At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.II.

St. Haarahld’s Harbor,

White Rock Island,

The Dohlar Bank,

Gulf of Dohlar.

“I hate to interrupt breakfast, Father, but I think you’d better hear this.”

Sir Hahndyl Jyrohm looked up from his scrambled eggs and frowned. At seventy-six, he preferred not to have his creature comforts interfered with any more than he could possibly avoid, and his son Lainyl knew that better than most. On the other hand, Lainyl did know that, so it followed that he wouldn’t have burst into the breakfast parlor without a damned good reason.

The thought of the sort of “good reason” which might have brought his son calling was enough to kill Sir Hahndyl’s appetite rather abruptly.

“Hear what?” he asked.

“I’ve got Ahndru and Zhilbert Ashtyn waiting in my office. They say they’ve seen the heretics’ ironclads.” Sir Hahndyl’s face stiffened, and Lainyl nodded glumly. “They say they’ve seen all the heretics’ ironclads, Father. From the sound of things, they’re talking about that big bastard we’ve been hearing rumors about, not ‘just’ the ones operating out of Chelmport.”

“In your office, you say?” Sir Hahndyl was already pushing back his chair. “Have you sent word to the Major, too?”

“Of course I did … for all the good it’s going to do,” Lainyl said gloomily.

* * *

Major Samyl Truskyt climbed carefully down from the carriage and fitted his forearms into his crutches’ arm cuffs.

The sun shone brilliantly, although the air remained cool and morning fog still clung to the waters of St. Haarahld’s Harbor. That weren’t uncommon on the Dohlar Bank this time of year, at least on calm mornings, or so he’d been told. This was his first spring here on White Rock Island, but he was willing to take the locals’ word for that. And he’d seen enough of those fogs by now to know this one would be burning off within the next hour or so, assuming the breeze didn’t come up and disperse it first.

Truskyt was what his wife Mahtylda called—with less than total approbation—“a morning person.” She, most emphatically was not, but Truskyt loved the early morning, especially right after dawn, and once upon a time, he’d been a notable equestrian—the sort who treasured brisk canters through the dawn and who would never have taken a stuffy carriage on a glorious morning like this one. That had been before a heretic grapeshot removed both legs at the knees in the abortive assault on Thesmar, however. That had been a spider-ratfuck if he’d ever seen one, and he’d been more than a little bitter about the whole thing. Still was, for that matter, although he’d come to the conclusion that that worthless Desnarian piece of shit Harless might actually have done him a favor … of sorts, at any rate. At least he’d missed the even worse spider-ratfuck in the Kyplyngyr Forest.

Only one other officer and six enlisted men of his infantry company’s original two hundred and thirty had come home from the Kyplyngyr with General Alvarezh. So maybe Mahtylda had been right all along that the loss of his legs hadn’t been the worst thing that could have happened to him. He still had the occasional day when it was difficult to maintain his emotional detachment about the whole business, though. The fact that he routinely used a carriage now, instead of one of the horses he loved, normally made that even more difficult than usual, but that was scarcely front and center in his concerns this morning.

Sergeant Pahrkyns climbed down from his place beside the driver and ostentatiously didn’t hover while the major got his crutches squared away. Zhozaphat Pahrkyns had been with Truskyt for a long time. In fact, he’d been the major’s company sergeant, and he, too, had been seriously wounded at Thesmar—mostly because he’d been too busy dragging his commanding officer back to safety to stay out of the line of fire himself. At least he hadn’t completely lost any body parts, although he retained only limited use of his left arm, and Truskyt had managed to hang on to him while they both convalesced. Neither would’ve been much good in the field any longer, however. That was how Truskyt had wound up transferred to the artillery and assigned as the senior officer here on White Rock Island, and Pahrkyns was still with him as his battery sergeant major and self-appointed bodyguard. “Nursemaid” might have been nearer the mark, Truskyt often thought, not that either of them would ever have been so crass—or honest—as to use the word.

