by David Weber
He snorted quietly, amused by his own thoughts, and didn't even notice how his sudden smile relaxed the shoulders of the officers standing about him on the flagship's quarterdeck.
"About fifteen minutes, I make it, Captain Manthyr," he said conversationally.
"About that, Your Highness," Manthyr agreed.
"Very well, then, Captain," Cayleb said more formally. "Engage the enemy."
"Aye, aye, Your Highness!"
* * *
Faidel Ahlverez, Duke of Malikai, stood on King Rahnyld's aftercastle and watched the column of galleons headed towards his flagship. The lead ship in the enemy line was one of the largest in the Charisian formation, and Malikai's jaws clenched as it drew close enough for him to see the coronet above the golden kraken flying from its mizzen peak. Only one person in all of Charis was entitled to fly that flag: the heir to the throne.
Cayleb, he thought. Crown Prince Cayleb Ahrmahk himself, bearing down upon him like the get of some demon. Malikai hadn't placed much faith in the Church's obvious suspicions about Charis' orthodoxy, but how else to explain those galleons' presence, better than seven thousand miles' sail from Rock Shoal Bay? How else to explain how they could even have found his fleet, much less appeared in exactly the right position to press home their attack?
Cold, dull terror burned deep inside him, made still worse by the proximity of Armageddon Reef. He should never have allowed Thirsk and White Ford to talk him into staying so close to this accursed land! He should have sailed as he'd always intended to, as he'd been ordered to. Far better to have risked losing his entire fleet to wind and storm than to have it destroyed by the legions of Hell!
Captain Ekyrd stood by the port bulwark, watching the oncoming enemy intently, and Malikai glared at his flag captain's back. Ekyrd had recommended ordering the fleet to put about, even if it had to do so under oars, after the first unknown sail had been sighted. Malikai had brushed the suggestion aside, of course. The sighting report had probably been in error, and even if it hadn't, there couldn't possibly have been anything else behind that lone sail—certainly not anything capable of threatening a fleet the size of his!
Now his own flag captain was ignoring him.
Malikai glared at Ekyrd's straight spine, then touched the hilt of his sword. He eased it in its sheath, making certain it moved freely, and then looked at the gunners crouching above the breeches of their cannon.
Ekyrd had argued against Malikai's orders this morning, as well. He'd wanted to try to stay away from the Charisians, far enough that the guns of his lofty ship could at least hope to hit them, rather than close straight into their own guns, but Malikai had overruled him harshly. Those galleons might have more artillery than any of his ships did, but his galleys each carried enormous crews, buttressed by heavy drafts on the finest regiments of the Royal Army. If they could ever lay one of those galleons alongside, sweep over its decks with their boarding pikes, swords, and axes, it wouldn't matter how many guns the accursed thing had! And whatever Ekyrd might think, Malikai had five times as many galleys as they had galleons.
He bared his teeth, matching anger at his flag captain's cowardice against the cold poison of his own fear, as more guns began to fire aboard other galleys and the Charisians drew implacably closer and closer.
* * *
The first few round shot whimpered through the air above Dreadnought like lost, damned souls. One of them hit the main topsail and punched through the wet canvas with the slap of a giant's fist. Another skipped across the ship's bows barely five feet in front of her, and then she took her first true hit.
A round shot, probably an eight-pounder from a long falcon, slammed into her below the spar deck hammock nettings and just forward of the mainmast. It erupted through the starboard bulwark in a burst of jagged splinters and cut a standing Marine in half in an explosion of blood. Yells and a few screams announced that the splinters had inflicted wounds of their own, and more than one member of Dreadnought's crew flinched. But she continued to forge steadily ahead, and the massive bulk of King Rahnyld was less than seventy yards away.
* * *
"Stand ready to port your helm!" Captain Ekyrd said to his first lieutenant. "Our best chance is going to come after they pass astern of us!"
"Yes, Sir."
