At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.III.

HMS Eraystor, 22,

and

Battery St. Charlz,

Main Ship Channel,

Rhaigair Bay,

Province of Stene,

Harchgong Empire.

“Enter!”

The chart room door opened and a tallish young man with fair hair and gray eyes stepped through it.

“Second Lieutenant’s respects, Sir.” He touched his chest in salute to Sir Hainz Zhaztro. “Trident’s just signaled. She reports no sign of the enemy … except for a few columns of smoke that are probably from ships on fire.”

There was a pronounced edge of satisfaction in the last fourteen words, Admiral Zhaztro noted without surprise. Despite his coloration—inherited from his “imported” Siddarmarkian mother—Midshipman Paitryk Shawnysy was a native Old Charisian. His accent was straight from Tellesberg, but his attitude towards the Group of Four and all its works came from what had happened to his mother’s family when the Sword of Schueler struck the Republic.

“Thank you,” the admiral replied. “My compliments to Lieutenant Audhaimyr. And instruct him to relay a ‘Well done’ to Trident from me.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. Your compliments to Lieutenant Audhaimyr, and relay ‘Well done’ to Trident,” Shawnysy replied. Zhaztro nodded at the confirmation, and the midshipman saluted again and withdrew.

“Well, that’s disappointing, Sir,” Captain Cahnyrs observed as the door closed behind him. “I’ve been looking to something a tad more … energetic than that. I hate to miss a party I’ve been counting on.”

“‘A few’ columns of smoke hardly indicate Raisahndo’s burned his entire squadron just to evade us. And the fact that Trident didn’t see anyone doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” Zhaztro reminded his flag captain. “Her lookouts’ maximum range can’t be more than twenty miles, even assuming conditions are as clear for them as they are for us, and you know how patchy the weather can be this time of year. Even if she’s got brilliant sunlight and crystal blue skies, there’s plenty of room for them to be hiding from her somewhere deeper into the bay.”

“Of course there is.” Cahnyrs nodded. “But if I was Raisahndo and I thought the Imperial Charisian Navy was about to come calling, I’d have my warships up close enough to support my fortifications.”

“You might. Or you might think about it and decide it would be smarter to keep them as far out of those nasty Charisians’ range as you possibly could.”

“Either they’re going to stop us short of the city or they aren’t, Sir.” Cahnyrs shrugged. “If they aren’t, it doesn’t matter where their ships are. Sooner or later we’ll find them, and when we do, they’ll be dead meat. At the same time, we know they’ve been reinforced with some pretty powerful galleons. It’s at least possible those ships could make the difference as to whether or not we get past the shore batteries, and everything we know about Raisahndo suggests he’s the sort who’d recognize that.” The flag captain shook his head. “No, Sir. If he was still inside Rhaigair Bay, he’d be anchored on springs to support the batteries or at least hovering close enough to the channels to see if he’d be needed. And if he was that close Trident would’ve seen his mastheads. If she didn’t, he’s not there. Which means he’s gotten away from us.”

“Only from us, even if you’re right, Alyk. I expect Baron Sarmouth’s people will have a little something to say about his travel plans if you are, though.”

“Assuming the Baron’s guessed right.”

“That’s very small-minded—and mercenary—of you,” Zhaztro scolded, and Cahnyrs grinned. The flag captain was an old friend of Dunkyn Yairley’s, and he’d bet the baron five gold marks that he hadn’t guessed right.

“Oh, I’m sure Dunkyn’ll catch up with him in the end, Sir. I just think it’s going to take a little longer than he thinks it will.”

“Well, in the meantime, we have our own fish to fry,” Zhaztro said, returning his attention to the large-scale chart on the table between them.

“I just hope the seijins are right about those ‘sea-bombs’ of theirs,” Cahnyrs replied, his humor fading noticeably. “I hate the very idea of those damned things! Hell of an unfair weapon.”

“Excuse me, Sir,” Commander Lywys Pharsaygyn cocked his head, “but isn’t the idea behind any weapon to give you an ‘unfair’ advantage over the fellow who doesn’t have it? Which, by the way, if memory serves, is something you sneaky Charisians have been doing for years now!”

“Point, Commander. A very good one, actually.” Cahnyrs nodded. “I guess what truly pisses me off is that the Temple Boys and their friends came up with the idea first.”

“I’ve noticed Old Charisians have a certain … youthful enthusiasm for coming up with things first, Sir,” Zhaztro’s chief of staff observed with a smile. “I almost said that they take a childish pleasure in it, but that probably would have been disrespectful.”

“Grossly so,” Cahnyrs agreed. “Especially because it would be so accurate,” he added with a cheerful nod, and Zhaztro chuckled.

Like himself, Pharsaygyn was an Emeraldian, and he’d been with Zhaztro for six years now, ever since Darcos Sound, where he’d served in Arbalest—as a common seaman, of all things. Of course, he’d been a rather uncommon sort of common seaman, however the muster book had described him. The younger son of a prominent Eraystor merchant family with powerful Church connections, he’d been destined for seminary and a career with Mother Church. In fact, one of his uncles was a Schuelerite upper-priest serving in the Inquisition in Zion itself, and Pharsaygyn had offered his services to the Emeraldian Navy as a clerk because he’d genuinely believed what his uncle had told him about Charis and the reason Mother Church was supporting Hektor Daykyn’s war against the island kingdom.

Zhaztro had heard about him from one of his own cousins, a Manchyr importer who’d done business with the Pharsaygyn family, and grabbed him before anyone else realized he was available. He’d never regretted it. Pharsaygyn had served with distinction and courage as Zhaztro’s flag secretary throughout that short, disastrous war … and his disillusionment when he discovered the truth about the Inquisition’s allegations had been brutal. Instead of leaving naval service, however—which he would have been fully entitled to do, as a short-term volunteer—he’d sought Zhaztro’s assistance in obtaining a commission when the Emeraldian Navy was folded into the Imperial Charisian Navy. He’d passed the competitive examination with absurd ease, although he was scarcely the finest shiphandler in the world. Then again, Zhaztro wouldn’t have applied that label to himself, where galleon command was concerned, either.

More to the point where his present duties were concerned, Pharsaygyn had never really wanted command. He’d been a born staff officer who’d enjoyed Zhaztro’s total confidence and he’d transitioned from secretary to flag lieutenant the instant his Charisian commission came through. And then, last year, following a well-deserved promotion, he’d moved directly to the position of 2nd Ironclad Squadron’s chief of staff. Zhaztro had offered to help him find a command of his own, instead, but he’d turned that down flat.

“I’m not a real officer like you, Sir,” he’d said with a smile. “God help the poor seaman stuck in a galleon under my command the first time we hit a real blow! Let’s face it, Sir—I’m just around till the job’s done. Better to steer a career officer into a positon like that. He needs it on his resume a lot more than I do.”

