At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  Hahlbyrstaht knew all of that. But he also knew the old sailor’s aphorism: “One hand for the ship, and one hand for yourself.” In his opinion, it would be just a little difficult for someone with one hand—period—to put that into practice if the ship pitched suddenly.

  From their lofty perch, however, their double-glasses let them see only too clearly, and Hektor’s expression was bleak as they watched the screw-galleys’ charge.

  “Nobody ever said they weren’t gutsy,” he said as fresh torrents of brown smoke burst from the ironclads’ sides. It rolled across the ships, driven by the wind, spreading away to leeward. “All the guts in the world aren’t going to get them out of this one, though.” He shrugged. “In their place, I probably would’ve pulled the screw-galleys back, slowed them down and gone in with the galleons for support. I can see arguments for doing it this way, though, and Raisahndo obviously intended for them to maneuver independently of the galleons all along. In a lot of ways, this only speeds that up, and if he can get them far enough into Admiral Darys’ face before the rest of his squadron gets there, the distraction quotient might be enough to—”

  He broke off, his bleak expression turning to stone as HMS Javelin ran headlong into a pair of 6-inch shells. All of Sir Dunkyn Yairley’s ironclads and bombardment ships had been issued the “armor piercing” ammunition Admiral Seamount and the Duke of Delthak had developed for their rifled guns. It was intended more for drilling deep into stone fortifications than for killing warships, but it worked just fine against those, too.

  Both shells punched cleanly through Javelin’s armor and exploded deep inside her hull. She was unreasonably fortunate in at least one sense, because her magazine didn’t explode right along with them. But the sudden, savage explosions were too much for a hull already driven to and beyond its limits.

  Her back broke, and the combination of her whirling screws and the massive wind pressure on her sails drove her bodily under.

  There were no survivors. Even if anyone had made it into the icy water, hypothermia would have killed them long before anyone could rescue them.

  Forty seconds later, Arrow staggered sideways, rolling madly, as a shell hit her, as well. It missed her armor completely, and it didn’t even explode. But it did strike her mainmast ten feet above her deck, and eight feet of the heavy spar disintegrated in shrieking splinters. The mast collapsed instantly under the weight of its rigging and the fierce strength of the wind.

  The screw-galley almost capsized, and the wrecked mast toppled overside, still fastened to her by the shrouds, pounding her hull like a captive battering ram. Axes and cutlasses flashed as her crew hacked frantically at the rigging, fighting to free their ship from its lethal embrace, and HMS Flail and Catapult swerved to avoid her as they continued their own headlong charge.

  * * *

  “The rest of their galleons are setting their royals, Sir!” Captain Sympsyn shouted in Admiral Darys’ ear.

  The admiral turned to look at him, and Sympsyn pointed up to the lookout in the maintop through the smoke swirling across Lightning’s deck.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Sympsyn confirmed, and Darys inhaled a deep, smoky lungful.

  I sure hope Dunkyn was right about how close on these bastards’ heels he’ll be, he thought. If he’s very far behind them, this could get … dicey.

  “Trying to pile in on us, make it a general melee. They want to break our line and swarm in close enough to board,” he said grimly, and Sympsyn nodded.

  “Current range?” The admiral tapped the angle-glass at his side and smiled without humor. “I can see damn-all through the smoke from deck level.”

  “Their van’s about two miles behind the screw-galleys,” Sympsyn said. “According to my man up there—” he pointed at the maintop again “—and he’s a good, experienced man—that interval’s increasing because of how fast the screw-galleys are going, and their main body’s as much as a mile behind that.” The flag captain shrugged. “Sounds like Raisahndo’s trying to close with us as fast as he can, but they’ve still got a long way to go.”

  Darys frowned, brain whirring like one of Rhaiyan Mychail’s spinning jennies while he considered distances and wind speeds. If Raisahndo was setting his royals in this freshening wind, he was clearly willing to court damage aloft, even knowing any ship with crippled rigging would become easy prey. That could turn around and bite him, and even with the royals set, he’d be considerably slower than the screw-galleys.