Neither of them had known a damned thing about artillery before the transfer, but they’d worked hard on making up their knowledge deficit since. They’d had time for that, as it happened, since their new post was scarcely one of the Kingdom of Dohlar’s most demanding assignments. But it still needed filling, the fishing wasn’t bad, and at least he’d be home for his and Mahtylda’s third child sometime in August. She tried not to be too obvious about her gratitude that she’d gotten him back more or less in one piece—and, he thought, with a fond smile, still … functional—and he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t glad, too.

And at least he could release an officer with two sound legs for service with the Army of the Seridahn. That was something.

He stumped up the crushed-shell walkway to the neatly whitewashed town hall. The town of St. Haarahld’s—more of a glorified village, really, in Truskyt’s opinion—had all a small town’s civic pride, and the town hall was actually on the ostentatious side for a community of barely three thousand souls. On the other hand, it also housed the White Rock Island office of the Fisherman’s Guild, and Lainyl Jyrohm was the guild master, as well as Mayor of St. Haarahld’s. Truskyt had never been able to figure out whether he’d become guild master because he’d been elected mayor, or if he’d been elected mayor because he was the guild master. In either case, the fact that his father was the largest landowner on the island—which, admittedly, wasn’t saying all that much; the entire island was barely eighty miles across at its broadest point and measured just under a hundred and fifty miles north-to-south—probably explained both offices. Although, to be fair, Lainyl had worked the fishing fleet for over ten years before his promotion to guild master and he was a hard-working, conscientious fellow who took both sets of duties seriously.

Pahrkyns stepped around the major and up the shallow steps to open the door, and Truskyt nodded his thanks as he climbed those steps more laboriously in his wake. Lainyl had just stepped out of his office to greet him, leaving the door partially open, as the two of them entered the vestibule. He produced a somewhat strained smile of welcome, and as Truskyt glanced past him through the door, he saw Sir Hahndyl and old Ahndru Ashtyn and his son Zhilbert waiting for them.

“Sorry to drag you out for something like this, Major,” Lainyl said.

“It’s what I’m here for.” Truskyt shrugged with a crooked smile. “Not too sure what either of us is supposed to do about it, though!”

“Aside from worrying like hell and passing the word on to someone on the mainland, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do, either,” Lainyl said frankly, then snorted. “On the other hand, you’re the official Army representative. That probably means I can get away with sliding the whole thing off on you!”

“Always nice to deal with a quick-thinking fellow,” Truskyt said dryly, swinging along on his crutches at Lainyl’s side. “With a mindset like that, you’d’ve gone far in the Army. Of course, you might want to think about the fact that as the official Army representative, I get to write the official reports. Sort of gives me the inside track on assigning responsibilities for the record.”

Lainyl chuckled, then pushed the door fully open and ushered Truskyt into his office.

“Sir Hahndyl,” Truskyt greeted the elder Jyrohm.

“Major Truskyt.” Sir Hahndyl rose to clasp forearms with him once he’d disentangled his right arm from the cuff of his crutch.

Technically, Sir Hahndyl was also the island’s senior noble. Actually, he was its only noble. What that meant was that he got to hang “baronet” on the back of his name on formal occasions. It also explained why the old man had been officially named “Governor of White Rock Island” when the Crown of Dohlar and the Harchong Empire agreed King Rahnyld’s government should have undivided responsibility for—and legal authority over—the entire Dohlar Bank at least for the duration of the Jihad. It was a thankless task, but it had also been little more than a formality … until recently. Which had been just as well. Truskyt liked Sir Hahndyl quite a lot, and he was a nice old dodderer, but he was scarcely a decisive man of action.

“So,” Truskyt continued, turning to the elder of the Ashtyns. “I understand we have you to thank for this little meeting, Ahndru?”

“Wasn’t rightly my idea, Major!” Ashtyn, a wizened, weathered sixty-year-old, had a powerful, thickly calloused grip after five decades spent hauling in nets. His son, Zhilbert, was only thirty-six, with a cap of thick, curly hair as black as his father’s had been before it turned snowy white. He shared his father’s hazel eyes, as well, and he was just as physically tough as the old man. A life in the boats tended to do that for a man.