That “not a real officer” was a gross disservice to his accomplishments and value, but Zhaztro had decided he was probably right. Personally, the admiral would have offered even odds Pharsaygyn would seek ordination in the Church of Charis once the Group of Four was defeated, but until then, the commander was fully focused on bringing about that defeat.

“The truth is, Sir,” he said to the flag captain now, “that sea-bombs are the sort of weapon that’s going to appeal to the weaker navy. They’d be an ideal way to deal with something like this squadron, too. In fact, if they did have them, they’d have put them right damned here.”

He tapped the chart with the index finger of his mangled left hand—he’d lost the last two fingers at Darcos Sound—and his expression had turned much more serious, but then he shrugged and shook his head with a smile.

“As for coming up with things first, if it makes you feel any better, I’m willing to bet Baron Seamount did come up with the idea well before any Temple Boy did. It’s the sort of thing that would occur to him—a way to achieve an enormous economization in force while denying a more powerful enemy fleet passage through defended waters. And it’s also exactly the sort of thing Admiral Lock Island or Admiral Rock Point would’ve told him to stick in the very bottom of his seabag and forget about.” He shook his head again, his smile even broader. “The last thing they would’ve wanted would’ve been to suggest the idea to someone like Dohlar before Thirsk thought of it on his own!”

“I hate it when he turns all logical, Sir,” Cahnyrs complained.

“Unfortunately, it’s one of the reasons I keep him around,” Zhaztro said just a bit absently, frowning down at the chart.

South Channel lay two hundred miles behind Eraystor, and her true target, Rhaigair Bay, at the mouth of the Rhaigair River, lay before her. And while Rhaigair was far smaller than Saram Bay, it was also a much more difficult objective.

There were four passages through the islands which guarded the Rhaigair approaches, but only two of them really mattered.

Sand Passage, the westernmost channel, between the mainland and the twin islands the Harchongians called The Sisters, was suitable only for light craft and shallow draft fishing boats. That completely disqualified it for his purposes.

Broad Channel, the next possibility to the east, between The Sisters and Sharyn Island, was—as its name suggested—the widest approach. It was also shallow, although the soundings showed sufficient depth for a City-class ironclad … if she was careful and chose the right stage of the tide. Unfortunately, the Harchongians had spent a year or so after Gwylym Manthyr’s foray into Gorath Bay driving a double line of pilings across the eight-mile-wide channel. The Lywysite-equipped dive teams which had been sent out to Earl Sharpfield could probably have cleared the barrier, but not without investing five-days in the effort … and risking serious loss of life along the way, given water temperatures at this time of year.

The rather unimaginatively named East Channel—farthest to the east, between East Island and Knobby Head, the closest point on the mainland—was normally more than deep enough for his ships, but it was also subject to silting from mud carried down the Rhaigair River. His best information on its current depth of water was … problematical, and he had a pronounced aversion to reprising HMS Thunderer’s role from last July.

And that, unfortunately, left only the even more unimaginatively named Main Ship Channel, between Sharyn Island and East Island. It was the deepest of the entry channels, and the combined tidal patterns and set of the river’s current scoured it, rather than silting it up. It offered plenty of depth, and while it was narrow, it was less narrow than the northern end of East Channel.

It was also, however, the most predictable route, if only by process of elimination … and the best defended.

All of Rhaigair Bay’s entrances had been fortified for well over two hundred years, and the Harchong Empire and Kingdom of Dohlar had cooperated to overhaul, modernize, and improve those fortifications once the Royal Dohlaran Navy decided to station its forward naval strength in Saram Bay. Rhaigair, by far the largest city on the bay and one of the two or three largest cities in all of Stene Province, had been the logical place to homeport those ships, and the Harchongians—who’d already begun investing in the upgrade of Rhaigair’s defenses—had responded enthusiastically to the proposal to turn the city into the Western Squadron’s forward base. Not surprisingly, since it had offered the opportunity to finish updating those defenses—and to a much more powerful level—with Mother Church picking up the tab.

Given the city’s current importance to both Harchong and Dohlar, its batteries had received high priority for the new rifled artillery, too. Most of the inner defensive batteries had been thoroughly rearmed, including Zhaztro’s current main cause for concern: Battery St. Charlz, the small spot on the chart Pharsaygyn had just tapped.

Located a good forty miles from the city, Battery St. Charlz was actually an artificial island in the throat of the Main Ship Channel. The entire island—which had been built up a hundred and ten years ago by thousands of Harchongese serfs dumping Hastings only knew how many tons of granite onto the single shoal in the entire channel—was little more than a mile and a half long, and less than half that wide. It was, however, one huge fort. Aside from a single stone quay, well covered by artillery embrasures, there were exactly zero landing spots, which ruled out any notion of taking it by assault. Its onetime masonry walls had been replaced with modern earthen berms, and the Harchongese engineers—made wise by others’ misfortunes—had mounted its weapons in individual masonry bays, well buried inside those berms. They’d also provided its garrison with thick-roofed, shell-proof dugouts from which to wait out any angle-gun bombardment, and its dozens of heavy rifled guns faced matching batteries on the islands to either side of the channel.

The passage east of Battery St. Charlz was wider than the one to the west … which was exactly why the pestiferous Dohlarans had sunk barges and old galleons to block it. There were rumors the powerful currents had shifted some of those blockships, but even if that was true, they hadn’t been moved far enough to clear the way for a City-class like Eraystor. On the western side, where the path was still open, the channel was barely two miles wide and it was less than five miles from St. Charlz’s guns to those in the batteries on East Island. That was barely 8,500 yards, and given the reported 9,000-yard range of the Temple’s newest and heaviest Fultyn Rifles, any ship trying to attempt that passage would be forced to run an eight-mile gauntlet while under heavy fire from both sides.

Well, that’s why you’ve got all this nice armor, Hainz, he told himself. And just hope to Langhorne the seijins’ information about the sea-bombs is right.

“I’m inclined to think you’re probably right about what Raisahndo would’ve done if he’d thought the batteries could stop us, Alyk,” he said out loud. “Of course, the fact that he doesn’t seem to think they can doesn’t mean they actually can’t, but given how quickly we’ll be past them, they won’t have very long to work on us. These ‘Fultyn Rifles’ are a lot more dangerous than the Desnairians’ forty-pounders were at Geyra, but the latest spy reports to Earl Sharpfield suggest they won’t be enough more dangerous to stop us.

