How Firm a Foundation (70 page)

“Made fast!”

The call came up from below, and Lathyk nodded.

“Take in the jib! Veer the cable, Master Symkee! Take tension on the spring!”

*   *   *

Captain Ehrnysto Plyzyk, of the Imperial Desnairian Navy, watched the Charisian galleon stop moving. She edged a bit further to windward under bare spars as her topsails were brailed up and her jib dropped, and his stomach muscles tensed. She was veering a little more cable, he realized, and when she finished,
she’d have the slack she needed for the spring she’d undoubtedly rigged to control her heading just as the springs on his own anchors controlled
Saint Adulfo
’s. And when that happened.…

“Pound her, boys!” he bellowed, jabbing his sword like a pointer at the Charisian half-obscured by his own gunsmoke. “If you want to live,
pound
that bitch!”

*   *   *

“Stand by the larboard battery!” Lieutenant
Tymkyn shouted.

A hurricane of round shot hammered his ship, although only HMS
Loyal Defender
,
Saint Adulfo
’s next ahead, was able to turn to lend her guns to
Saint Adulfo
’s defense.
Holy Langhorne
, astern of
Saint Adulfo
, might have assisted her as well, but she no longer had any attention to spare. Captain Bahrdahn’s
Undaunted
had fetched up to windward of her, and Tymkyn heard the thunder
of
Undaunted
’s artillery as the other galleon came into action.

Still, between them,
Saint Adulfo
’s and
Loyal Defender’
s broadsides mounted forty-four guns to
Destiny
’s twenty-five … or what would have been twenty-five if she hadn’t been so heavily hit on the way in. In fact, she probably had no more than eighteen or nineteen guns, and Tymkyn peered through the smoke, waiting for the spring to
bring her fully around. He wasn’t going to waste that first broadside by firing one second before he was sure all of his guns bore on the target, and—

The twelve-pound shot from
Saint Adulfo
’s starboard battery struck
Destiny
’s youthful third lieutenant just below midchest and tore his body in two.

*   *   *

Aplyn-Ahrmahk saw Tymkyn flung aside in a spray of blood and torn flesh. At almost
the same instant, he realized Trahvys Saylkyrk, Tymkyn’s assistant in command of the larboard battery, was down as well—wounded or dead, he couldn’t tell. Up until his elevation to Admiral Yairley’s flag lieutenant, that had been Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s duty station when the ship cleared for action, and old reflexes took over. He didn’t stop to think; he simply acted, leaping up onto the larboard gangway.
His feet slid in Tymkyn’s fresh blood despite the sand scattered over the decks for traction, and he clutched at the main shrouds for balance to keep himself from falling.

“As you bear, lads!” he screamed, then waited two more heartbeats.

“Fire!”

*   *   *

Saint Adulfo
heaved as another broadside blasted out of her smoke-streaming gun muzzles, and there was a sharper, louder report from forward
as her number three gun blew up despite the reduced charge. Fortunately, the gun tube simply split lengthwise. Half its crew was killed, the ready charges being brought up for it and the number four gun were touched off in sympathetic detonation by the flame gushing from the shattered cannon, wounding four more men, but it could have been worse. Indeed, it
had
been worse the last time one of
Saint Adulfo
’s guns burst.

But that didn’t change the fact that it
had
burst, and at the worst possible time, Captain Plyzyk thought bitterly. The entire forward half of his starboard battery was thrown into confusion by the sudden—and fully understandable—terror a bursting gun always produced.

“More hands to the forward guns!” he shouted. “Let’s get some fresh—!”

The Charisian galleon fired
at last.

*   *   *

HMS
Destiny
’s larboard side belched flame and smoke. She’d closed to within less than fifty yards of
Saint Adulfo
before she anchored, and the air trapped between the two ships was a fiery maelstrom as her broadside fired for the first time. A quarter of her company lay dead or wounded before she fired her first shot, and even as Aplyn-Ahrmahk shouted the command, a twenty-five-pound
round shot cut through her mainmast three feet above the deck. The mast toppled into the smoke like a weary tree, and rigging parted, broken ends lashing out, flailing like maddened serpents. Men who got in the way of that heavy, tarred cordage were swatted casually from their feet, usually with broken bones and torn flesh, and others scrambled madly for safety as the entire massive complex
of the mainmast came thundering down. The fore topgallant mast followed it, and the galleon staggered as if she’d just lost her rudder all over again.

