A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  Like a perfectly good range to completely waste powder and shot at,the captain thought dryly. Which means those two fellows over there are out of effective support range of one another. Unless I’m obliging enough to sail directly between them, at any rate!

  He glanced up at his own sails, and decided. “Master Lathyk.”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “Let’s get the t’gallants off her, if you please.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!” The first lieutenant touched his chest in salute, then raised his leather speaking trumpet. “Hands to reduce sail!” he bellowed through it, and feet thundered across the deck planking in response.

  Laizair Mahrtynsyn watched the Charisian through narrow eyes from his station on Archangel Chihiro’s quarterdeck. She was sweeping steadily closer, with her starboard battery run out while she angled towards Archangel Chihiro’s lar-board quarter, which didn’t surprise Mahrtynsyn a great deal. It didn’t please him, but it didn’t surprise him, either. The one thing of which he was completely confident was that Cayleb Ahrmahk wasn’t in the habit of assigning his most powerful warships to people who didn’t know what to do with them, and that Charisian captain over there obviously recognized the huge maneuver advantage his possession of the weather gauge bestowed upon him. Because of his position to windward, the choice of when and how to initiate action lay completely in his hands, and he clearly understood exactly what to do with that advantage.

  Mahrtynsyn only wished he was more confident that Captain Ahbaht understood the same thing.

  Whether Ahbaht understood that or not, it was already painfully evident to Mahrtynsyn that the Charisian galleon was being far more ably handled than his own ship. Archangel Chihiro’s sail drill had improved immeasurably during her lengthy voyage from Desnair. Despite that, however, the precision of the other ship’s drill as she reduced canvas only underscored how far Archangel Chihiro’s own company still had to go. The Charisian’s fore course was brailed up and her topgallants disappeared with mechanical precision, as if whisked away by the wave of a single wizard’s magic wand. Two of her jibs disappeared, as well, as she reduced to fighting sail, yet even with her sail area drastically reduced, she continued to forge steadily closer.

  Her speed had dropped with the reduction of sail, but that didn’t make Mahrtynsyn a lot happier. Archangel Chihiro and Blessed Warrior had taken in their own courses in preparation for battle, and that had cost them even more speed than the Charisian had given up. She still had an advantage of close to two knots, and she was only eight hundred yards astern. In fifteen minutes, give or take, she’d be right alongside, and it was evident what her captain had in mind. He intended to keep to leeward of Archangel Chihiro, engaging her lar-board broadside with his own starboard guns. With the shift in the wind, both ships were heeling harder now, so his shots might tend to go high, but it would allow him to engage the flagship in isolation, where Blessed Warrior would be unable to engage him closely. In a straight broadside duel, the heavier Charisian galleon would almost certainly overpower Archangel Chihiro in relatively short order.

  Still, if the Captain and the Commodore’s plans work out, it won’tbe a straight broadside duel, now will it?

  No, it wouldn’t. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Mahrtynsyn suspected that that Charisian captain over there might just have a few plans of his own.

  “All right, Master Lathyk,” Sir Dunkyn Yairley said, “I think it’s about time.”

  “Aye, Sir,” the first lieutenant responded gravely, and beckoned to Hektor. “Stand ready, Master Aplyn- Ahrmahk,” he said, and Hektor nodded—under the rather special circumstances obtaining at the moment, he’d been specifically instructed not to salute in acknowledgment where anyone on the enemy ship might see it—and moved idly a bit closer to the hatch gratings at the center of Destiny’s spar deck. He glanced down through the latticework at the gundeck below. The long thirty- pounders were run out and waiting to starboard, and he smiled as he noted the gun crews’ distribution.

  It was not a particularly pleasant expression.

  “Man tacks and braces!” he heard Lathyk shout behind him.

  Commodore Wailahr stood on Archangel Chihiro’s poop deck, gazing at the steadily approaching Charisian ship.

