Hell's Foundations Quiver (88 page)

The others followed him up on deck, and he held out one hand to the officer of the watch. The lieutenant put his spyglass in it, and the admiral raised the glass, peering at the Charisians they'd been pursuing since dawn.

They'd had farther to go than he'd initially thought, and even with a speed advantage, a stern chase was always a long chase. With no desire to exhaust his cranksmen before he even reached the enemy, he'd settled for pursuing them under sail alone, since his smaller vessels were capable of half again their speed under the current conditions of wind and sea. At that rate, he'd expected to come into long cannon shot of them within the next hour or so, but it seemed he'd been looking in the wrong direction.

He swung the glass away from the Charisians, and there were
Scourge
's sails.

“Remind me to have a word with our lookouts,” he heard Mahgyrs murmur to Lieutenant Haystyngs, and his lips twitched in amusement.

He wouldn't care to be the unfortunate lookouts in question, the admiral thought, although Mahgyrs had a reputation as a humane CO. And he understood how it had happened. Like every other man aboard
Sword
, the lookouts had known exactly where the enemy was—they could damned well
see
them—and the thought of engaging that many galleons—especially
Charisian
galleons—was enough to dry any mouth. Little wonder they'd been so focused on the enemy that they'd failed to note a friend's approach. Still, however understandable, it was also inexcusable for them to allow
any
ship to get this close without being spotted, and he had no doubt Mahgyrs would make that point abundantly clear to his entire ship's company.

“Sir, the masthead reports additional sails beyond
Scourge
,” a midshipman told the flag captain very carefully, and Hahlynd was careful to keep the spyglass to his eye, peering out to sea where no one could see his smile. “It, ah, appears to be an entire fleet.”

“Why, it's very obliging of them to share that information with us, now that it's come to their attention, Master Walkyr,” Mahgyrs replied. “Be so good as to give them my personal thanks for the news.”

“Uh, of course, Sir.”

Young Walkyr faded away and Hahlynd lowered the glass and turned to raise one eyebrow at the flag captain.

“‘An entire fleet,'” Mahgyrs murmured.

“Well, Admiral Rohsail's dispatches did say he was bringing the whole Western Squadron with him,” Hahlynd pointed out. “And if he did, that means we have the Charisians trapped between us and fifty galleons.”

“Not quite
between
us, Sir,” Mahgyrs corrected respectfully.

“Point taken,” Hahlynd conceded. “On the other hand, we do have them at what I think we could legitimately call a significant tactical disadvantage.”

“Oh, yes, Sir. I imagine we could call it that.”

Hahlynd smiled, but then he looked back towards the west, into the eye of the wind, and his smile faded. The clouds weren't coming on all that rapidly, but they
were
turning steadily darker and piling steadily higher. It wasn't just an overcast; it was an oncoming storm, and he could almost hear the thunder already. With a little luck, it would hold off until evening, but if it didn't, his screw-galleys could be in serious trouble.

At the moment, they were just passing Fort Tyshau at the southern end of the Cape Yula Shoal. The name was something of a misnomer; the Harchongese fortifications which had once guarded the Kaudzhu Narrows had decayed into ruins long ago, following the minor unpleasantness during which the Empire had wrested the remainder of Hahskyn Bay and the area about it away from the hapless Kingdom of Sodar. The Harchongians had no longer seen any need to control the Narrows, now that they'd deprived Sodar of the only thing approaching a seaport it had ever had, and the fortresses hadn't been manned in almost a century and a half. Most of the stone and brick of which they'd been built had been appropriated for other uses in the meantime, turning them into little more than heaps of rubble. Three of their names remained, however, appended now to small fishing ports. It was possible he might be able to get the shallow draft screw-galleys into the tiny harbor that served Fort Tyshau, but it was also possible he wouldn't. And even if he could, it afforded poor protection against a powerful westerly.

