At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.II.

Gorath Bay Approaches

and

Hankey Sound,

Kingdom of Dohlar.

“Oh, shit,” Seaman Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl, late of His Dohlaran Majesty’s Ship Triumphant, whispered as the image swam clear through the spyglass.

“What was that?” someone asked rather pointedly from behind him.

It was Kwantryl’s misfortune to be assigned to Lieutenant Bruhstair’s six-gun section in Battery Number One. He hadn’t much liked Bruhstair when they’d served together aboard Triumphant, and he’d decided he liked him even less now that the ship had been laid up and they’d been transferred ashore. It wasn’t that Bruhstair was incompetent. In fact, he had a real knack for the new model artillery, and for someone who’d turned twenty—less than half Kwantryl’s age—barely five months earlier, he was damned good at his job. He was, however, a prude in every sense of the word. He’d been remarkably unsympathetic when a seaman—whose last name happened to be Kwantryl—over-imbibed (and overstayed his leave) in an establishment run by ladies of negotiable virtue. On top of that, he disliked even the mildest profanity, and God help anyone who took God or the Archangels in vain in his hearing.

And of course the little snot had to have the sharpest damned ears in the entire Royal Dohlaran Navy.

“Sorry about that, Sir,” Kwantryl said with what might have been a tiny edge of prevarication. “I think you’d better have a look, though,” he added more seriously, stepping back from the spyglass on the observation tower’s railing.

Bruhstair gave him a sharp look, then bent to the spyglass himself.

Under other circumstances, Kwantryl might have been amused by the way the lieutenant’s shoulders tightened so suddenly. At the moment, however, all he felt was agreement with Bruhstair’s response.

“Just this once, Kwantryl,” the lieutenant said finally as he straightened up from the spyglass, “I think your vocabulary may have been … appropriate.”

He snapped his fingers at the other seaman sharing the lookout duty at the moment. Seaman Ahlverez looked up quickly, and Bruhstair pointed at the observation tower ladder.

“Get down there and tell Lieutenant Tohryz we’ve—that Kwantryl has—just spotted several columns of smoke headed this way. Tell him I estimate there must be at least a half-dozen heretic steamers out there but the ships themselves are still below the horizon, so I don’t know how many are ironclads.”

Ahlverez paled visibly, but he also nodded and darted down the ladder so rapidly Kwantryl was afraid the idiot would hang a toe and plunge to the bottom with a broken neck.

“And now, Kwantryl,” Bruhstair said with a razor-thin smile, “I suppose you and I should see if we can’t get a better count. Even at their speed we should have time for that before we go to quarters.”

* * *

“Riverbend reports Cape Toe in sight, Sir,” CPO Matthysahn announced, still bent behind the swivel-mounted double-glass focused on the signal flags above the leading ironclad, three cables ahead of Gwylym Manthyr. He peered through the double-glass for a few more seconds, then straightened. “Bearing four points off the starboard bow, she says, Sir. Range twelve miles.”

“Thank you, Ahbukyra,” Halcom Bahrns replied. He did a little mental math, then turned to the midshipman of the watch. “My respects to Admiral Sarmouth, Master Ohraily, and Riverbend’s sighted Cape Toe, four points off the starboard bow. Range from the flagship is approximately thirteen miles.”

“Your respects to the Admiral, Sir, and Riverbend’s sighted Cape Toe, four points off the starboard bow and the range from Manthyr is thirteen miles,” young Ernystoh Ohraily repeated back. Bahrns nodded, and Ohraily touched his chest in salute and headed for the bridge ladder while Gwylym Manthyr and the reinforced 2nd Ironclad Squadron, now up to a total of six units, continued plowing towards Gorath Bay at a steady ten knots.

* * *

“Thank you, Master Ohraily,” Baron Sarmouth said gravely. “Please present my compliments to Captain Bahrns and inform him that, with his permission, I’ll join him on the navigation bridge directly.”

“Your compliments to Captain Bahrns, My Lord, and, with his permission, you’ll join him on the navigation bridge directly,” Ohraily repeated.

Sarmouth nodded, and the youngster saluted and withdrew from the admiral’s dining cabin. Sylvyst Raigly closed the door behind him, then turned to cock one eyebrow at the admiral.

“Yes, I’ll want my good tunic, Sylvyst,” Sarmouth sighed, with a resigned headshake. “Have to look my best when we’re all being shot at, I suppose. But there’s damned well time to finish breakfast, first. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

“Of course, My Lord,” Raigly murmured, and Sarmouth felt his lips twitch as the valet bowed himself out of the dining cabin. The extra few minutes would give Raigly more time to assemble his personal arsenal before they went on deck, although the probability of a desperate boarding action aboard Gwylym Manthyr struck Sarmouth as rather unlikely.

He snorted at the thought, then scooped up the last bite of poached egg and washed it down with the last of his cherrybean. Then he pushed his chair back and turned towards his day cabin, marveling once again at the spaciousness of his quarters. Admittedly, Manthyr was ten times Destiny’s size, and all the King Haarahlds had been designed to serve as flagships, but he’d still been astonished by the amount of space set aside for the flag officer’s use. He had a day cabin, an office, a chart room, a dining cabin, and a sleeping cabin. And, as if that weren’t enough, he also had a sea cabin—half the size of his day cabin and equipped with a comfortable bed—and a second, larger chart room right off the flag bridge.

It was more space than he’d ever needed—or could conceive of ever needing—and it seemed … wrong somehow for his quarters to remain inviolate when the ship cleared for action. His possessions were supposed to be sent below, the dividing partitions were supposed to go with them, and the heavy guns which shared his quarters were supposed to be loaded and run out, ready to fire. But there were no cannon in these quarters and no reason to strip them before battle. Although his most prized possessions had been sent below yesterday evening in preparation for today, there’d be no hustle and bustle for him this morning. He supposed he’d get used to it eventually, but he hadn’t yet. In fact, he’d been surprised to discover he actually missed it, as if he’d lost some unspoken connection with the rest of his flagship’s crew.

He smiled a bit crookedly as he admitted that to himself, but his amusement faded quickly as he crossed the day cabin and stepped into the chart room. The lamp hung from the deckhead had been lit, but more and better light actually came in through the three scuttles in the outboard bulkhead. Trumyn Lywshai, his flag secretary and clerk, had opened all three of them and latched them back, letting the fresh sea air sweep through the compartment. Probably to help clear the lingering tobacco smell, Sarmouth reflected as he drew his cigar case from his breast pocket. He selected a cigar, returned the case to his pocket, and stood frowning down at the chart spread across the table as he clipped the cigar’s end. That chart had been liberally marked with penciled notations, and his frown deepened as he studied them.

Gorath Bay offered several advantages as a harbor, including approach channels deep enough for the largest ships. Unfortunately, it also offered quite a few advantages when it came to defending those passages.

The peninsula Dohlarans had named The Boot curved up from the south, enclosing a bay that ran over two hundred and thirty miles from north to south. For all its size and the depth of its channels, the bay was more than a little constricted, however, and its half-dozen-plus islands provided numerous sites for defensive batteries. Cape Toe at the tip of The Boot was a case in point, covering the Lace Passage, between Hankey Sound and the Zhulyet Channel … which just happened to be the approach which had been forced upon Sarmouth’s squadron. Sandbottom Pass, northwest of Lace Passage, would have stayed well clear of the Cape Toe batteries, but its deep water channel was much narrower … and the Royal Dohlaran Navy had scuttled no less than thirty galleons to obstruct it. If he wanted to enter Gorath Bay, he had to fight his way past Cape Toe first. It wasn’t going to get a whole lot better even after he ran the Lace Passage gauntlet, either, because Thirsk clearly believed in a defense in depth.

The next minor difficulty would come when he had to force one of the passages through the barrier of shoals and islands stretching well over two hundred miles from Broken Keel Shoal in the west to Senya Point in the east. One would have thought two hundred miles offered ample opportunity, but one would have been wrong. There were only three possible routes he could take, and he frowned as he ran his finger across the chart, remembering one of Cayleb Ahrmahk’s favorite observations, acquired from an ancient Old Terran military theorist via Merlin Athrawes. In war, everything was very simple, but achieving even simple things was immensely difficult. He’d never seen a better example of that than the one on the chart before him, and he wasn’t looking forward to what this operation might cost.

The damage Hainz Zhaztro’s flagship had suffered in Saram Bay had been made good by HMS Urvyn Mahndrayn, the first steam-powered repair ship in Safeholdian history. It had taken over a month, and Zhastro had transferred his flag to the newly arrived HMS Tanjyr until he could get Eraystor back. Sarmouth had a copy of Mahndrayn’s report on Eraystor’s damages, and it had given him rather more respect for the current generation of Temple Boy artillery. He doubted even the rifled 10-inchers which had pummeled Eraystor so brutally represented a threat to his flagship, but the Dohlarans had managed to mount several dozen 12-inch rifles to protect their capital. He didn’t like to think about the labor involved in working a 12-inch muzzleloader, and it had a very low rate of fire, thanks to its barrel length and the need to swab out between rounds. But if one of them hit, it was going to hit with authority.

