by David Weber
He looked back at the weapons Meekyn’s squad had positioned. They certainly looked outlandish enough. Each consisted of a tripod—like a shortened surveyor’s tripod, only much, much heavier—with a long piece of six-inch pipe on it. The “pipe” was fitted with a laddered peep sight, adjustable for range, and mounted in a sturdy pivot with outsized wing nuts to lock it in elevation and deflection once it was properly aligned. A length of quick match trailed from the rear of each pipe to meet a single, heavier fuse that ran back to the wooden box at the corporal’s knee where Meekyn crouched beside him.
The noncom’s squad had set up six of them, two targeted on each of the dug-in positions Mahkdahnyld had pointed out. Now the lieutenant nodded.
“Anytime, Corporal.”
“In that case.… Fire in the hole!”
Meekyn yanked the ring on the wooden box. The friction fuse ignited the lengths of quick match and the glaring eyes of combustion flashed along them.
* * *
Despite the sunlight in his eyes, Corporal Baozhi saw the bright flare of the fuses clearly against the riverbank’s shadowed dimness. He didn’t realize what he was seeing, though. Then the fuses reached their destinations, and Jwaohyn Baozhi realized—briefly—what those tripods were.
The rockets designed by Major Sykahrelli streaked out of the launch tubes in a belch of flame that was awesome to behold. That back blast was the problem Sykahrelli had been unable to overcome in his quest for a shoulder-launched weapon. But it was no problem fired from a remote platform, so he’d designed a somewhat heavier version of his original model.
The six rockets roared across the Taigyn River like fiery comets, and Baozhi dropped to the floor of his improvised bunker.
“Down! Down!” he shouted, and the men of his squad were veterans. They didn’t ask why; they simply flung themselves down.
Three seconds later, the rockets reached their targets. One of them, aimed at the bunker on the southern end of the line, wandered off course and missed its mark by at least thirty yards. The other five flew straight and level, accelerating the entire way, drawing fiery lines across the river. Then they impacted, and each of them carried a twelve-pound charge of Lywysite. That was the equivalent of thirty pounds of black powder, twelve percent more than the charge in an 8-inch high explosive shell, and the walls of the bunkers—and of Baozhi’s improvised position—were far, far thinner than their roofs.
All three strongpoints disintegrated in a rolling peal of thunder, and Mahkdahnyld raised his flare pistol. The crimson flare was pale in the brightening light, but it was visible to the support squads waiting for the signal. The mortars began coughing a moment later and smoke rounds thumped down on the farther bank, between the river’s edge and the surviving trench lines. Heavy angle-gun shells rumbled across the sky, as well, impacting on confirmed—and suspected—artillery and mortar positions farther back from the western bank, and Mahkdahnyld smacked the engineering corporal on the shoulder.
“Outstanding!” he said with a huge grin, reaching for his whistle as the far side of the river disappeared beyond the rolling banks of smoke. “Drop by once we pull back from the line, Corporal! I know forty or fifty people who’re going to buy you lots of beer!”
* * *
“I hate those accursed things, Sir!” Lord of Foot Shyaing Pauzhyn snarled as another salvo of heretic shells—the big ones this time, from the super-heavy angle-guns no one had seen coming—rumbled overhead and crunched down on the 23rd Division’s rear area. He wasn’t talking about the shells, however, and Lord of Horse Myngzho Hyntai knew it. He was talking about the other thing no one had seen coming—the Shan-wei-damned balloon floating serenely in the cloudless sky and directing those shells with such fiendish accuracy.
“Unfortunately,” Hyntai said, “there seems to be little we can do about them—yet, at least. I understand the gunners are trying to construct carriages which will let us elevate Fultyn Rifles high enough to engage them.”
He put as much optimism into his tone as he could. That wasn’t a great deal, although the look Pauzhyn gave him suggested he’d still sounded rather more optimistic than the lord of foot, who commanded his 95th Brigade felt the statement deserved.
Well, it was hard to blame young Shyaing, Hyntai admitted. Although, he supposed that at thirty-seven, Pauzhyn might have resented the adjective “young.” From Hyntai’s seventy-two-year-old perspective, however, it was certainly apt, even if Pauzhyn was much less young than he’d been a month or two ago.