“To be honest, the one thing that really does worry me is that the seijins might be wrong about those sea-bombs, because Lywys is dead right. If these people do have them, this is sure as hell the place they’d use them,” he continued, tapping Battery St. Charlz’s position on the chart himself. “I genuinely don’t think they do, but difficult as it may be for you two to believe this, I’ve been wrong once or twice in my life.”

He smiled quickly, briefly, then stood back from the chart table.

“So we’ll proceed as planned, except for one small change. Lywys,” he looked at the commander, “please draft a signal to Captain Gahnzahlyz. Inform him that Bayport won’t be leading the column after all.”

“She won’t be, Sir?” Pharsaygyn didn’t seem especially surprised, Zhaztro noted. Well, they’d been together for a while now.

“No. Cherayth will take the lead.”

“Of course, Sir.”

No, the chief of staff definitely hadn’t been surprised, Zhaztro thought, and turned to Cahnyrs.

“Please go ahead and clear for action now, Captain,” he said, rather more formally than he normally addressed his flag captain. “I’d like to proceed while we have the tide with us.”

“Yes, Sir.” If Cahnyrs was perturbed by the change, it didn’t show. “With your permission, Sir,” he continued, “I’d like to make our speed about six knots when we engage the batteries. I know we’d originally planned to make the run at ten knots, and the slower speed would mean they could hold us under fire for roughly a half hour longer, but it would also make our return fire more accurate. I think that would probably pay a dividend for us on our own way through, and anything that lets us knock out more of their guns has to be helpful to the rest of the Squadron when it’s their turn.”

And it will also give your lookouts a marginally better chance of spotting the buoys of any sea-bombs the Dohlarans may have planted, Zhaztro thought. That probably wouldn’t be a huge help, but you’re the sort of fellow who plays for anything that might keep your men alive a little longer, aren’t you, Alyk?

“She’s your ship, Captain,” he said simply. “How you fight her is your decision.”

* * *

“It would appear the heretics have made up their minds.”

Lord of Foot Kwaichee Bauzhyng stood on the outer platform, just in front of the sandbags protecting the observation tower at the south end of Battery St. Charlz, gazing down-channel through a spyglass while his orderly held the parasol to keep the sun off his head. Given the fact that the temperature was only a little above freezing—and that the wind had strengthened and the oncoming clouds threatened to do a far better job of blocking the sun than any parasol—that struck Major Ahdem Kylpaitryc as an even more useless affectation than usual.

“So I see, Sir,” Kylpaitryc agreed out loud.

His own spyglass was far less ornate, without a trace of the gold and silver inlay glittering from Bauzhyng’s—which must have cost at least two hundred marks, just for the inlay work—but he suspected the lenses were actually better. Dohlaran spyglass makers were more concerned with what someone could see through one of their instruments than with how beautiful it looked.

What Kylpaitryc could see through his at the moment, however, was distinctly unbeautiful: a single heretic ironclad steaming implacably towards its rendezvous with St. Charlz’s heavy artillery. Columns of smoke beyond it showed where its consorts followed, apparently waiting to see what happened, and he wondered if the heretics had learned about the newly designed sea-bombs and chosen to send one ship ahead to test the waters for the others. More thick, black smoke poured from the leader’s flat-sided, slab-like smokestack, a broad furrow of white rolled back from either side of a sharply raked prow, a huge battle standard flew from its single mast, and the long, slender barrels of its guns were trained out on either broadside.

All in all, it looked remarkably unperturbed by the challenge awaiting it, he thought glumly, silently counting the seconds as the intruder crossed between the ranging marks Admiral Raisandho had ordered erected in the shallows on either side of the Main Ship Channel. They weren’t enough to give an exact estimate, of course—not at that distance—but.…

“I make it about six or seven knots, Sir,” he said finally, lowering his glass.

“Approximately that, yes,” Bauzhyng agreed calmly.

It was a pity Baron Golden Grass had decided to inflict a Dohlaran “liaison officer” on Battery St. Charlz, the lord of foot reflected, still gazing at the heretic vessel. No doubt the politics had made it inevitable, and he supposed Kylpaitryc was at least minimally less uncouth than most of his barbarian countrymen. He hadn’t attempted to interfere unduly in Bauzhyng’s decisions, at any rate, and he’d actually come up with a handful of useful recommendations when the new artillery first arrived. But still—! Bauzhyng could almost smell the turnips every time the man opened his mouth.

“Bit surprised they aren’t moving faster’n that, Sir,” Kylpaitryc continued. “All the reports indicate they should be able to hit at least ten knots, even against the current.” He shook his head, his expression unhappy. “Seems to me they’d want to get through our fire zone quick as they can.”

“Clearly they have great confidence in the efficacy of their armor.” Bauzhyng shrugged ever so slightly. “It would seem the moment has come to … disabuse them of that confidence, Major.”

“Aye, it has that, Sir.”

Kylpaitryc smiled, for once in complete agreement with Battery St. Charlz’s dapper, foppish CO. He didn’t much like Kwaichee Bauzhyng, for a lot of reasons. For that matter, he didn’t like most Harchongian officers he’d met. Every single one of them acted as if he’d smelled something bad as soon as a Dohlaran officer walked in the door. He didn’t like that, and he especially didn’t care for it given the monumental incompetency he’d seen in so many of those disdainful Harchongians. As a matter of fact, that disdain seemed strongest in the very officers least entitled to it. Of course, that described at least three-fourths of the Harchongese officer corps, when a man came down to it. In Kylpaitryc’s considered opinion, the best that could be said for most Harchongese officers was that they were at least a step up from Desnairians, which was damning with about the faintest praise possible.

That wasn’t really fair in Bauzhyng’s case, however. Whatever else might be true of the lord of foot, he took his duties seriously, and he’d drilled his men ruthlessly on the new artillery. He’d even arm-wrestled the mark-pinching Harchongese bureaucrats into providing sufficient of the new shells for twice-a-five-day live fire exercises and asked Kylpaitryc to arrange for Admiral Hahlynd’s screw-galleys to tow barges past the island to give his gunners practice against moving targets. Kylpaitryc couldn’t resist tweaking the haughty Harchongian by addressing him as “Sir” rather than the “My Lord” he obviously preferred, but overall, he knew he’d been more fortunate than the majority of the Dohlaran officers assigned to liaise with their Harchongese “hosts.”

Of course, he’d probably get even better performance out of his gunners if he treated them like people instead of two-footed animals that simply know how to talk. I guess it’s unreasonable to expect him not to think of them as serfs, though—especially since most of them were serfs before they enlisted. And he’s not actually all that brutal, compared to some of the real bastards here in Harchong. Still, I can’t help thinking that flogging the gun captain with the lowest score after each drill isn’t the very best way to build the men’s morale.

“How soon do you intend to open fire, Sir?” he asked.