  It was evident to him that Captain Ahbaht had been less than delighted to discover just how powerful their adversary actually was. Well, Wailahr hadn’t been tempted to turn any celebratory cartwheels himself. And although all of the commodore’s previous combat experience might have been solely on land, his ships had conducted enough gunnery drills for him to suspect their accuracy was going to prove dismal. To some extent, though, that should be true for both sides, and the fact that he had almost twice as many total guns ought to mean he’d score more total hits, as well.

  Assuming he could bring all of them into action.

  So far, he’s doing what Ahbaht predicted, Hairahm, he reminded himself. Now if he just goes on doing it....At least before they’d separated to their present distance from one another, Archangel Chihiro and Blessed Warrior had been able to come close enough together for Wailahr and Ahbaht to confer with Captain Tohmys Mahntain, Blessed Warrior’s commanding officer, through their speaking trumpets. Mahntain was a good man—junior to Ahbaht, and a little younger, but also the more aggressive of the two. And he’d understood exactly what Ahbaht and Wailahr had in mind. The commodore was confident of that, and also that he could rely on Mahntain to carry through on his instructions.

  More than that, it was evident Ahbaht’s prediction that the enemy would attempt to engage just one of Wailahr’s ships if the opportunity were offered had been accurate. By deliberately opening a gap between the two Desnairian galleons, he and Wailahr had offered up Archangel Chihiro as what had to be a tempting target. If the Charisian kept to larboard, closing in on Archangel Chihiro’s downwind side, she could range up alongside Wailahr’s flagship and pound her with her superior number and weight of guns when none of Blessed Warrior’s guns could be brought to bear in the flagship’s support.

  But when the enemy ship took the offered advantage, Mahntain would execute the instructions he’d been given earlier. Blessed Warrior would immediately alter course, swinging from her heading of north- northwest to one of west by north or even west- southwest, taking the wind almost dead abeam. That course would carry her directly across the Charisian ship’s bow, giving her the opportunity to rake the larger, heavier galleon from a position in which none of the Charisian’s guns could bear upon her in reply.

  As soon as he’d crossed the Charisian’s course, Mahntain would come back onto his original heading... by which time (if all had gone according to plan) the Charisian and Archangel Chihiro would have overtaken Blessed Warrior. The bigger galleon would be trapped between Wailahr’s two lighter vessels, where their superior number of guns ought to prove decisive.

  Of course, it’s unlikely thingswill go exactly “according to plan,” Wailahr reminded himself. On the other hand, even if we don’t pull it off exactly, we should still end up with the tactical advantage.

  The Charisian wouldn’t be able to turn away to prevent Blessed Warrior from raking her from ahead without exposing her equally vulnerable—and even more fragile—stern to Archangel Chihiro’s broadside. She wouldn’t have much choice but to remain broadside- to- broadside with the flagship. So unless Archangel Chihiro took crippling damage to her rigging in the opening broadsides, or unless someone collided with someone else, the advantage should still go to the Desnairians.

  And acollision will work to our advantage, too, Wailahr thought grimly. Good as the Imperial Charisian Marines were, Wailahr’s crews would outnumber the Charisians by two- to- one. A collision that let him board the larger ship and settle things with cold steel wouldn’t exactly be the worst outcome he could imagine.

  Captain Yairley watched the tip of Destiny’s jibboom edging steadily closer to the Desnairian galleon. He could read the other ship’s name off her counter now— Archangel Chihiro, which didn’t lea
ve much doubt about who she’d actually been built to serve—and even without his spyglass, he could make out individual officers and men quite clearly.

  Archangel Chihiro,despite her shorter, stubbier length, stood higher out of of the water than Destiny, which undoubtedly made her crankier and more leewardly. She also had less tumblehome (undoubtedly a legacy of her merchant origins), and her forecastle and aftercastle had both been cut down at least somewhat during her conversion. She’d retained enough height aft, however, for a complete poop deck, and in some ways, Yairley wished Destiny had possessed the same feature. Destiny’s helmsmen’s quarterdeck position left them completely exposed—to musketry, as well as cannon fire—whereas Archangel Chihiro’s wheel was located under the poop deck, where it was both concealed and protected.