Another salvo of heavy shells growled their way across the heavens. The sound they made was like nothing anyone had ever heard before. At least it was less terrifying than the shrieking, howling, tumult of a mass rocket launch, but the thunder as those massive projectiles struck got into a man’s bone and blood. Each of them was its own private volcano, erupting in fire and death, and only the deepest bunker could hope to resist a direct hit.
The good news was that for all their fury, all the carnage they could wreak, accomplishing the sort of pinpoint accuracy to produce direct hits upon demand was beyond even the heretics’ artillerists. So far, at least. Hyntai didn’t like adding that qualifier, and he’d been careful not to say anything of the sort in front of his subordinates, but the heretics had a most unpleasant habit of sprinting ahead just whenever it seemed Mother Church’s defenders might be closing the gap between their relative capabilities. The balloons which taunted the Mighty Host from their inviolable height were an excellent case in point.
“I know you’re anxious to get back to your command, Shyaing,” the lord of horse continued, “so I won’t keep you long.” He showed his teeth in a brief, humorless smile. “I was always taught that bad news is best delivered briefly.”
“Bad news, Sir?” Pauzhyn sounded wary but scarcely surprised. There’d been very little good news since the heretics’ offensive began.
“I fear we’ve been ordered to retreat,” the division commander said much more heavily.
“Retreat?” Pauzhyn repeated sharply.
“Yes.” Hyntai tapped the map on the boulder between them. “To here.”
Pauzhyn peered down at the map and his mouth tightened. In the five-day and a half since the heretics had forced the line of the Tairyn, 95th Brigade had been pushed back another twenty-five miles. It was actually rather remarkable they hadn’t been pushed even farther, he thought, given the paucity of prepared positions in their immediate rear. Hastily dug trenches and lines of lizardholes tended to come apart quickly when the heretic artillery got to work.
On the other hand, there was something to be said for hastily constructed fieldworks, too. The heretics’ new assault tactics turned bunkers into deathtraps once they’d broken into the trench line. Sometimes they paid a stiff price to do that, but once they had—once they were in among the bunkers, close enough to find targets for those accursed, rapid-fire shotguns, throw their damnable satchel charges, or use their horrific flamethrowers—very few defenders got out alive.
His brigade had been reduced from a beginning strength of forty-six hundred to barely two thousand, despite the influx of almost a thousand replacements, and the 23rd’s total casualties mirrored his own. Then there was what had happened to Baron Morning Star’s brigade. But the men were still stubbornly full of fight, he thought.
“Sir, I realize there are prepared positions waiting for us there,” he said after a moment, “but the new line will increase our total frontage by almost a quarter. And our backs will be directly against the Sairmeet-Lake City High Road. If they push us back any farther, reach the high road.…”
His voice trailed off, and Hyntai nodded in unhappy agreement.
“You’re right, of course. On the other hand, we’re actually being pulled back behind the line to rest and refit. Three other bands—St. Tyshu, St. Ahgnista, and St. Jyrohm—are already holding the fortifications. We’re going into reserve, at least for the moment.”
Relief showed in Pauzhyn’s eyes, but the worry remained
to keep it company.
“I know the Host’s front line will be very close to the high road,” Hyntai said soberly, “but we have no choice. Sanjhys fell three days ago, and the heretics’ balloons are already directing artillery on the approaches to Vekhair. This is for your private information, not to be shared with any of your officers, but Earl Rainbow Waters has ordered Vekhair’s evacuation.” Pauzhyn stiffened, but Hyntai continued steadily. “It’s to be carried out very quietly, by night, with the transport flotilla lifting the men out and ferrying them to Lake City.”
“And their heavy weapons, Sir?”
“And their heavy weapons will have to be abandoned,” Hyntai acknowledged gravely. “The flotilla has barely sufficient lift for the men; artillery and rocket launchers will have to be left behind … along with a rearguard to prevent the heretics from breaking through once they realize what’s happening. The Earl has no choice but to save what he can, though. The heretic general on their right flank—General Klymynt—is already pushing mounted infantry around to cut the road along the north shore of the lake. With those damnable balloons spying on him, Lord of Horse Mountain Flower would be trapped against the lake before he made fifty miles if he attempted to break out overland. If he had more depth—or perhaps I should say more width—he might be able to evade the heretics despite the balloons, although, to be honest, I doubt there’d be much chance even then. He has too many infantry and too few dragoons to win a footrace against them. The good news is that the locks between Sanjhys and Vekhair have been destroyed, so at least Klymynt can’t simply continue across the lakes with his ironclads!”