“I would prefer to allow the range to drop to no more than perhaps five thousand yards,” Bauzhyng replied, lowering his own spyglass at last. He handed it to another aide in exchange for a steaming teacup and sipped contemplatively. “We have the benefit of stable, unmoving gun platforms, and one would normally assume that would give us a substantial advantage over a warship underway. In this instance, however, I prefer to make as few assumptions as possible. We shall wait until they open fire or the range falls to five thousand yards.”

He shrugged ever so slightly, eyes distant as he considered the upcoming engagement.

Depending on how well Battery St. Charlz’s berms stood up to the heretics’ fire, he might well hold fire until the range fell to his own chosen range regardless of when they opened fire. He had great confidence in the power of his guns against most targets, but after studying the reports from the Kaudzhu Narrows, he rather doubted that shells—even the three-hundred-pound cylindrical projectiles of his new 10-inch guns—would pierce the heretics’ armor. It seemed unlikely these ships were less well armored than the heretics ironclad galleons, and the Dohlarans’ 10-inch smoothbores had never even come close to penetrating HMS Dreadnought’s side armor. Of course, even their solid shot had weighed little more than half as much as one of his shells, so comparing their relative performances was probably suspect. Still, he was distinctly unoptimistic about shells, especially at longer ranges, where they would strike at a lower velocity. A solid shot from one of his guns, on the other hand, weighed half again as much as a shell—three times the weight of the Dohlaran shot at the Kaudzhu Narrows—since there was no cavity for gunpowder. That decreased its destructive power if it actually penetrated the target yet gave it a greater chance of penetrating in the first place. The heavier shot also had a shorter range, however; the best any of his gunners had achieved with it was on the order of seven thousand yards to first strike, little better than three-quarters of their maximum range firing shell. They’d trained diligently to use ricochet fire to extend their range, skipping the shot across the water from its initial point of impact, but there seemed little chance of a shot which had lost that much energy penetrating an armored vessel if it finally hit it. Unarmored galleons, yes; steam-driven ironclads, no.

No, he thought. I’ll wait until they come as close as I can get them before engaging them. And when I do, he smiled thinly, they may enjoy the experience far less than they think they will.

* * *

“Coming up on your specified range, Captain,” Petty Officer Wahldair Hahlynd announced, straightening from the voice pipe.

Hahlynd was Eraystor’s senior signalman, but he wasn’t passing a signal from another unit of the squadron at the moment. That voice pipe connected him to an instrument atop Eraystor’s armored superstructure. The product of yet another fruitful collaboration between Admiral Semount, the Royal College of Charis, and Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s endlessly inventive artisans, it was called a “rangefinder.” Alyk Cahnyrs had read the documentation by Doctor Zhain Frymyn, the College’s optics specialist, but he still had only the vaguest notion of how the thing—it looked like a double-headed version of one of the Rottweiler-class galleons’ angle-glasses, but with the upper lenses at the ends of an 18-foot crossbar—worked. What was important was that it did work and that its readings were accurate to within a hundred yards at ten miles.

In some ways, that information was of purely academic interest, since no moving ship could possibly hit another ship at over seventeen thousand yards. Even assuming its gunners could see the target, ship’s motion would guarantee they missed it when they fired. In other ways, however, accurate range numbers could be extremely important. Even highly experienced gunners could misestimate ranges, and knowing the range—as opposed to simply guessing—allowed his gunners to set their sights accurately. That was still one hell of a long way from guaranteeing hits, but it took at least one of the variables out of the equation.

At the moment, however.…

“Pass the signal to Bayport,” he said, then blew down another voice pipe to sound the whistle at its far end.

“Gundeck, Third Lieutenant,” a voice announced.

“This is the Captain, Dahnel. Do you have the target in sight?”

“Yes, Sir. St. Charlz is in First Division’s field of fire.”

“Excellent. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to bring Third Division’s guns onto the target for a while.”

“Understood, Sir.” Something suspiciously like a chuckle came up the voice pipe. “I imagine young Paitryk can amuse himself with the batteries on Sharyn Island in the meantime if he has to.”

“As long as we’re not just wasting ammunition,” Cahnyrs replied.

Eraystor’s armament was divided into divisions on the basis of their fields of fire. The ironclad’s heavily armored casemate formed a lozenge-shaped superstructure, like two blunt-ended triangles set base-to-base and stepped just far enough back from the side of the hull to mitigate the wave action which would have washed far up over the gun ports of a ship like the original Delthak-class in a seaway. All of her weapons were broadside mounts, but the five forward guns in each broadside could fire only at targets no more than thirty degrees abaft the beam, while the five aftermost guns could train no farther forward than thirty degrees before the beam. That formed a logical basis for dividing them into numbered divisions: First and Second division, forward, and Third and Fourth division, aft. But she mounted a total of eleven guns in each broadside. The center weapons, located at the broadest points of the lozenge, could bear almost as far forward as First or Second Division and almost as far aft as Third or Fourth Division. As a consequence, those weapons were allocated to both divisions on their side of the ship, with control passing to whichever division could offer it a target.

Dahnel Bahnyface was Eraystor’s Gunnery Officer as well as her third lieutenant, a new position which placed a commissioned officer between the ship’s captain and the Chief Gunner, who was traditionally a warrant officer. The former Chief Gunner was now simply the Gunner, and served as the Gunnery Officer’s chief assistant and advisor, and in action, each division of the armament was assigned to one of Eraystor’s other commissioned officers. Or, in the case of Third Division, to a passed midshipman who remained two years shy of legal age for a lieutenant’s commission.

“I don’t think we’ll be wasting any, Sir,” Bahnyface told the captain now. “Not from the after divisions, anyway.”

“Are you confident of engaging St. Charlz from this range?” Cahnyrs asked.

“Reasonably, Sir.” Cahnyrs could almost see Bahnyface’s slight shrug. “The roll’s not bad, and it’s not like we’ll be shooting at a moving target. I don’t guarantee very many hits from this range, but we’ll score you at least some, Sir!”

“In that case, you may open fire, Master Bahnyface.”

* * *

“My Lord!”

Major Kylpaitryc had deliberately looked away from the heretic ironclad. At a range of over four and a half miles, the smoke-spouting thing was still tiny with distance, but there was something undeniably … ominous about its steady, unwavering progress. Perhaps it was because it was moving directly into both current and wind, its smoke banner blowing dead astern. Or perhaps it was that dense, unnatural smoke itself.

Or perhaps, he’d thought grimly, it’s the fact that it’s steaming directly into the converging fire of over fifty heavy guns and it doesn’t seem to give a spider-rat’s arse about it.

Whatever it was, he’d found other things to do than peer through his spyglass at it, which meant he was looking in the opposite direction when the lookout shouted to Lord of Foot Bauzhyng.