Malikai's lips twisted with contempt as he heard the faint quaver in the lieutenant's voice. The other man's obvious fear was a welcome distraction from his own, and he drew his sword as the end of Dreadnought's long bowsprit began to pass across King Rahnyld's wake barely fifty yards behind the flagship.
* * *
"Fire as you bear!" Captain Manthyr bellowed as Dreadnought presented the muzzles of her forward guns to her target.
King Rahnyld's high, massive stern towered above the low-slung galleon. Despite the wear and tear the galley had suffered over the thousands of miles she had voyaged to reach this point, despite the sea slime and tendrils of weed along her waterline, traces of gilding still clung to the magnificent carving, gleaming against the vibrant color of broken gray cloud and bright blue sky in the morning light. Green water and white spray curled back from her hull as the seas washed higher than her lower bank of oarports, and the rows of her vast stern windows flashed back the sun, despite the rime of salt which encrusted them. Helmets could be seen above the aftercastle's bulwark, glinting dully with the sheen of steel, and more sunlight glittered from the points of boarding pikes and the blades of axes and halberds, the barrels of matchlock muskets. The galley's reefed replacement sail, patched and worn, bellied out like a shield, and shouts of defiance rang out.
But those shouts sounded halfhearted, and they were met only by silence from Dreadnought's disciplined crew.
Fire flashed in King Rahnyld's stern gunports, but the ports were too high, the gunners had mistimed the ship's motion, and Dreadnought was too close to her. Her guns, unlike Charisian artillery, couldn't be depressed, and the balls screamed across Dreadnought, without hitting a thing, and plunged uselessly into the water far beyond her.
And then the galleon's forward guns came to bear.
Gun by gun, the muzzles belched flame and choking smoke as the captains jerked their firing lanyards. The range was less than sixty yards, and unlike King Rahnyld's gunners, the gun crews had timed their own ship's motion almost perfectly. Gunport by gunport, down the full length of the galleon's side, guns lurched back, recoiling in a mad chorus of squealing gun trucks, as their round shot—each shot with a charge of grapeshot for good measure—smashed into King Rahnyld like an iron avalanche.
The galley's stern windows disappeared, blotted away as Dreadnought's raking fire turned that magnificent sternwork into the mouth of a gaping cave of horror. Roundshot and grapeshot ripped down the full length of the ship. Splinters flew, men screamed, and the billowing smoke of the broadside hid the carnage of its impact.
There was time for only one shot from each gun as the galleon crossed King Rahnyld's stern, but Captain Manthyr's voice rang out.
"Off sheets and braces! Starboard your helm!" he shouted.
* * *
Duke Malikai's world disintegrated in a stunning eruption of devastation. He'd never imagined, never dreamed of, anything like the long, unending bellow of Dreadnought's broadside. Twenty-seven guns hurled round shot six and a half inches in diameter, each weighing over thirty-eight pounds and accompanied by twenty-seven inch-and-a-half grapeshot, into his ship. They came crashing in through the galley's stern, totally undeterred by the flimsy glass and carved planking, and smashed clear to the bow, killing and maiming anyone in their path.
That carefully aimed and timed broadside killed or wounded over a hundred and thirty of King Rahnyld's crew. Men shrieked as round shot, grapeshot, and splinters of their own ship ripped into them. Blood sprayed across deck planks in great, grotesque patterns, and men who'd never imagined such a hurricane of fire—men already demoralized and frightened by the inexplicable appearance of their enemies so many thousands of miles from Charis�
��stared in horror at their mangled crewmates.
Most of Dreadnought's fire went in below the level of King Rahnyld's aftercastle. Half a dozen round shot crashed directly through the galley's great cabin, exploding out from under the break of the aftercastle and cutting great, blood-splashed furrows through the men packing her deck. But at least two shots ripped upward, directly through the aftercastle, and Malikai staggered as a blizzard of splinters howled through the officers gathered there.