And that doesn’t even count the rockets and the sea-bombs, he thought grimly, puffing his cigar alight while he glowered at the chart. I know why we have to do this and how it’s going to end, assuming everything works the way it’s supposed. I even know it’ll be worth whatever it costs … if everything does work. But I also know it’s damned well not going to be the painless romp some of the boys are predicting.

He drew on the cigar, brooding down at the chart, then blew out a long streamer of smoke, straightened his spine, and headed back to collect his good tunic before he joined Bahrns on the bridge.

* * *

“I make it at least twelve smoke clouds now, Sir,” Kwantryl reported, never looking up from the spyglass. “I can see two of their ironclads, too. One of the single-chimney ships is leading, but that big bastard’s right behind it. Can’t get a good look at number two yet—too much smoke from the one in front. And until they get closer, I can’t tell how many of those other clouds’re ironclads, either.”

“Two of them would be more than enough for me.” Lieutenant Bruhstair’s tone was light, but his expression was grim as he jotted down Kwantryl’s latest count. “Range?”

“’Bout ten miles to the single-chimney, Sir,” Kwantryl replied. “Looks like there’s two, maybe three cables between them, and they’re coming on pretty damned fast. Figure they’ll be right up to us in ’bout another hour.”

Bruhstair nodded without even commenting on Kwantryl’s language, added that information to his note, then tore the page out of his notebook and handed it to one of the ship’s boys who’d been sent up the tower to serve as runners.

“Lieutenant Tohryz, quick as you can!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

The youngster scurried down the ladder like a spider-monkey, and Kwantryl raised his head to watch him go, then glanced at Bruhstair. But the lieutenant wasn’t looking in his direction. He’d stepped to the edge of the observation tower, looking down on the section of guns along the battery wall that were his responsibility.

“Make sure we’ve got plenty of dressings!” he called down to one of the gun captains. “And get those water tubs refilled—especially the ones for drinking water! Don’t want any of you layabouts collapsing from thirst just to get out of a little honest work!”

Someone in the section shouted back. Kwantryl couldn’t make out the words, but from the tone, they were probably a bit saltier than Bruhstair normally tolerated. This time, the lieutenant only laughed, and Kwantryl nodded in approval. He could forgive any young twerp quite a lot when he was as devoted to his men as Dyaygo Bruhstair.

It was just sort of hard to remember that between times like this.

He snorted with amusement at the thought, and the lieutenant gave him a sharp glance.

“Something humorous about the situation, Kwantryl?”

“No, Sir. Not really. Just an old joke. Funny how a man’s mind goes on these little walks every so often.”

“Well, I recommend you walk it right back to that spyglass,” Bruhstair said a bit more tartly. “That is why we’re up here, you know.”

“Yes, Sir!” Kwantryl replied and bent back over the spyglass. It was probably just as well the lieutenant couldn’t see his huge grin from behind him. Explaining what was really so funny would land him in a shitpot of trouble as soon as the battle was over.

* * *

“Range is down to ten miles, Sir,” CPO Mathysyn reported. “The rangefinder has the southern battery in sight.”

“Thank you, Ahbukyra.”

Halcom Bahrns glanced at his admiral, and Sarmouth nodded that he’d heard the report. Ten miles would have been in range for Gwylym Manthyr’s 10-inch guns, assuming they’d had the elevation for it. Which they didn’t. At six degrees, their maximum reach was “only” twelve thousand yards, just under seven miles.

We’ll just have to keep going until we are in range, he thought. At least it won’t be that much longer, and Riverbend should be into her effective range in another twelve minutes. I just wish to hell there was some way to tell Whytmyn everything I know about the defenses.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Thirsk had made several adjustments in the last couple of days, only after the squadron had sailed for the attack. There’d been no time for a “seijin” to legitimately learn about those adjustments and get word to Sarmouth. He’d done everything he could to adjust his own plans in the tradition Cayleb had established in the Armageddon Reef Campaign by “playing a hunch,” but there were limits.

He’d seriously considered asking Owl and Nahrmahn to deploy some of the SNARCs’ small incendiary devices. In fact, he’d discussed the possibility with all the inner circle’s senior members, only to discover their opinions were as divided as his own. Sharleyan, Merlin, Pine Hollow, and Maikel Staynair had all favored their use as the best way to save lives … on both sides. But Cayleb, Rock Point, Nimue, Nahrmahn, and Nynian had all opposed it because of the potential political consequences. In the end, after hours of debate, Cayleb and Sharleyan had declared that the decision was his, as the commander on the spot and the man whose officers and men would bear the action’s brunt.

A part of him wished they’d gone ahead and made the call rather than leaving it up to him, but he told himself that was his inner coward talking. And so he’d made the decision. In fact, he’d made it three times, flipping back and forth with a degree of indecisiveness that was most unlike him.

Explosions in carefully selected strategic locations—like battery magazines—could have gone a long way towards easing his task. But this attack was as much a calculated political maneuver as a purely military operation or even the pursuit of long-delayed justice, and that political maneuver depended on a fine and delicate balance of factors in the city of Gorath itself. However helpful in a military sense, those magazine explosions might raise eyebrows—the wrong eyebrows—especially if they were mysterious explosions without some readily identifiable cause. It was probable that those inclined to assign demonic powers to the “heretics” would do just that—and that those inclined not to assign them demonic powers wouldn’t—whatever happened. But he couldn’t be positive of that, and as Nynian and Nahrmahn had forcefully pointed out, events in Gorath would depend at least in large part on the perceptions of two or three key individuals whose reactions they simply couldn’t predict.

And so, in the end, he’d decided against it. He only hoped it wasn’t a decision he’d regret.

And even if I’m not going around blowing things up with joyous abandon, and even if I can’t tell my people everything, we’ve already told them about one hell of a lot. It’s just going to have to be good enough. And young Makadoo may be able to buy me a little bigger “information bubble.” Speaking of which.…

He glanced up at the lookout pod. Gwylym Manthyr’s navigation bridge was thirty-five feet above the water, which gave it a visual horizon of just under eight miles in clear weather. His flag bridge was ten feet higher, which gave it another mile or so of visibility. The rangefinder on its raised pedestal atop the forward superstructure was twenty feet higher still, and its powerful range-finding angle-glasses could see over ten miles, about two-thirds of the lookout pod’s visual range. That was good, but he could do better.

“Is Master Chief Mykgylykudi ready?” he asked.

“Yes, My Lord.” Halcom Bahrns straightened from the voice pipe into which he’d been speaking and smiled. “I figured you’d be asking that right about now, and he says he’s ready to start paying out cable anytime we want. He also says, and I quote, ‘Master Makadoo’s been squirming like his breeches are full of bees for the last quarter hour.’”

Despite his inner tension, Sarmouth chuckled. Young Zoshua Makadoo was Gwylym Manthyr’s fifth—and youngest—lieutenant. He was also a slightly built, quick-moving fellow, like many of the Charisian Empire’s new aeronauts.

“Well, we can’t have Zoshua driving the Bosun crazy,” the admiral said. “Best tell him to get started.”

* * *

“What the fuck?!”

The startled obscenity escaped before Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl could stop it and Lieutenant Bruhstair looked at him sharply. But the seaman only straightened and gestured at the spyglass.

“Sir, you’d better have a look yourself.”

The urgency in Kwantryl’s tone erased any temptation to rebuke him for his language, and the lieutenant put his eye to the spyglass. For a few moments he couldn’t understand what had startled Kwantryl so, but then he inhaled sharply as he saw the large white … shape rising above the biggest heretic ironclad. It was already considerably higher than the big ship’s mast, and it went on climbing higher, rapidly and smoothly, as he watched. It was shaped something like a flattened cigar, he thought, but it had some sort of stubby vanes, or wings, or something, and it was clearly harnessed to the ship somehow.

“What is that thing, Sir?” Kwantryl asked, and the tough, veteran seaman was obviously shaken. Not surprisingly, Bruhstair thought, feeling a cold shiver as he remembered all the fiery sermons damning the heretics for trafficking with demons. But.…

“I think it’s a balloon,” he said slowly, forcing himself to take his eye from the spyglass and stand up straight … and rather surprised by how much better he felt when the shape faded into an unthreatening blur with distance.

“‘Balloon,’ Sir?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen one myself,” Bruhstair replied more confidently, “but one of my uncles saw a demonstration in Gorath and told me about it when I was a kid. If you heat the air inside a balloon, it floats up into the air.”

“Floats into the air?” Kwantryl looked decidedly uneasy. “Can’t say I like the sound of that, Sir!”

“There’s nothing demonic about it,” Bruhstair said quickly. “The Bishop Executor himself pronounced that when Uncle Sailys was in Gorath. It’s only fire and air, and both of those are permitted.”

“If you say so, Sir.” Kwantryl didn’t seem very convinced, Bruhstair noted.

“It’s not demonic,” the lieutenant repeated reassuringly. “But it is going to let them see a lot farther. Don’t know how much good it’ll do them, though. And whatever somebody perched up there can see, he’ll still need some way to get word of it back down to the ship. Might be just a bit of a problem getting that done in time to do any good.”

* * *

“End of the cable, Sir,” Petty Officer Hahlys announced.

“Thank you, Bryntyn,” Lieutenant Makadoo acknowledged.

