by David Weber
"That's my own assessment of him, Your Majesty," Tryvythyn agreed.
"Well, in that case, I think it's up to us to argue with him about his choice of courses." Haarahld gazed up at the masthead pendant and the royal standard of Charis, then turned back to his flag captain.
"General signal, Dynzyl. Form in columns of squadrons, course east."
* * *
The Emeraldian galleys in Black Water's two western columns never saw his signal. There was too much smoke, and they had other things on their minds.
Staynair's squadron forged steadily down the flank of Earl Mahndyr's column, pounding savagely. None of the other nineteen ships were hammered quite as brutally as Black Prince had been, but that was mostly because they were able to strike their colors while they still had at least some men on their feet. Staynair closed to within fifty yards, artillery bellowing, dismasting his targets, wreaking carnage on their crowded oardecks, slaughtering the hapless soldiers and seamen packed together on their decks and aftercastles for boarding attacks that never came.
Staynair had no time to take formal possession of the surrendered ships, but there wasn't much need. While some of them might violate the terms of their surrender, or claim they'd never struck their colors in the first place, and escape, most of them were too shattered and broken to do much more than tend their wounded as best they could until someone did arrive to take custody of them. And if Staynair and Cayleb didn't have sufficient ships to gather them all in, King Haarahld certainly did.
While Staynair finished crushing that column, Cayleb continued steadily to the east, angling slightly southward. He crossed the tracks of the third and fourth columns, close enough to rake the last ship or two in each column as he passed.
"Black Water's trying to break north!" Merlin shouted in Cayleb's ear as Dreadnought poured fire into yet another victim. "He's got four columns—about ninety ships—turning north-northwest!"
Cayleb glanced at him, then closed his eyes, obviously summoning up a mental chart. He studied it from behind his eyelids, then nodded sharply.
"Captain Manthyr!"
* * *
Duke Black Water paced savagely back and forth atop Corisande's aftercastle. He knew it wasn't doing a thing to settle the nerves of his flagship's officers and crew, but standing still was beyond his power.
He paused every so often, glaring west and north. The signaling procedures he'd worked out for his combined fleet were more sophisticated than those of most navies, but far inferior to the ones Staynair, Seamount, and Merlin had developed. They simply weren't up to the task of keeping him accurately informed of what was happening, even assuming any of his squadron commanders and captains had truly known in the first place.
What he did know was that at least one column of Sharpfield's Chisholmian galleys had failed to see—or chosen to ignore—his signal to turn north. It was continuing steadily to the south, taking a tenth of his total strength with it.
And he also knew he could hear the thunder-grumble of massed cannon fire, distantly and intermittently, but growing stronger and steadier.
The turn to the north had reversed the order of sailing in the columns which had obeyed. Corisande had been leading her column on its original heading; now she found herself the last ship in line, which meant the admiral supposedly commanding the fleet was going to be one of the last to find out what in Shan-wei's name was happening.
"Your Grace."
Black Water whirled and found himself facing Captain Myrgyn.
"What?" he managed—somehow—not to snap.
"Your Grace, the masthead's reported gunfire and heavy smoke to the west and north. I sent Lieutenant Wynstyn to the crow's-nest for a better evaluation."
The flag captain indicated Corisande's first lieutenant, standing tight-faced at his shoulder, and Black Water turned to Wynstyn.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Your Grace, I couldn't see very much to the west, but the smoke extends from about one point abaft the port beam to about one point forward of the starboard bow."
Wynstyn's voice was steady enough, but Black Water heard the control it took to keep it that way, and he couldn't blame the lieutenant.
"Thank you, Master Wynstyn," he said, after a moment, and turned to the aftercastle rail, leaning on it with both hands while he considered what Wynstyn had said.
If the lieutenant's observations were correct, Cayleb must, indeed, have arrived in almost the perfect position. With the current brisk breeze, the far greater sail area of his galleons gave him a marked speed advantage, and he must have split his ships into at least two forces. One of them was obviously sweeping south, and if Wynstyn's bearings were accurate, it must already have overtaken the head of Black Water's most western column, which meant it was probably smashing Mahndyr's Triton even now. Even worse than that, it was also in a position to start curling around to the east, directly across his original line of advance.
That was bad enough, but the smoke to the north was even more frightening. Cayleb was casting his net about Black Water's entire fleet, despite the fact that he must be hugely outnumbered. And if he was already so far east, he'd already cut across at least a third of Black Water's formation, probably more.
The duke's hands clenched into fists on the rail, and he swore with savage, silent venom.
From the speed with which Cayleb's galleons were advancing, it was clear no one was even slowing him down. Surprise, and the resultant panic, could explain a lot of that, possibly even all of it, yet Black Water was sickly certain the true reason was far simpler.
He remembered again what the Charisian galleys had done, and the rumble of the galleons' guns came to him on the wind once more.
If he continued north, he would be heading directly into those guns, and his own flagship would be one of the last of his vessels to engage. It seemed obvious that Cayleb's northern division had the speed to get across in front of him whatever he did, and he could count on the force to his west to sweep in astern of him, as well.
