by David Weber
And even as Haarahld's fleet threw itself in front of him, he heard Cayleb's guns growing louder and louder behind him as the galleons began savaging the rearmost ships of his own column.
He glared at the tangle of ships, fallen masts, smoke, banners, and wreckage, and saw the complete and total failure of his entire campaign. But then, to one side of the main engagement, he saw a single Charisian squadron, and his eyes flamed as he recognized the banner it flew.
The way his column had fallen a little behind the others was what had allowed Cayleb to get at its rearmost units. But it also meant his flagship, and the galleys behind it, hadn't yet been swept into the general melee.
Most of Haarahld's galleys had, however, and Black Water's lips drew back from his teeth. He grabbed Captain Myrgyn's shoulder and pointed at the royal standard of Charis.
"There!" he snarled. "There's your target, Kehvyn!"
* * *
Captain Tryvythyn saw the line of Corisandian galleys sweeping down upon Royal Charis. There were at least fifteen ships in the column—he couldn't be certain of the exact number; there was too much smoke—and there was no question that they'd recognized the royal standard.
The rest of the flagship's squadron saw the enemy almost as soon as he did, and oarmasters' drums went to a more urgent tempo as the other five galleys swept forward, charging around Royal Charis to intercept the attack. Tryvythyn glanced at his king and half-opened his mouth, but Haarahld only looked back steadily, and the flag captain closed it once more.
"Better," Haarahld said with a thin smile, then nodded at the oncoming Corisandians. "If these people get past us, there's no one left to stop them."
"I realize that, Your Majesty," Tryvythyn said. "But I hope you'll forgive me for saying that I think you're worth more to Charis then all of those ships put together."
"I appreciate the compliment, Dynzyl. But no one man is essential, and victory is. And not just victory, either. This war's only just beginning, whatever happens here today, and our ability to control the sea is the only thing which may let us survive. We need a victory so complete, so crushing, the next admiral to think about fighting us will be half-defeated in his own mind before he ever leaves port. So devastating our men will know they can do anything, defeat anyone, no matter what the odds. And we need an example that will make them willing to fight at any odds. That's more important than the life of any one man—even a king. Do you understand me?"
Tryvythyn looked into his king's eyes for a moment, and then he bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty," he said steadily. "I understand."
* * *
Dreadnought overtook another galley.
Devastation had fallen astern, but Destruction had out sailed her and forged up almost abreast of the fleet flagship, and the two of them had spread further apart. Destruction lay further to the east than Dreadnought, passing down the galley Scimitar's port side, and her starboard guns thundered. Dreadnought was still a ship's length ahead of her consort, and her port guns smashed in the galley's starboard side. A few of her shots missed, two of them whipping across Destruction's bows at dangerously close range, but the concentrated fire, crashing in on Scimitar simultaneously from both sides, was devastating.
Cayleb glared at the crippled hulk as the Corisandian flag came down. Dreadnought's gunners were too exhausted to raise a cheer this time, and ammunition was getting low. The gunner was almost out of made-up cartridges, and Captain Manthyr had detailed a long chain of Marines to pass more round shot up from the shot lockers. Despite that, the crown prince already knew Charis had won a crushing victory this day. He knew that, yet he fretted inside like a caged slash lizard as Manthyr tried to wring still more speed out of the flagship.
Cayleb's own squadron—more than a little disordered as the faster ships, like Destruction, overtook and passed the slower ones in front of them, but still intact—was closing rapidly on Duke Black Water's fugitives. To the north, Staynair had wreaked dreadful havoc upon the western half of Black Water's original fleet, and over twenty Chisholmian galleys had surrendered with only minimal resistance. At least a few determined Emeraldian and Corisandian captains had managed to evade both squadrons of Cayleb's galleons in the smoke and confusion and break north successfully. There weren't more than a double handful of them, however, and at least two-thirds of the ships still with Black Water were locked in melee with the galleys of his father's fleet.
Only thirty or so Corisandians still had any hope of escape. They were trying to break around the western edge of the huge, confused hand-to-hand fight raging between their consorts and the main body of the king's fleet. Cayleb and his squadron were on their heels, already engaging their rearmost units, but some of them might yet win free.
Except for the six Charisian galleys steering to meet them head-on.
* * *
Black Water looked astern. He could see the topgallants of the nearest galleons now, looming above the smoke. They were still well astern, but they were coming up fast, and there was plenty of daylight left.
His mouth was a hard, thin line as he glanced at Captain Myrgyn and he saw the same knowledge in the flag captain's eyes.
"At least we can take a few more of them with us," the duke said grimly, and Myrgyn nodded.
* * *
HMS Queen Zhessyka charged to meet Corisande as Black Water's flagship led the attack. Queen Zhessyka's captain judged relative positions and motion carefully, steering to lay his ship hard alongside the Corisandian flagship, but Captain Myrgyn stood tensely beside his helmsman, judging those same motions with equal care.
The two ships came together with a closing speed of at least fifteen knots, with Queen Zhessyka angling slightly to leeward, and Myrgyn showed his teeth in a thin little smile. He watched the Charisian unwaveringly, waiting for the moment when the other galley shipped its port oars. That would be the instant when her captain committed, and Myrgyn waited . . . waited . . . waited . . .
