain,” he said quietly, “but Commander Kahmelka’s right.”

A silent sigh seemed to circle the cabin as he said it. Mykylhny’s glare didn’t abate, but it took on a different edge, the edge of a man who knew that what he was hearing wasn’t going to change, however much he might want it to.

“What do you propose we do instead … Sir?” he asked after a moment.

Raisahndo felt a flicker of anger, but he suppressed it. The pause before Mykylhny’s last word hadn’t been one of disrespect, and he knew it. Bitterness and disappointment, yes, but not really disrespect … mostly, anyway.

“From what you’re saying—and I can’t really argue with it, however much I’d like to,” the captain continued, “we’ll never be able to fight these miserable fuckers. In that case, what’s the point in preserving our ships?”

“Well,” Raisahndo was surprised by the almost whimsical edge which crept into his own voice, “I suppose I could point out that preserving the men who crew those ships would probably be worthwhile.” Mykylhny’s face darkened, and the admiral raised a placating hand. “I know what you meant, Captain, and I’m really not trying to be flippant, but our trained manpower represents a vital military resource. Preserving them for the future service of the Crown and Mother Church, whether that’s afloat or ashore, is a legitimate consideration.”

He held Mykylhny’s eyes steadily, and after a moment, the captain nodded. He even had the grace to look a little abashed.

“More to the point, perhaps,” Raisahndo continued, “while we don’t know how many of these … powered ironclads the heretics have, I think it’s unlikely they have a lot of them. Against their conventional galleons—even their ironclad galleons, like Dreadnought—we’ve demonstrated we have a fighting chance. So unless and until they do have enough of these damned things to be everywhere, our ships are still valuable if only as a threat—a fleet in being, if you will—to inhibit the freedom of action of the heretics’ other ships—their ‘conventional’ warships’, I suppose you’d say.” He grimaced. “I don’t like the thought of becoming as passive as the Desnairians were before the heretics went into the Gulf of Jahras after them, but if that’s the only service we can perform for the Jihad, then we’ll damned well perform it!”

Mykylhny’s frustration was obvious, and more than a few of the other officers in the cabin clearly shared it. But they also nodded in unhappy acknowledgment of the admiral’s point.

“So what will we do, Sir?” Mykylhny’s tone was much less confrontational.

“The outer batteries report light heretic units scouting the channels from outside their range,” Raisandho replied. “We don’t know for certain how many galleons they have out beyond our spotters’ horizon, but they’ve got two passages to cover—North Channel and Basset Channel. I imagine—” he produced a wintry smile “—they probably assume their ironclads have South Channel covered. Although,” he added, “I suppose we might be able to work our way around them overnight. Frankly, though, I doubt we could manage it without being spotted.

“One possibility would be to split our own units, send some of them through North Channel and some of them through Basset Channel, but that would simply beg to be defeated in detail. So I propose to sortie with the entire Squadron concentrated. We have two galleons and a screw-galley in dockyard hands and we won’t be able to get them back in time, so Captain Kharmahdy will tow out into the harbor and fire them to prevent their capture.”

His expression showed his unhappiness at that thought, but he continued unflinchingly.

“The rest of the Squadron will get underway within the hour. If I were the heretics, I’d anticipate that anyone trying to evade my ironclads would choose North Channel, because it’s closer to Rhaigair and farther from South Channel. In addition, there’s that damned battery of theirs on Shyan Island. It couldn’t stop us from getting through Basset Channel any more than St. Thermyn or St. Charlz are going to stop the heretics, but it would still be a factor in my thinking.

“The wind’s almost dead out of the northwest, so it’ll serve equally well for either, and the channel mouths are over eighty miles apart. They may have opted to hold their main strength in a central position off the Shipworm Shoal and used light units to watch both channels and whistle up their galleons when someone finally emerges from one of them. That’s what I’d’ve done in their place, but the sighting reports indicate they have at least some of their galleons far enough forward in both channels to support their scouts. That means they can’t have their full strength covering either of them. So we’ll use Basset Channel, and hope they’ve gone all logical on us and weighted their right flank more heavily than their left. We can’t know what we’ll run into, but whatever it is, it’ll be the best odds we can find.”

* * *

Sir Dunkyn Yairley, Baron of Sarmouth, stood on HMS Destiny’s sternwalk in a thick, warm duffle coat, chin buried in a soft, woolen muffler as he leaned forward, both gloved hands braced on the carved railing, and gazed out over the cold, windy blue water of the Gulf of Dohlar.

At the moment, Destiny lay hove-to thirty miles northeast of Broken Hawser Rock at the eastern tip of the Shyan Island Shoal, moving a little uneasily in the offshore swell but well beyond visual range from any Harchongese battery. Thirty other galleons kept company with her, and long chains of schooners were busily relaying signals to her from the scouts closer in to the mouths of Basset Channel and North Channel. He knew some of his captains thought he’d chosen his station poorly, although they were, of course, far too tactful to say so. He was perfectly placed to intercept anyone coming through Basset, and he was far enough out to let the Dohlarans get too far from safety to retreat without a fight before he pounced. But he was also over a hundred miles from North Channel, and he’d stationed only a single six-ship division to support the schooners watching that avenue of escape.