It was possible his galleys would be able to absorb the galleons' fire and still close with them for a conventional boarding melee, but he doubted it. Even if the galleons' firepower advantage was less than he feared, he could already sense the incipient panic of his personnel, even here, aboard his own flagship. It took courage and determination to close with an enemy under the best of circumstances. Closing through the sort of rapid, rolling broadsides he heard echoing down from the north would require far more determination than usual. Determination his badly shaken officers and men almost certainly no longer had.
But there were still the comparative numbers to consider. Even if it proved impossible to bring on the sort of close action which was his galleys' only hope of victory, Cayleb simply didn't have enough ships to take or destroy all of Black Water's fleet. Some of them would have to break through, if only because the galleons would be too busy with other victims to stop them. Yet Cayleb was in a position to smash every ship he could engage, and Black Water's own words to Myrgyn came back to whisper viciously in the back of his brain.
You wanted to kill as many as possible of Haarahld's trained seamen even if their ships were out of date, he thought. Now Cayleb's in a position to do that to you, isn't he?
He looked at the sun's position, then back to the northwest.
If he held his present course, he would be feeding his ships directly into Cayleb's guns by the quickest possible route. He'd be giving Cayleb a gift of time. Time to shatter and splinter Black Water's galleys as they closed on him. Time for him to pursue anyone who managed to break past him. Time for Haarahld to bring his own galleys sweeping up from the south behind Black Water.
But if the duke turned southeast himself, made directly for Silver Strait, he'd be headed away from both of Cayleb's divisions. A stern chase was always a long chase, he reminded himself, even if the pursuer did have a significant speed advantage, and if he could stay away from Cayleb until nightfall, then order his remaining ships to s
catter and evade pursuit individually . . .
Yet turning away from Cayleb would give Haarahld an opportunity to intercept him, assuming the king reacted quickly enough. Still, Haarahld's galleys were a known quantity, and surely Black Water still had the strength to fight his way through anything Haarahld might manage to put into his path.
Besides, he told himself grimly, his galleys aren't those Langhorne-damned galleons. The men are less likely to panic at the thought of taking him on.
"Captain Myrgyn," he said, turning from the rail to face the flag captain.
* * *
Merlin watched yet another ship stagger as Dreadnought's first broadside ripped into her. The sight was becoming horrifically familiar, like some infinitely repeating act of butchery. The galley's sweeps flailed wildly as the round shot slammed home among her rowers, and bits and pieces of her hull flew lazily through the air until they hit the water in white feathers of spray.
He looked away, concentrating once again on the SNARC's overhead imagery, and stiffened. Then he turned quickly to Cayleb.
The prince stood beside Captain Manthyr, his young face bleak as he watched his flagship's guns slaughtering yet another crew.
"Cayleb."
Cayleb turned at the sound of his name, and Merlin leaned closer.
"Black Water's changed his mind," he said, speaking as quietly as he could and still be heard. "He's turning his columns back around, heading southeast."
"Silver Strait," Cayleb said flatly.
"Exactly," Merlin agreed, and his expression was grim. Cayleb raised an eyebrow as his tone registered, and Merlin grimaced.
"Your father obviously anticipated what Black Water might do. He's already heading to cut them off short of the strait."
Cayleb's eyes widened, then they narrowed in comprehension, and he sucked in a deep breath and nodded. Not in approval, or even in simple comprehension of what Merlin had just told him. He nodded in decision and turned sharply to his flag captain.
"Captain Manthyr, we'll alter course to the south, if you please. General signal: engage the enemy more closely."
* * *
"Your Grace, the Charisian galleys are standing directly into our path," Captain Myrgyn said harshly.
Black Water looked up from the chart before him. The flag captain stood in the chartroom door, and his expression was concerned.
The duke didn't blame him. The fleet's formation had become badly disordered when he turned it around yet again. The columns were still sorting themselves out, or attempting to, although the Chisholmian units didn't seem to be trying all that hard to obey his orders. Several of them seemed to have creatively misconstrued—or simply ignored—his signals, depriving him of still more desperately needed strength. He was scarcely in the best possible condition for a general engagement with Haarahld's fleet, and he'd hoped to break past the king before Haarahld realized what he was about.
Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.
Still, he had at least a hundred galleys still under his own command, and Haarahld had only seventy.
"Let's go on deck," he said quietly to Myrgyn, and the flag captain stood aside, then followed him out of the chartroom.
The duke blinked in the bright sunlight. It was just past noon. The long, running battle had raged for over eight hours now, and his jaw tightened as he heard the continuing rumble of artillery from astern. It seemed to be growing louder, and he smiled grimly. Cayleb couldn't know exactly what his father was doing, but it was evident that the Charisian crown prince understood the importance of staying close on a fleeing enemy's heels.
Black Water looked up at the sky, then forward, to where a forest of galley masts and sails loomed almost directly ahead. Even as he watched, sails were being furled and yards were being lowered, and he bared his teeth as he recognized the traditional challenge to a fight to the finish.