"Now!" he barked, and his helmsman put his helm a-lee.
Corisande turned sharply—not downwind, into the Charisian, but upwind, away from her. Queen Zhessyka tried to compensate, following her around, but the Charisian captain had expected an opponent under sail to turn with the wind, not against it. He still managed a glancing contact with Corisande's port quarter, and at least a dozen grappling irons slammed across the gap. But the momentum of two thousand-plus tons of wooden galleys, moving in different directions, snapped the irons' lines like thread.
Corisande staggered and timbers screamed as her quarter gallery was smashed in, and twenty-five feet of the aftercastle's bulwark went with it. Five of the army troopers put aboard as marines were killed, crushed by the same impact which demolished the bulwark, and at least another half-dozen crewmen were injured. Two planks were stove in below the waterline, and water began gushing into her hold. But her mast held, she was still underway, and Myrgyn's crisp orders brought her quickly back under control.
She was past the rest of Royal Charis's squadron, and King Haarahld's flagship lay almost dead ahead, rushing to meet her.
* * *
Haarahld watched the other five galleys of his squadron as the hammer blow came down. Corisande might have gotten past Queen Zhessyka, but the next seven galleys in line were all intercepted.
HMS Rock Shoal Bay sideswiped the galley behind Corisande, crashing into her hard enough to bring down her mast, then staggered directly across the path of Confederate, the third ship in Black Water's line. Galleys might no longer mount rams, but Confederate's bows slammed into Rock Shoal Bay like an ax, cutting a third of the way through the bigger Charisian ship in a dreadful rending, tearing crunch of shattered timbers. Mortally wounded, Rock Shoal Bay began to fill rapidly, leaning against her opponent and trapping Confederate's bow in the wound it had torn. At least thirty of Rock Shoal Bay's rowers were killed by the impact, and dozens more of them were injured, many hideously. Their companions struggled to pull them out of the in-rushing water as their ship b
egan to settle, but the Charisian gunners fired a deadly salvo of grapeshot down the length of Confederate's deck, and Rock Shoal Bay's howling Marines charged across onto the other ship in an unstoppable flood of edged, thrusting steel.
Queen Zhessyka recovered way quickly after her grazing collision with Corisande and swerved to meet the oncoming Harpoon. This time, Queen Zhessyka made no mistake, turning neatly onto the same heading as her intended victim and allowing Harpoon to run up alongside her. Grappling irons flew a second time, and this time the two ships were headed in the same direction. They ground together, timbers groaning and shuddering under the impact, and another tide of Charisian Marines streamed across onto Harpoon's decks.
The other three Charisian galleys—Sand Island, Margaret's Land, and King Tymythy—picked their own opponents with care. They each crashed into their chosen victim, deliberately fouling the enemy column's line of advance, and at least two more Corisandian ships plowed into the sudden roadblock which had materialized before them.
But Corisande was already past them, and eighteen more galleys were streaming down upon them.
* * *
This time, Corisande's mast went down.
Captain Myrgyn's ship slammed alongside Royal Charis with a rending, grinding shriek of timbers. Grappling irons flew in both directions; matchlocks, wolves, and cannon thundered; and men screamed and died. Haarahld's flagship had replaced her original broadside falcons with carronades, and the carnage they wreaked splashed Corisande's decks with blood. Royal Charis' Marines had been issued the new flintlocks, as well, and a deadly volley added its share to the butchery.
For a moment, it looked as if the battle had been decided in that single cataclysmic moment, but then Black Water leapt up onto the aftercastle bulwark, drawn sword flashing in his hand.
"After me, lads!" he bellowed, and a savage roar of anger went up from Corisande, overpowering even the screams of the wounded.
The duke leapt across the gap between the two ships, landing all alone in an open spot where one of Corisande's own guns had heaped the Charisians in a mangled pile of bodies. His boots slipped on the blood-slick deck, and he sprawled backward, which undoubtedly saved his life. The closest Charisian Marines were still turning towards him when the rush of additional boarders from Corisande swept over him.
His surviving soldiers and seamen abandoned their own ship, hurling themselves across onto Haarahld's flagship, half-crazed with terror, desperation, and a fiery determination to reach the man whose standard Royal Charis flew. They slammed into the defenders like a human tidal wave, and even Charisian Marines were forced to give ground before such fury.
The attackers drove clear across Royal Charis' waist, then most of them turned aft, fighting their way towards the aftercastle, while the remainder tried to hold off the Marines counterattacking from the forecastle.
The battle swayed desperately back and forth for several endless minutes, but Corisande's people had taken too many casualties before they ever closed, and Charisian Marines were simply the best in the world at this sort of fight. They regained the momentum Black Water's reckless gallantry and courage had won and drove the Corisandians steadily back.
And then, suddenly, the Corisandian galley Sea Crest came crashing in on Corisande's disengaged side, and a fresh tide of attackers flooded across Black Water's flagship, using her like a bridge, and hurled themselves into the fray.