Fort Nahgah, at the tip of Cape Yula, the southern headland at the head of the Kaudzhu Narrows, would offer a much better anchorage, but it was also the better part of fifty miles from Fort Tyshau … with a minor obstacle called the Imperial Charisian Navy between them and it. It was only about ten o'clock and nightfall was still over nine hours away, yet he had to admit he'd feel a lot more comfortable with better protection against foul weather closer to hand.

But the weather wasn't what mattered now.

“I believe it's time we called the cranksmen,” he said. “If we can get close enough to nip at the Charisians' heels, perhaps we can encourage them to slow down to maneuver against us. I imagine Admiral Rohsail would appreciate any small effort in that direction on our part.”

*   *   *

“The screw-galleys are coming up from astern, Sir,” Lieutenant Pahrkyns said quietly. Kahrltyn Haigyl turned his head to meet his second lieutenant's eye.

“How far astern?” he asked.

“About five miles, Sir. And it looks like they're making at least ten or twelve knots.”

“Impressive,” Haigyl observed, then nodded. Pahrkyns touched his chest in salute and moved back towards
Dreadnought
's wheel while his captain contemplated the news.

Twelve knots was just over twice his own ship's present speed, and quite a bit faster than he'd expected them to be. He supposed he shouldn't be too surprised by that. His information on them had been fragmentary, to say the best, and there'd been no way for Ahbaht to pass him any sort of report on his own experiences against them. If Pahrkyns' estimates of distance and speed were accurate, however, the screw-galleys would overtake
Dreadnought
in a little less than an hour.

That could prove unfortunate. Unhappily, it wasn't the only thing that might be said of, and he turned to Paityr Gahnzahlyz,
Dreadnought
's gunner.

“It's time to try the range, Master Gahnzahlyz.”

*   *   *

“About another hour till Admiral Hahlynd overtakes them,”
Defiant
's third lieutenant said.

Lieutenant Parkyr appeared to be speaking to himself, probably without even realizing it, but Admiral Rohsail nodded. By his own estimate, the first of his galleons, HMS
Scepter
, would come within her extreme range of the ironclad in no more than another twenty minutes. Another four or five of the Western Squadron's galleons would be close enough to engage it shortly thereafter, but he cherished no illusion that taking down that ominous, black-hulled monster would be an easy task. He wouldn't object at all if some of Hahlynd's screw-galleys were available to add their weight to the effort.

“I think—” someone else began, but a sudden clap of thunder cut whoever it was short.

*   *   *

Captain Zherohm Spryngyr chewed the stem of his unlit pipe as he watched the gap between his ship and the heretic ironclad narrow.

The day had turned into a fittingly spectacular setting for what was about to happen. It was just past midday, the sun at the very start of its western descent, yet the wind out of the west had grown steadily cooler. It had picked up a little more strength, as well.
Scepter
had reduced to topsails and jib in anticipation of what was to come, but that wind was strong enough to heel her to starboard, despite the reduction in sail area. Some of the waves had developed foamy white crests, and the green water around the galleon shaded into a sapphire blue so intense it almost hurt the eye as one looked out towards the horizon. The cliffs along the southern shore of the Kaudzhu Narrows were a steep wall of dark gray and brown stone topped with long, blowing grass, and the sky to the west was an even steeper wall of still darker gray, black-bottomed below and blindingly white above. The sunlight was even more brilliant against that slow-moving mountain range of cloud, and he had an unpleasant suspicion about what the night was going to be like.

Of course, first we have to
survive
until nightfall, don't we? I know it's an honor to be the first to engage, but just this minute I wouldn't mind having someone else in closer support
.

He snorted, drawing on the cold pipe. The others would be along soon enough.
Archangel
and
Holy Saint Tyldyn
, the next two ships astern of
Scepter
, hadn't begun reducing sail yet. The additional speed that bestowed upon them would bring them to his support within another ten or fifteen minutes, well before he was likely to need them.

About three thousand yards,
he estimated.
Need to close to about two thousand to have much chance of reaching the bastard with a twenty-five pounder, so call it another fifteen or twenty minutes. Of course, we won't do much good against his frigging armor until we get a lot closer than that
.