Now he spun around, eyes widening in surprise, as a dense, brown eruption of gunsmoke billowed from the ironclad. It was still almost bows-on to Battery St. Charlz, but it had slewed enough to starboard to bring its forward larboard guns to bear. It was also so far away that the thunder of those guns hadn’t yet reached his ears when six 6-inch shells came sizzling down out of the heavens ahead of the sound of their passage.

* * *

“Not bad at all, Alyk!” Zhaztro commented as the shells impacted. He had to raise his voice—a lot—to be heard through the thick earplugs protecting Eraystor’s crew’s hearing from the artillery’s deafening thunder.

Three of Lieutenant Bahnyface’s shells threw up tall, white columns of water—all of those had landed short—but three more erupted in dark, fire-hearted explosions that ripped into Battery St. Charlz’s berm. He doubted they’d done much damage to anything—or anyone—on the far side of that berm. Unless they scored a direct hit on one of the gun embrasures—and the odds of that at this range were effectively nonexistent—they weren’t going to seriously injure the heavily protected battery. One of the sail-powered bombardment ships might well actually have been more effective than Eraystor’s higher-velocity, lower-elevation broadside weapons, since the bombardment ship could have dropped its fire into the battery’s interior without worrying about its berm. Unfortunately, with wind and current both against them, working one of the bombardment ships into position would have been a time-consuming and potentially risky proposition. And whether or not they were inflicting actual damage at this range, it was at least likely to give the enemy commander “furiously to think,” as Emperor Cayleb might have put it.

I’d really like to get the bastard to return fire while we’re still as far out as possible, he thought, standing on his flagship’s exposed bridge wing with his double-glass to his eyes. Getting a feel for their range and accuracy before we get too close would come under the heading of a Good Thing. And I’d like a better feel for how likely those new “Fultyn Rifles” are to actually punch through our armor.

He grimaced at that thought without lowering the double-glass, because he was less confident on that head than he’d been prepared to admit to any of his officers, including Alyk Cahnyrs. He wasn’t unconfident … exactly, but he’d had enough experience with flagships getting pounded into wreckage to last him the rest of his life.

“Not bad,” Cahnyrs agreed from beside him, watching through his own double-glass. “Dahnel can do better, though.”

“And he will,” Zhaztro replied. “The guns are cold, the range is long, and his gun captains need to get a feel for her motion.” He smiled thinly. “And at least Eraystor’s a hell of a lot steadier than any galleon.”

The ironclad’s guns bellowed again,

* * *

That’s got to be eighty-five hundred yards, Major Kylpaitryc thought as the dirt and debris thrown up by the nearest shell pattered back down around him. Most of that debris was fairly small, but a few larger chunks thudded down onto the heavily sandbagged roof of his observation post. I didn’t really expect them to open fire from that far out. Or to be that accurate when they did, either!

He raised his spyglass, capturing the lead ironclad’s image once again as the huge, dense clouds of brown gunsmoke rolled astern. Part of that was the wind, which was already beginning to shred the cloud bank, but part of it was also the armored ship’s steady forward progress. The long, black fingers of its guns hadn’t recoiled at all, as far as he could see, and even as he watched, they belched huge, fresh bubbles of fire.

Langhorne! Something cold settled in the vicinity of his stomach. The reports from Geyra said they could fire those things quickly, but I didn’t expect them to be that fast! It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds!

Battery St. Charlz’s Fultyn Rifles—especially the huge 10-inch weapons—could never hope to match that rate of fire. They’d be doing well to get off one shot every couple of minutes! Of course, the battery had many more guns than any single ironclad could bring to bear, but not all of St. Charlz’s weapons could be brought to bear on the same target, either. And unlike an ironclad, the battery wasn’t going to be moving.

And we don’t have to worry about an ironclad; we’ve got to worry about five of the frigging things!

He didn’t like how powerful the heretics’ shells appeared to be, either. According to the Desnairians, who’d actually measured one of the heretics’ shells which had failed to explode at Geyra, the ironclads’ broadside weapons fired only 6-inch shells, considerably smaller than the ones fired by their bombardment galleons. If that was accurate, however, then the Imperial Charisian Navy had managed to build a 6-inch shell which seemed to carry a bursting charge at least as big as anyone else’s 10-incher.

That’s going to hurt when they start registering a lot of hits, he thought grimly, lowering his spyglass and ducking involuntarily as four more dazzlingly white columns of water—tinged mud-brown at their bases—erupted from the Main Ship Channel. Two more shells burrowed deeply into the protective berm before they exploded, and fresh showers of debris came pelting down.

* * *

Eraystor forged onward, the range dropping steadily. She’d taken Battery St. Charlz under fire at a range of 8,400 yards—still 12,000 yards from Battery St. Rahnyld on the eastern end of Sharyn Island and 10,500 from Battery St. Agtha on East Island’s Cut Bait Point. That put her well beyond the effective range of the other batteries, although the range to St. Agtha dropped just as steadily as the range to St. Charlz.

At six knots, she’d need an hour to reach her shortest range to St. Charlz, at which point—assuming she held her intended course—she’d be less than one thousand yards from the muzzles of the Harchongese guns. It was a sobering thought … especially since those guns had yet to fire a single round.

“Signal Bayport to reduce speed!” Admiral Zhaztro ordered. “Captain Gahnzahlyz is to open the interval between her and Eraystor by at least a thousand yards.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. Bayport to reduce speed and open the interval to Eraystor by at least a thousand yards,” the signalman repeated. Zhaztro nodded, and the signalman and his assistant started pulling signal flags out of their bags.

The ironclad’s guns fired again, the shock of recoil hitting the soles of Zhaztro’s shoes like a hammer and Captain Cahnyrs leaned close to shout in the admiral’s ear in the—relatively—quiet interval between shots.

“Buying a little more time for Lynkyn to look things over before it’s his turn, Sir?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Zhaztro shouted back with a shrug. “Can’t pretend I won’t be happier when the bastards shoot back and give us a better feel for what they’ve got!”

* * *

Major Kylpaitryc coughed and spat out a mouthful of grit, then dragged a watch from his pocket and peered down at its face.

Thirty minutes? He shook his head, feeling like a prizefighter who’d taken too many punches to the body. It has to be more than half an hour!

But he knew it hadn’t been, whatever it might feel like.

The ironclad’s side disappeared behind a fresh eruption of flame-cored brown smoke and two 6-inch shells came screaming across the top of the eastern berm. One of them slammed into the inner face of the western berm, blasting a huge divot out of the masonry backing the thick earthwork.