* * *
Cayleb Ahrmahk's face was a mask of grim, savage determination as Dreadnought drove into the rear of the disintegrating Corisandian column. He could see the tangled knot of intermixed Charisian and Corisandian galleys coming up quickly on Dreadnought's port bow, but at least three more enemy ships had evaded the massed melee. They were charging down on his father's flagship, already engaged with two opponents.
There was no need for him to exhort Captain Manthyr to greater efforts. That was Cayleb's father up there, but it was also Gwylym Manthyr's king, and Merlin, standing behind the two of them, could almost physically feel Manthyr leaning forward, as if to add his own weight to the wind driving his ship.
Yet they could only move so quickly, and Dreadnought's guns blazed on either broadside. The only way to reach Royal Charis was directly through the Corisandian ships in front of them, and Manthyr took his galleon in among them under full sail, as if she'd been a ten-meter sloop at a racing regatta back on Old Earth.
Guns fired at ranges as low as twenty yards. Flintlocks barked, swivels banged from the fighting tops, and return fire came back from Corisandian wolves, matchlocks, and cannon.
At that range, even the slow-firing Corisandian artillery could inflict dreadful wounds, and one of Dreadnought's maindeck guns took a round shot almost directly on its muzzle. The entire gun and carriage flew backward, the gun tube flipping up like a terrestrial dolphin standing on its tail. Then it crashed down, like a two-ton hammer, crushing the members of its crew who hadn't been killed outright by the round shot into gruel.
A section of hammock nettings flew apart as a charge of grapeshot blew through the tightly rolled hammocks stowed there to stop bullets and splinters. Those hammocks had never been intended to stop grapeshot, though, and the deadly missiles killed six Marines and three seamen and wounded five others. Screams told of other casualties, and a round shot chewed a splinter-fringed bite out of the mainmast, but Dreadnought's gunners ignored the carnage around them. It wasn't simply courage, nor training—it was also exhaustion. They'd been reduced to automatons, so focused on what they were doing that nothing else was really quite real.
* * *
"Fall back! Fall back to the aftercastle!"
Captain Tryvythyn's desperate order cut through the chaos as yet another Corisandian galley, the Doomwhale, surged alongside Royal Charis. His ship was bigger than any of its opponents, with a larger crew and more Marines, but no less than five of the Corisandians had managed to get to grips with him.
The enemy had completely overwhelmed the defenders of Royal Charis' forward third. Perhaps half his Marines and a quarter of his seamen were still on their feet aft of the forward hatch, but they were being driven back, step by bloody step, by an ever mounting flood of enemies. Dynzyl Tryvythyn watched their stubborn retreat, and his eyes were desperate. Not with fear for himself, but for the king who stood behind him.
"Hold the ladders!" he shouted. "Hold—"
A musket ball from one of Doomwhale's embarked musketeers struck him at the base of the throat. It flung him backwards, and he went down, choking on his own blood as the boots of desperately fighting men stamped all about him.
The King, he thought. The King.
And then he died.
* * *
Dreadnought passed down the leeward side of another galley. Her guns savaged the fresh target, and she shuddered as more shots slammed back in reply. Her fore topgallant mast quivered as its shrouds were shot away, then toppled slowly forward to hang like a broken cross, canvas billowing. But then she was past her enemies, her gunports streaming smoke, as she bore down on the galleys grappled to Royal Charis at last.
"Lay us alongside!" Cayleb snapped, drawing the sword Merlin had given him, and his eyes blazed coldly.
* * *
Duke Black Water stared about wildly. The crews of his galleys were hopelessly intermixed. All unit organization had disappeared into the indescribable confusion of savage hand-to-hand combat, but he found himself briefly behind the battle driving steadily aft.
He didn't understand why he was still alive. His breastplate was battered and scarred from blows he scarcely remembered, and his sword was red to the hilt with the blood of men he hardly recalled killing. He could hear the ongoing thunder of artillery even over the screams and shouts around him, and as he turned to look up into the north, he saw Cayleb's galleons bursting out of the smoke and confusion at last.
They hadn't fought their way through his entire fleet unscathed. He saw missing topmasts and sails pocked and torn by splinters and round shot, saw b
roken rigging blowing on the wind, saw shot holes in bulwarks and sides, saw bodies lying across hammock nettings and hanging in their fighting tops. But they were still there, still intact, their gunports still streaming smoke, and he bared his teeth in hatred.
He snarled, then began pushing his way through the men about him, elbowing them aside as he forced his way towards Royal Charis' beleaguered aftercastle.
* * *
A musket ball screamed off Haarahld Ahrmahk's breastplate as he leaned on the half-pike for support with his left hand. He grunted and staggered under the rib-snapping impact, but the ball whined away, leaving not even a dent, only a smear of lead, on Merlin's gift to mark its passing. He held his feet, and his right hand drove his sword into the chest of a Corisandian seaman trying to claw his way up the ladder from the maindeck. The man fell back with a bubbling scream, blood spraying from his mouth and nose, and Haarahld grunted at the fresh stab of pain from his bad knee as he recovered.