Something big, heavy, and fast-moving slammed into his own breastplate, nearly knocking him from his feet. But the armor held. The impact spun him around, just in time to see Captain Ekyrd stumble backward, clutching at the thick splinter which had driven into the side of his neck like a jagged-edged harpoon. Blood sprayed around the splinter, like water from the nozzle of a pump, and the captain thudded to the deck.
Malikai fought for balance as the final shots of Dreadnought's thundering broadside hammered into his flagship. His mind seemed stunned, as if it were caught in some thick, dragging quicksand. He stared about wildly, and saw Dreadnought passing clear of his ship to starboard.
The galleon put her helm over, turning steadily to port, taking the wind broad on her beam rather than directly astern. Her yards moved smoothly, with machinelike precision, as she settled on the port tack, a hundred yards to leeward, between King Rahnyld and Armageddon Reef, like a kraken between a new-hatched sea wyvern and the land.
The confusion and carnage her fire had wreaked paralyzed King Rahnyld. The galley's captain was dead; her first lieutenant was mortally wounded; her helmsmen lay bleeding their lives out on the deck. By the time her second lieutenant could begin reasserting control, Dreadnought had settled on her new heading and her broadside thundered again.
Fresh round shot battered into the galley's towering starboard side, not her flimsier stern. The thicker planking offered little more resistance to the galleon's heavy shot, but it provided more and bigger splinters to slice lethally into her crew. And as Dreadnought fired into her yet again, HMS Destroyer, Dreadnought's next astern, crossed King Rahnyld's wake and raked her all over again.
Malikai turned back from Dreadnought as Destroyer opened fire, and in the second galleon's thundering guns he saw the destruction of his fleet. None of his galleys could begin to match the concentrated firepower of Cayleb's galleons; they were hopelessly spread out and disordered while the Charisian ships were in a compact, well controlled formation, firing their guns with impossible rapidity; and galleys were at a hopeless maneuver disadvantage in the existing sea conditions. Numbers meant nothing unless they could be brought to bear, and his couldn't be.
He heard the flagship's second lieutenant shouting orders to the replacement helmsmen, fighting desperately to at least turn King Rahnyld's stern away from that terrible, raking fire. But even as the lumbering galley began finally, reluctantly, to answer to her helm, a round shot cut away her mainmast below deck level. It came thundering down, spilling over the side in a tangle of shattered timber, flailing canvas, and broken rigging. It smashed across the deck and into the water, and the galley lurched wildly, indescribably, as she found herself suddenly helpless. The wreckage alongside acted like a huge sea anchor, dragging her around, and still that merciless fire smashed into her again and again and again.
Malikai stared aft, his stunned brain reeling, as the third ship in Cayleb's line came crashing in. King Rahnyld had turned enough for HMS Daring's fire to hammer into her quarter, instead of directly into her stern, but the flagship wasn't really her primary target.
Duke of Fern, the next galley astern of King Rahnyld, had shaken out one of her reefs as she fought to come to the fleet commander's assistance. She heeled dangerously under the greater sail area, but she also drove through the water faster . . . only to find herself driving straight into the fire of Daring's starboard broadside, as well.
Malikai cringed as the volcanic fury of the galleon's fire erupted. He could hardly see through the choking pall of gunsmoke, but the wall of smoke lifted on the fiery breath of yet another galleon's broadsides as HMS Defense came into action, as well. She blasted her fury into his ship, and into Duke of Fern, and behind her came HMS Devastation.
All he could hear was the thunder of Charisian artillery. It seemed to come from every direction—from all directions—as Dreadnought's consorts followed her around, pushing steadily southwest. They were faster—much faster—under sail than any of his galleys, and their guns fired steadily, mercilessly, with that same impossible rapidity, as they overtook ship after ship.