  Call it ten knots in these conditions with the wind where it is, he decided, and three miles from us to their van. Twenty minutes before they can reach us, and six minutes or so more for their main body. So that means.…

  “We’ll finish dealing with the screw-galleys,” he told his flag captain. “Tell the gunners they’ve got fifteen minutes. Then we turn downwind.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  * * *

  Pawal Hahlynd’s face was an iron mask as HMS Halberd staggered. For a second or two, it seemed she’d shake off the blow. Then the Charisian shell detonated and she heaved madly. Her mast snapped, thundering down across her deck, crushing and maiming her people, but that wasn’t all that had happened. She began losing way almost instantly, far more quickly than a screw-galley should have, and Hahlynd’s jaw clamped.

  Took out the cranks, he thought, trying not to picture the carnage in the cramped space below decks where the cranksmen stood literally shoulder to shoulder, laboring to drive their vessel through the water. An explosion in that confined space must have ripped the crewmen to pieces and painted the planking with their blood.

  Well, they’d already had plenty of company. Arrow was still afloat, although it looked as if she was slowly foundering. That wreckage must have beaten in her planking like a hammer on wickerwork before her people managed to cut it away. Flail was also afloat … barely, and not for very much longer; there was no question that she was going down. Arbalest had blown up in a spectacular ball of fire, and Saber’s armored citadel had been gutted by a pair of 6-inch shells that had slammed through her bow armor and exploded almost simultaneously. Cutlass had been driven out of action while she fought a losing battle against the flames consuming her, and if Dirk’s citadel remained intact, her starboard broadside had been hideously maimed by the explosion which had ripped her flank like some slash lizard’s furious talon. He could see the blood flowing from her scuppers as proof of the casualties she’d taken, and though she continued to fight her way through the waves with heartbreaking courage, her combat value had to be … dubious.

  With Halberd, that was seven of his twelve screw-galleys gone, and he’d been wrong about how long the three-deckers would hold their fire. They weren’t using their lower deck guns, but like Raisahndo’s Hurricane, they had heavy rifles in pivot mountings on their upper decks. But whereas Hurricane showed a pair of 8-inch Fultyn Rifles, each of the Charisians was big enough to mount three, and they were longer and slimmer than the Dohlaran guns—long enough their muzzles projected far beyond their bulwarks when they were trained out on the broadside.

  They also fired far, far faster than his own 150-pounders. In fact, they fired at least twice as rapidly as their own ironclads’ broadside guns. Breechloaders—they had to be, like the ones in their accursed armored steamers—and they were fiendishly accurate. Thank God there were only six of them!

  Smoke erupted from Mace’s bows, and bared his teeth as all three forward guns fired as one. Her captain had obviously decided to disregard the safety restriction that prohibited firing all of those massive guns simultaneously. That restriction had even more point than usual in the current sea conditions, but Captain Clymyns clearly calculated that there was no tomorrow for his ship, whatever happened. The ironclad had denied him the quartering approach he’d wanted, maneuvering with the impeccable skill of the Imperial Charisian Navy to force him to approach through the very heart of her broadside firing arc, instead. Yet even though they’d held him under fire the whole
way, he’d done it, Now he was end-on to her, barely ninety yards clear, presenting only his bow armor to her guns while he blazed away. His gunners were good … and just as determined as their captain. Not a shot missed. Hahlynd could actually see the massive round shot strike her target’s armor … and rebound. The trio of 10-inch projectiles shrieked away, baffled. One of them shattered into at least five pieces.

  And then four of the ironclad’s guns fired back.

  Mace disintegrated in a bubble of fire and smoke. Pieces of debris arced across the sky, trailing lines of smoke, rising as much as three hundred feet before they spiraled back down into the icy water in feathers white, and Hahlynd heard Ahlfryd Mahgyrs swearing viciously beside him.

  “Clymyns deserved better,” he heard his own voice saying, and wondered why. It wasn’t like anything he could possibly say at this point was going to matter, but he went right on speaking. “I think we’ll be in range in about two more m—”

  The 6-inch shell from HMS Zhenyfyr Ahrmahk’s forward pivot gun punched through HMS Sword’s frontal armor like an awl through butter. It detonated, the ready charges for her 10-inch smoothbores erupted in sympathetic detonation, and the forward forty feet of Pawal Hahlynd’s flagship shattered in a cloud of smoke, debris, and spray.