In theory, he should have sufficient warning to intercept the Dohlarans well out into the gulf even if they chose the northern route … assuming the scouts managed to maintain contact while whistling up the rest of his squadron. Theory had an unhappy habit of failing in real life, however, and he couldn’t blame the captains who thought he should have chosen a more central position rather than risk letting the Dohlarans slip away under the cover of darkness or heavy weather in the event that he’d guessed their intentions wrongly.

Of course, none of those captains knew that even as he stood on the sternwalk, gazing thoughtfully out over the water, the SNARC remote perched on the chain supporting the lamp above the table in Caitahno Raisahndo’s day cabin was transmitting every word the Dohlaran admiral said to his earplug.

The real reason he’d disposed his force as he had was that Raisahndo’s galleons were twice as far from North Channel’s mouth as Destiny was. Sarmouth had always rather expected Raisahndo, who was no one’s fool, to opt for the less blatantly obvious Basset Channel route. Even if he’d been wrong about that, however, the SNARCs would have given him ample warning to “change his mind” and move his main body to cover the northern route well before Raisahndo and his galleons ever hove into sight of his waiting schooners.

It’s not really fair, he thought as Owl projected schematics of Saram and Rhaigair Bay—and the exact position of every Dohlaran vessel in either of them—onto his contact lenses. It was like peering down over God’s own shoulder, and Raisahndo had about as much chance of eluding Sarmouth’s observation as he would have had hiding from the Archangels.

Assuming the Archangels had ever existed, that was. Which they hadn’t.

Unhappily for Admiral Raisahndo, the Imperial Charisian Navy—and Sir Dunkyn Yairley—did exist.

Well, maybe it isn’t fair … but it’s a damned poor excuse for a flag officer who worries about “fair” when it comes to keeping his people alive and making the other fellow’s people do the dying.

Truth be told, he wasn’t that eager for anyone to die, but he rather doubted Caitahno Raisahndo was going to meekly haul down his flag when he ran into the Imperial Charisian Navy at sea. Which could be very unfortunate for the Western Squadron, given the powerful reinforcements Tymythy Darys had delivered to Claw Island even before Zhaztro’s arrival. Unlike Sir Dunkyn Yairley, the officers and men of HMS Lightning, Seamount, and Floodtide were eager to kill as many of Raisahndo’s ships—and men—as they could. They especially wanted any of the ships which had been present in the Kaudzhu Narrows and taken their sister ship Dreadnought, but any unit of Raisahndo’s squadron would do in a pinch.

Well, they’ll get their chance, he thought grimly. I don’t suppose it’ll hurt my reputation for smelling my way to the enemy, either. For that matter, he snorted, I guess it shouldn’t. After all, I did figure out what Raisahndo was most likely to do even before he was kind enough to confirm it to the SNARCs. Fortunately, I’m far too modest a fellow to gloat at the doubters’ awestruck admiration of my strategic brilliance once it’s vindicated.

He chuckled and shook his head, then straightened and tucked his hands behind him. Under current wind conditions, Raisahndo could make a good perhaps seven knots—what would have been six knots, back on Old Earth—at which rate it would take him over forty hours to clear Basset Channel. That was on the direct route from Rhaigair, however, and it was very unlikely he’d take that route with Zhaztro loose inside the bay. No, he’d circle wide—heading east, hugging the north shore of the bay and hopefully disappearing from sight before Zhaztro came into range of Rhaigair. The Western Squadron was far slower than the ironclads, but Zhaztro’s smoke would be visible to a galleon’s masthead lookouts well before anyone aboard his own low-lying ships spotted its topsails. With only a little luck, Raisahndo should be able to successfully play hide-and-seek with the invaders … especially since Zhaztro had no interest in chasing him. Immediately, at least. The 2nd Ironclad Squadron would deal with the Western Squadron if it was unwise enough to enter its reach, but first things first. Hainz Zhaztro’s primary business was with Rhaigair, and unlike Sarmouth, he was unable to eavesdrop on Raisahndo’s intentions and movements. He was perfectly content to leave Sarmouth and his galleons to keep the Dohlaran force penned up inside the Bay while he got on with demolishing their base and its fortifications. If Raisahndo avoided action by turning back from the Gulf when he sighted Sarmouth, there’d be plenty of time for the ironclads to hunt him down then.

But assuming Sarmouth had properly assessed the Dohlaran’s choice of courses, eluding Zhaztro would add another fifty miles, easily, to his route. Which meant he’d present himself in the waters between Shyan Island and Shipworm Shoal about this same time day after tomorrow.

Just in time for lunch, he thought. I can work with that.

He clapped his hands together, breath steaming before it whipped away on the wind, and smiled a small, cold smile as he discovered he was just a bit less blasé about personally delivering a little retribution to the victors of the Kaudzhu Narrows than he’d realized.