  As if to punctuate Yairley’s reflections, muskets began to fire from the other vessel. They were matchlocks, not flintlocks, which gave them an abysmally low rate of fire. They were also smoothbores, which wasn’t going to do any great wonders for their accuracy, although pinpoint precision wasn’t much of a factor firing from one moving ship at personnel on the deck of another moving ship. Whether or not any particular target was actually hit under those circumstances was largely a matter of chance, although it was just a bit difficult to remember that when a musket ball went humming past one’s ear.

  As one had just done, a corner of his mind observed.

  Marine marksmen in the fore and maintops began returning fire, and if their rifled weapons weren’t a lot more accurate under the conditions which obtained, the fact that they were armed with flintlocks, not matchlocks, at least gave them a substantially higher rate of fire. Someone screamed at one of the midship starboard carronades as one of those matchlocks did find a target, and Yairley saw a body pitch over the side of Archangel Chihiro’s mizzentop and smash down on the poop deck with bone- pulverizing force as one of his Marines returned the compliment.

  I think we’re just about close enough, now,he mused, and glanced at Lathyk. “Now, Master Lathyk!” he said crisply, and the first lieutenant blew his whistle.

  Sir Hairahm Wailahr didn’t even turn his head as the seaman’s body crashed onto the poop deck behind him. The man had probably been dead even before he fell; he was almost certainly dead now, and it wouldn’t have been the first corpse Wailahr had ever seen. He paid no more attention to it than he did to the splinters suddenly feathering the planking around his feet as three or four Charisian musket balls thudded into the deck. The other ship’s marksmen had obviously recognized him as an officer, he noted, even if they didn’t realize exactly how rich a prize he would make. Yet it was a distant observation, one which was not allowed to penetrate below the surface of his mind. The commodore was scarcely unaware of his own mortality, but he had other things to worry about as the tip of the Charisian’s long, lance- like jibboom started to creep level with Archangel Chihiro’s taffrail.

  Langhorne, this is going tohurt! he told himself. The Charisian was coming even closer than he’d anticipated. It looked as if the other galleon’s captain intended to engage from a range of no more than thirty yards. At that range, not even Wailahr’s relatively inexperienced gunners were likely to miss, and he grimaced as he considered the carnage which was about to be inflicted.

  But on both of us, my heretical friend,he thought grimly. On both of us.

  Another few minutes, and—

  “Larboard your helm!” Sir Dunkyn Yairley snapped. “Roundly, now!”

  “Helm a-lee, aye, Sir!” Chief Waigan acknowledged, and he and his assistant spun the big double- wheel’s spokes blurringly to larboard.

  The motion of the wheel moved the ship’s tiller to larboard, which kicked her rudder in the opposite direction. Which, in turn, caused the ship to turn abruptly to starboard.

  Wailahr’s eyes widened as the Charisian suddenly altered course. It was the last thing he’d expected, especially since it sent her turning away from Archangel Chihiro— turning up to windward across his flagship’s wake, and not ranging alongside to leeward as he’d expected. Her yards tracked around with metronome precision as her heading altered, continuing to drive her, yet she slowed drastically as her new course brought her up closer to the wind, and Wailahr’s initial surprise began to turn into a frown of confusion as he found himself looking at the Charisian galleon’s larboard gunports.

  Her closed larboard gunports, since it was her starboard broadside she’d run out when she cleared for action.

  “Roundly, lads! Roundly!” Hektor shouted down through the hatch gratings.

  The admonition probably wasn’t necessary. The officers and men in charge of Destiny’s main armament had undoubtedly heard Lieutenant Lathyk’s whistle almost as well as the carronade gunners on the spar deck weapons. Captain Yairley wasn’t the sort to take chances on something like that, however. It was one of his fundamental principles that a competent officer did everything he could before the battle to minimize the chance of errors or misunderstandings. They were going to happen, anyway, once battle was fairly joined, but a good officer did his best to see to it there were as few as possible . . . and that they didn’t happen any earlier than they had to.

  And this particular evolution presented plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong.

