Hell's Foundations Quiver (57 page)

Once they were settled as comfortably as possible, he raised the double-glass once more, gazing at his intended target and licking his mental chops.

*   *   *

Sir Haimltahn Rahdgyrz stood atop Duke Wahlys' Tower, feeling the ache in his neck as he bent over to peer through the powerful, tripod-mounted spyglass at the quartet of black, evil-looking vessels forging steadily closer to Geyra. The smoke streaming from them amply confirmed their heretical—and no doubt demonic—origins, yet other than that they didn't seem to match the descriptions he'd received. He couldn't tell anything about dimensions at this range, but the reports from Siddarmark all agreed that the ironclads looked like floating barn roofs with conventional gunports cut into their sides and paired smokestacks. These ships had definite superstructures, set back at least a few feet from the outer edge of the hull at deck level, and only a single smokestack each. Not only that, they had no gunports at all. Instead, the deckhouse which extended for three quarters of their length had … scalloped-looking sides. The black feelers of preposterously long guns projected from the scallops, and his mouth tightened as he abruptly realized what he was seeing.

He had no idea how anyone could load such ridiculously long weapons from the muzzle, but if the rumors about the heretics' new rifles—their
newest
rifles, he corrected himself grimly—were correct, he supposed there was no reason they couldn't load
cannons
from the breech end, as well. And the angled superstructure was shaped almost like a pair of triangles placed base-to-base while the gun barrels sticking out of those “scallops” disappeared into what appeared to be solid, rounded … shields, for want of a better word. If it was possible for them to be trained from side to side—and it certainly looked as if it was—then all of the guns on either side could be fired in a single broadside and
half
the guns on either side could be fired at a target which lay well ahead or astern of the ship.

And there were a
lot
of guns poking out the sides of those ships.

He straightened, rubbing the small of his back, and glanced at the youthful IDA lieutenant standing beside him. Sir Rhobair Gahrnet, the new and youthful Duke of Harless, had reconfirmed Rahdgyrz as the duchy's seneschal. As such, all Army units in Harless came under his control, and the present duke's father had chosen Sir Haimltahn for his duty less because of his distant kinship to the House of Gahrnet than because he'd known Rahdgyrz took his responsibilities seriously. A direct Charisian attack on Geyra or Desnair the City hadn't seemed very likely until the Empire began building and basing so many privateers and Navy commerce-raiders along the coast between there and Desnair the City, but Rahdgyrz believed in being prepared. Desnair the City's defenses hadn't been his responsibility, but he'd worked hard for over four years to improve Geyra's coastal batteries and train their gunners.

To be honest, those gunners hadn't been very good in the beginning. The heretics were said to be able to fire three broadsides in two minutes, and that was twice the rate of fire the Geyra artillerists had been able to attain. That was no longer the case, however, and the twenty-five-pounders and even heavier forty-pounders were lavishly supplied with exploding shells. And while there might be a lot of guns aboard the approaching ironclads, there were better than four hundred in Rahdgyrz's eighteen carefully sited defensive batteries, and all of those guns were on solid, steady,
unmoving
mounts. There was a reason warships had historically avoided well-sited land batteries, and while it was possible the heretics' introduction of armor plating might have changed that, it was unlikely it could have changed the balance between shore and ship enough. Especially given how much more powerful the forty-pounder was than anything they'd faced in any of their operations in Siddarmark. It had almost three times the range of the Army's twelve-pounder field guns, threw a solid shot
more
than three times as heavy, and would penetrate over four feet of solid oak at a thousand yards.

He was tempted to open fire as soon as they approached within four thousand yards—at five degrees' elevation, the forty-pounders reached to two thousand yards, but his gunners were well practiced at using ricochet fire to reach twice that far—yet he made himself suppress the temptation. Each bounding contact with the water would reduce the round shot's velocity and striking power, and he was going to need as much of that as he could get to deal with an armored target. Given the deep, soft earth berms of his batteries, his guns should be better protected than the ironclads, and—

*   *   *

“Six thousand yards, Sir Hainz,” Lieutenant Stormynt said.