Pauzhyn nodded with the air of a man trying hard to find something positive in what he’d just heard, and Hyntai laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I know it’s far harder to gird yourself for battle when all you see before you is an endless retreat, Shyaing, but you and your officers and men have made me proud—very proud. And unlike last year, or the year before, the heretics are being forced to fight for every foot, even with those spying for them.” He jerked his head at the balloon. “All we can do is continue the fight, and it’s already July. The campaigning season won’t last beyond September—early October at the latest—this far north. If we can hold them to this slow an advance, then we should be able to stand along the line of the Ferey River this winter.”
“And next summer, Sir?” Pauzhyn asked very, very softly.
“And next summer will be in God’s hands,” Hyntai replied even more softly.
.II.
Gorath Bay Approaches
and
Hankey Sound,
Kingdom of Dohlar.
“Oh, shit,” Seaman Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl, late of His Dohlaran Majesty’s Ship Triumphant, whispered as the image swam clear through the spyglass.
“What was that?” someone asked rather pointedly from behind him.
It was Kwantryl’s misfortune to be assigned to Lieutenant Bruhstair’s six-gun section in Battery Number One. He hadn’t much liked Bruhstair when they’d served together aboard Triumphant, and he’d decided he liked him even less now that the ship had been laid up and they’d been transferred ashore. It wasn’t that Bruhstair was incompetent. In fact, he had a real knack for the new model artillery, and for someone who’d turned twenty—less than half Kwantryl’s age—barely five months earlier, he was damned good at his job. He was, however, a prude in every sense of the word. He’d been remarkably unsympathetic when a seaman—whose last name happened to be Kwantryl—over-imbibed (and overstayed his leave) in an establishment run by ladies of negotiable virtue. On top of that, he disliked even the mildest profanity, and God help anyone who took God or the Archangels in vain in his hearing.
And of course the little snot had to have the sharpest damned ears in the entire Royal Dohlaran Navy.
“Sorry about that, Sir,” Kwantryl said with what might have been a tiny edge of prevarication. “I think you’d better have a look, though,” he added more seriously, stepping back from the spyglass on the observation tower’s railing.
Bruhstair gave him a sharp look, then bent to the spyglass himself.
Under other circumstances, Kwantryl might have been amused by the way the lieutenant’s shoulders tightened so suddenly. At the moment, however, all he felt was agreement with Bruhstair’s response.
“Just this once, Kwantryl,” the lieutenant said finally as he straightened up from the spyglass, “I think your vocabulary may have been … appropriate.”
He snapped his fingers at the other seaman sharing the lookout duty at the moment. Seaman Ahlverez looked up quickly, and Bruhstair pointed at the observation tower ladder.
“Get down there and tell Lieutenant Tohryz we’ve—that Kwantryl has—just spotted several columns of smoke headed this way. Tell him I estimate there must be at least a half-dozen heretic steamers out there but the ships themselves are still below the horizon, so I don’t know how many are ironclads.”
Ahlverez paled visibly, but he also nodded and darted down the ladder so rapidly Kwantryl was afraid the idiot would hang a toe and plunge to the bottom with a broken neck.
“And now, Kwantryl,” Bruhstair said with a razor-thin smile, “I suppose you and I should see if we can’t get a better count. Even at their speed we should have time for that before we go to quarters.”
* * *
“Riverbend reports Cape Toe in sight, Sir,” CPO Matthysahn announced, still bent behind the swivel-mounted double-glass focused on the signal flags above the leading ironclad, three cables ahead of Gwylym Manthyr. He peered through the double-glass for a few more seconds, then straightened. “Bearing four points off the starboard bow, she says, Sir. Range twelve miles.”
“Thank you, Ahbukyra,” Halcom Bahrns replied. He did a little mental math, then turned to the midshipman of the watch. “My respects to Admiral Sarmouth, Master Ohraily, and Riverbend’s sighted Cape Toe, four points off the starboard bow. Range from the flagship is approximately thirteen miles.”
“Your respects to the Admiral, Sir, and Riverbend’s sighted Cape Toe, four points off the starboard bow and the range from Manthyr is thirteen miles,” young Ernystoh Ohraily repeated back. Bahrns nodded, and Ohraily touched his chest in salute and headed for the bridge ladder while Gwylym Manthyr and the reinforced 2nd Ironclad Squadron, now up to a total of six units, continued plowing towards Gorath Bay at a steady ten knots.