“No, I know it wasn’t your idea, but Sir Hahndyl and I have to write up a report for Gorath on what it was you saw, so it’s probably best if we get down to it. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“I can do that,” Ahndru said. “Course, it’ll go better—and faster—with a wee dram to oil the words, as it were. Might help after that wicked-cold fog out there in the harbor, too!” The old man shivered dramatically, and Zhilbert rolled his eyes.

“Why am I not surprised?” Lainyl sighed, then opened a desk drawer and started extracting whiskey glasses. “Fortunately, after so long dealing with fishermen, I’m prepared. But only one glass of the good stuff until you’re done, Ahndru! Clear?”

“You’ve a way of encouraging a man t’come t’the point,” Ashtyn chuckled, then took a slow, savoring sip. He let it roll down his throat and sighed blissfully. But then he turned back to Truskyt, and his expression had sobered.

“We seen ’em just about sunset yesterday, Major,” he said. “Zhilbert and me, we were out in the Zhaney Su, helping old Hairahm check his buoys along the Lobster Pot. Traps needed respottin’, some of ’em, after that blow we had Wednesday.”

Truskyt nodded in understanding. The Ashtyns were fishermen—their family operated a total of four boats—not lobstermen. But the White Rock fishing community’s members tended to help one another out, and Lobster Pot Bend, the northeastern arc of the confused mass of shoals and mudbanks known as the Dohlar Bank, teemed with lobsters and spider crab.

“Anyway, that was where we seen them,” Ashtyn went on. “Five of ’em there was, and one of ’em drat near twice the size of t’others. Got two of them smokestacks, too, not just the one.” He shook his head, and there was more than a trace of fear in his eyes. “Biggest damned guns I ever did see, Major. Don’t think anybody’s going t’be happy t’see this bitch coming his way!”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me, either,” Truskyt said, sipping from his own glass. “Yesterday evening, you said?”

“Yep.” Ashtyn nodded. “Headed in soon’s we seen ’em. Figured they weren’t s’ likely t’ come calling in the dark, so we figured t’ get the jump on ’em.” He shrugged. “Wind died just as we was roundin’ Tobys Head, so we dropped th’ hook clear of the channel an’ left Zwan an’ Hektor t’keep an eye on things an’ we rowed in in th’ dinghy t’ let Lainyl—I mean, the Mayor, o’ course—” despite his obvious worry, Ahndru flashed a grin at the craft master he’d known his entire life “—know what we seen.”

“That was good thinking,” Truskyt approved sincerely. “On the other hand, I doubt they’ll be interested in St. Haarahld’s Harbor.” He shrugged and opted not to mention that there would have been damn-all St. Haarahld’s Harbor’s six 25-pounders could have done about it if the Charisian Navy had been interested in St. Haarahld’s. “I know the water’s deep and it’s a decent anchorage, as long as the weather’s not out of the northeast, but they’ve already got Chelmsport over on Trove. I wouldn’t think they’d be looking for—”

“Master Mayor! Sir Hahndyl!”

The office door flew open as Lainyl’s town clerk burst through it. Truskyt looked up in surprise at the interruption, but the other man had actually grabbed Lainyl by the sleeve and was physically dragging him towards the office window.

“What do you think—?!” Lainyl had begun as he was hauled across his office when the waterfront bell which normally summoned the St. Haarahld’s Harbor lifeboat burst into urgent life.

“Look! Look!”

The clerk was pointing out the window. Lainyl’s eyes followed the gesture and the mayor froze in mid stride. Truskyt could actually see the color draining out of his face as he struggled to his own wooden feet. Pahrkyns was there in an instant, his good arm lifting the major powerfully upright. Under normal circumstances, Truskyt would have resented the assistance—or, at least, the way that assistance emphasized the fact that he needed it in the first place. Under these, he only muttered a word of thanks and swung across to the window on his crutches as quickly as he could.

“What is—?” he started urgently, then stopped.

A breeze had come up, a corner of his mind noted, rolling away the fog, and it would appear he’d been guilty of a slight miscalculation.

* * *

“Well, they’ve seen us now, My Lord,” Halcom Bahrns remarked dryly as the last of the offshore fog dissipated.

