A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  On the other hand, he’d managed to get Harchong to agree that the Dohlar Bank and the islands around Whale Island Shoal, farther west, would be unclaimed by either realm. Waisu—or, rather, his ministers; it was entirely possible Waisu hadn’t made a single policymaking decision during his entire twelve years on the throne—hadn’t cared enough to argue. All they’d wanted was to make certain Dohlar didn’t fortify any of the islands’ harbors and that Rahnyld’s expansionist ambitions were held more or less in check. Well, they’d also wanted to be sure the lucrative smuggling traffic which passed through the islands (and deposited sizable sums in their purses) continued unabated, of course.

  Manthyr had been pleasantly surprised to discover that that state of affairs continued unchanged. He’d expected the Dohlarans and Harchongese to have patched up some sort of understanding, now that the Group of Four had more or less married them at swordpoint. From a Charisian perspective, leaving nice, convenient island bases less than five hundred miles off the coast of Dohlar (and even closer than that to Harchong’s Province of Erech) wide open to enemy occupation was an act of lunacy. It would no more have occurred to Emperor Cayleb to do such a thing than it would have occurred to him to go swimming with krakens with a fresh steak tied to his back. If anything had been wanting to convince Manchyr that neither Dohlarans nor Harchongese had even the ghost of a whisper of a clue where the realities of naval strategy were concerned, finding these islands completely unfortified and unprotected provided it.

  He watched boatloads of Marines pulling for the shore and shook his head. Disgusted as he was, he was also grateful. Chelm Bay, on Trove’s northeastern coast, was too small for his entire force. It measured barely eight miles in width, and it was totally open to any northerly wind, but the water was relatively deep, the bottom was good holding ground, and it was practically impervious to wind from any other direction, thanks to the island’s rocky height. As a temporary anchorage for minor repairs or resupply, it would do very well, indeed. And it was the island’s only really good deep- water anchorage, so once Major Brainahk Wyndayl’s battalion of Col o nel Vahsag Pahraiha’s Fourteenth Marine Regiment was ensconced ashore, taking the island back again would present a major military challenge. Especially with the battery of thirty- pounders which had been thoughtfully brought along specifically to make King Rahnyld’s and Emperor Waisu’s lives difficult.

  He was just as happy Chelmsport, the island’s largest town, had less than two hundred inhabitants. It decreased the probability of anyone’s doing anything foolish, although he couldn’t quite rule the possibility out, especially with the religious component to consider. Still, it seemed unlikely, and Chelmsport had reliable sources of water, which was always the greatest potential weakness of a warship. Assuming the locals were inclined to be reasonable, it might also be another source of fresh food, which wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

  Brigadier Tyotayn’s Fifth Brigade (and the second battalion of Colonel Pahraiha’s in de pen dent regiment) had laboriously broken ground for crops back at Claw Island, and the water supply there was nowhere near as limited as “Captain Lahfat” had suggested. It had taken quite a bit of ingenuity to rig an aqueduct and a wind- powered pump to feed it to provide adequate irrigation, but one thing the island had in plenty was seabird and wyvern guano. That provided lots of fertilizer, and at least half Tyotayn’s Marines had been farm boys before they enlisted. Still, it would be an arduous task to grow enough food for the expedition. He expected to get at least some supplies from the prizes he was shortly going to be taking, but having an additional source would be more than simply convenient.

  And if the Trove Islanders will sell us food, then we can probably convince theother islands in the area to do the same thing, if we’re willing to be discreet about it. Another thing the naval geniuses who left them wide open this way obviously didn’t consider.

  He shook his head wonderingly one more time over his opponents’ stupidity, then turned away from the rail. It was time he and his captains got down to the business of making the other side’s lives as miserable as possible.

  And it serves the idiots right, too, he thought.

  .IV.

  HMS Chihiro, 50,

  Gorath Bay,

  Kingdom of Dohlar

  My son, you should sit down and count to one thousand slowly. If not in the interest of your spiritual serenity, in the interest of avoiding apoplexy.”