* * *
“Thank you, Master Ohraily,” Baron Sarmouth said gravely. “Please present my compliments to Captain Bahrns and inform him that, with his permission, I’ll join him on the navigation bridge directly.”
“Your compliments to Captain Bahrns, My Lord, and, with his permission, you’ll join him on the navigation bridge directly,” Ohraily repeated.
Sarmouth nodded, and the youngster saluted and withdrew from the admiral’s dining cabin. Sylvyst Raigly closed the door behind him, then turned to cock one eyebrow at the admiral.
“Yes, I’ll want my good tunic, Sylvyst,” Sarmouth sighed, with a resigned headshake. “Have to look my best when we’re all being shot at, I suppose. But there’s damned well time to finish breakfast, first. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
“Of course, My Lord,” Raigly murmured, and Sarmouth felt his lips twitch as the valet bowed himself out of the dining cabin. The extra few minutes would give Raigly more time to assemble his personal arsenal before they went on deck, although the probability of a desperate boarding action aboard Gwylym Manthyr struck Sarmouth as rather unlikely.
He snorted at the thought, then scooped up the last bite of poached egg and washed it down with the last of his cherrybean. Then he pushed his chair back and turned towards his day cabin, marveling once again at the spaciousness of his quarters. Admittedly, Manthyr was ten times Destiny’s size, and all the King Haarahlds had been designed to serve as flagships, but he’d still been astonished by the amount of space set aside for the flag officer’s use. He had a day cabin, an office, a chart room, a dining cabi
n, and a sleeping cabin. And, as if that weren’t enough, he also had a sea cabin—half the size of his day cabin and equipped with a comfortable bed—and a second, larger chart room right off the flag bridge.
It was more space than he’d ever needed—or could conceive of ever needing—and it seemed … wrong somehow for his quarters to remain inviolate when the ship cleared for action. His possessions were supposed to be sent below, the dividing partitions were supposed to go with them, and the heavy guns which shared his quarters were supposed to be loaded and run out, ready to fire. But there were no cannon in these quarters and no reason to strip them before battle. Although his most prized possessions had been sent below yesterday evening in preparation for today, there’d be no hustle and bustle for him this morning. He supposed he’d get used to it eventually, but he hadn’t yet. In fact, he’d been surprised to discover he actually missed it, as if he’d lost some unspoken connection with the rest of his flagship’s crew.
He smiled a bit crookedly as he admitted that to himself, but his amusement faded quickly as he crossed the day cabin and stepped into the chart room. The lamp hung from the deckhead had been lit, but more and better light actually came in through the three scuttles in the outboard bulkhead. Trumyn Lywshai, his flag secretary and clerk, had opened all three of them and latched them back, letting the fresh sea air sweep through the compartment. Probably to help clear the lingering tobacco smell, Sarmouth reflected as he drew his cigar case from his breast pocket. He selected a cigar, returned the case to his pocket, and stood frowning down at the chart spread across the table as he clipped the cigar’s end. That chart had been liberally marked with penciled notations, and his frown deepened as he studied them.
Gorath Bay offered several advantages as a harbor, including approach channels deep enough for the largest ships. Unfortunately, it also offered quite a few advantages when it came to defending those passages.
The peninsula Dohlarans had named The Boot curved up from the south, enclosing a bay that ran over two hundred and thirty miles from north to south. For all its size and the depth of its channels, the bay was more than a little constricted, however, and its half-dozen-plus islands provided numerous sites for defensive batteries. Cape Toe at the tip of The Boot was a case in point, covering the Lace Passage, between Hankey Sound and the Zhulyet Channel … which just happened to be the approach which had been forced upon Sarmouth’s squadron. Sandbottom Pass, northwest of Lace Passage, would have stayed well clear of the Cape Toe batteries, but its deep water channel was much narrower … and the Royal Dohlaran Navy had scuttled no less than thirty galleons to obstruct it. If he wanted to enter Gorath Bay, he had to fight his way past Cape Toe first. It wasn’t going to get a whole lot better even after he ran the Lace Passage gauntlet, either, because Thirsk clearly believed in a defense in depth.