Part of him wanted nothing more than to give Haarahld exactly that. But if he did, Cayleb would close in from behind, and by this time, the Charisian galleys and galleons combined would actually outnumber the ships actually still under Black Water's command. His earlier huge numerical advantage had evaporated, and a general engagement, especially with those galleons added to the fray, could result only in his defeat.
"We'll hold our course, Captain Myrgyn," he said calmly. "Don't reduce sail."
* * *
"They're going to try to break right past us, Your Majesty," Captain Tryvythyn said.
"What they try to do and what they actually do may turn out to be two different things, Dynzyl," Haarahld said calmly.
The king stood on Royal Charis' aftercastle, watching the clutter of enemy galleys bearing down upon his own fleet. Unlike the four long, disordered lines of Black Water's fleet, Haarahld's was formed into a dozen shorter, more compact columns of a single squadron each, and despite himself, the king felt something almost like satisfaction.
He was far too intelligent not to recognize the enormous advantages Merlin's changes had conferred upon his navy. But the Royal Charisian Navy and the ferocity and deadly skill of the Charisian Marines had made themselves the terror of their enemies long before Merlin and his new artillery ever came along. This would be a battle in the old style, possibly the last one, and Haarahld had grown up in the old school.
His flagship led her own squadron, but the King of Charis had no business in the first, crushing embrace of battle. Especially not of the sort of battle Charisian galleys fought.
"General signal, Dynzyl," he said as Black Water's fleeing squadron's bore down upon him. "Close action."
* * *
Black Water's eastern column had drawn well ahead of the others. Now its lead galleys crunched into the Charisian formation like a battering ram.
That was what it might have looked like to the uninformed observer, at least. But what actually happened was that the Charisian squadrons swarmed forward like krakens closing on a pod of narwhales.
Traditional Charisian naval tactics were built uncompromisingly on ferocity and speed. Charisian Marines knew they were the finest naval infantry—the only professional naval infantry—in the world, and Charisian squadron commanders were trained to bring their ships slashing in on any opponent as a unit.
Admiral Lock Island's flagship led the first assault, crashing alongside one of Black Water's Corisandians. Tellesberg's port oars lifted and swung inboard with machinelike precision as Lock Island's flag captain smashed his ship's side into the smaller, more lightly built galley Foam like a battering ram.
Foam's mast snapped at the impact, thundering down across her deck. Hull seams started, spurting water, and Tellesberg's port guns fired into the mass of fallen cordage and canvas as she ground down Foam's side. Lock Island's flagship swung clear, her sweeps snapped back out, and she gathered fresh momentum as she hurtled down on Foam's consort Halberd. Behind Tellesberg, HMS Battleaxe hammered Foam with her own artillery, then launched herself at the Corisandian Warrior.
Tellesberg slammed into Halberd almost as violently as she'd collided with Foam. Halberd's mast didn't quite come down, but the smaller, lighter galley staggered under the impact, and dozens of grappling irons arced out from the Charisian ship. They bit into Halberd's bulwarks, and the first Charisian Marines swarmed across onto the Corisandian's deck behind the high, quavering howl of their war cry. No one who'd survived hearing that sound ever forgot it, and the well earned terror of the Royal Charisian Marines was borne upon its wings.
Most of the new muskets and bayonets had gone to Cayleb's galleons, but Tellesberg's Marines didn't seem to mind. They swept across Halberd in a tidal wave whose very ferocity disguised its intense discipline and training. Boarding pikes stabbed, cutlasses and boarding axes chopped, and the first rush carried Halberd's entire waist.
But then Halberd's company rallied. Matchlocks and "wolves" fired down into the melee from aftercastle and forecastle, killing and wounding dozens of the Marines. Corisandian soldiers counter-charged with the power of desperation
, slamming into the boarders violently enough to throw even Charisians back on their heels.
For a few minutes, the tide of combat swirled back and forth, first this way, then that, as men hacked at one another in a frenzy of destruction and slaughter. Then Tellesberg's consort Sword of Tirian came thundering along Halberd's other side, and a fresh wave of Charisian Marines overwhelmed the defenders.
* * *
Duke Black Water watched bleakly as his fleeing galleys merged with their Charisian opponents.
It wasn't working. His jaw muscles ached as he recognized that. His own column, the westernmost of them all, had fallen perhaps a mile and a half behind the others, but he could see what was happening. The tangle of colliding galleys as the Charisians flung themselves bodily upon the ships of his first two columns was simply too thick for him to cut his way through them. As the second and third and fourth galleys in each long, unwieldy column caught up with the leaders, they were unable—or, in some cases, unwilling—to avoid the knots of vessels which were already grappled together. Some of them tried to, but there always seemed to be another compact Charisian column waiting, another Charisian galley perfectly placed to crash alongside them, grapple them, add them to the steadily growing barricade of timber, stabbing steel, and blood. It was like watching autumn leaves swirl down a racing stream until they encountered a fallen branch and, suddenly, found themselves piling up, heaping together into a solid mass.