Hell's Foundations Quiver (84 page)

“Come another point to larboard!” he snapped.

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

Lance
angled a bit farther away from the ironclad, circling around it along the thousand-yard arc Captain Snelyng's orders imposed. There were limits to how far round her guns could train, even on their Zhwaigair-designed carriages, and the angle meant Seevyrs' larboard hundred-and-fifty-pounder could no longer bear on the enemy, but it let him take advantage of the screw-galley's greater speed—she had to be moving two or three times as fast as the schooner—without transgressing the captain's limit.

The Charisian's pivot gun roared again, spurting smoke that was darker and far browner than
Lance
's, and another round shot went ripping through the water, missing the cutter by little more than its own length.

*   *   *

“Enough,” Ahbaht said.

He had to repeat himself in a far louder voice before Cupyr heard him and turned to face him.

“That's enough, Captain,” Ahbaht said then. “It's time to go.”

Lieutenant Commander Cupyr's expression turned mulish. For a moment, Ahbaht thought he was going to argue, but then Cupyr looked at the screw-galley cutting through the water and grimaced.

“Yes, Sir,” he said quietly.

*   *   *

Seevyrs grunted in mingled satisfaction and disgust as the Charisian turned away. He'd more than half expected it, and he was grateful that the enemy could no longer fire on Captain Snelyng's boat on her new heading. Unfortunately, that same heading also meant the schooner would rapidly draw out of
Lance
's range. He was sorely tempted to turn straight after her in pursuit, but that would have required him to pass within much less than a thousand yards of the ironclad. Even if that hadn't been true, the Charisian was on the far side of Shingle Shoal. At high tide,
Lance
could have passed directly over the mudbank; at the moment, she'd probably run aground the instant she tried to cross it.

“Avast cranking,” he ordered. “Bring her hard to larboard.”

*   *   *

“Good lad,” Tymythy Snelyng murmured as he watched
Lance
turn farther away.

Young Seevyrs had come perilously close to the thousand-yard limit he'd set, but he supposed he shouldn't complain about that, since
Lance
's fire had probably contributed to the Charisians' gunnery problems. With that threat alleviated, Seevyrs was doing the smart thing and putting additional distance between his ship and the enormous potential bomb waiting on the mudbank.

If I had the sense God gave a wyvern, I'd be doing the same thing
, the captain thought.
Unfortunately, I don't
.

“Come on, boys!” he called. “I thought you lads could
row!
”

Two of the panting, red-faced oarsmen bared their teeth at him in fierce grins, and he grinned back, then returned his attention to the ironclad. They were close now. No more than another two or three minutes.

*   *   *

“Yes!”

Alyk Seevyrs snatched off his hat to wave it overhead as Captain Syngyltyn's boat went alongside the ironclad. He didn't need a spyglass to know who the first man up the Charisian ship's side was, and he bared his teeth in a fierce grin of satisfaction. They'd done it! Now if there was just ti—

*   *   *

HMS
Thunderer
lived up to her name one final time.

She vanished in an enormous blast of fire, smoke, spray, and mud. It wasn't a single explosion; it was a chain of them, so close together they sounded as one savage drumroll of detonations. Wreckage arced high above the water, reaching out, plummeting back down into the sea in an irregular circle of white splashes, and the column of smoke towered against the sky, standing for long, dreadful minutes before the light breeze began to disperse it.

Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht closed his watch with a snap and returned it to his pocket. He stood staring at his ship's funeral pyre until the smoke began to fray. Then he drew a deep breath, shook himself, and looked at Lieutenant Kylmahn.

“Less than a minute off,” he said quietly. “Remind me to compliment Master Muhlkayhe.”

 

.III.

South of the Kaudzhu Narrows, Hahskyn Bay, Shwei Province, South Harchong Empire

“Our friends still there, Master Trymohr?” Kahrltyn Haigyl asked as Ahlyn Trymohr stepped past the Marine sentry into HMS
Dreadnought
's day cabin with his hat under his arm.