The lieutenant lay prone in the nose of the streamlined gondola. Unlike the balloons of the ICA’s Balloon Corps, the Navy’s kite balloons had a lifting shape, with stubby airfoil wings that generated a lot of lift when their motherships towed them at fifteen knots or so. Or when they were towed at a mere five or ten knots into a twenty-five knot wind, like today’s. That meant they needed less hydrogen to loft a given weight—although, to be fair, that lift wasn’t available when their motherships weren’t steaming into the wind—and they could probably have squeezed a third passenger into the gondola, as long as whoever it was was no bigger than him or Hahlys. The quarters would have been tight, though.

At the moment, Makadoo’s elbows were braced on the padded rest in front of him while he peered through his powerful double-glass. The front of the gondola was glassed in to protect the crew from the wind generated by the balloon’s forward motion, but Makadoo had the center section of window latched back. Duke Delthak could say whatever he wanted, but Zoshua Makadoo was firmly convinced the visibility was better with the window out of the way.

Besides, he and Hahlys liked the wind.

“Check the drop cylinder,” he said, never looking away from the view ahead.

“Aye, Sir,” Hahlys replied.

The young petty officer stuffed the test message into the small bronze cylinder and made sure the lid was properly screwed down. Then he snaphooked its traveler onto the messenger line deployed on one side of the balloon’s braided steel thistle silk tether. He let go and it disappeared, flashing down the messenger line to the deck far below.

Looking down, Hahlys could see one of the other signalmen pounce on the canister, unhook it, and hand the note inside it to Ahndru Mykgylykudi, Gwylym Manthyr’s bosun. Mykgylykudi glanced at it, then nodded to the party of seamen gathered around the steam-powered “donkey” engine beside the winch that controlled the balloon’s tether.

The second messenger line was spaced well over a foot on the other side of the tether. It was also doubled and ran over a sheave at the top of the gondola’s open rear. Now that line hummed sharply as it sped through the sheave until the canister hooked to it thumped against the rest at the base of the sheave, and Hahlys nodded approvingly.

The messenger canisters were a faster means of communication than a signal lamp would have been. They were also safer. Mhargryt—they’d named it for Makadoo’s mother, since the lieutenant said she’d always had an explosive temper—was basically a great big bomb, just waiting to explode. That was why there was no iron or steel anywhere in the gondola’s construction, and why there were no iron nails in its crew’s boots.

The powered messenger line was the fastest way to get a message up to Mhargryt, but the free-falling line was much faster when it came to getting a message back to the ship. And since Mhargryt’s primary duty was to be Gwylym Manthyr’s eye in the sky—and to spot the fall of the big ship’s shots from above the clouds of gun and funnel smoke likely to blind her gunners—speed of communication was a very good thing to have.

“Both lines are working fine, Sir,” he reported to Makadoo.

“Good.”

Makadoo sounded just a little distant, and Hahlys smiled. From their present altitude of eighteen hundred feet, the lieutenant could see for almost sixty miles. That meant he could see all the way across Cape Toe. In fact, he could probably just make out the low-lying blur of Sandy Island on the far side of the Outer Ground, the stretch of water between The Boot and the barrier islands separating it from the Middle Ground, closer to Gorath. At the moment, he was focused closer to home, slowly and methodically sweeping the waters of the Lace Passage for any sign of the Royal Dohlaran Navy. Hahlys would be astounded if any of the Earl of Thirsk’s surviving galleons or screw-galleys were crazy enough to engage the squadron, but Admiral Sarmouth’s instructions before they’d launched had been clear. He wanted to know the instant they spotted anything bigger than a rowboat.

Several minutes went by as Makadoo switched his attention from the channel to Cape Toe itself. He studied the fortifications equally carefully, then lowered the double-glass and rolled onto his side, looking back towards Hahlys.

“Message,” he said, and the petty officer pulled out his pad and pencil.

“Ready, Sir.”

“Message begins. ‘No vessels currently underway within visual range. Several small craft moored north of Cape Toe at Battery Number Two’s jetty. Have also spotted several large canvas-covered freight wagons behind Battery Number One’s parapet in what appear to be well dug-in positions.’”

He paused, rubbing the tip of his nose thoughtfully while he considered what he’d just said. Then he shrugged.

“Read it back,” he said, and nodded when Hahlys did. “It never ceases to amaze me that anyone, including you, can read your handwriting, Bryntyn. But once again, you’ve gotten it right. So let’s get the word back to the ship.”

* * *

“Coming down on six miles’ range, Sir,” Commander Pharsaygyn murmured, and Sir Hainz Zhaztro nodded without ever lowering his double-glass.

He understood the unspoken part of his chief of staff’s announcement. Lywys Pharsaygyn thought it was about time his admiral retired to the interior of HMS Eraystor’s conning tower and put its armor between him and the Dohlaran defenders. On the other hand, the possibility of a Dohlaran gunner’s hitting a target—even one Eraystor’s size—at better than ten thousand yards was remote, to say the least, and the field of view from the conning tower, even using one of the angle-glasses, wasn’t anything Zhaztro would have called adequate.

“Tell Alyk I’ll be along shortly,” he said, then lowered the double-glass to smile crookedly at Pharsaygyn. “And if you’re going to tell me he wasn’t your accomplice in coming out to drag my arse into the conning tower, please don’t.”

“That obvious, were we?” Pharsaygyn returned his smile unrepentantly.

“Let’s just say subtlety isn’t your strong suit,” Zhaztro said. “Besides, if it’s six miles for us, it’s only four and a half for Riverbend, which means—”

* * *

“Range eight thousand, Sir,” Lieutenant Gyffry Kyplyngyr said, looking up from the voice pipe which connected HMS Riverbend’s gunnery officer to her conning tower. “Lieutenant Metzlyr requests permission to open fire.”

Unlike Admiral Zhastro, Captain Tobys Whytmyn had already retired into that conning tower. It wasn’t because he was any more concerned about Dohlaran artillery at this range than his admiral, but there was going to be plenty of concussion, blast, and smoke from Charisian artillery all too soon. Under the circumstances, he preferred having the conning tower’s armor between himself and the muzzle blast of eleven 6-inch guns.

Call me a wuss, but I’d really like to keep my eardrums intact a little longer, he reflected.

“Very well,” he acknowledged, peering through the starbard angle-glass at their target. “Bring us another two points to larboard, Helm.”

“Two points larboard, aye, Sir.”

Petty Officer Riely Dahvynport turned the wheel easily, despite the fact that Riverbend’s rudder was far more massive—and much, much heavier—than any of galleons’ or galley’s rudder had ever been. The gleaming hydraulic rams deep in Riverbend’s bowels answered to his touch, and the ironclad’s course curved to the west. She continued to approach Cape Toe, but her new heading would open her broadside, allowing every one of her starboard guns to bear on the batteries.

Whytmyn let his ship settle onto her new course, then looked over his shoulder at Riverbend’s second lieutenant.

“Very well, Gyffry. Tell Tairohn he can open fire whenever he’s ready.”

“Aye, Sir!” Lieutenant Kyplyngyr acknowledged with a huge grin and disappeared down the ladder like a lizard into its hole.

* * *

Well, that can’t be a good sign, Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl thought, standing in the embrasure beside his assigned 10-inch Fultyn Rifle.

Lieutenant Bruhstair’s section was fully manned now and Lieutenant Rychardo Mahkmyn, Battery Number One’s commanding officer, had taken over his and Bruhstair’s post on the observation tower. As far as Kwantryl was concerned, he was more than welcome to it, too. The tower had been heavily sandbagged, but there was an enormous difference between sandbags, however thickly piled, and the solid earth of the battery’s thick, protective berm.

That was particularly pertinent at the moment, since the lead ironclad had just turned far enough to present its broadside to Cape Toe. Somehow, Kwantryl doubted they would have done that if they didn’t figure they were—

* * *

“Fire!” Tairohn Metzlyr barked into his voice pipe at the base of HMS Riverbend’s rangefinder.

Not only did the rangefinder give him an accurate distance to his target, but his present perch was also high enough—and the lenses in the rangefinder’s angle-glasses were strong enough—to give him an excellent view of it.

Nothing happened for another five seconds. And then—

* * *

“Langhorne’s balls!” someone gasped.

Fortunately, whoever it had been was somewhere behind Lieutenant Bruhstair, impossible to identify. Not that even a stickler like Bruhstair would have wasted time and energy castigating the malefactor under the circumstances.

The heretic ironclad disappeared behind a stupendous gush of fiery smoke.

HMS Triumphant had been entirely too close to a Charisian galleon when it exploded in the Kaudzhu Narrows. The stunning concussion of that moment, the flaming wreckage flying across his own ship, setting fire to Triumphant’s main topsail, was something Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl had no desire to repeat. Yet the volcanic eruption that blotted out his view of the ironclad was at least as bad. It was also eight thousand yards away, but that had its own drawbacks. Like the fact that at that range it took several seconds for the heretics’ shells to reach their targets, which gave a man all too much time to think about what was headed his way.

Kwantryl stepped back from the mouth of the gun embrasure. He was no more obvious about it than he could help, and he had ample time to put some of that nice, solid berm between him and the incoming fire.

Ten seconds after they’d been fired, eleven 6-inch shells came shrieking down on Battery Number One. They weren’t as tightly grouped as Lieutenant Metzlyr would have preferred. Five of them actually overshot the battery entirely, but that wasn’t a complete loss, because one of them scored a direct hit on one of the wagons Lieutenant Makadoo had reported to Admiral Sarmouth.