  As the ship rounded up to windward, the seamen who’d been ostentatiously manning the weather carronades (as any wall- eyed idiot on the other ship could plainly see) turned as one and charged, obedient to Lathyk’s whistle, to the opposite side of the deck. The short, stubby carronades of the larboard battery, already loaded and primed, were run out quickly, in plenty of time, but the heavier gundeck weapons were both much more massive and far less handy.

  The good news was that no one aboard Archangel Chihiro had been able to see Destiny’s gundeck. Captain Yairley had been able to send full gun crews to his larboard battery without giving away his intentions. Now the larboard gunports snapped open, gun captains shouted orders, and men grunted with explosive effort as they flung their weight onto side tackles. Gun trucks squealed like angry pigs as they rumbled across planking which had been sanded for better traction, and the long, wicked snouts of the new- model krakens thrust out of the suddenly open ports.

  There wasn’t much time to aim.

  Fortunately, HMS Destiny’s gun captains had enjoyed plenty of practice.

  The world came apart in a deafening bellow of lightning- shot thunder.

  Sir Hairahm Wailahr had never imagined anything like it. To be fair, no one who had never experienced it could have accurately imagined it. He stood on the tall, narrow poop deck of his flagship—a deck little more than forty feet long and barely twenty feet across at its widest point—and twenty- seven heavy cannon exploded in a long, unending drumroll, spitting fire and blinding, choking smoke as Destiny crossed Archangel Chihiro’s stern and her broadside came to bear from a range of perhaps fifty feet. The two ships were so close together that Destiny’s jibboom had actually swung across her enemy’s poop, barely clearing Archangel Chihiro’s mizzen shrouds, as she altered course almost all the way to northeast- by- east, and the concussive force of that many cannon, firing at that short a range, each gun loaded with a charge of grape on top of its round shot, was indescribable. He actually felt the heat of the exploding powder, felt vast, invisible fists of muzzle blast punching his entire body with huge bubbles of overpressure. Felt the fabric of his flagship bucking and jerking—slamming upward against his feet as if some maniac were pounding the soles of his shoes with a baseball bat—as the Charisian fire crashed into her. Planking splintered, the glass of Archangel Chihiro’s big stern windows simply disappeared, and the screams and high- pitched shrieks of men who’d been taken just as completely by surprise as Wailahr himself ripped at his ears even through the incredible thunder of Destiny’s guns.

  Cleared for action, Archangel Chihiro’s gundeck was one vast cave, stretching from bow to stern. A cavern edged with guns, nosing out through the open ports, waiting for a t
arget to appear before them. But the target wasn’t there. It was astern of them, where the gunners crewing those guns couldn’t even see it, far less fire back at it, and six- inch iron spheres came howling down that cavern’s length like Shan- wei’s own demons.

  Half a dozen of the galleon’s lizards took direct hits, their carriages disinte-grating into clouds of additional splinters, the heavy bronze gun tubes leaping upward, then crashing back down to crush and mangle the survivors of their crews. Human beings caught in the path of one of those round shot were torn in half with casual, appalling ease. Splinters of the ship’s fabric—some of them as much as six feet long and three or four inches in diameter—slammed into fragile flesh and blood like spears hurled by some enraged titan. Men shrieked as they clutched at torn and riven bodies, and other men simply flew backwards, heads or chests or shoulders destroyed in explosions of gore as grapeshot—each almost three inches in diameter—smashed into them.

  That single broadside killed or wounded almost half of Archangel Chihiro’s crew.

  “Bring her back off the wind, Waigan!”

  The captain had to raise his voice to be heard, yet it seemed preposterously calm, almost thoughtful, to Chief Waigan.

  “Aye, aye, Sir!” the petty officer replied sharply, and the wheel went over in the opposite direction as Destiny’s rudder was reversed.

  The galleon didn’t like it, but she answered like the lady she was. Her hull heaved awkwardly as she swung back to the west, across the waves, but Yairley had timed the maneuver almost perfectly, and the wind helped push her back around.