Sweat gleamed on the fair-haired midshipman's forehead, and Haigyl wiped sweat from his own forehead as young Trymohr came to attention. The cabin skylight was open, wind scoops had been rigged, the stern door and scuttles—and every internal doorway and scuttle, as well—stood wide, and the cabin was still hotter than the hinges of Shan-wei's hell.

“I'm afraid they are, Sir.” Trymohr grimaced. “In fact, the lookout thinks there may be at least one ship beyond them. It's awfully hazy, though, Sir.”

Haigyl grunted in sour acknowledgment and pushed his chair back from his desk. It wasn't as if he'd found the routine paperwork enthralling, and his sweaty hands were sticking to it. The paper didn't seem to want to take the ink, and the ink seemed determined to transfer itself to his hands anyway, so the hell with it. He'd deal with it later … if he absolutely had to and couldn't find a semi-legitimate way to dump it on Zhasyn Skryvnyr, his clerk, instead. Skryvnyr had been a tutor for over fifteen years before joining the Navy after the Battle of Darcos Sound, and Haigyl was guiltily aware that the clerk had found himself saddled with more responsibility than he really ought to have.

Of course, I don't feel all
that
guilty about it
, he acknowledged.
Hell, Zhasyn's a lot better at it than I'd be, anyway!

He started to reach for his tunic, then thought better of it. His dignity would survive going on deck in his shirt sleeves, and there'd probably be at least some breeze on deck, despite
Dreadnought
's tall, armored bulwarks. He was damned if he'd miss out on any of it if there was.

“After you, Master Trymohr,” he said gruffly, and the midshipman headed for the cabin door.

There
was
at least a bit of breeze across the deck. It wasn't much—as Haigyl had expected, the seven-foot bulwarks blocked a lot of its strength—and the canvas overhead seemed weary, hanging heavily from the yards. There was little wind to fill the sails, and it came fitfully, letting the canvas go slack entirely too often for Haigyl's peace of mind.
Dreadnought
had set a veritable mountain of canvas … and it was doing her damned little good. In fact, he doubted they were making much more than three knots with all sail set to the royals and studding sails rigged, as well.

He gazed up in disgust. If he could have found a place to set a single additional scrap of canvas without blanketing
another
scrap, he damned well would have. Unfortunately, there wasn't one.

He stepped to one of the after angle-glasses and raised it, and his lips tightened as he peered aft. There was no question that
Dreadnought
was being shadowed now. The head of the angle-glass was no more than twenty-five feet above sea level, but even from that low a vantage point, he could see the topsails of what had to be a fairly large schooner and what looked like a brig in company with her. They were even closer than they'd been yesterday, and in airs this light they could run down the bigger, heavier ironclad easily.

What they'd do with her after they caught up with her was another matter, but he'd long since realized they must have friends along. If they hadn't, at least one of them would have run off to report the Charisian intruder's course and position.

There's something nasty on the other side of that horizon, Kahrltyn, my boy
, he told himself.
Those bastards're talking to
someone,
even if we haven't been able to spot any of their signals from here
.
And whoever it is wouldn't be coming after you if he didn't figure
he
could do something with you after he caught up!

He didn't much like that thought. On the other hand, just because someone thought he was big enough to get a job done didn't necessarily mean he was. The Dohlarans had bitten off more than they could chew on more than one occasion, and there was no reason to think this one would be any dif—

“Deck, there!” The call floated down from the foretopmast crosstrees. “Gunfire! Gunfire from the south-southeast!”

*   *   *

“God
damn
those fucking galleys!” Commander Bryxtyn Dahnvyrs snarled as fresh gunfire rumbled across the water.

“Bastards're a hell of a lot handier'n
I
ever thought they'd be,” Dahnel Mahkneel, his first lieutenant, agreed bitterly. They stood on HMS
East Wind
's quarterdeck, watching the Dohlarans' gunsmoke roll slowly downwind, like a lost, woolly fog bank, and the sun was hot overhead.