Brick shattered, men screamed, and Kylpaitryc cursed. Each of Battery St. Charlz’s guns was mounted in its own, individual bay—a vaulted chamber built out of thick, solid brickwork and then buried under as much as twenty feet of solid earth. Those bays were impervious to anything short of a direct hit … which was exactly what that Shan-wei-damned shell had just scored. Worse, the hit had come in from the bay’s rear, where it was open to St. Charlz’s small parade ground. The 8-inch Fultyn Rifle lurched drunkenly sideways, spilling from its fortress carriage and crushing one of its crew to death before the entire bay collapsed and buried him and half his companions.

Shouted orders brought more men on the run, ignoring the heretics’ fire as they dashed from their own protected positions to help the gun crew’s survivors dig frantically for their buried fellows, and Kylpaitryc shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

There was something more than a little terrifying about the ironclad’s remorseless, unflinching approach. The range had fallen from over eight thousand yards to barely three thousand, and the hellish ship had turned to present its full broadside to St. Charlz. Now eleven guns bellowed from it three times every minute, driving their merciless fire brutally into the earthworks, filling the air with smoke and dust.

How much longer was Bauzhyng going to wait? The heretics were already well within his five-thousand-yard range, and still he simply stood there, gazing out through the vision slit at the channel! Dust and dirt speckled his immaculate uniform and his face bled freely where a fragment of brick had flown in through the slit and opened an inch-long cut just below the cheekbone. Yet his expression was calm, almost contemplative, and Ahdem Kylpaitryc had discovered that he felt a deep admiration—almost a sense of affection—for the arrogant, fastidious “fop” who commanded Battery St. Charlz.

Another heretic broadside thundered, blasting into the fortifications outer face, and more screams arose, faint to Kylpaitryc’s brutalized ears. The ironclad was close enough now, firing rapidly enough, that its fire had finally started to shred even those high, thick earthen ramparts. Surely Bauzhyng had to—

“All batteries will open fire now!” Kwaichee Bauzhyng said.

* * *

“The bastards do have guns in there, don’t they, Sir?!” Alyk Cahnyrs demanded in tones of profound exasperation.

“I’m sure they do!” Zhaztro replied. “And sooner or later, they’ll have to shoot back!”

After thirty minutes’ steady firing, he felt as if he’d been hammered out on a flat rock and left to dry in the sun. So far, Eraystor had fired almost four hundred 6-inch shells into Battery St. Charlz. She carried only a hundred and twenty shells per gun, so that represented fifteen percent of her total ammunition supply … and almost a quarter of her total supply of standard shells. And still the Harchongians hadn’t fired a single shot in reply!

Whoever the hell’s in command over there is one tough-minded bastard, Zhaztro thought with the grim admiration of one tough-minded bastard for another. Son-of-a-bitch must be determined to get us in as close as he possibly can before he opens up.

The admiral raised his double-glass, peering through the lenses—and the swirling clouds of smoke—and smiled bleakly as a solid line of explosions ripped into the fortifications. He could scarcely see it clearly in the current visibility—or lack thereof—but he’d be astonished if a single shot had missed. The range was down to barely a mile and a half, and even if the gunners’ vision was badly obscured by the torrents of gun and funnel smoke, their target was unmoving and they knew exactly where to find it. At such a short range, their shells drove even deeper into the earthworks protecting the Harchongese guns and the whirlwind of fire opened deep gouges in the battery’s battered berm. Zhaztro didn’t care how thick that berm was. Sooner or later, those guns had to open fire or simply find themselves buried in their ramparts’ collapse, and—

The entire face of Battery St. Charlz belched a rolling cloud of flame as thirty-four heavy rifled guns fired as one.

* * *

“Yessssssss!” Ahdem Kylpaitryc heard someone scream … and realized it was himself.

Every gun on St. Charlz’s southeastern front vomited fire and smoke. There were three dozen Fultyn Rifles on that face of the battery, although one of them had been dismounted by a direct hit and another was unable to fire because the rampart above its bay had collapsed across its embrasure.

Twelve of those guns were “only” 8-inch weapons, firing hundred-pound solid shot. Kylpaitryc hadn’t really expected very much out of the 8-inchers, given their target’s thick, armored hide … but he also hadn’t expected the heretics to come within twenty-five hundred yards before St. Charlz opened fire, either. At this range, even their shot might just penetrate, and their rate of fire was thirty percent higher than the 10-inch weapons could manage.

On the other hand, there were twenty-two of the 10-inch rifles. Their shot weighed over four hundred and fifty pounds apiece … and only three of them missed their target.

* * *

It was like being inside the world’s biggest bell, Sir Hainz Zhaztro thought. Or perhaps more like being inside one of Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s boilers while a hundred maniacs with sledgehammers pounded on its surface.

Whatever else it might be like, it was nothing at all like the fire Eraystor had taken at Geyra. Even at the very end, when he’d closed to four hundred yards of the Geyra waterfront, the defenders had scored very few hits—largely because he’d completely shattered their defensive works before he ever came into their range. But even then, the heaviest shot to actually hit his flagship’s armor had come from one of the Desnairian 40-pounders. Now Eraystor rocked as just over four and a half tons of solid iron slammed into her in a single wave.

It wasn’t all concentrated in a single spot—and thank God for it! He and Captain Cahnyrs and the rest of the bridge crew had retreated into the conning tower’s protection when the range fell below two miles, which was just as well. Zhaztro was peering through one of the vision slits when a three-hundred-pound solid shot ripped into the open bridge at an angle almost exactly perpendicular to the hull’s centerline. Wood and steel shattered, spraying the face of the conning tower with fragments which would have shredded anyone still in the open, and the incredible cacophony as dozens of heavy projectiles slammed into the casemate armor was indescribable.

Three of Eraystor’s gunners who’d been in direct contact with that armor were bowled over, hurled effortlessly from their feet as one of those 10-inch shot sent a savage concussion straight through the tough, face-hardened steel. Two of them were simply stunned; the third drove headfirst into the breech of his own gun and the impact smashed his skull like an eggshell.

Two of St. Charlz’s shots went high, punching contemptuously through the ironclad’s funnel. She’d hoisted out her boats to tow astern to protect them from blast damage, but both larboard lifeboat davits and the steam-powered boat crane fitted to her mast were shattered in that tempest of screaming iron, and one of the 8-inch shot went home forward of the armor belt, punching through the relatively thin steel hull plating and into her cable tier.