He'd already made up his mind to hold his fire until
Scepter
was within five hundred yards of her target, and he'd loaded with round shot rather than shell. There was no point thinking he could punch shells through the heretics' armor—not from beyond yardarm-to-yardarm range, anyway. From what he could see, it wouldn't even help all that much if he could somehow cross the bastards' stern. The ironclad had a sternwalk, but he'd studied it carefully through his spyglass. There was a single central doorway; aside from that the only other openings in the rounded stern that he could see were gunports or relatively small circular scuttles. The scuttles were probably sufficient to admit light and air, but he doubted very many cannonballs were going to find a way through them.

Sneaky bastards
, he thought with a tinge of admiration.
Turned the whole frigging ship into an armored battery, didn't they? That thing's going to be Shan-wei's own bitch to take, but the lads should
—

His teeth sank deep into the stem of his pipe as the ironclad's side abruptly belched brown smoke.

*   *   *

“Fire!”

Paityr Gahnzahlyz' command was swallowed up in the sudden thunder of HMS
Dreadnought
's number two six-inch gun. The squat, massive cannon recoiled on its Mahndrayn carriage, and the rifled projectile howled away in a choking eruption of foul-smelling smoke.

Kahrltyn Haigyl stood at the larboard broadside's aftermost angle-glass, watching the Dohlaran galleon, and his lips drew back from his teeth as the shell struck the water at least two hundred yards
beyond
the Dohlaran and exploded.

Dreadnought
's shells were equipped with what Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's manufactory called “base-mounted percussion fuses.” Master Gahnzahlyz had explained their operating principles to him, but Haigyl hadn't worried too much about the details. All he needed to know was that the shells didn't arm until they were fired, and that they relied upon impact, not a lit fuse, to explode.

The white fountain thrown up by
this
shell's explosion was certainly impressive.

“I see we're in range, Master Stahdmaiyr!” he called. “Show them we care!”

*   *   *

“Shan-wei seize them!
” Dahrand Rohsail snarled as the column of water rose, whiter than snow in the sunlight and well over thirty feet tall.

He'd expected to be outranged, but by
that
much?! The ironclad's reach exceeded his own guns' range by at least half. That meant they'd be able to start pounding his galleons as much as half an hour before they could engage it. It also meant the ironclad could cover a far broader zone than he'd allowed for, which would make it even harder for any of the ships from what had become the rear of his column when he turned back to the north to get past it and engage the fleeing conventional galleons. And the sheer size of the water column told him the heretics' shells were going to be far more destructive than he'd anticipated. All of which meant the cost of attacking that ship was going to be far higher than he'd allowed for.

For just a moment, he considered breaking off. But, no, damn it! If there were
ever
going to be circumstances under which the Royal Dohlaran Navy would be able to engage one of the heretics' ironclads, they had to be today's!

“General signal,” he snapped. “‘Make more sail'!”

*   *   *

Captain Spryngyr needed no signals from the flagship. He'd reached exactly the same conclusions as his admiral, and more canvas blossomed abruptly along
Scepter
's yards as seamen raced to obey a volley of orders. The galleon leaned more sharply to starboard, gathering speed under the press of the extra sail, and Spryngyr turned back towards the ironclad.

They had to get closer as quickly as they could, had to get into their own range of the enemy before the heretics could—

*   *   *

Dreadnought
's entire larboard side erupted in smoky, rolling thunder. Despite their rifling, her guns were still muzzleloaders. They were wire-wound steel cannon, yes, yet they were little more advanced in terms of accuracy than those of Old Earth's mid-nineteenth-century rifled guns, with none of the advanced fire control systems a later age would have taken for granted. They were individually fired by hand, and all the gunners had to compensate for the motion of ship and target was an experienced eye. The range was thirty-two hundred yards, almost two miles, and HMS
Scepter
's hundred-and-sixty-foot length made a very small target at that distance.