Off Armageddon Reef (79 page)

“Well, they've seen us,” Cayleb commented as a final line of showers poured rain across
Dreadnought
's decks.

The prince ignored the water dripping from the brim of his helmet while he frowned thoughtfully.

The rain was clearing, but if Merlin's prediction was accurate, fresh, heavier rain—and still stronger winds, veering yet further around to the north—would make themselves felt no later than midafternoon. He had perhaps six hours before visibility began to deteriorate once more.

He could see the nearest galleys quite clearly now from deck level. The entire western horizon, as far north and south as he could see, was dotted with more sails, and he grimaced. Despite Merlin's descriptions and the sighting reports from
Spy
and her consort
Speedwell
, he hadn't truly visualized just how enormous—and spread out—his target was.

He considered what he could see, wondering if he ought to adjust his battle plan. The six schooners attached to his fleet were up to windward, under orders to stay out of the battle but remain close enough to see and repeat signals from or to
Dreadnought
or
Gale
. If he wanted to order any changes, he still had time, but not a great deal of it.

Dreadnought
was the lead ship in the weather column. In some ways, it would have made more sense to put the flagship in the center of the line, where Cayleb would be better placed—at least in theory—to see more of the engagement and coordinate at least its opening stages more closely. Unfortunately, once the gunsmoke started billowing,
no one
was going to be able to see very much, even with this wind; that much had become painfully clear from Staynair's work with the Experimental Squadron. So both Cayleb and Staynair were leading their respective columns, which gave them the greatest degree of control over where those columns went before action was joined. And as long as the ships in line behind them followed in their wakes, it would give them the greatest control over where the action went
after
battle was joined, as well.

His frown deepened. Each column was almost three miles long, and Staynair's fifteen ships were about six miles to leeward of his own as they angled towards the enemy.
Dreadnought
was creeping just a bit to the north of the point Cayleb had originally selected, but that didn't bother him. Captain Manthyr had spotted the enormous galley flying the command streamer of a Dohlaran admiral and adjusted his course to pass astern of it accordingly.

Spurts of dirty, gray-white smoke began to erupt from some of the nearer galleys. The probability of anyone hitting anything from that range, especially with pre-Merlin artillery, was as close to nonexistent as anything Cayleb could think of. He couldn't even see the splashes where most of the round shot—which had to be aimed at
Dreadnought
—hit the water.

He pondered the situation for a moment longer, then shrugged. The plan he and Staynair and Merlin had put together was the best they'd been able to come up with between them. He wasn't going to start mucking about with it simply because he had a bad case of first-battle nerves.

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.