The heavy freight wagon disappeared in a savage explosion as the 12-foot-long coast defense rockets in its launching frame exploded. A huge mushroom of smoke, flame, and dirt rose over two hundred feet into the air and half a dozen fire-tailed comets screamed out of it at crazy angles. But the defenders had built high earthen cofferdams between those wagons, putting each of them into its own mini-redoubt, and those cofferdams channeled the blast upwards rather than out to the sides, where it might have taken other wagons with it.

Five of the other six shells slammed into the battery’s berm, drilling into it as Eraystor’s shells had drilled into Battery St. Charlz in the attack on Saram Bay, and Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl’s jaw tightened as their powerful explosions sent shockwaves rippling through his flesh.

The eleventh and final shell sizzled just above the top of the parapet and crashed into the base of the observation tower. The heavy sandbags smothered much of the explosion, but shell fragments sliced upwards through the tower platform’s floor like white-hot axes, killing three of its seven occupants … including Lieutenant Mahkmyn.

And then, eleven seconds after their shells, the thunder of HMS Riverbend’s guns rolled over the battery.

* * *

“Eleven thousand yards in four minutes, My Lord,” Ahrlee Zhones announced. He had to speak fairly loudly as he stood at Baron Sarmouth’s elbow because both of them had already inserted their protective earplugs.

“Thank you, Ahrlee,” Sarmouth acknowledged.

He and his youthful flag lieutenant stood on the flag bridge’s starboard wing as Halcom Bahrns followed Riverbend and Eraystor. Gwylym Manthyr wouldn’t be approaching Cape Toe quite as closely as her smaller consorts, partly because she drew more water and partly because no one could be certain the Dohlarans hadn’t planted any of their sea-bombs to protect those waters.

Actually, Sarmouth knew exactly where Earl Thirsk had put his minefields. As a result, he knew all of the armored ships could have come within as little as four thousand yards of the battery. There was no way he could have explained how he’d come to possess that knowledge, however, and he had a reputation as a canny, methodical officer to maintain.

Besides, even if there weren’t any sea-bombs, there were those rocket wagons he hadn’t been supposed to be able to know about. If worrying about mines he knew weren’t there kept his ships outside the range of rocket launchers he knew were there, that was fine with him. He’d been delighted when the first wagon exploded under Riverbend’s fire, and three more of them had been destroyed since.

Which only leaves twelve of the damned things, he thought grimly, looking down on the vortex of smoke and flame through an overhead SNARC.

* * *

“Sweet Bédard,” Zoshua Makadoo murmured as Gwylym Manthyr opened fire at last.

Unlike anyone else in the squadron—aside, if he’d only known, from its commander—he and Bryntyn Hahlys had an unobstructed view of the incredible vista, and his double-glass was glued to his eyes. He’d never imagined anything like the huge billows of brown Charisian gunsmoke, the equally huge jets of dirty gray-white spurting from the battery’s earthen ramparts as the Dohlarans’ banded rifles returned fire, the black smoke pouring from the squadron’s funnels, and the white smoke of burning barracks rising From Battery Number One’s interior. Even at the kite balloon’s altitude, it quivered and bounced in the shockwaves as the flagship’s main battery spat out an even more enormous mountain of smoke.

Four 10-inch shells howled through six miles of empty space, and seven 8-inch shells came with them.

Twelve seconds later, they struck.

* * *

Kwantryl coughed harshly, despite the water-soaked bandanna across his nose and mouth, and stared into the blinding smoke through red-rimmed, tear-streaming eyes. He and the rest of Lieutenant Bruhstair’s gun crews—his surviving gun crews, at any rate—had only the vaguest notion of their target’s position. The gunsmoke was bad enough; the wood smoke pouring from the blazing barracks, mess hall, sickbay, and what had once been the battery commander’s office was worse.

“Clear!” the gun captain shouted, half-screaming to be heard, and Kwantryl and the other crew members jumped clear of the slides. The captain peered along the barrel while the heat of firing rose from it as if from a stove, looking for the funnels protruding from the impenetrable fog bank of gunsmoke. They were all he could really hope to see, and even then only fleetingly.

“Firing!” he shouted and jerked the lanyard.

The 10-inch rifle thundered like Chihiro’s trump of doom. It recoiled fiercely, and the gun crew swarmed over it, shoving the water-soaked swab down the barrel to quench the last shot’s embers. The barrel was so long it took two men to manage the swab, and the men with the next powder charge waited impatiently.

“Handsomely, boys!” Lieutenant Bruhstair shouted. “Handsomely!”

The lieutenant paced steadily, unhurriedly, up and down the line of his guns. There were only four of them now. One had been buried in its embrasure by an exploding heretic shell, but another had burst four feet in front of the trunnions. Half of that crew had been killed or wounded, and the survivors were distributed among the remaining guns, replacing other men who’d been cut down.

At that, they were lucky only one gun had burst. The cast-iron guns which had been issued to Lieutenant Bruhstair’s section were far more likely to fail than the newer steel rifles. It hadn’t made his gunners feel one bit more confident when he’d gone to the 15-pound bombardment charge rather than the standard 12-pound charge. Not that anyone had been tempted to argue. Given what the heretics’ shells were doing to Battery Number One it struck most of his men as unlikely they’d live long enough to be killed by a bursting cannon.

“Load!” the gun captain bellowed, and the man with the bagged charge reached for the gun’s overheated muzzle and—

* * *

Two tons of steel slammed into Battery Number One as Gwylym Manthyr’s first broadside landed. The 10-inch shells’ effect on the protective berm was devastating, but one of the 8-inch shells drilled straight into the face of the battery’s number two magazine with freakish accuracy.

The explosion was like the end of the world.

* * *

Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl dragged himself to his knees, shaking his head like a punchdrunk fighter. He didn’t remember the explosion that had picked him up and tossed him aside like a child’s doll. He didn’t remember landing, either, and he looked down with a sort of detached bemusement as he realized his left arm was broken in at least three places.

Better off than the rest of the lads, though, a corner of his brain told him.

The entire section was gone. The breeches of two of its guns still protruded from the churned earth which had once been a protective berm. The others were simply gone, dismounted and buried, and two-thirds of the gunners who’d served them had gone with them. A gaping, crescent-shaped bite had been ripped out of the battery’s parapet, and two more rocket wagons exploded even as he came to his feet. At least he thought it was two of them, but his ears didn’t seem to be working very well, and it could easily have been more than that.

He turned in a slow circle, clutching his broken arm, watching as men who’d been wounded or simply stunned began struggling upright, and his jaw tightened as he saw Dyaygo Bruhstair.

The young man’s—the boy’s—left leg ended at mid-thigh, and blood poured from the ragged stump. More blood pulsed from a deep wound in his left shoulder, but he’d fought his way into a sitting position somehow, clutching at the stump of his leg, and his face was paper-white, his eyes glazed with shock.

Kwantryl staggered to his side and went back to his knees. It was harder than hell with only one working arm, but he managed to pull his belt free and looped it around the truncated leg. Another member of the section knelt beside him, helping to tighten the crude tourniquet, but Kwantryl couldn’t have said who it was. It didn’t really matter. They’d just gotten the tourniquet tightened when another 6-inch shell exploded and a white-hot splinter decapitated whoever it had been.

He moved behind Bruhstair, gripped his collar in his good hand, and heaved, dragging the lieutenant towards the nearest supposedly shellproof dugout. After what had just happened to the section, he had his doubts about that “shellproof” guarantee. The engineers who’d made the promise had never seen heretic shells. But it would be better than nothing.

Another salvo tore into the shattered and broken battery. Steel splinters shrieked overhead and screams answered as they drove into men who’d just discovered they were all too mortal.

“Leave me!” Bruhstair’s voice was barely audible through the bedlam, but he reached up, pawing feebly at the hand locked onto his collar. “Leave me!” The words were half-slurred, but their intensity came through. “Get under cover!”

“No, Sir,” Kwantryl panted, staggering like a drunken man as he hauled the lieutenant towards the dugout.

“Damn you, Ahlfraydoh! Just once do what I say!”

“Not happening,” Kwantryl gasped. “’Sides, we’re almost—”

The 10-inch shell landed less than five feet behind them.

* * *

“Repairs completed, Sir. Or as close as we’re getting without Mahndrayn, anyway.”

Lieutenant Anthynee Tahlyvyr’s face and uniform were both filthy. In that respect, he was no different from most of the rest of HMS Eraystor’s crew. In his case, however, a liberal coating of oil and coal dust had been added to the grimy gunpowder residue, and Captain Cahnyrs shook his head with a smile as he regarded his senior engineer.

“How bad is it?”

“We’re not getting that breech block on Number Seven six-inch back anytime soon, Sir,” Tahlyvyr said sourly. “Same thing for the larboard engine room blower, and there’s still a hole in Compartment Sixty-Two we can’t reach to plug. Must be pretty good-sized, too, judging by how much water’s coming in, but the pumps’re holding it. Until I can get the funnel uptakes patched, I can’t give you enough draft for full steam pressure, but she’s still good for thirteen, maybe even fourteen knots.”

