His mind turned, as it so often did in moments when death seemed inescapable, to the girl he had once loved, the Khevan princess who he had dreamed would one day share a life with him on some remote island in the Laut Besar . . .
It had been she who had made the first advance; he was almost sure of that. And yet the erotic tension between them had been so powerful, so tangible, that it was almost visible in the days leading up to it. She was young, fresh and beautiful to look at—perfect to Farhan’s jaded eyes—and yet her soul seemed to him to be as old as the Erhul Mountains, and her mind was as complex and subtle as a seasoned Dhilika politician’s. He had been entranced from the first moment he was introduced to her, in the Emperor’s presence in the vast audience chamber of the Ice-Bear Throne. He had shaken her hand and felt the chill bare skin against his own and a surge of something shoot up his arm into his chest. He could not take his eyes from her perfect oval face, high cheekbones, and very pale skin, somewhat resembling pictures he had seen of the mischievous water spirits of his own Indujah mythology.
Her eyes were a pale, alien blue, like the sky in high summer, the mane of her silk hair almost as white as the snows of her homeland. And her smile: her teasing, crooked, minx’s smile made all his fine hairs stand on end. “I am Katerina Kasimirovitch Astrokova,” she said quietly and took his hand in hers. His soul was lost to her from that moment onward.
For three weeks he loved her silently—how could he speak? She was the only daughter of the Emperor and he was just a middling merchant traveling to the frozen north to buy furs and amber for wealthy Dhilika matrons. She was little more than a child, at fifteen years of age, despite the obvious womanliness of her body—although it was also true that his mother had been the same age when she had married his father.
So for three weeks he had said nothing, only played the courteous, avuncular visitor, interested in the local customs, telling amusing tales of his own land, and of the Laut Besar, of warriors and princesses, monsters and demons and the heroes who defeated them, but never touching her, never crossing the line into crudeness, never importunate or, Gods forbid, making her feel uncomfortable. Then he noticed that she was requesting his presence more and more frequently: they had picnics in the snow, just the two of them—and a dozen guards and servants, of course—swathed in furs and served hot spiced wine beside glowing braziers. There were balls, bright, noisy, alcoholic affairs, full of wild music and reckless dancing, when she insisted that he always give her the last dance of the night—and escort her home to her sumptuous living quarters afterward. They visited the Imperial steam rooms together: taking the heat in separate chambers, of course, but she had conversed intimately with him through the hole in the wall that connected the two rooms and he had been afforded tantalizing glimpses of her body through the mist in between bits of salacious gossip about senior figures at court.
He had written up the gossip, and any other snippets of intelligence he could discover, for his masters in the Amrit Shakti, but somehow he had never managed to mention his growing intimacy with Katerina. She was a glaring hole in his reports, dismissed as “Emperor’s daughter, 15, pleasure-seeking and frivolous,” although he knew that she was so much more than this. And then, to his surprise and joy, she had taken him to her bed, quite suddenly, summoning him to her quarters and making a show of tears, saying that she loved him and that she was distraught that he did not love her in return.
They became lovers then, and for the next four glorious weeks, insatiable for each other, tireless in their passion, their bodies a perfect fit despite their marked differences in age, temperament and culture. And then he had been summoned back to Dhilika by a curt diplomatic note. He was to be sent to the Laut Besar, immediately, by order of General Vakul himself—it had felt like a death sentence. He had wept, and swore he would desert the Shakti and spend the rest of his life here with her in Khev. But no, she told him, he must be strong and do his duty to his country, but she promised that one day, one day they would be together again . . .
“Colonel Madani,” said a voice at his elbow. “I believe it is time.”
Farhan realized that he had been silently weeping and he looked blurrily at Colonel Augustus Bandi who was standing beside him, ebullient, brisk, glowing with a fine martial excitement. It was full dawn by now, and Farhan could hear tinny bells ringing from the ships in the Strait signaling the beginning of the naval day.
“Yes, certainly, Colonel,” said Farhan heavily. “Let us begin.”