But the men on her larboard guns ignored the chaos and confusion. They paid no heed to the damage control parties racing to cut away the wreckage and drag the injured and dying out of the tangles of fallen cordage. They were totally focused on
their guns, for this was the reason
Destiny
had taken so much damage. This was what she’d come to do, and as they heard the youthful ensign’s familiar voice, they did it.

*   *   *

Ehrnysto Plyzyk saw the Charisian mainmast start to topple and opened his mouth to cheer. But before he could, the smoke between the two ships lifted on a fresh furnace blast, and this one didn’t come from
his
guns.

The deck hammered against the soles of his shoes. It was the first time he’d ever felt heavy shot striking a ship, and a corner of his mind recognized the difference between the recoil from his own guns and the sharper, lighter, and yet somehow more … vicious shock of enemy fire.

And then sixteen of the eighteen shells which had struck his ship exploded almost simultaneously.

*   *   *

“Reload!
Reload!
”

Aplyn-Ahrmahk heard the gun captains’ shouted commands and looked around, trying to find Lieutenant Symkee to take over the larboard battery. But then something smacked him sharply on the shoulder.

“Go, Hektor!” His head whipped around as Admiral Yairley smacked his shoulder a second time.
“Go!”
the admiral repeated, and actually smiled. “Captain Lathyk can have you back for the moment!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

The ensign leapt into the disciplined madness, knowing better than to disrupt the choreographed training by shouting unnecessary orders. Instead, he watched the gun crews, his eyes trying to be everywhere at once, ready to intervene if something went wrong.

But nothing went wrong.
Destiny
’s gunners had trained for two hours every day during their weary voyage from Tellesberg
to Iythria. They’d polished old skills and learned new ones as they grappled with the novel concept of exploding shells, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk watched as the number two on each gun removed and pocketed the lead patch protecting the fuse before the shell was loaded. The fuse times had been set by Payter Wynkastair,
Destiny
’s gunner, before the ship ever cleared for action, and at the
end
of the action,
the number two on each gun would be required to hand over those patches as proof the shells had been properly prepared for firing.

“Run out! Run out!”

One by one the galleon’s surviving guns were brought back to battery, and gun captains all along the line raised their left hands, right hands gripping the firing lanyards.

*   *   *

Captain Plyzyk clawed his way up from his knees, shaking his
head like a dazed prizefighter while he tried to make his brain work. He didn’t know what had hit him, and he probably never would, but he was pretty sure whatever it was had broken his right shoulder blade.

And even at that, he realized, he was better off than his ship.

Smoke—much of it wood smoke now, not just powder smoke—streamed from shattered holes ripped through
Saint Adulfo
’s timbers
and planking. Some of those holes looked big enough for a man to walk through. They weren’t, of course, but they looked
huge
compared to the much smaller holes round shot punched through a ship. Splintered and broken wood was everywhere, torn canvas and severed lengths of rigging littered the deck, he heard voices screaming in mingled agony and terror, and at least half the midships upper deck
twelve-pounders had been knocked over like toys. The bulwark in front of them was simply
gone
; the deck edge looked like a cliff shattered by a hurricane, and he realized three or four of the Charisians’ infernal “shells” must have impacted almost together to produce that damage.

But there was plenty of other damage to go with it, and someone grabbed him, dragging him bodily out of the way as
his galleon’s mizzenmast came thundering down.

“Fire!” somebody screamed.
“Fire in the cable tier!”

Plyzyk staggered back to his feet once more, wondering who’d just saved him from being crushed by the falling mast, but it was an almost absent thought, lost in the terrifying thought that his ship was on fire.

“Away firefighting parties!” he bellowed, and the seamen who were detailed for that
very purpose went rushing below with buckets of water and sand.

Langhorne! She can’t take much more of this,
he thought.
She
—

*   *   *

“Fire!”
Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk shouted.

Destiny
’s second broadside smashed into
Saint Adulfo
like an avalanche, but this was an avalanche of iron and fire and a deadly freight of gunpowder. The six-inch shells slammed through the Desnairian’s planking, and this
time
all
of them exploded.