“Outstanding!” Cahnyrs said sincerely, and patted him on the shoulder. “Not go scrub some of that crap off your hands and grab something to eat. We’ll be finding more work for you soon, I’m sure.”

“What I’m here for, Sir,” Tahlyvyr replied with a weary, off-center smile. “And food sounds really good right about now.”

“Well, make it quick,” Cahnyrs warned. “You’ve got about forty minutes.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

The engineer touched his chest in salute and climbed down the exterior bridge ladder to Eraystor’s narrow side deck. Cahnyrs watched him go, then turned to the admiral at his side.

“I wonder if he understands just how good he really is, Sir Hainz?”

“I don’t know if he does, but I sure as hell do,” Zhastro said. “I assume your after-action report will bring him to my attention in suitably glowing terms?” Cahnyrs nodded, and Zhaztro snorted. “Well, see that it does! That young man deserves a medal or two. Not the only member of your ship’s company that’s true of, either, Captain. For that matter, you haven’t been too shabby today.”

“Day’s still young, Sir. Plenty of time for me to screw up.”

“And if I thought that was likely to happen, I might actually worry about it,” Zhaztro replied dryly.

Cahnyrs chuckled, and Zhaztro gave him a smile. Then he moved out to the end of the bridge wing and lifted his double-glass to observe Eraystor’s next challenge and his smile faded.

The shattered ruins of the Cape Toe fortifications lay five hours and the better part of forty miles astern as she steamed steadily up the Zhulyet Channel towards its narrowest point, between Sandy Island to the east and the far smaller Wreckers’ Island on the western side of the channel. Even at its narrowest, that channel was twenty-six miles wide. Unfortunately, Slaygahl Shoal lay right in the middle of it, running almost thirty-five miles from north to south. Slaygahl was just awash at low tide, and even at high tide there were barely four feet of water across it. The shipping channel was far deeper—at least six fathoms everywhere—but it was also barely five miles wide on the western side of the shoal, and about ten miles wide on the eastern side. And, even more unfortunately, Sir Lywys Gardynyr wasn’t the sort of commander to miss the possibilities that offered. According to the seijins, he’d laid a dense field of sea-bombs on either side of the shoal.

Right where anyone trying to find a way through them would come under the heavy fire of at least a dozen 12-inch Fultyn Rifles.

This is going to be … unpleasant, Hainz, Zhaztro told himself. You thought Battery St. Charlz was bad, but this is going to be worse.

He and Baron Sarmouth had discussed their unpalatable options exhaustively and come up with the best approach they could. Which wasn’t remotely the same thing as saying they’d found a good one.

In many ways, they would have preferred to use Needle’s Eye Channel, between Meyer Island and Green Tree Island. It was broader, but it was also shallower, and there were even more guns on Green Tree than on Sandy and Wreckers’. That ruled out the Needle, and at least they’d managed, courtesy of Admiral Seamount, to come up with one wrinkle Zhaztro was pretty sure hadn’t occurred even to someone as canny as the Earl of Thirsk.

He trained his double-glass astern and smiled again—thinly, but with genuine satisfaction—as he watched the converted steam powered landing barges churn steadily along off Eraystor’s quarter. They’d been towed all the way from Lizard Island by the larger steamers, because they weren’t the best seaboats in the world, and their relatively low speed now that they were no longer on tow was the reason it had taken five hours to reach the squadron’s current position, but he wasn’t about to complain.

He swung his double-glass back towards Wreckers’ Island and felt himself tighten internally. The entire island was barely eight miles long, and it reminded him ever more strongly—and unpleasantly—of Battery St. Charlz as it drew steadily closer. According to the seijins, the batteries along its eastern shoreline not only mounted heavier guns but were even better protected than St. Charlz’ had been, and no one had ever accused Dohlaran gunners of faintheartedness. On the other hand, this time he’d have Gwylym Manthyr in support.

He knew Sarmouth would actually have preferred to take the lead with his far more powerful, better armored flagship. In fact, he’d initially planned to do just that, but Zhaztro had convinced him it was out of the question. Manthyr was less maneuverable, she drew more water, and she was far less expendable. There was also the minor consideration that it would be … less than desirable to blow up the expedition’s commanding officer on a drifting sea-bomb. Sarmouth had seemed less than overwhelmed by that part of the argument, but he hadn’t been able to ignore the rest of it, and his expression had been almost petulant when he finally accepted Zhaztro’s alternate suggestion.

Now Zhaztro snorted in amused memory and lowered the double-glass.

“Signal Manthyr that we’re prepared to proceed,” he said.

* * *

“Admiral Zhastro is ready to proceed, Sir,” Ahrlee Zhones reported, holding up the message slip in his hand.

“Good,” Sir Dunkyn Yairley said in a tone which was considerably more confident than he was. He didn’t like what the SNARCs were showing him one bit, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment. No one aboard Manthyr was in any position to see the threat that worried him most, and he couldn’t exactly order Halcom Bahrns to open fire on something no one—or at least no one without access to the SANRCs—even knew was there. Especially not if that fire produced the spectacular result it almost certainly would. That might well validate his bizzare orders, but it certainly wouldn’t explain them, and there was only so much that he could wave away as blind chance and luck.

“Remined Lieutenant Makadoo that I want to know the instant he sees anything—anything at all—out of the ordinary,” he directed. “Especially if he sees any sign of warships or floating rocket launchers.”

“Yes, My Lord. At once.”

Zhones sounded a little perplexed, and Sarmouth didn’t really blame the youngster. He’d already prodded Makadoo with that message—or a variant on it—several times, and he wondered if Zhones thought the fight the Cape Toe batteries had put up had shaken his nerve. Unfortunately, he couldn’t explain his motives to his flag lieutenant … any more than he could come right out and explain them to Makadoo.

He thought again about ordering Manthyr to take the lead, but all Zhaztro’s arguments against that decision still stood.

Yes, they do. And you don’t know that it’s going to be anywhere near as bad as you’re afraid it could, Dunkyn, he told himself. For that matter, even if you told Hainz all about it, he’d only point out that we still have to force the channel and clear the damned sea-bombs and tell you it didn’t change a thing, and he’d be right. It doesn’t change anything … except which men—and how many of them—may be about to get killed, perhaps.

“Very well,” he said. “Hoist the signal to proceed.”

* * *

“We’re moving in, Sir,” PO Hahlys said, and Zoshua Makadoo finished chewing and swallowed hastily.

“Got it,” he said, and shoved the rest of the sandwich into his pocket and crawled forward. Hahlys squirmed past him as they exchanged positions and the lieutenant settled back into place with his double-glass. After better than six hours aloft, he and Hahlys had been ravenously hungry when Bosun Mykgylykudi sent their lunch up on the powered messenger line. Hahlys had eaten first, while Makadoo maintained a lookout, then the petty officer had relieved him.

And I almost got done eating, the lieutenant thought with a chuckle as he raised the double-glass.

It was a bit strained, that chuckle. Zoshua Makadoo was about as irrepressible as a young man came, but his wyvern’s eye view had shown him far too much carnage this day. He’d seen everything, and it was almost worse that it had been so far away, so tiny. He’d heard the thunder of the squadron’s guns and watched shells bursting all over the Dohlaran fortifications, but it had been like watching toys fighting toys … until he raised his double-glass and saw the dying “toys” writhing in broken agony whenever the smoke parted. He’d seen Dohlaran shells hitting Eraystor, Riverbend, and Gairmyn, as well, and he wondered how many men he knew aboard those ships had been killed or wounded.

No one ever promised it would be easy, he reminded himself, focusing the double-glass on Eraystor as she steamed steadily towards the enemy once again.

“Message from Admiral Sarmouth, Sir,” Hahlys said. Makadoo looked over his shoulder at the petty officer, who held up the slip of paper he’d just taken from the message cylinder.

“Read it.”

“Yes, Sir. ‘Remember to report anything—’ that word’s underlined twice, Sir ‘—out of the ordinary. Especially—’ three underlines on that one, Sir ‘—any warships or floating rocket launchers.’ That’s it, Sir.”

Makadoo grunted in acknowledgment and frowned as he turned back to the vista below, swinging his double-glass across to Wreckers’ Island. Admiral Sarmouth had personally briefed them before they launched, and his instructions had been very clear. It was unlike him to repeat himself—and, especially, to repeat himself this often—and Makadoo couldn’t help wondering if the admiral knew something the rest of them didn’t. If he did, the lieutenant couldn’t imagine what it might be. He’d already examined Wreckers’ Island as meticulously as he could from this distance, and reported everything he’d seen.

It was obvious this target was going to be a tougher slabnut than Cape Toe had been. Only the very muzzles of the battery’s long, lethal Fultyn Rifles were visible, peeking out of much smaller—and harder to hit—embrasures than the Cape Toe batteries had shown. The parapet itself looked half again as thick, as well. He’d already passed that information along, and he was just as glad they hadn’t waited another few five-days, since it was clear the Dohlarans had still been piling up fresh dirt to add even more breadth and depth to the parapet. In fact, they must have been doing that right up to the very last minute, he thought, as he studied the half-dozen barges moored behind the island. They were obviously very shallow draft, given how little depth of water there was on Broken Keel Shoal, between the island and the mainland. In fact, given the state of the tide, they had to be hard aground at the moment, which probably explained why they hadn’t run away. Two of them—quite a bit smaller than the others—were empty, although there were still a few heaps of dirt scattered around their open-topped holds. Clearly whoever had been swinging the shovels hadn’t been all that worried about getting all of it. But the other four were mounded high with still more dirt destined for the parapet. In fact, the dirt was heaped so high he was surprised they’d been able to float the damned things across the shoal at all.