* * *
• • •
Katerina stood in her now-accustomed place on the parapet of the east wall of the Red Fort and looked down at the Sumbu Strait and the city of Istana Kush. She was filled with a wonderful calm excitement at the prospect of the day ahead. Before her the golden rim of the sun was just showing above the horizon of the wide Laut Besar and she could already hear the bells of her three warships summoning the sailors to their duty. In a little while, the bombardment of the Governor’s Palace would begin. Her flagship, Yotun, would move into position off the flank of the citadel and open fire, joined by her other ships, Egil and Sar.
During the night they had managed to move only two of the cannon from the Red Fort down into the city and set them up opposite the main gate. She had hoped to shift more of them but the Ostraka gunners, after their victory the day before, had indulged themselves in a heroic obat-and-marak session and at least three-quarters of them had rendered themselves insensible, unable to be woken even with the freely applied boots of the Legionnaires. She would certainly hang two or three of the worst offenders, in due course, but she could not bring herself to be unduly harsh to the rest. They had achieved a notable victory against all the odds and some small relaxation of discipline was appropriate. But still it irked her that only two of the cannon had been brought down.
She had discovered another flaw in her plans, too. The main gate, a wood-and-iron contraption with a drawbridge, could not, it seemed, be fired upon by the warships in the Straits. The southern-curving side of the prow-shaped palace, the side that held the main gate, was not visible from the sea—probably deliberately so—and therefore its weakest spot could not be attacked by water-borne guns. The two cannon from the Red Fort, correctly positioned and manned by a handful of the more sober Ostrakan gunners, could peck away at it, certainly, but it was unlikely that it would be speedily destroyed. And speed was important. She was certain that Federation reinforcements were already on their way.
It was no matter, she told herself, the cannon on her three ships were easily powerful enough to reduce the northern wall of the palace all by themselves. Yotun carried thirty-six guns, and Egil and Sar twenty-four each, and such a weight of metal should easily be able to tumble the ancient and somewhat crumbling palace wall down around the defenders’ ears, in a matter of only three or four hours at most.
Then her Celestial Legionnaires would go in.
They were already in their places around the Governor’s Palace, dug in snugly in a crescent that stretched from the Grand Harbor to the Small, their blue-and-green company flags fluttering gaily in the wind off the Straits, with a concentration of several hundred fresh Legionnaires near the northern end of the semicircle. This was where Colonel Wang had his headquarters, from where he would order the assault at the correct time, opposite the stretch of palace wall where the full might of the cannon of her three ships would fall.
She was perfectly confident that the palace, and indeed the whole of Istana Kush, would be hers by nightfall. And she found herself enjoying a sense of luxury—something that she had not experienced for some time—in the knowledge that she need do nothing but observe for the next few hours as her careful plans unfolded. The captains of her three ships had their detailed orders, as did Colonel Wang and his men. All she had to do was watch.
She turned to Ari Yoritomo. “Bring me a chair and some hot tea and something to eat,” she said. And the knight nodded and went o
ff to issue the orders to one of the Red Fort’s skeleton garrison—mostly wounded Legionnaires from the Scout company.
Now there was movement on Yotun. The big ship’s sails were dropped, filled by the wind, sheeted tight, and her flagship began a slow turn into the center of the Strait. There was something inexpressibly beautiful about the vessel, its smooth motion through the water, the curve of its many brilliant white sails, the gleam of the brass work in the early-morning sunlight. And the other two ships were moving now, too.
A distant cannon fired, a barking cough that seemed to come from beyond Sar, the closest ship to the Manchatka shore. That was not right. They were too far away to begin the bombardment—was it some sort of naval signal? She frowned and reached for the brass telescope that hung from a cord around her neck. She trained the spyglass on the deck of Sar, only half-visible behind the big full sails of the Yotun.