None of Battery St. Charlz’s shot actually penetrated Eraystor’s armor, but the casemate face and her belt armor were dimpled and scarred. Here and there the outer face was actually broken, although the tough, flexible inner layers of the Howsmynized plate held, and Zhaztro’s face tightened. Charis’ spies had reported that Lieutenant Zhwaigair, the infernally inventive fellow who’d come up with the screw-galley concept for the Earl of Thirsk, had proposed a way to attack armor that couldn’t actually be penetrated. He called it “wracking,” and the idea was simple: get in as close as possible with the heaviest possible gun and pound that armor again and again and again until its securing bolts or even the supporting frames behind it shattered. Zhaztro hadn’t been particularly impressed when he first read those reports. Now, as his flagship heaved under that massive impact, he found himself wondering if Zhwaigair might not just have hit upon something.

* * *

Battery St. Charlz’s gun crews swarmed over their pieces with the urgent, disciplined speed Lord of Foot Kwaichee Bauzhyng had drilled so ruthlessly into them. There was more to it than simple training, though. That accursed ironclad had pounded their fortress for over half an hour, increasingly accurate, scoring ever more hits, killing and wounding men they knew—friends—and they’d been refused permission to reply. Now it was their turn, and they bent to their guns with a will.

The heretics fired again before the slower muzzleloaders were ready, and another of the 8-inch weapons disintegrated as a 6-inch shell screamed directly into its embrasure and reduced it—and its entire crew—to broken wreckage. Despite the wind, the dense gunsmoke—from St. Charlz, as well as the ironclad—welled up in an impenetrable veil. But the ship’s funnel and mast were visible above the rolling banks of smoke, and that was enough.

The guns were reloaded, with a speed that owed nothing at all to the threatened flogging awaiting the most tardy crew, and then St. Charlz belched smoke and fire again.

* * *

A three-hundred-pound shot smashed directly into the rotating shield of number three larboard 6-inch gun. The shield held, but the impact deformed it badly. It jammed in place, the gun no longer able to train, and its gun captain cursed in savage frustration as he realized what had happened.

More shot hammered home, carrying away ventilator mushrooms, cutting stanchions and chain railings, punching more holes in the smoke-spewing funnel. The exposed rangefinder atop Eraystor’s bridge vanished in a swirling cloud of wreckage, and the bridge signal locker disintegrated, sending signal flags flying like terrified wyverns. A four-foot section of the starboard leg of the ironclad’s tripod mast simply vanished, but that was another shot that went higher than intended.

The Harchongians were deliberately shooting low, trying to get their iron shot into the ship’s side … or to land just short of the side. Earl Thirsk’s people had carefully analyzed the placement of HMS Dreadnought’s armor. That was what had suggested the “wracking” tactic to Lieutenant Shwaigair, who’d paid special attention to how the armor plates were secured. But the lieutenant had also noted that while the ship’s armor extended below the waterline, it was by only about three feet at her normal load waterline, and Lord of Foot Bauzhyng had taken that analysis to heart. His primary purpose was, indeed, to “wrack” the heretic’s armor as Zwaigair had recommended, but if his gunners missed her armor, he wanted their fire to come in low, not high—at an angle which might just hole the ironclad’s thin hull plating below the protection of her armored belt.

It wasn’t likely they’d land many hits there, but it was certainly possible. And even the best armored ship had to sink if someone stopped trying to make holes above the water to let air out and managed to punch enough holes below the waterline to let water in.

* * *

Kylpaitryc’s eyes streamed tears as he coughed explosively on harsh, sinus-raping smoke. St. Charlz’s rate of fire had slowed—after twenty-five minutes of furious action, the gunners were beginning to tire badly, but even more to the point, they’d had to reduce fire as the guns heated dangerously. Two of the 8-inchers had already burst, although—Praise Langhorne!—close to their muzzles and nowhere near as catastrophically as they could have, and he was frankly amazed they’d held up as well as they had. St. Charlz had been equipped with older, iron Fultyn Rifles (not that any of them were all that old), which had a much worse reputation for bursting than the newer, steel guns did.

But the Harchongians had never faltered for a moment, despite the risk of failing guns, and he felt a swell of vast, ungrudging pride in them. Perhaps it owed something to that phlegmatic, stoic endurance—that stolid ability to survive anything their masters did to them—for which Harchongese serfs were famed. But perhaps it didn’t, as well.

Kylpaitryc knew he’d never imagined such a tempest of fire and iron, of smoke and battering waves of overpressure. The torrent of heretic fire was a solid wall of hate, scourging the battery’s earthworks like the hammer of Kau-yung, and six more guns had been destroyed by direct hits or silenced by avalanches of earth and masonry, plunging down to block their firing embrasures. It must be as evident to Bauzhyng’s gunners as it was to the lord of foot’s liaison officer that if the rest of the heretic ironclads joined the battle, St. Charlz had to be wrecked from one end to the other by the time they were done.

It took more than resignation, more than fatalism, to face that sort of holocaust, and he recognized raw, unbending courage when he saw it.

The ironclad forged onward—taking fire from both sides now, as Battery St. Agtha joined the battle at a range of 7,500 yards. St. Agtha was sited farther above water level, with a better angle downward at the heretics’ decks, where both logic and the Dohlaran analysis of HMS Dreadnought said the armor had to be thinner. But the longer range, the smoke, and the 6-inch shells shrieking back into its gunners’ faces negated any advantage its gunners might have enjoyed. On the other hand, the ironclad was now under fire from over a hundred heavy guns. A lot of them were missing, judging by the continuous, tortured geysers of white water all about the ship. But a lot of them weren’t missing, too.

It was impossible to make out details through the walls of smoke, the ear-battering thunder of the guns, the explosions of the heretics’ shells, but it seemed to Kylpaitryc that their fire had decreased. They weren’t firing any more slowly, but they seemed to have fewer guns in action, and he bared his teeth at that thought. If they could inflict enough damage, cripple the lead ship, the heretics might break off the attack … and realistically, that was the best Rhaigair Bay’s defenders could hope for.

* * *

“Three inches of water in the bilge, Sir!” Lieutenant Tahlyvyr reported to Alyk Cahnyrs over the conning tower voice pipe. “Pumps’re handling it no problem … so far.”

“Understood,” Cahnyrs replied. “Stay on it, Anthynee.”

“Aye, Sir,” Eraystor’s engineering officer replied, and Cahnyrs let the voice pipe flap close and looked at Zhaztro, standing at his shoulder.

“Bastards are getting more of them in under the belt,” the flag captain said grimly.

“Not enough to make a difference … yet,” Zhaztro said, and Cahnyrs nodded.

“Yet,” he agreed.

It was almost impossible for them to hear one another as the bedlam roared and bellowed around the ship. The Harchongians were firing at least some explosive shells now, and the pounding of shell splinters—and pieces of decking, breakwaters, bridge faces, and Langhorne only knew what else—battered the conning tower’s armor like Shan-wei’s hail. The range was coming down on nine hundred yards, and the savagery of the engagement seemed to redouble with every yard Eraystor steamed. Four of her guns were out of action, now. Damage to her ventilators and funnel had reduced the draft to her boilers, reducing steam pressure accordingly. Everything above decks—everything not protected by armor—had been swept away as if by some fiery hurricane, yet she drove on through the heart of holocaust, firing back, her shells scourging the batteries.