Left it just a little late, though, he thought with a thin smile. Don’t know how much the extra dirt would’ve helped, but we’ll never find out now, will we?

* * *

“Looks like they’re finally getting down to it, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Zhordyn Kortez said grimly.

“Surprised it’s taken them this long,” Captain Ezeekyl Mahntayl replied. Mahntayl was forty-six, ten years older than his executive officer, and he’d lost a leg and an eye in the Kaudzhu Narrows. He was also one of the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s two or three most expert gunners, which explained his present command.

“I guess Captain Dynnysyn’s boys hammered them pretty hard,” Kortez observed.

“Probably. Not hard enough, though,” Mahntayl growled. “Should’ve done a lot better!”

“Yes, Sir.”

Some people would have taken Mahntayl’s words as a criticism of Cape Toe’s CO, but Kortez knew better. Mahntayl and Cayleb Dynnysyn had been friends for years. The anger in Mahntayl’s voice had a lot more to do with that friendship and the reports they’d received about Cape Toe’s casualties than with the fact that the heretics hadn’t lost a single ship … so far, at least.

“I know the lads are ready,” the captain went on now. “But there’s still time for another walk-through. Well, for somebody who still has both feet, anyway.” He actually managed a smile. “See to that for me, if you would.”

“Of course, Sir.” Kortez saluted and headed for the deeply dug-in and heavily sandbagged command post’s entrance. Unlike Cape Toe, the garrison of Wreckers’ Island could depend on the enemy coming in close enough to be seen from sea level. There was an observation tower in the center of the island, but it was unmanned at the moment. If the heretics wanted to waste a few shells demolishing it instead of shooting at his artillery, Mahntayl would be delighted.

And the guns aren’t all I have for you, either, you bastards, he thought harshly, peering through the tripod-mounted spyglass. You just keep right on coming. I don’t think you’re going to enjoy your reception very much.

* * *

“Open fire!”

The first broadside thundered from Eraystor’s larboard broadside in a fresh volcanic cloud bank of brown smoke, and Sir Hainz Zhaztro found himself—again—wishing he was still on the bridge wing.

But I don’t wish it very hard at the moment, he told himself, peering through a view slit as the Wreckers’ Island battery disappeared behind a swirling cloud of its own gunsmoke.

Shells screamed overhead or hurled up huge columns of white, mud-stained water, and he felt his belly muscles tighten as the size of those fountains confirmed the weight of the artillery his men were about to face.

* * *

“What the hell?” Ezeekyl Mahntayl muttered.

The heretics’ shells came shrieking in like vengeful demons, slamming into his battery’s earthem defenses, blasting craters deep into them. But some of those shells didn’t explode. Some of them gushed dense billows of smoke, instead. Which had to be the most unnecessary thing he’d ever seen in his life! His guns were already making plenty of smoke. Even with the brisk northeasterly blowing lengthwise down the Zhulyet Channel, it was thick enough to severely restrict his gunners’ visibility, and that could only get worse, despite the 12-inch rifles’ slow rate of fire. For that matter, the heretics were producing more than enough gunsmoke of their own to obscure their ironclads! Surely they’d be better served hammering Wreckers’ Island with explosives than churning up still more smoke!

Unless there was something else they didn’t want him to see.

* * *

“All right, Wahltayr,” Commander Tahlyvyr Sympsyn said as smoke enveloped Wreckers’ Island … and hopefully blinded its gunners. “Let’s get this circus moving.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” Lieutenant Wahltayr Rahbyns replied, and glanced at the grizzled petty officer at the converted landing barge’s helm. “You heard the Commander, PO. Take us in.”

“Aye, Sir,” PO Styv Khantrayl acknowledged and eased the wheel expertly.

“A bit more speed, I think,” Rahbyns added, looking ahead through his double-glass, and the seaman acting as engineer opened the throttle a bit wider.

The paddle wheel thumped and vibrated, churning the water as Bombsweeper One—the only name the converted barge had ever been given—gathered speed.

“Stream the kites!” Rahbyns ordered in a louder voice, and four more seamen bent over the winches mounted on either side of Bombsweeper One’s blunt bows. It took two sets of hands on each winch to control the speed with which the heavy wire cable paid out, and Rahbyns watched critically.

He’d been a less than happy man when he first heard about the Temple Boys “sea-bombs.” A floating explosive charge, just waiting for a ship to sail over it? A charge that didn’t care how heavily armored the ship in question might be? A charge that hid invisibly in the water until the fatal moment? The very thought had been enough to send an icy chill through any sailor.

But he should have known Admiral Seamount would find a solution, and so he had. It wasn’t perfect, and it was one hell of a long way from anything a man might call “safe,” but he doubted the Dohlarans would like it very much.

The cables finished paying out, and Bombsweeper One labored more heavily as the tethered objects someone from Old Terra would have called paravanes spread outward on either bow. The cables angled sharply back, and the depth-maintaining vanes had been carefully set to keep the sea-kites in precisely the right position relative to their mothership.

If Bombsweeper One happened to run directly into one of the sea-bombs, the consequences would be … unfortunate. But no matter how dense the field of sea-bombs might be, the odds were heavily against a direct bows-on collision. A sea-bomb attack was actually more likely to succeed if its target sailed past it, close enough for the wake to suck it into contact with the hull.

But the sea-kites’ cables would intercept the mooring cables of any sea-bombs caught in their path and guide the explosives not inward, towards the bombsweeper, but outwards, towards the kite. That meant the only real danger spot was directly ahead of her and no wider than her own beam … in theory, at least. Hopefully, the mooring cable would actually break and the sea-bomb would float to the surface, where the M96-armed riflemen standing along the rails on either side would be waiting for it, rather than be drawn directly into the kite. Their magazines were loaded with a special incendiary bullet designed to punch through the sea-bomb’s casing and detonate its gunpowder filler.

There were drawbacks to the system, of course. The bombsweepers had to steam straight ahead on painstakingly plotted courses if they wanted to have any idea where the swept channel was when they finished. That would make them unpleasantly easy targets. And clearing a sufficiently broad channel required the combined efforts of several bombsweepers, steaming in a carefully maintained formation so that their deployed kites overlapped without fouling one another. At the moment, Rahbyns’ sweeper was the head of a blunt triangle three sweepers—and just over three hundred yards—across. The other two were what Admiral Seamount had christened his “wingmen,” steaming far enough back that their inboard kites were at least fifty yards inside Rahbyns’ kites but a minimum of seventy-five yards astern of them. The overlap guaranteed—in theory, at least—that no sea-bombs would be missed.

Lieutenant Mahkzwail Charlz steamed parallel with Rahbyns at a distance of just under five hundred yards in Bombsweeper Five, leading a second triangle of bombsweepers. Theoretically, the entire formation would sweep a six hundred-yard wide channel through the middle of the Dohlaran sea-bombs in a single pass, although the plan called for them to turn around, find their navigation marks, and sweep a second channel that overlapped the first, clearing a path approximately a thousand yards wide.

It all sounded good, and the training exercises had gone well, but no one had been shooting at them during the exercises, and none of the “sea-bombs” they’d swept had actually contained gunpowder.

That was why there nine more bombsweepers in reserve, waiting to replace any casualties.

* * *

“What the hell are they’re doing?” Lieutenant Commander Kortez demanded, and Captain Mahntayl looked up from the spyglass with a scowl.

“I presume you’re talking about the little bastards?” Mahntayl had to raise his voice to be heard over the thunder of artillery and the roar of bursting shells, despite the command post’s thick walls, and Kortez nodded.

The captain hadn’t heard his second-in-command return to the bunker, which probably shouldn’t have surprised him, given the ungodly bedlam of the artillery duel. Now Kortez stood beside him, glaring out through the same view slit. The blinding walls of smoke, reinforced by the heretic’s damned smoke shells, made visibility spotty as hell, but the wind had shifted ever so slightly. The smoke remained as dense as ever, possibly even denser, between his gunners and the ironclads, but the range to the small steampots churning towards the sea-bombs was actually clearing.

“Well, the only thing I can think of,” he said sourly, “is that they know about the sea-bombs and they think they’ve found a way to clear them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kortez muttered, but he sounded like someone who wanted Mahntayl to be wrong, not someone who thought he was.

“If you can think of another reason for those pissant little boats to run around in the middle of a Shan-wei-damned artillery duel, I’m all ears,” Mahntayl replied.

He and Kortez looked at each other for a moment. Then the lieutenant commander shrugged.

“No, Sir, I can’t. The question is whether or not they can really do it, and I wouldn’t think—”

He broke off as one of the bombsweepers’ kites brought a sea-bomb to the surface. The tide was ebbing steadily towards dead low-water, and it was obvious the Charisians had planned their attack for a time when the sea-bombs would be closest to the surface and most visible. Now the sea-kite’s cable did precisely what it was supposed to do, guiding the captured sea-bomb towards the kite. Rifles cracked from the sweeper’s deck, raising quick little spits of white around the sea-bomb. Nothing else happened for four or five seconds. Then it exploded ferociously—but harmlessly.