Something was wrong. She could see that sailors were running about the main deck in panic, part of the rail was missing, and there were bodies, bloody bodies, parts of bodies lying on the clean wooden decking. A cannon fired again and she saw the whole ship shudder under the impact. A hit below the waterline. She saw, too, where the cannon fire was coming from. The Green Fort. Had they not already subdued that fortress? Had they come back? Her world seemed to shift and slip sideways. She could now see the little figures of men at the broken walls and two, no three black gun barrels pointing out over the walls toward the Straits. There were men working the guns, now, wielding long rammers, another man hurrying forward with a ball in his hands.
This was bad. Over to her right, Egil had pulled away ahead of Yotun. She could hear the distant sound of orders being relayed from one ship to another by a speaking trumpet. Egil forged away south still heading for the palace, a clear stretch of gray-green water now between her and the Yotun, which Katerina saw was altering the trim of its sails and coming about. A cannon from the Green Fort belched fire and the Sar took another shocking blow to the timbers of her side. The enemy battery could hardly miss—the ship was no more than two hundred paces away from their cannon mouths. A few moments later another cannon roared out from the tiny, enemy-held fortress.
Sar finally got off a full broadside: the starboard side erupting in a sheet of flame and wall of smoke. A dozen balls smashed out toward the walls of the Green Fort, some cracking against the mold-stained walls, others screaming over the top to disappear into the mangrove forest behind. And Yotun was still turning, turning, returning to savagely punish the tiny Federation battery that dared to attack its sister ship.
“Put that thing down and get those obat-soaked gunners up and to their guns,” Katerina growled to a Legionnaire captain who was lumbering forward with a heavy-looking armchair. “I don’t care if you have to half murder them but wake them up and get them to their pieces and firing on the Green Fort. Immediately!”
The captain blanched at her fury and scurried away.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Katerina cursed herself uselessly, her small hands balled into tight white fists.
Sar was clearly ailing, the deck now canted at a steep angle. Men were throwing themselves from the ship, diving off and splashing into the water. But Yotun was coming up fast, and the eighteen powerful guns on her starboard side were being run out in a rattling crash that Katerina could plainly hear even at this distance.
“Now kill them,” she whispered. “Kill them all.”
* * *
• • •
Farhan could hardly believe their luck. The first shot had been too high, crashing through the rail of the nearest ship and only killing or maiming two or three men and ripping up a few backstays. But when the second cannon spoke, their aim had been perfectly true, the ball lancing out and crashing into the middle of the side of the small ship, just at the waterline, tearing a hole in the timbers that was visible for a few moments before it filled with black water.
In truth, it was not a difficult target at this short distance, but Farhan was still filled with a special pride at the knowledge of what they had accomplished. The Honorable Artillerymen knew their business, and even sad Colonel Bandi, the sweat of eagerness staining his green uniform, was proving to be an impressive commander. Farhan had given himself the task of organizing the supply of munitions and he and his team of engineers were bringing up round shot and small canvas bags of powder to feed the cannon. They were really doing it—they really were! They were killing a ship.
The first cannon was reloaded now, and at Bandi’s command, the burning linstock fuse was brought down to the touchhole and the piece roared once again. Another lethal hit, low in the bow of the vessel. The ship was ailing, sinking, dying.
The Artillerymen went briskly about the business of reloading, sponging the hot barrel, slamming home the powder, ball, and wadding. Wielding the rammers with brutal precision. The command was given to stand clear and the touchhole ignited. A roar like a giant in pain and another ball crashed out and plunged into the broken timbers of the stricken ship.
But the Sar was not without teeth, even mortally wounded. The flaps of the twelve portholes on this side creaked open and twelve brass barrels popped out.
“Get down,” shouted Farhan. “Everybody down!”
The enemy broadside smashed out in a deafening storm of fire and smoke and screaming metal. Farhan, who was crouched behind a part of the wall that was still intact, felt a cannonball’s impact against the moldy stone as a hard punch against his shoulder. Most of the barrage screamed overhead and into the mangroves. But he glimpsed Colonel Bandi, who had not deigned to duck, struck full in the chest by a ball, his uniformed body exploding in red-and-green shards like a ripe watermelon smashed with a hammer. Another ball hit the wooden carriage of the second cannon and the long gun was hurled from its bed, black-iron barrel spinning in the air and crushing an Artilleryman against a pile of broken bricks, nearly severing his body in half.