“Very well.” Zhaztro stepped back and around the solid horseshoe of armor which protected
Eraystor
's conning tower. “Captain Cahnyrs, you may open fire,” he said formally.

“Aye, aye, Sir. Lieutenant Gregori, open fire!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

HMS
Eraystor
's fifteen-hundred-ton bulk heaved as she belched a huge bubble of fire that sent eleven six-inch shells sizzling across the water at twice the speed of sound—a far, far higher velocity than any Desnairian would have believed possible.

*   *   *

Rahdgyrz stiffened in disbelief as the lead ironclad vanished into a vast, dense,
brown
cloud of smoke. What in Shan-wei's name could the heretics think they were doing opening fire at that range?! They had to be three and a half miles from their target! Surely they couldn't—

The other three ironclads belched fire and smoke, and then the first of the heretics' shells came screaming out of the sky ahead of the noise of their own passage. There was no rumble, no warning sound. One instant, Rahdgyrz was staring at the cloud of smoke, trying to understand what had happened. Six and a half seconds later the sixty-eight-pound shells reached their targets and the seneschal stumbled three steps backward in simple, unadulterated shock as they exploded.

The range was long, even for Charisian gunners equipped with the first axial telescopic sights ever affixed to Safeholdian artillery. And, for all their advantages over the defenders, the ironclads' artillery and ammunition only began to approximate the weapons of the last decade or so of Old Earth's nineteenth century. Pinpoint accuracy was beyond them, especially with each gun crew firing individually, relying upon its gun captain's judgment of the ship's roll.

Despite that, only two rounds went long. Three more slammed into the water short of the battery and exploded, throwing up huge mud-tinged columns of white, but the other six found their target.

*   *   *

Sir Haimltahn Rahdgyrz was over two miles away from the point of impact as the heretics' fire smashed into the St. Gwythmyn battery, but his eyes went huge as the pattern of volcanoes erupted. He'd seen the explosion of his own forty-pounder shells, but that was
nothing
compared to these! Most of them were absorbed by the protective earthen berm, yet that was scant comfort, given the vast craters they ripped out of it. Two of them, though, cleared the berm and landed among the battery's guns. Rahdgyrz groped for the spyglass—not because he wanted to see the carnage those two hits had wreaked, but because he
needed
to—and then, just under ten seconds behind the shells, came the rolling thunder of the guns which had fired them.

*   *   *

Riverbend, Cherayth,
and
Bayport
opened fire as well, and Admiral Zhaztro bared his teeth in satisfaction. Even with the earplugs, the bellow of
Eraystor
's guns was like being clubbed across the head, and the enormous banks of smoke turned the bright afternoon into twilight before the brisk breeze cleared them, but what was happening where those shells landed was far, far worse, and he knew it.

On the gundeck, behind the four-inch armor, the massive guns recoiled, but only for about four feet. Smoke swirled inboard, yet there was far less of it than the choking clouds of smoke which had filled
Delthak
's gundeck whenever she fired her thirty-pounders. The guns returned to battery, the breech blocks spun and opened, soaked swabs extinguished any embers, fresh shells and bagged powder charges slid into the breeches, the blocks closed, and each gun captain bent back to the sight mounted to the recoil cylinder. Crewmen bent over the big brass traversing handles, following the captains' hand signals as they compensated for
Eraystor
's forward movement through the water.

“
Clear!
” the gun captain shouted, simultaneously waving his right arm in the signal to clear the mount's recoil path. His Number Two checked visually to be sure the rest of the crew had obeyed the signal, then slapped him on the shoulder in confirmation. The captain waited an instant longer, peering through the sight, waiting for the roll to be exactly right. Then he straightened and jerked the firing lanyard.

The gun roared and recoiled, the deck surged underfoot, and the deadly ballet began yet again.

*   *   *

“Sir Haimltahn!”