Less than a minute later one of the other bombsweepers detonated another sea-bomb. Then two more exploded in quick succession, and Mahntayl swore.

“Pull the guns off the frigging ironclads!” he snapped. “Let’s see how one of those little pricks likes a twelve-inch shell up his arse!”

* * *

“Be damned, Sir! It’s actually working!” Lieutenant Rahbyns shouted jubilantly, and Commander Sympsyn nodded.

He hoped like hell that they didn’t lose a kite, but each of his bombsweepers had two additional kites, ready to stream the instant an exploding sea-bomb destroyed one of the ones they’d already deployed. In the meantime, though, Rahbyns was right; it was working almost exactly as Admiral Seamount had predicted.

“Signal to the Flagship,” he said, turning towards the signalman standing by the stubby mast which had been rigged solely as a way to pass signals. “Hoist Number Nineteen.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!” the youthful signalman replied with a smile. According to the signal book vocabulary, Number 19 meant “I have mail on board.”

* * *

“Signal from Commander Sympsyn, relayed from Gairmyn,” Zhones said jubilantly. “Number Nineteen, My Lord!”

“Good, Ahrlee! Excellent!” Sarmouth said, as if he hadn’t already known exactly how Sympsyn’s efforts were proceeding.

And it truly was good tidings. But there were bad ones to go with it, including the fact that the new 12-inch Fultyn Rifles were, indeed, capable of punching through a City-class ironclad’s armor. So far, two had penetrated Eraystor and one had penetrated Riverbend. The good news—such as it was—was that the Dohlaran armor piercing shells were thicker walled and contained far less powder than their Charisian counterparts and their fuses were less reliable. A Dohlaran 12-inch shell was actually only a little more destructive than a Charisian 6-inch shell.

Not that enough six-inch shells won’t rip the guts right out of any ship, the admiral thought grimly.

Eraystor had twenty casualties already, nine of them fatal, and Riverbend had three dead and seven wounded. Zhaztro’s flagship had lost two guns on her engaged side, as well, and the damage control parties had had a difficult time extinguishing the fire one of the hits had started in her paint stores.

Gwylym Manthyr’s much heavier guns had taken Wreckers’ Island under fire as well, but Mahntayl’s guns were even more deeply dug-in than the Cape Toe batteries had been. It was going to take time to neutralize them, and—

* * *

The first 12-inch shell hit the water almost five hundred yards from its intended target. The next three were at least equally wide of the mark.

Number five hit Bombsweeper Three almost directly amidships.

The converted barge was too lightly built to activate the shell’s unsophisticated fuse, so Bombsweeper Three wasn’t simply blown out of the water. But the shell that slammed completely in one side and out the other side of the bombsweeper also punched straight through its boiler.

The explosion of steam killed two of the bombsweeper’s crew outright. Three more were savagely scalded—one of them fatally—and only the fact that the boiler was on an open deck, with no overhead to trap any of the explosion’s fury, prevented it from blowing the converted barge apart.

The reprieve, unfortunately, was brief.

Without power, the bombsweeper slowed quickly, and as it lost speed, its kites began angling back inward rather than spreading broadly. Half of Bombsweeper Three’s assigned riflemen were dead or dying, but the survivors fired desperately at the sea-bomb trapped by the starboard kite as it glided steadily closer. It took almost thirty shots to score a hit, and the sea-bomb was barely forty yards clear when it detonated.

The explosion shook Bombsweeper Three like a spider-rat in a cat-lizard’s jaws. Another dozen seams started, sending fresh streams of water spurting into the slowly settling vessel.

And then the sea-bomb which hadn’t been caught on a kite’s cable slammed directly into Bombsweeper Three’s hull and the sweeper—and every man aboard it—disintegrated in a white column of death.

* * *

“Yes!” Ezeekyl Mahntayl shouted. The heretics’ guns had hurt his battery badly and he knew the damage was only beginning, but he wheeled to Kortez. “Put the eight-inchers onto them, too, and tell the lads to pour it on! Sink those frigging pissants!”

* * *

“Shan-wei take them!” Sir Hainz Zhaztro snarled.

He’d had ample proof the Dohlarans had finally found a gun Eraystor’s armor couldn’t simply shrug off. He didn’t know how many of his flagship’s crew had been killed already, but he knew there were more than he’d ever find it easy to live with. And he knew there’d be more of them if he continued the engagement. But he also knew her armor offered better protection than anything the bombsweepers had. For that matter, it had defeated everything lighter than a 12-inch shell to come her way. She could be hurt badly, possibly even killed, but she was immeasurably more survivable than any of the bombsweepers, and unless the sweepers could clear a path through the sea-bombs, the entire attack on Gorath would ultimately fail.

“Take us closer,” he told Alyk Cahnyrs grimly. “Make the bastards concentrate on us, instead.”

* * *

“That’s odd,” Lieutenant Makadoo muttered.

“What’s odd, Sir?” Bryntyn Hahlys demanded.

The petty officer couldn’t think of anything “odd’ enough to distract him from what had just happened to Bombsweeper Three—especially since shell splashes had begun rising like loathsome, poisonous fungus around two more of the sweepers. The three leading ironclads were moving to interpose between the remaining sweepers and the Dohlaran gunners, and their new course angled perilously close to the sea-bomb field boundaries on the charts the seijins’ spies had provided. It also took them entirely too close to the battery’s guns for Hahlys’ piece of mind, and the fury of the artillery duel had redoubled.

“Well, I sure as Shan-wei wouldn’t be running out into the open with shells falling all around my ears,” Makadoo replied.

“Excuse me, Sir? Running out?” Hahlys shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“What I thought, too,” Makadoo agreed, staring through his double-glass. “But looks like there’s at least a hundred of them.”

“Where do they think they’re going to go?” Hahlys wondered out loud. Wreckers’ Island was over eight miles from the mainland coast. That struck him as one hell of a swim!

“Looks like they’re climbing onto those construction barges.” Makadoo sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe his own words as he watched the fleeing Dohlarans and Gwylym Manthyr’s 10-inch and 8-inch shells began walking back and forth across the battery’s parade ground. “They must be out of their minds! If I was going to panic and run, I’d look for the deepest hole I could find, not head for—”

He broke off and stiffened, leaning forward as if that would somehow help him see better.

“Oh … my … God!” he whispered and whipped around, showing Hahlys a bloodless face.

“Signal—quick!” he snapped, and the startled petty officer jerked the pad out of his pocket.

“‘Urgent,’” Makadoo barked, beginning to dictate even before Hahlys had his pencil ready. “‘Six barges behind Wreckers’ Island loaded with rockets!’ Get that the hell down to the ship!”

“Yes, Sir!”

While Hahlys grabbed the signal cylinder and stuffed the sheet of paper into it, Makadoo turned back around, watching sickly through his double-glass as the Dohlaran seamen swarmed across the barges. Even now, the lieutenant felt a surge of respect for the courage it took for those men to charge out into the open in the midst of such a furious bombardment, but that respect was swamped by a much stronger sense of dread as they stripped away the earth-colored tarpaulins which had covered the squat, vertical cylinders of the defensive rockets.

* * *

“Message from Lieutenant Makadoo, Admiral!”

Sarmouth turned quickly to the midshipman. He already knew what Makadoo’s message said, and a part of him wanted to scream curses at the lieutenant for not mentioning those “construction barges” sooner.

“What?” he demanded harshly, impatiently, resenting the lost time while Zhones told him something he already knew.

“‘Urgent,’” Zhones read. “‘Six barges behind Wreckers’ Island loaded with rockets!’” The young man looked up from the note and his eyes were dark. “What barges, My Lord?” he demanded.

“Immediate signal to Admiral Zhastro!” Sarmouth snapped. “Execute General Order Six!”

“Yes, Sir!” Zhones jerked his head at a pale-faced signalman, and Sarmouth whipped around to the ladder which connected the flag bridge level of the conning tower to the navigating bridge level. He pressed the inside edges of his boots to the outside of the ladder frame and slid down it like a midshipman down a shroud without ever touching a single tread.

“My Lord?” Halcom Bahrns sounded surprised at his sudden, unceremonious arrival, and Sarmouth didn’t blame him.

“Rocket barges, Halcom!” he said quickly. “Makadoo’s spotted half a dozen of them behind Wreckers’ Island. We have to get Zhaztro and the Cities out of there!”

Bahrns’ eyes flared, but he jerked a nod of almost instant understanding, and Sarmouth swung towards one of the vision slits and stared out of it. No one could possibly have seen the Dohlaran battery through the enormous clouds of smoke, but he didn’t need to. The overhead SNARC saw it just fine, and his jaw clenched as the swarming Dohlaran seamen stripped away the canvas which had been deliberately painted and then rigged over a supporting framework to resemble rounded piles of dirt.

Thirsk’s too damned smart, the baron thought grimly. And he—or, rather, Ahlverez—has gone too far out of his way to establish his own information conduits. That’s how the two of them found out about the frigging Balloon Corps so damned fast! And then Thirsk had to go and move the goddamn barges after we’d sailed! I wonder if he was still strengthening the earthworks just to give him cover to hide the rocket barges. Or did he just realize he could hide them from a balloon that way?

