A Mighty Fortress (103 page)

They’d intercepted five small brigs which had, indeed, been laden with Harchong- cast bronze artillery, and Captain Pawal had found prize crews to send them back to Claw Island. He’d disliked giving up the men for those crews, but their cargo of guns had been too potentially valuable not to send them in. After that, though, there’d been almost a full five- day of boring inactivity before Lieutenant Commander Showail, in the ten- gun schooner
Flash
, on the eastern flank of Pawal’s formation, had spotted topsails farther to the east. That had been the evening before, and they’d gone in pursuit, chasing all through the night by moonlight . . . and with
Squall
slowly falling yet farther astern. Now, the better part of thirty hours later, they’d finally overtaken the convoy, and the Dohlaran galleons had peeled off and turned to place themselves between the pursuers and the merchantmen.

Showail never would’ve spotted them if not for the escorts
, Stywyrt thought now.
The merchant ships’ masts were too short to sight until we got closer
.

The fact that the galleons had betrayed the convoy’s presence might turn out to have been something of a mixed blessing, however. All the Dohlaran warships were larger than
Squall
. None were as large as
Dart
or
Shield
, perhaps, yet Stywyrt’s best estimate was that they carried at least two hundred guns to the truncated Charisian squadron’s hundred and forty- four. The Dohlaran weapons were probably lighter, yet that was still a considerable disparity.

At the moment,
Flash
and her slightly larger sister,
Mace
, were both off sliding around the Dohlaran galleons’ rear. The pair of galleys assigned to the coasters’ close protection were new, bigger, and more powerful than anything Dohlar had taken to Armageddon Reef, but Stywyrt doubted they’d be any match for the nimble, well- handled schooners’ carronade broadsides. Unfortunately, between the galleys and the galleons, it was likely most of the coasters would escape if they scattered soon enough. Each schooner might be able to run down two of them—possibly even three, if they disposed of the galleys quickly enough—but there were fourteen of them. If
Squall
and her galleon consorts had been able to lend a hand, the entire convoy would undoubtedly have been obliterated.

Which wasn’t going to happen now.

Captain Caitahno Raisahndo smiled in fierce satisfaction as HMS
Rakurai
’s starboard broadside thundered again. His gunners probably weren’t being as accurate as he might have liked, but they were maintaining an impressive rate of fire, especially for a ship’s company which had never before seen battle.

He could have wished he had the weather gauge, instead of being forced to engage from leeward, but at least he was to windward of the
convoy
. He’d been tempted to detach HMS
Prince of Dohlar
, his rearmost galleon, to assist the galleys assigned to the coasters’ close escort. Unfortunately,
Prince of Dohlar
couldn’t have gotten there before the infernally fast, Shan- wei- damned Charisian schooners. By the same token, however, all five of Raisahndo’s ships were between the Charisian
galleons
and the convoy, and he was satisfied none of them were going to break past him to assist in the merchant ships’ massacre. Not without fighting their way through, at any rate.

And the truth is, even if I am never going to admit it to a single soul, that pounding two or three Charisian galleons into driftwood would be worth the loss of the entire convoy
.

As a converted merchantman,
Rakurai
lacked the poop deck of the Dohlaran Navy’s purpose- built galleons. As a result, her wheel, quarterdeck guns, and officers were completely exposed to overhead fire. On the other hand, it meant Raisahndo had (at least in theory) a clear view as he stood by the starboard rail, gazing towards the enemy. Unfortunately, he was also staring directly into the choking bank of evil- smelling powder smoke rolling back across
Rakurai
’s decks on the wind. That was another problem with being to leeward. Not only did his gunners have to cope with their own smoke, blowing straight back into their faces, but the Charisian artillery’s smoke came driving down across them, as well. The wind was brisk enough to clear their own smoke quickly, actually, but there were always fresh clouds of
Charisian
smoke to replace it. All they could really make out were their target’s masts above the seething, stinking fog bank, and that couldn’t contribute to their accuracy.

Another Charisian broadside came smashing back. They seemed to be firing a bit more slowly, but they were scoring an unpleasant number of hits. And each of those hits did substantially more damage than Raisahndo estimated his own, lighter pieces were accomplishing. He’d expected thirty- pounders, even thirty- five- pounders, from Earl Thirsk’s reports of Crag Reach, and he hadn’t looked forward to the disparity in weight of metal. Unfortunately, at least some of his present opponent’s guns were even heavier than that, and he winced as one of his own quarterdeck twelve- pounders took a direct hit.