  Earl Thirsk’s head whipped around. Had the speaker been anyone besides Staiphan Maik, the earl’s response would probably have been both pungent and profane. Under the circumstances, however, both those options were denied him, although he couldn’t quite keep the heat out of his gaze.

  Maik simply gazed at him serenely, and, after a moment, Thirsk felt his own lips twitch unwillingly. After all, the bishop had a point.

  “Seriously, Lywys,” Maik said, pointing at the earl’s desk chair. “Stop pacing around like a slash lizard with its tail cut off. I understand exactly why you’re so furious. But, in the long run, I think this may actually work out in our favor.”

  Thirsk blinked in surprise. He looked at the bishop for several seconds, then walked slowly around the desk, seated himself as directed, and cocked his head.

  “I would be very interested to hear how you reached that conclusion, My Lord,” he said politely.

  “Think about it,” Maik replied. “They’ve done exactly what you predicted. And they got away with it because neither Thorast nor the Harchongese did what you’ve been recommending for months. So, the Charisians now have their forward bases, exactly where you said they’d want them. For that matter, exactly where you told Thorast they’d put them after you got the Governor of Queiroz’s dispatch! And I don’t doubt they’re going to make their presence very unpleasantly felt. Which, in turn, is going to increase the pressure on you—and on me, once Chancellor Trynair and his colleagues”— Maik was far too cautious to use the term “the Group of Four” even with someone he’d come to trust as much as he trusted Thirsk—“hear about this. Agreed?”

  “Oh, I can safely say I concur with that much,” Thirsk said, and the bishop shrugged.

  “Well, when they start screaming at you to do something—anything—I, for one, am going to point out to them—quite forcefully—that if they’d listened to you in the beginning, you wouldn’t have to do the aforesaid something— anything—to get their arses out of the crack they’ve wedged themselves so tightly into.”

  Thirsk’s eyebrows rose. He and Maik had found themselves working more and more closely together, and his respect for the Schuelerite had grown steadily. He had to admit that his willingness to trust Maik had taken a severe blow as the reports coming out of the Temple had mounted, however. He knew perfectly well that Maik hadn’t had a thing to do with that . . . that . . . madness, but the bishop was a Schuelerite, and Thirsk had found that hard to forgive.

  Probably because I spent so much time under “official displeasure” myself after Crag Reach, he thought now. For a while there, I was fairly certain Fern was going to hand me over to either Thorast or the Inquisition as the Kingdom’s scapegoat. So I suppose I’ve got a better feel for the sheer cynicism involved in all this. But to think that even Clyntahn would go this far. . . . Just slaughtering so many of his fellow vicars, and so many bishops and archbishops, would have been bad enough, especially this way! But their families ? Madness!

  He knew he wasn’t the only Dohlaran who felt that way, although very few of those who did were stupid enough to say so. And he suspected Bishop Staiphan came very close to sharing his own feelings. On the other hand, Clyntahn had made his point crystal clear. Treachery would be punished as severely as heresy... and anything short of complete and total loyalty was, by definition, treachery.

  And I don’t doubt military defeat will be defined as “treachery,” too, he thought grimly. Especially if someone’s been unfortunate enough to have suffered defeat once before. I suppose I should think of it as an additional incentiv
e to do well.

  That last thought woke at least a flicker of amusement, and he was grateful for it. Humorous thoughts had been hard to come by lately.

  “I hadn’t thought of it from exactly that perspective, My Lord,” he said with a wintry smile. “My previous experience with being right when everyone else was wrong hasn’t precisely filled me with boundless confidence in how they’re going to react when it all happens again. My observation is that powerful men get even more vengeful if you insist on proving they’re always wrong.”

  “Ah, but this time, you’re going to keep your mouth shut. You’re not going to say one word about Claw Island, or Trove Island. You’re just going to provide your normal, well reasoned, cogent arguments about how we should respond. I’ll rub all the salt into the wounds. At least something good should come of—”

  The bishop paused suddenly. For an instant his mouth tightened, then he shrugged.