  * * *

  “They’re changing course, Sir,” Captain Trahvys said heavily. Caitahno Raisahndo only looked at him, and the flag captain shrugged. “They’re coming onto the wind, Sir. Not making any more sail, but—”

  He shrugged, and Raisahndo nodded.

  Of course the ironclads were coming onto the wind. They’d delayed long enough to deal with Hahlynd’s screw-galleys—only two of them were left, and he didn’t blame their skippers for spending more effort trying to evade the ironclads’ fire than trying to close. It was clear they weren’t going to damage the damned things, whatever they did. About the best they could hope to do now was to delay the bastards, convince the Charisians to spend a little more time on their own destruction in hopes their more conventional consorts could get to grips with the blocking force.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. The ironclads and their division mates were turning to run in front of the rest of his squadron, timing the move with consummate professionalism. They weren’t even making any more sail, because they didn’t want to stay away from him forever. They only wanted to stay clear until the rest of Sarmouth’s squadron, coming up steadily behind Raisahndo’s formation, arrived to close the trap.

  And there wasn’t one damned thing he could do about it.

  The columns coming up astern were overtaking him rapidly, even with his royals set, and they were close enough his lookouts had been able to confirm that neither of the ships leading the original Charisian line had been ironclads after all. The Dohlaran admiral’s mouth twisted bitterly. Just like the sneaky bastards to convince me bombardment ships were ironclads in order to drive me into the real ironclads—not to mention those damned three-deckers. Not that it’s going to matter very much.

  And, of course, there was the fact that the ship leading the closest Charisian division was another ironclad.

  They’re going to shove that division into our backs like a dagger while their friends in front of us hold us for the kill. And their third division’s coming up fast on our lee quarter. We’re like a kraken in a net, waiting for the axe.

  “General signal to reduce sail,” he told Trahvys. The flag captain looked at him, and he shrugged. “We’ve lost the race, Lewk, and we’re driving so hard our line’s started to scatter. Time to reduce to fighting sail and get ourselves reorganized. No point taking any more damage aloft than we have to, and the bastards will have to come into our range if they want us.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Trahvys’ voice was level, almost as if he didn’t realize what Raisahndo’s decision truly meant.

  “And while we’re doing that, bring the Squadron to north-northwest,” Raisahndo continued, and smiled thinly. “Let’s see how long it takes those frigging ironclads to catch up with us for a change.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Trahvys saluted, then raised one hand, beckoning for a signalman, and Raisahndo turned to Commander Kahmelka.

  “Go below,” he said quietly. “Take Ahrnahld with you, and make sure all our confidential papers and codes go overside with a grapeshot or two to keep them company.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Kahmelka’s eyes were unflinching. “They won’t find anything useful, Sir. I guarantee it.”

  “I know, Gahryth. I know.” Raisahndo patted the commander’s shoulder. “And while you’re at it, ask Father Symyn to join me on the quarterdeck.” He smiled bleakly. “I think we need someone to put in a good word for us.”

  .VI.

  Royal Palace,

  City of Gorath,

  Kingdom of Dohlar.

  “Well, this is a frigging disaster!” Aibram Zaivyair snarled, waving the dispatch, then hurled it down on the council table so hard the staple ripped out and the pages scattered. “Do you want to explain how this one happened, My Lord?”

  Lywys Gardynyr sat in his own chair, across the table from the man who was his superior … nominally, at least. Aibram Zaivyair was the Duke of Thorast, effectively the Kingdom of Dohlar’s Navy Minister, and the senior officer of the Royal Dohlaran Navy. Of course, he hadn’t been to sea in almost thirty years, and even when he had, he’d been a “navy” officer in a navy which still thought assigning army officers to command ships and fleets made sense.