It was over, almost as soon as they had begun. With only one functioning cannon left, as well as the big monster lashed directly to the wall, they could not hope to do much more.
Farhan peeped over the wall. The brass muzzles of the Sar’s cannon had been run in again and he could dimly make out furious shapes inside the portholes, wreathed in smoke, sponging and ramming, even as the ship lurched downward in the water.
Beyond the Sar, Farhan could see the big flagship coming up fast toward them, its portholes open, guns run out, like a row of shining brass teeth on some water monster.
A pair of cannon roared from across the Strait, one only moments after the other. The gunners of the Red Fort had come to join the party. The ball smashed through a stretch of wall a dozen paces from Farhan, showering him with sharp rocks and grit. Another ball whistled overhead and splintered the trunk of a venerable palm tree.
He stood up. “One more salvo, boys, just one more,” Farhan said. “We will fire at the big one over there and then we run.” He remembered Mamaji’s words clearly: “. . . you will reinstate the cannon and engage the enemy ships for as long as you are able, aiming to sink, cripple or injure them in any way . . .” Well, they had done that. Now it was time to go.
He walked over to the biggest cannon, the monster on the far left; his legs suddenly turned to jelly. He looked doubtfully at its long barrel secured in an ugly, makeshift manner with ropes and wedges of wood into a V-shaped crack in the wall, its breech end supported only by a pile of broken stones. It was loaded, he knew, and he peered along the massive barrel and saw that it was roughly aligned with the flagship. Gods knew if it would be accurate, tied up in this unnatural manner. The other smaller cannon—which had by now been maneuvered around to face the oncoming Yotun by the surviving Artillerymen—fired and a shot lashed out at the big ship, firing high and passing ten feet above the deck, slicing through backstays, severing rope ladders and punching a hole above the boom on the square mainsail but otherwise doing no visible damage.
“Give me a match,” shouted Farhan to a terrified-looking Artilleryman. He snatched the burning fuse from the man’s hand. “Now, go, run, all of you, before . . .”
He saw a bank of smoke appear silently all along the side of the Yotun. And then the world exploded in a storm of noise, blood and hissing metal. He was blinded by flying grit and knocked to his knees and all around him he could hear a shocked silence, and then the screams of mutilated men. He lurched to his feet, looked down at his body, which was filthy but unscathed save for a deep cut in the back of his left hand, the hand that was still gripping the burning match. All the Artillerymen were down, their dust-covered bodies and some parts of bodies, too, lying scattered all around. A pool of blood was forming in a depression in the ground behind the mangled mound of two or three men. The second cannon had been hit directly, its iron barrel shattered into a dozen pieces; most of the rest of the wall was gone, too. But, somehow, the big cannon was still lashed in the same position. Still poking out toward the Strait. He peered down the long barrel again and saw the big sails of the Yotun, directly ahead. He leaned back and put the burning match to the touchhole.
The cannon roared, bucked free of its lashings, and jumped backward, missing Farhan with its lethal bulk by a matter of inches. The iron ball smashed into the rear of the Yotun, crunching through the taffrail and splintering the tiller, obliterating the two men who were steering the ship there with the giant wheel.
The rudderless Yotun swung around, now heading straight for the Manchatka shore, charging forward. There was a lot of confused shouting on the deck. Men in blue running here and there. The ship was coming straight at Farhan, and he knew he had to run away. Somehow he couldn’t move. It seemed that the ship was coming after him, targeting him personally, about to leap from the sea like a salmon and crush him with its bulk. He heard a terrible screech of tortured timbers and the huge ship came juddering to a complete stop. All the seamen on deck were thrown off their feet. Farhan could not understand it. The ship was halted. He was saved. A miracle of some kind. Then he knew: the big ship was impaled on some underwater shoal or rock. Grounded. The flagship was dead in the water.
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