The round shot came screaming in through the bulwark gunport at just enough of an angle to chew a perfectly rounded half- moon out of the forward edge of the open port’s frame. It slammed into the gun carriage, apparently at a slightly rising angle, and struck the underside of the twelve- pounder’s barrel. The ton- and- a-half bronze gun tube erupted upward, leaping out of the explosion of splintered carriage timbers and shattered ringbolts like a sounding doomwhale. Half the eight- man crew was killed as the enormous round shot slashed directly through them; two of the four survivors were crushed and broken as the barrel of their own weapon crashed back down on top of them.

Something—probably a splinter; possibly a broken iron bolt—hissed by Raisahndo’s right ear, close enough to make his head ring as if someone had just slapped him . . . hard.

Another inch or two, and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again
, he thought, then brushed the thought aside as he contemplated the carnage that single hit had left in its wake.

Probably one of those damned “carronades,”
he reflected grimly. At least they knew what the Charisians
called
the shorter, stubbier guns, but that didn’t help a lot when the Temple had decreed that all of
Mother Church
’s galleons would be equipped solely with long guns.

In some ways, Raisahndo actually agreed with Vicar Allayn’s logic. The “carronades” clearly had a shorter maximum range than a long gun of the same bore, and the ability to pound the enemy (and kill his crews) before he got into range to return the compliment had a great deal to recommend it. There were, unfortunately, a few flaws in that logic.

For one thing, Earl Thirsk was right about the two sides’ relative seaman-ship. Much though Raisahndo hated to admit it, a Corisandian admiral was far more likely to achieve the engagement range he wanted than a Dohlaran admiral was to prevent him from doing so. Even ignoring that, however, Vicar Allayn seemed to be still thinking in terms of conventional boarding actions, despite the logical disconnect between them and the greater range he wanted from his longer guns. He seemed more interested in larger numbers of lighter guns, suitable for sweeping an opponent’s decks just before closing to board, than in smaller numbers of
heavier
guns, capable of smashing their way through an enemy ship’s timbers at longer ranges. Killing the other fellow’s crewmen was all well and good, in Raisahndo’s opinion, but boarding actions had clearly become secondary (at best) to artillery duels. And, in an artillery duel, if the other fellow’s gunners were protected by heavy bulwarks your artillery couldn’t penetrate, he was going to be far better placed to kill your personnel than you were to kill his.

Oh, stop complaining, Caitahno!
he scolded himself.
You’ve still got more guns than they do, and more ships than they do, and it’s time you concentrated on what you’re going to do to
them
instead of what
they’re
going to do to
you!

“Let her fall off a quarter point!” he shouted to the helmsmen.

Captain Zhon Pawal watched the leading Dohlaran galleon’s masts as the other ship altered course slightly. He was turning a bit further away, and Pawal would have liked to think that meant he’d had enough. Unfortunately ....
He’s just giving himself a little more range until his friends get here,
Pawal thought harshly.
Not exactly what I expected. They were
supposed
to either run the hell away or come in as a mob, like they did at Rock Point and Darcos Sound
.

Pawal began to pace slowly up and down, well clear of the recoiling carronades. The range had fallen to a bit over two hundred yards, well within the fifty- seven- pounders’ effective range, and he bared his teeth as he contemplated what those massive shots must be doing to their targets.

But the fierce grin faded slightly as the enemy’s fire continued slamming back. They weren’t especially accurate, those gunners over there, but they were damnably per sis tent. It was the first time Pawal had faced an actual broadside, and he was frankly astonished by how steadily the Dohlarans were standing up. The sheer weight of Charisian fire had broken the morale of ship after ship at Rock Point and Darcos Sound, but it wasn’t doing that this time.

Or not from this
range
, at least
, he told himself, and looked astern, where Harys Aiwain’s
Shield
was coming up fast. With all the smoke, he could no longer see
Squall
’s sails, but she had to be somewhere behind
Shield
. He
hoped
she was, at any rate! The two leading Dohlarans continued to pound away at
Dart
, but the third and fourth enemy galleons were beginning to fire on
Shield
. Aiwain wasn’t firing back yet, though. He was clearly reserving his own first broadside until he reached the range he wanted . . . assuming he got there.

“Bring her a point to larboard!” Captain Pawal snapped.

Captain Stywyrt watched the mast tops poking up out of the boil of smoke as
Dart
’s head came a bit farther north, moving the wind around to almost dead astern as Pawal moved to prevent the enemy from holding the range open. Stywyrt approved, although he wished the other captain had waited a bit longer and let
Squall
get closer before he’d done it.

Shield
foamed steadily along in her consorts’ wake, and he still had a clear view of Captain Aiwain’s ship through his spyglass. As a result, he could see the white feathers leaping from the wave slopes like sudden fountains as the Dohlarans began to fire at
Shield
. From the scattered appearance of those feathers, the enemy’s gunners weren’t overly blessed with accuracy, but there were obviously a
lot
of them.