  And he hasn’t learned one Shan-wei-damned thing about the difference between armies and navies since, the Earl of Thirsk thought coldly. No reason he should, really. He’s got the birth and the political allies to pretend he knows his arse from his elbow where ships are concerned. And the son-of-a-bitch’s been in Clyntahn’s hip pocket from the minute this whole rolling disaster started.

  “Well?” Thorast snapped. He’d been even more belligerently antagonistic since Thirsk had returned to limited duty. Probably, the earl thought, because the “death” of his family—and its circumstances—suggested to him that the patronage which had supported and protected Thirsk was about to disappear. Assuming it hadn’t already completely vanished, that was.

  “I asked you a question, Earl Thirsk!” he barked now, and Thirsk cocked his head slightly, as if considering some minor source of annoyance. There was no point pretending anything he did could placate the duke, after all.

  “I realize that, My Lord.” Thorast’s face turned darker, his expression thunderous, at Thirsk’s cool reply. “I assumed it was a rhetorical question, since the reports we’ve received from the Harchongians make it abundantly clear how it happened. The heretics sailed into Rhaigair Bay aboard the same ironclads that blew Geyra apart and did exactly the same thing to us. Exactly the way Admiral Raisahndo and I had been warning they were almost certain to do, sooner or later, if we left the Western Squadron exposed in such proximity to Claw Island. Given that they sailed straight through the fire of a couple of hundred heavy guns—a lot of them the new Fultyn Rifles—and completely demolished Rhaigair’s waterfront, the dockyard, and every defensive battery without losing a single ship, I would’ve thought you’d understand what happened.”

  “Listen, you goddamned—!”

  “That’s enough, Aibram!”

  The three words weren’t all that loud, but they cracked like a whip, and Thorast reared back in his chair, staring at the man who’d spoken. Samyl Cahkrayn, the Duke of Fern and Dohlar’s first councilor, glared right back.

  “Our situation’s too grave for me to indulge you,” Fern said. “Everyone in Dohlar knows how much you hate Earl Thirsk. But this isn’t about him, and it isn’t about you. It’s about what just happened to our Navy and what’s going to happen next to the entire damned Kingdom! If you can’t get that through your head and contribute something constructive to this discussion, I suggest you go find something else to do while the rest of us get on with it.”

  Thorast’s eyes went wide. Then they narrowed, blazin
g with fury, and he leaned aggressively forward once more. His index finger stabbed the tabletop, and he opened his mouth, but another voice intervened before he could speak.

  “His Grace may not have phrased himself as … diplomatically as he might have, Duke Thorast,” it said. “He does have a point, however. At this moment, trying to fix fault for something that happened three thousand miles from here isn’t going to help decide what to do about it.”

  The navy minister shut his mouth, and his face turned into stone.

  “I … beg your pardon, Your Eminence,” he said after a long, tense moment. “In my opinion, understanding the towering degree of incompetence—if not outright treason—which allowed this to happen is essential if we’re going to prevent it from happening again. That’s the only reason I’ve … pressed the point as warmly as I have.”

  “No doubt.”

  An unbiased observer might have been forgiven for concluding from Bishop Executor Wylsynn Lainyr dry tone that he was less than convinced by Thorast’s last sentence. The duke’s eyes flickered, but he forbore any direct response, and Lainyr reached out to rest one hand on his own copy of the report. His ruby ring of office gleamed in the lamplight, and he turned his gaze to Thirsk.

  “I’m sure we all understand why Duke Thorast, as the councilor responsible to His Majesty for the Navy, should be concerned about … procedural matters, My Lord. And no doubt a formal board of inquiry needs to be assembled, in the fullness of time, to consider all of the decisions and policies which led to the current situation. At the moment, however, I’m rather more concerned with what we do about it. May I ask for your thoughts on that?”

  Thirsk gazed back at the tallish, black-haired Langhornite who was Mother Church’s effective day-to-day administrator for the entire Kingdom of Dohlar. Archbishop Trumahn Rowzvel might actually occupy the see of Gorath Cathedral, but Lainyr was his executive officer and, like all bishops executor, he knew far more about the actual operations of his archbishopric than its archbishop did.