It was impossible to make out details through the smoke, flame, spray, and dust—the conning tower’s vision slits were almost useless, and even the three angle-glasses protruding through the tower’s roof were three-quarters blind—but it seemed to Zhaztro that St. Charlz, in particular, was losing guns. There was nothing wrong with the courage and determination of the men behind those guns, but even though Eraystor was now in the field of fire of every gun on the battery’s western face, it seemed to him that they were actually being hit less frequently … from larboard, at least. Battery St. Agtha was larger, with more guns, and despite the longer range, it was scoring a lot of hits on Eraystor’s starboard side. But there were definitely fewer coming in from St. Charlz, so either the Harchonians were having more trouble finding their target through the blinding walls of smoke—which, he admitted, was a distinct possibility—or else Lieutenant Bahnyface’s gunners were dismounting and crippling their guns.

I hope to hell we are, anyway. Unless something totally unexpected happens, Eraystor’s going to clear the batteries’ fire in the next twenty minutes or so, but God only knows what kind of shape she’ll be in after she does. And then there’s the rest of the squadron. Not to mention the little problem of how we get the galleons and the other support ships into the bay if we can’t silence these frigging batteries! Even a Rottweiler would have trouble living through this kind of fire—there’s no way anything without armor could—and any galleon in the world would’ve been dismasted in the first ten minutes. So nothing besides the Cities is getting through if we can’t take these bastards out.

He gave himself a mental shake. Of course they’d silence the batteries eventually—one way or another. He wasn’t about to let these bastards stop him from doing that! But this sure as hell wasn’t Geyra over again. If the Desnairians had shown this kind of discipline, this kind of accuracy.…

* * *

“Shit!” Kylpaitryc said bitterly.

Whatever might have happened to the lead ironclad’s weight of fire had just become unfortunately irrelevant. The second ironclad in line, steaming relentlessly forward and almost invisible beyond the rolling banks of smoke, had just opened fire on Battery St. Charlz.

“Another of the bastards coming up astern of the second one!” Lord of Foot Bauzhyng’s signalman announced. He had to shout to be heard, and he never raised his head from the tripod-mounted spyglass focused on the signal mast above Battery St. Rahnyld, on the eastern end of Sharyn Island, whose garrison’s view of the oncoming heretics was unobscured by the torrents of smoke.

As an enemy report, it was more than a little … informal, specially from a Harchongese noncom to a lord of foot. But Kwaichee Bauzhyng only nodded. And then—

“Thank you, Seargeant!” he shouted back.

Under other circumstances, Kylpaitryc might have blinked in surprise. Under these, he only felt his mouth try to twitch in harsh, ironic amusement. But any amusement vanished as fresh strings of shells exploded, scourging St. Charlz’s already gouged and torn flanks. More than a quarter of the battery’s guns had been put out of action, although most of them could have been restored to service quickly if only the heretical sons-of-bitches stopped shooting at them.

But the ironclads coming on behind the lead heretic promised that that wasn’t going to happen. Not unless the defenders’ last ditch ploy worked, anyway.

* * *

“Buoy dead ahead!” the lookout on the larboard angle-glass shouted suddenly, and Alyk Cahnyrs grabbed the handles of the forward angle-glass, training it onto the indicated bearing.

“Multiple buoys!” the lookout amplified, and Cahnyrs’ shoulders tightened.

“At least a dozen of the things, Sir,” he grated, turning from the angle-glass to Zhaztro. “Probably more I can’t see through the smoke. They’re damned well marking something right in the middle of the frigging channel, though.”

“Maybe the seijins were wrong about the Dohlaran sea-bombs after all.” Commander Pharsaygyn’s expression was taut, his tone grim.

“If they were, we’ll sail right into the middle of the goddamn things unless we change course in the next four minutes, Admiral,” Cahnyrs said flatly.

* * *

Wonder if the bastards will even see the buoys? Kylpaitryc wondered.

There was no way of telling, or even of knowing if the heretics would be looking for buoys in the first place. For that matter, they didn’t know the heretics had discovered sea-bombs’ existence in the first place, but it struck him as unlikely they hadn’t. If there was one thing they’d demonstrated, over and over again, it was that their spies were fiendishly capable and every damned where. So, yes, they almost certainly knew at least something about the new weapon.

That was why he’d suggested laying the buoys to Bauzhyng. Somewhat to his surprise, the lord of foot had grabbed the idea and run with it. He’d planted a veritable forest of the things, and unless Kylpaitryc was much mistaken, the ironclad would be entering that forest sometime in the next few minutes.

The question, of course, was what they’d do when they did—assuming they realized they’d done it. It could be very … interesting, because those buoys had been placed with malice aforethought. The logical course to evade them would be to turn away from Battery St. Charlz, not towards it, and that course would just happen to lead the ironclad onto a spur of the shoal upon which St. Charlz had been built. At the same time the false sea-mine buoys had been laid, the navigation buoys marking that spur had been removed, in hopes of repeating what had happened to the heretics on Shingle Shoal the preceding year. If the ploy succeeded and the defenders had just a little luck, the ironclad would hit hard enough to rip out its bottom. Even if it avoided that, a ship aground—no matter how well armored it might be—would inevitably be pounded apart by all of the guns St. Charlz and St. Agtha could bring to bear upon it.

And if it doesn’t turn—if it just keeps going and those other ironclads follow it through—we’re fucked.

* * *

Hainz Zhaztro looked at his flag captain, his jaw tight, his face like iron.

True or false? he thought harshly. Real sea-bombs, or just a bluff? And which way does Alyk veer if he avoids them? There’s a goddamned shoal out there somewhere, and in all this smoke and other shit, how the hell do we avoid it if we start taking evasive action in the middle of a frigging duel with a couple of hundred heavy rifles?!

The thoughts flickered through his brain like chainlightning, hammering the weight of command down on his shoulders as nothing had since Darcos Sound. He saw Cahnyrs’ expression, knew the captain wanted to swing wide of the danger zone. The admiral didn’t blame him at all, and how he fought his ship was his decision, wasn’t it?

Yes, it was. But whatever he decided would have huge implications for the rest of the squadron. And even if it was Cahnyrs’ decision, that made it someone else’s responsibility.

Hainz Zhaztro drew a deep breath and looked his flag captain squarely in the eye.

“Damn the sea-bombs, Alyk,” he said flatly. “Hold your course and go ahead.”