  “At least something good should come of your being right yet again,” he finished.

  Thirsk nodded silently, but his eyes were very intent. He knew what Maik had started to say, though it was the closest he’d yet come to anything which could be construed as remotely critical of the head of his own order. Yet there was a certain grim truth to it, Thirsk reflected. After Clyntahn’s brutal demonstration, no layman, and precious few bishops or archbishops, were going to so much as look like they were arguing with a Schuelerite bishop.

  “I hope you’re right about that, My Lord,” Thirsk said, addressing what the bishop had said, rather than what he had not said. Their eyes met, and he saw the understanding in Maik’s gaze. Then the bishop shook himself.

  “So! What do you recommend?” he asked. “Actually, My Lord, if you’re serious about the latitude I’m likely to enjoy, I think we may be able to turn this into an opportunity, as well as a problem.”

  “Indeed?” Maik’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

  “Well, I don’t doubt the Charisians are going to raise Shan- wei’s own hell with our coastal shipping,” Thirsk said frankly. “The escorts I’ve been attaching to the local convoys have been enough to encourage privateers— even Charisian ones—to go hunting elsewhere. Of course, I have to admit that having the Temple lean on the Governor of Shwei didn’t exactly hurt, either.” The earl grimaced. “Distance is our best protection against privateers, to be honest, as long as there’s no local port where they can dispose of their prizes.

  “This is a naval squadron, though. Unless they come across something extraordinarily valuable to their war effort, they’re not going to care about getting prizes home for disposal. They’re going to be sinking and burning anything they can take, and their galleons are powerful enough to brush aside my escorts. Or perhaps I should say my present escorts.”

  He paused, and Maik pursed his lips. Then his eyebrows arched. “You’re thinking about the training opportunity, aren’t you, My Lord?” There was a note of respect in his voice, and Thirsk shrugged.

  “If I were commanding this little expedition,” he said, “I’d have several objectives in mind. I’d want to do everything I could to hamper our naval buildup, which would mean coming as close as possible to shutting down our coastal traffic. I’d want to draw as much as possible of our attention to my activities here in order to discourage us from planning more offensive actions of our own somewhere else. And I’d want to prune back our strength. I’d want to suck Dohlaran and possibly Harchongese galleys and galleons into combat with my galleons on my terms so I could defeat them in detail and whittle them down. And, frankly, I’d want to impress on those inexperienced Dohlarans and Harchongese the fact that they really, truly don’t want to confront Charisian seamen on blue water.”

  Maik was nodding, and Thirsk shrugged. “Well, I’m not ready to take the ships we have off to Trove Island—or, even worse, Claw Island—to try to take it back. The best estimate we’ve got right now is that they have somewhere between fifteen and twenty galleons, and we have less than half our projected strength actually in commission.” He shrugged again. “Oh, we’ve got forty- three theoretically ready for sea, but only about thirty have crews I’d consider fully worked up. And, let’s be honest, even with all the training we’ve been able to give them, they’re not going to be the equal of Charisian crews. Not yet. So if they’ve got twenty galleons, they’d probably still have the advantage against thirty of ours. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least part of their thinking in taking the islands isn’t a hope of drawing us into action in an effort to retake them.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way,” the bishop mused. “Take something we need to take back, then wait for us to come to them on their terms, you mean?”

  “Something like that, yes.” Thirsk nodded. “But if we decline to do that, they’ll simply go ahead and begin raiding our shipping. At that point, they’ll discover we’re using convoys, and they won’t be able to cover enough water just to locate something as elusive as a convoy unless they split up their own strength. I doubt their admiral’s going to be willing to send out anything much smaller than four or five galleons, with one or two of their schooners to scout for them, even so. I wish he’d be that foolish, give us the opportunity to do the pouncing and the defeating in detail, but I doubt he will.