It was the Army lieutenant, and Rahdgyrz turned like a man in a nightmare to face him. The other three ironclads' broadsides had arrived, each of them seeking out a separate defensive battery. The pattern of their shells' explosions didn't seem quite as tight as for the first ironclad, but the explosions echoed and roared, and the heretics were firing not simply from an impossible range and with impossible accuracy, but with equally impossible
speed
.

“What are your orders, Sir?!” the lieutenant asked urgently, and Sir Haimltahn Rahdgyrz stared at him, wondering what order he could possibly give in the face of such unmitigated disaster.

*   *   *

Hainz Zhaztro watched those savage explosions, remembered the day when the corrupt butchers who'd seized control of Mother Church had sent his flagship and seventy other Emeraldian galleys into the nightmare cauldron of the Battle of Darcos Sound. His flag captain—his younger brother, Ahntahn—had died that day, along with more than two hundred and thirty of the galley
Arbalest
's seven-hundred-man crew. He and
Arbalest
's fourth lieutenant, her senior—and only—surviving officer, had somehow sailed that shattered wreck seven hundred miles home to the city his current flagship was named for … and once they reached it, despite all they could do, she'd slowly settled to the bottom, too exhausted to fight any longer after the bitter struggle to bring her surviving people home.

Zhaztro had never blamed Haarahld or Cayleb of Charis for that. Not really. It had been their guns, but he'd always known who'd delivered his crew, his brother, and his Navy into the jaws of destruction. Even if he hadn't known then, he'd had ample proof since of just how many human beings, how many of their fellow children of God—women and children, as well as soldiers and sailors—Zhaspahr Clyntahn and the rest of the Group of Four were prepared to slaughter in the name of their own foul ambition.

He couldn't reach the Group of Four, or even the Temple Lands. Not now, not yet. But he
could
reach the Desnairian bastards who'd signed on to do Clyntahn's will, and as he watched those explosions, he found himself hoping the Geyra garrison would be too stupid to haul down its colors.

 

.XI.

Five Forks, New Northland Province, Republic of Siddarmark

“What was that?” the shivering Army of God private said suddenly.

“What was
what
?” the equally cold corporal in charge of the guard post demanded, looking up from the charcoal brazier over which he'd been warming his hands.

“I heard something,” the sentry replied. “Sounded almost like a voice … or something.”

His own voice trailed off under the corporal's skeptical gaze. Wind-driven snow flurries filled the night, and that branch-tossing wind wasn't simply icy; it was also noisy enough to drown out most sounds without any effort.

“Well,
I
don't hear anyth—”

That was as far as the corporal got before a white, snow-smutted apparition appeared out of the night and drove a bayonet through his throat.

*   *   *

“Langhorne!
What morons,” Corporal Graingyr growled in disgust, standing ankle-deep in the bodies of the late corporal's detail.

“Now, Charlz,” Platoon Sergeant Edwyrds replied. “Poor bastards didn't have a clue there was anyone within ten miles of them. Not too surprising they weren't the most alert bunch in history.”

“Yeah?” Graingyr looked sidelong at 3rd Platoon's senior noncom and snorted. “So next time we're sure there's no one within ten miles, you're gonna let
me
sit on my arse looking into a charcoal fire and wiping out my night vision?”

“Not so much,” Edwyrds told him, and the corporal snorted again, louder.

“What I thought,” he said, then gathered up the other members of his squad with a jerk of his head.

“Don't get comfy 'round that fire. We've got another bunch of morons sitting around another fire 'bout four hundred yards thataway. Let's go help 'em sleep as sound as this bunch.”

*   *   *

Baron Green Valley stood in the miserable, windy, snow-clotted, subzero,
beautiful
night and held up his watch as Lieutenant Slokym opened the slide on the bull's-eye lantern to let him check the time. The baron glanced dutifully at the watch face before nodding for his aide to close the slide once more, but he wasn't really worried about the timepiece. He was too busy watching the SNARC imagery projected on his contact lenses while Platoon Sergeant Edwyrds, Corporal Graingyr, and the rest of Major Ahrkyp Dyasaiyl's scout snipers swarmed over the rest of the Colonel Kholby Somyrs' pickets.