King Rahnyld's motion was growing heavier and heavier. Her hull must be filling with water, Malikai thought vaguely as he staggered to the side. He leaned on a shattered bulwark, aware of the heaps of bodies and parts of bodies littering the aftercastle. The main deck was a chaos of corpses where the men Captain Ekyrd had assembled for the boarding attempt which had never happened lay piled in mangled drifts, and he looked over the side at the thick tendrils of blood oozing from the galley's scuppers. It was as if the ship herself were bleeding, a corner of his brain thought. And then something made him look up as Devastation swung around the shattered, slowly foundering hulk which had once been the pride of the Dohlaran Navy.
He raised his head just in time to see the thunderous flash of the galleon's guns.
It was the last sight he ever saw.
* * *
Dreadnought forged steadily south, leaning to the press of the northeasterly wind. The thunderous cannonade astern of her continued unabated as the other ships of her column crossed the Southern Force's line of advance, then turned to follow in her wake.
The strong breeze rolled a billowing fog bank of gunsmoke towards the barely visible smudge of Rock Point, and the ferocity of the fire still roaring behind her indicated that at least some of the galleys north of Malikai's sinking flagship continued trying to fight their way through to the duke's side with futile gallantry.
Neither Cayleb nor Merlin was much concerned by that possibility. The entire enemy fleet was too spread out and straggling to concentrate enough ships for the sort of hammer blow it would take to break past the galleons' broadsides. If they wanted to come in ones and twos, Cayleb was content to leave the problem of their destruction to his captains' discretion while he concentrated on the rest of the Southern Force.
"I think we need a little more speed, Gwylym," he said, glancing up from the billow of smoke still two miles ahead, where Admiral Staynair's column had also broken across the enemy's course, to check the sun's height.
Captain Manthyr glanced upward at the topsails and masthead pendant, gauging the strength of the wind, then waited while a fresh broadside thundered. The galley which had tried to break west, away from Dreadnought, staggered as the galleon's starboard guns hammered her from astern. Rigging parted, her single mast crashed over the side, and she rounded to as the wreckage dragged at her.
"Set the topgallants?" the captain suggested.
"For now," Cayleb agreed.
"Aye, aye, Your Highness." Manthyr lifted his leather speaking trumpet. "Master Gyrard! Hands to make sail, if you please! Let's get the topgallants on her!"
"Aye, aye, Sir!" the first lieutenant acknowledged the order and started giving orders of his own, and seamen from the port gun crews went scampering up the ratlines to lay out along the topgallant yards while others raced to the forecastle and afterdeck and along the spar decks above the guns to the pinrails to cast off sheets, buntlines, and clewlines.
"Loose topgallants!" Manthyr bellowed through his speaking trumpet, and the hands aloft ungasketed the sails, untying the gaskets which fastened the canvas to the yards. The captain watched them critically, fingers of his left hand drumming slowly against his thigh while his ship's guns put another bellowing broadside into the galley to starboard.
"Let fall the topgallants!" the captain shouted, and the hands aloft pushed the canvas off the yard into its gear.
"Sheet home the topgallants!" Manthyr commanded.
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"Sheet home!" the officer in charge of each mast echoed.
"Ease the buntlines and clewlines!" the pinrail captains commanded, and the topgallant sails fell like vast curtains, billowing above the already drawing topsails as the powerful wind filled them.
"Haul around on the sheets!"
Dreadnought leaned harder to the press of her increased canvas as her topgallants were braced round. She drove across the beam sea in sharp, white explosions of spray, and her starboard gunports dipped closer to the water. But the same increased angle of heel lifted her weather gunports higher, and she bore down upon the galleys ahead of her like a stooping hawk.
A final broadside from her starboard guns slammed into the galley to leeward, and Cayleb looked astern. Destroyer was setting her own topgallants to match the flagship, and beyond her, above the billows of smoke as she fired into the same hapless galley, he could see more canvas blossoming from the other ships in his column.
He glanced at Merlin with a tight, kraken-like grin, then turned back to the south as Captain Manthyr altered course very slightly to bring his port guns to bear upon yet another Dohlaran galley.