He was happy to see it go, although St. Haarahld’s Harbor was remarkably commodious and its bottom dropped off with cliff-like steepness, as if some enormous doomwhale had taken a bite out of the mudbanks and shoals on the Dohlar Bank side of the Fern Narrows. According to the charts, they had almost six fathoms even at low tide to within a thousand yards of the town itself.

That was ample depth even for Gwylym Manthyr … which hadn’t made Bahrns a lot happier about approaching White Rock in the dark. Fortunately, he hadn’t had to, and Manthyr and her consorts had marked time, steaming at no more than a knot or two in the narrows, out of sight from the mainland, while they waited for the fog to lift.

“I believe you can probably take that as a given, Captain,” Sir Dunkyn Yairley said, even more dryly. He stood beside Bahrns on the starboard wing of Manthyr’s tall navigation bridge, outside the glassed-in pilot house, gazing through his double-glass at the three-mile distant waterfront which had just become visible. “We’re not exactly the easiest sight for someone to miss, after all.”

Bahrns snorted a laugh, and Baron Sarmouth lowered the double-glass he really hadn’t needed and turned to look back past Manthyr’s mast and funnels at the four City-class ironclads steaming along in her wake. The Victory ships Barcor and Iron Hill kept them company, and Gairmyn, the fifth of Hainz Zhaztro’s ironclads, tagged along astern, keeping a wary eye on the five galleons filled with good Glacierheart coal.

Sarmouth turned back to St. Haarahld’s Harbor—And what an appropriate name that is!—with a smile of his own. The SNARCs gave him a wyvern’s eye view of Lainyl Jyrohm’s office, and the mayor’s response was well worth watching. So was Major Truskyt’s, and the baron’s smile faded into an expression that was almost more grateful than satisfied as he realized Truskyt was too levelheaded to do anything stupid. He’d hoped that would be the case when he’d decided to exercise the discretion Earl Sharpfield had granted him and move the squadron’s forward base from Trove Island to St. Haarahld’s Harbor.

With the bulk of the Dohlar Bank in the way, it was over seven hundred miles from Chelmsport to the Fern Narrows, whether a raiding squadron went north or south. That wasn’t an issue for a galleon or a schooner; it simply meant they took a little longer reaching the hunting grounds. But it definitely was an issue for the short-legged Cities. Until he’d known Zhaztro was coming—officially, that was, without any embarrassing explanations about inner circles, SNARCs, and personal communicators—Sarmouth couldn’t have justified recommending White Rock over the decision to base on Trove. He’d pointed out White Rock’s many advantages in his report to Sharpfield, but until Raisahndo’s squadron had been dealt with—and until the armored steamers became available—trying to seize an island in such close proximity to the Dohlaran coast—and the powerful squadron based on Gorath Bay—had been out of the question.

But things have changed, he thought, watching the distant harborfront grow larger.

Astern of him, the first Marines were already going down the boarding nets into the landing craft bobbing alongside Barcor and Iron Hill. Those landing craft had been fitted with steam-powered paddle wheels which had been sent out aboard the Victory ship Iron Spine for installation at Claw Island. In many ways, Sarmouth would have preferred screw propulsion, but paddle wheels were easier to install and ate up less of the landing craft’s internal volume. And, he conceded, the boats were less likely to lose a paddle wheel than a propeller if they grounded unexpectedly. He had two complete battalions aboard the steamers, and the other two battalions of their regiment were aboard transport galleons accompanying Gairmyn and the colliers. Four thousand Charisian Marines constituted a pretty severe case of overkill for an island whose entire garrison numbered less than two hundred men, but Sarmouth was all in favor of overkill. He was in favor of anything likely to inspire the sort of sanity Truskyt was showing at the moment.

Yes, things have changed, he told himself. And I can hardly wait to see how they react to this in Gorath. Of course, they’ll have some other news to react to pretty damned soon, too, won’t they?

“Nothing,” he said out loud when Captain Bahrns raised a politely inquisitive eyebrow at his sudden chuckle. He couldn’t really tell the captain of his new flagship. He was looking forward to watching that reaction in real time.

“Just a passing thought, Captain,” he said. “Just a thought.”