  “On the other hand, he will have to come to us to raid our shipping. In that sense, the convoys are lodestones. They’ll attract the Charisians, and the Charisians are a long way from home. I’m sure they brought a lot of naval stores—replacement canvas, extra spars, things like that—with them, but that’s not remotely the same as having dockyard support. The same thing holds true for their manpower; what they have with them is all they’re going to have. So even if the loss rate in an engagement is in their favor, strategically, it will be in our favor, because we can make our losses good. And, let’s face it, in the long term, every ship Charis loses is going to hurt the Charisians worse than losing the same ship would hurt us, because, ultimately, our resources are so much deeper than theirs.”

  “So you’re saying this is an opportunity to grind them down?”

  “Yes, it is. And, even more importantly, if we do this the right way, we’ll have the opportunity to blood some of our ships’ companies. If our convoy escorts are strong enough to beat off a few attacks, even if we lose some merchant ships—or even a war galleon or two—the warships we don’t lose will be steadily gaining experience. And confidence. As long as we don’t simply get our arses kicked up between our ears, of course.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Maik smiled, then leaned back while he thought. He stayed that way for several moments, then inhaled sharply, and nodded.

  “I understand your points, Lywys, and I think they’re all good ones. You’ll certainly have my support with Duke Thorast and—if necessary—with Duke Fern, as well. Of course, if it turns out that they don’t cooperate with you, we’ll have to think of something else.” He grimaced. “Doing nothing, unfortunately, is not an option.”

  “Nor should it be,” Thirsk agreed. “Obviously, I don’t think I’m wrong, but the possibility always exists. And if, as you say, they decline to cooperate with me, I’ll just have to come up with something to change their minds, won’t I?”

  .V.

  HMS Squall, 36,

  Hankey Sound,

  Kingdom of Dohlar

  Stand by the starboard battery!”

  Captain Ahrnahld Stywyrt watched the gap of gray- green water narrow as HMS Squall drove hard to the north- northeast, closing in on the Harchongese coaster. The small, lubberly fugitive had done its limping best to stay away from Squall when she and her consorts swooped down on the straggling cluster of brigs and sloops, but there’d never been much chance of that. The tubby little brig trying to evade destruction was less than half Squall’s size, with a correspondingly smaller sail plan and far less ability to carry sail in blustery conditions.

  And “blustery,”Stywyrt thought, pretty much sums up the day, doesn’t it, Ahrnahld?

>   Not that he had any urge to complain. The wind had risen steadily since dawn. By now, it was blowing a stiff topsail breeze out of the southwest, with wind speeds approaching thirty miles per hour and ten- foot waves. Squall was leaning heavily to the quartering wind, foaming towards her prey on the larboard tack, and she was making good just under nine knots. The poor little brig was making six, at best, and her desperate break for shallow water had come too late. Besides, Squall was one of the ICN’s converted merchantmen; she drew little more than two- thirds as much water as a proper war galleon like Admiral Manthyr’s flagship.

  Stywyrt could see the merchant ship’s captain standing by the taffrail, staring helplessly at the oncoming galleon, and wondered what was going through the other man’s mind. Ships like the runty little coaster tended to be family affairs, with small crews who were mostly related to each other. There wouldn’t be more than ten or twelve men aboard her—fifteen at the most—and a single accurate broadside from Squall would reduce her to a wrecked slaughter house. Her skipper had to know that, too. In fact, Stywyrt was more than a little surprised the man hadn’t already hauled down his Church pennant and hove- to.

  Probably has something to do with the reports coming out of Zion, he thought grimly. If Clyntahn’s willing to do that to vicars and archbishops, God only knows what he’d do to some poor bastard of a merchant captain for surrendering too quickly!

  Ahrnahld Stywyrt wasn’t the sort to waste a lot of pity on the enemies of his Empire and his Church, yet he couldn’t avoid a sort of disgusted compassion for the captain he was overtaking. The disgust wasn’t for the hapless seaman, either.

  Well, I’ll sympathize with him all day long, but I’ll also send his sorry, ragged arse to the krakens, along with all his friends and relations, if he doesn’t haul his wind pretty damned quick, the captain told himself testily, and raised the leather speaking trumpet in his right hand.