*   *   *

One of Ensign Applyn-Ahrmahk’s shells exploded almost directly under Ehrnysto Plyzyk’s feet, and for him, the fate of his ship became forever moot.

.VIII.

Duke Kholman’s Office, Port of Iythria, Empire of Desnair

Daivyn Bairaht watched in stony-eyed silence as the two officers in Charisian uniform were ushered through the door of his office.

“Your Grace, Admiral Sir Dunkyn Yairley and his flag lieutenant, Ensign Aplyn-Ahrmahk,” their guide, Captain Byrnahrdo Fahrya, told him. “Admiral Yairley, His Grace the Duke of Kholman.”

Yairley and
his ensign were immaculate, looking as if they’d dropped by for a state dinner, Kholman thought bitterly. Fahrya was another matter. His uniform was torn and filthy, reeking of powder and wood smoke. His expression was grim, tight and strained, but he was lucky to be alive. His ship,
Holy Langhorne
, had taken fire, burned to the waterline, and sunk under the devastating Charisian assault. She
was scarcely the only Desnairian galleon that had happened to, and from the look of things Fahrya had spent some time in the water before he’d been recovered by the victors. He’d obviously done what he could to straighten his hair, wash his hands, wipe the powder grime from his face, but the contrast between him and the two faultlessly attired Charisians’ dress uniforms could not have been sharper.

Or more deliberate,
the duke reminded himself as he realized he could even smell the Charisian flag officer’s fresh cologne.
Yairley must’ve made
damned
sure the two of them would be as neat as pins. He obviously recognizes the value of setting the stage properly
.

“Admiral,” he made himself say, his tone courteous but cold, and bowed very slightly in greeting.

“Your Grace,” Yairley responded
with an even slighter bow, and Kholman’s jaw tightened at that abbreviated bow’s subtle insult to his aristocratic rank. Of course, it was possible—
possible!
—it hadn’t been Yairley’s intention to do any insulting. Then again …

“Before anything else,” he said, “allow me to express my personal thanks for High Admiral Rock Point’s message about Baron Jahras.”

“I’m sure I speak for the High Admiral
when I say you’re most welcome, Your Grace,” Yairley said. “I regret the severity of the Baron’s wounds, but my understanding is that, barring any unforeseen complications, the healers are confident he’ll recover in time.”

And once he learns how to write left-handed
, Kholman thought harshly.
But at that, he’s lucky to be alive. And maybe the fact that he’s lost an arm will help protect him when
Clyntahn gets word of this
.

“I hope you’re right,” he said out loud. “However, I doubt you came ashore just to tell me my brother-in-law is likely to survive.” He showed his teeth briefly. “Somehow I don’t think you’re likely to tell me the same thing about my Navy.”

“With the exception of the floating batteries at the western end of Baron Jahras’ line, I’m afraid all your ships have struck,”
Yairley said gravely, and despite the way he’d braced himself internally, Kholman flinched visibly.

At least the Charisian hadn’t said “all your
surviving
ships have struck,” although that would have been more accurate. According to Kholman’s most recent report, nineteen galleons and twelve of the floating batteries had burned, blown up, burned
and
blown up, or simply sunk as the result of battle
damage. He didn’t know how many of the others were damaged, or how badly, and he didn’t even want to think about the human cost, but he knew it had been huge. For that matter, he’d sent over a thousand replacements into the maelstrom before he’d accepted he was simply incurring additional casualties in a lost cause.

All the fortifications on Sickle Shoal and Triangle Shoal had also surrendered,
although they hadn’t hauled down their flags until they’d taken massive damage. That was what the reports said, at least, and Kholman had no reason to doubt them. Especially since only one of the four fortress commanders—General Stahkail, inevitably—was still alive and unwounded. Those accursed … bombardment ships were also why they’d lost so many of the floating batteries. The conventional Charisian
galleons had declined to venture into the shoal water beyond the main shipping channel to engage them, but the bombardment ships had taken up positions where the batteries’ guns couldn’t reach them and started dropping those damned exploding shells on top of them. Their percentage of hits hadn’t been high, but every hit they
had
scored had been devastating.