“Faster, too.”

Dahnvyrs' tone was even bitterer than Mahkneel's. He'd commanded
East Wind
for almost a year and a half, and he was proud of the schooner. She was fast, maneuverable, and her sixteen thirty-pounder carronades and pair of thirty-pounder pivot guns gave her a devastating punch, especially firing explosive shells. He loved her dearly, and she'd never failed him, never faltered before any demand he'd made upon her. But while she barely ghosted along under every scrap of canvas he could set, the damned screw-galleys—
galleys
, damn it!—pursued her at at least twice her own best speed.

“Our turn next,” he told the lieutenant. “Pass the word to load the carronades with shell. We'll use round shot from the pivots to pound their frigging armor while they close, but if we get a chance to pop a hit in
around
the damned iron, I want those bastards
hurt
.”

*   *   *

Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht stood on HMS
Broadsword
's quarterdeck and watched the sudden smoke billow up from HMS
Restless
. The relentlessly pursuing screw-galleys had gotten close enough to engage Zheryko Cumyngs' schooner almost two hours ago. It said unflattering things about the Royal Dohlaran Navy's gunnery that it had taken them more than ninety minutes to score their first hit. After that, though, as more of them came into range, the hits had come quickly, despite a low rate of fire which undoubtedly reflected the weight of the screw-galleys' guns. According to
Seijin
Dagyr, they mounted pretty damned massive pieces in those armored citadels of theirs, and he was pretty sure at least one of them had burst.
Something
had certainly started a massive fire forward on one of the Dohlarans before the vessel had blown up, and it was highly unlikely that it had been a Charisian shell.

He'd felt a wave of vengeful satisfaction as the galley exploded, but so far the exchange rate had been entirely in the Dohlarans' favor. The single ship which had exploded was their only loss, which was far more than
he
could say. In addition to
Thunderer
, he'd lost
Restless
and her sister ship
Foam
, and absent a miracle,
East Wind
would be joining them shortly. At least the slow speed imposed by the miserable excuse for a breeze had allowed boats pulling between the squadron's other units to redistribute
Thunderer
's seamen among the rest of his galleons. He hadn't lost all of them along with the schooners' companies, which didn't make him one bit happier at the thought of all the men he
had
lost.

And unless the wind comes up, it won't be so very much longer before you start losing something a mite bigger than a schooner
, he told himself harshly.

Every instinct demanded that he stop running, that he reverse course and go to
meet
the screw-galleys with his far more heavily armed galleons. If he hadn't already lost
Thunderer
, he'd probably have given in to that demand, but cold logic told him it would have been a mistake even then. Now, with
Thunderer
gone,
Firestorm
and
Catastrophe
, his two bombardment ships, were the only ships who could probably penetrate the screw-galleys' armor. The others would be targets, not warships, unless they could somehow get around the Dohlarans' flanks and avoid that armor. And that, unfortunately, was something they simply weren't going to do under weather conditions that let them move at no more than three knots while the screw-galleys could make twice that speed … at least.

No. No, he had to keep the range open for as long as he could, hope a wind came up, hope he could avoid them until darkness fell and then, possibly, give them the slip. It galled him bitterly to avoid action with such small opponents, but the Imperial Charisian Navy itself had demonstrated that size and combat power weren't always synonymous.

He started to pull out his watch, but he made himself glance up at the sun instead rather than stare at the watch face and demonstrate his anxiety to anyone watching him. At least another five hours, he calculated, and looked back at the oncoming screw-galleys.

They'd be within range of his rearmost galleon in no more than
three
hours, and what did he do then?

*   *   *

“That's three of their schooners, Sir!” Captain Mahgyrs announced exultantly as the shattered, dismasted hull of HMS
East Wind
vomited flames and smoke. “We'll be up with their galleons in another hour or two.”