There was no way to answer those questions, but there was still time to avoid the wost consequences of Thirsk’s forethought. The Dohlarans would need several minutes—probably as much as a quarter of an hour—to clear away the launchers and bring them to bear, and those barges were firmly aground now, unable to move or alter their point of aim. That meant they’d have to wait until Zhaztro moved into their coverage zone. He’d have to come close enough for them to reach and sail into the immobile barges’ fixed field of fire, so if he only reversed course quickly enough.…

“Shift your fire, Halcom,” he said, turning back from the view slit. “Forget about the battery for now. Put everything you can on the channel between it and the mainland.” He bared his teeth. “No frigging barge full of rockets will like a hit from a ten-inch shell!”

* * *

“Any response from Eraystor?” Captain Gahryth Shumayt demanded.

He stood on HMS Gairmyn’s open bridge wing, heedless of the heavy Dohlaran fire. He’d suffered from claustrophobia all his life, but that wasn’t why he’d eschewed the protection of his ironclad’s conning tower. He simply couldn’t see anything from inside it, so he’d insisted his first lieutenant stay there, where he’d be able to take over if anything untowards happened to Shumayt himself, while he got on with the business of seeing where the hell his ship was going.

Now he glared at the signalman who’d joined him on the bridge wing, and that hapless—and obviously nervous—young man shook his head.

“No, Sir.” The petty officer looked up at the colorful bunting flying from Gairmyn’s yardarm, then ducked instinctively as another Dohlaran shell screamed overhead before it smashed into the water well beyond the ironclad. The fountain rose high as her crosstrees, pattering back across her decks like salty rain, and he climbed cautiously back to his feet and looked sheepishly at his captain, who’d never even flinched. “Nothing so far.”

“Shit,” Shumayt growled.

“It must be the smoke, Sir,” the PO said, and Shumayt swore again.

Of course it was. The Cities’ masts were shorter than those of any galleon, and the billowing gunsmoke—and funnel smoke—could only make their signals even more difficult to see. But surely one of the other ships had to see the signal and relay it to Zhaztro! They couldn’t all be invisible to Eraystor!

* * *

Damn it! Sarmouth snarled mentally as he realized Shumayt’s signalman was exactly right. Zhaztro couldn’t see the signal, and the cushion of time which would have let him withdraw was spinning away with terrifying speed.

The baron ripped open the heavily armored conning tower door and stormed out onto the navigating bridge. Someone shouted his name, but he ignored it, racing to the outer edge of the bridge and raising his double-glass as if he were trying to see Eraystor through the blinding smoke. But that was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment.

“Nahrmahn!” The thunder of Manthyr’s artillery drowned his voice. No one could have heard him from more than three or four feet away, but Nahrmahn Baytz and Owl had far better hearing than any flesh-and-blood human being.

“We’re already deploying them!” Nahrmahn’s voice came sharply over the com plug in his ear, and Sarmouth felt a huge surge of relief. Of course the portly little prince had been monitoring the situation! But Narhmahn wasn’t done speaking.

“The remotes are on their way, but it’s going to take time, Dunkyn. At least another ten minutes. The remotes are stealthy as hell, but they aren’t very fast!”

“I should’ve just gone ahead and blown the damned things up as soon as we came in range! Damn it! We’re throwing enough frigging shells their way to explain just about anything’s blowing up over there now!”

“But you didn’t know this was going to happen,” Nahrmahn pointed out. “If Sir Hainz could just see the signal, you’d’ve gotten him out of the field of fire in plenty of time.”

“And if I were God, we wouldn’t need to worry about goddamned Clyntahn!” Sarmouth snarled. “But I’m not and he can’t! And don’t remind me about the ‘political consequences’! None of them mean squat until after the frigging battle, and unless we win the damned thing, no one’ll be able to do a single thin—”

* * *

“Signal from Admiral Sarmouth, Sir!” Lywys Pharsaygyn’s voice was sharp as he threaded his way across the crowded conning tower with the message slip in hand. “Relayed from Gairmyn. ‘Urgent. Number Eighty. Numeral Six.’”

“What?” Zhaztro stared at his chief of staff in disbelief.

Number 80 was “Execute previous orders,” and Number Six was the order to break off the attack and withdraw immediately. He’d thought Sarmouth was taking caution to the extreme by arranging that sort of order in advance, and he wondered what in Shan-wei’s name had triggered it now, of all possible times! Eraystor and Riverbend were barely six thousand yards from Wreckers’ Island. They’d taken several more hits to get there, and Riverbend was on fire aft, but Captain Whytmyn had just signaled that his damage control parties were on top of it. They were finally in close enough for the deadly rapidity of their 6-inch guns—coupled with the more deliberate, longer ranged fire from Gwylym Manthyr—to beat down the battery’s fire. They could simply pour in far more shells than the slow-firing muzzleloaders could send back, and barring some sort of catastrophic hit in a magazine or something equally severe, they were winning. So why—?

Doesn’t matter, Hainz, he told himself harshly. Dunkyn’s not the kind to jump at shadows, and even if he was, he’s your commanding officer.

“I don’t know what it’s about, Alyk,” he said, turning to his flag captain, “but turn her around and signal the bombsweepers to follow us back out to—”

* * *

“Fire!” Lieutenant Fhrancysko Dyahz barked.

He’d lost thirty men clearing away the concealing canvas. And, he admitted, he’d thought the idea of “camouflaging” the barges when they were already hidden behind the island was ridiculous. But then he’d seen the balloon floating above the heretic flagship and realized Admiral Thirsk must have already known the heretics had it.

Now he yanked the friction primer that ignited the fuse and turned to follow the last of his men back into the protection of the battery’s shellproof dugouts. He was twenty feet from the entrance when one of Gwylym Manthyr’s 8-inch shells exploded seventy yards away from him and a steel splinter four inches long hit him in the back like a hyper-velocity buzz saw.

He was dead by the time he hit the ground.

Ten seconds after that, the rockets began to fire.

* * *

Each of Lieutenant Dyahz’ four barges contained a hundred and twenty of the squat, ugly rockets Dynnys Zhwaigair had designed for harbor defense. They didn’t all fire simultaneously. Instead they launched in a carefully arranged sequence, roaring heavenward in a fountain of flame on a far slower, far steeper trajectory than the ICN’s high velocity guns could produce. His number two barge had fired only forty-three rockets before one of Gwylym Manthyr’s 10-inch shells exploded eleven feet from it. The explosion ripped the side of the hull to pieces, set off the sympathetic detonation of nineteen more rockets, and blasted the broken and burning barge up onto its side. The sudden upheaval scattered its remaining fifty-eight rockets in a flat, broad arc that came nowhere near any Charisian.

Of the three hundred and sixty rockets aboard the remaining three barges, forty-nine malfunctioned in one fashion or another. Three of them actually snaked around and slammed into the rear face of the battery’s parapet, killing sixteen more of Captain Mahntayl’s men. But the other three hundred and eleven screamed heavenward in an endless avalanche of fire and smoke, then came shrieking back down.

They weren’t very accurate weapons—not individually—but there were over three hundred of them. They couldn’t all miss … and they didn’t.

* * *

Gahryth Shumayt watched sickly from the open bridge wing as at least five and possibly six of those rockets came crashing down on HMS Eraystor. He couldn’t tell how many of them actually hit her and how many were “only” near misses—not through the smoke and the enormous columns of spray rising from the tortured sea as hundreds of other rockets plunged into it and exploded. He saw at least two fireballs, though, and the forward half of the ironclad’s funnel simply disappeared in a rolling wave of destruction.

He could see Riverbend more clearly, and he swore vilely as Tobys Whytmyn’s ship staggered around, turning directly south-southeast, away from Wreckers’ Island. The flames which had been almost extinguished aft belched up in a fresh, towering inferno, and propellant charges for her 6-inch guns began exploding as they cooked off in the flames. She was clearly sinking, settling swiftly by the stern, and Shumayt found himself praying the inrushing water would quench the flames before they reached her magazine. She was fighting towards deeper water, trying to get clear, clawing her way towards the reserve bombsweepers who might be able to pick up her survivors when she finally sank.

It was all she could do, and as the billowing clouds of smoke belched from the wounded, dying ship, he wondered if Whytmyn was still alive on that flame-enshrouded bridge, still trying to get at least some of his people out alive.

He didn’t wonder about Eraystor.

The last rockets slammed into the water and exploded a good thousand yards from Gairmyn, and Eraystor thrust through the smoke and spray. She was still making at least ten knots, but her entire forward superstructure—everything forward of her crumpled funnel—was a solid mass of flame. Her navigation bridge was simply gone, ripped away, leaving only a few twisted support girders to show where it once had been, and her conning tower had become a chimney, the flue of hell’s own furnace. Flames roaring ferociously up that chimney leapt masthead-high, and the ship was clearly out of control with no living hand upon her helm.

She staggered around, still turning in response to Captain Cahnyrs’ final helm order, and as Shumayt watched, she steamed directly into the field of sea-bombs.

She got three hundred yards before she hit the first one. Within three minutes’ time she struck two more.

The fourth exploded directly under her forward magazine, and HMS Eraystor disintegrated in a massive ball of flame.