Off Armageddon Reef (93 page)

“Do you think they've spotted us yet, Your Highness?” Falkhan asked, and the crown prince sobered.

“If they haven't yet, they will shortly,” he said, rather more grimly, and Falkhan nodded.

Cayleb's galleons were formed into a single column this time, forging ahead with all sail set to the topgallants, and headed almost exactly southeast-by-east on the port tack.
Dreadnought
led the column, and the sails of the closest of Black Water's galleys were clearly visible from deck level against the steadily brightening sky to the east.

“We've still got a minute or two, I think,” Merlin said quietly. “The sky's still dark behind us. But you're right, Cayleb. They're going to pick us up any minute now.”

“Be ready with those signals, Gwylym,” Cayleb said over his shoulder.

“Aye, aye, Your Highness,” Captain Manthyr replied, and glanced at Midshipman Kohrby's signal party.

The lookout in the Emerald Navy galley
Black Prince
stretched and yawned. His relief in the crow's-nest was due in another half-hour or so, and he looked forward to breakfast and some hammock time.

He finished stretching and turned, making a leisurely visual sweep as the sky in the east turned pale-cream and salmon colored. A few wisps of cloud were high enough to the north and west to pick up some of the color, standing out like misty golden banners against a sky of graying velvet, still pricked by stars.

He started to turn back to the east, then paused as something caught his eye. He frowned, peering more intently to the northwest. He was looking almost into the eye of the wind, and his own eyes watered slightly. He rubbed them in irritation and looked again.

His heart seemed to stop. For an instant, all he could do was stare incredulously at the impossible sight as the steadying light from behind him turned gray, weather-stained canvas briefly into polished pewter. Then he found his voice.

“Sail ho!” he screamed. “
Sail ho!
”

“Well, they've seen us,” Merlin commented quietly to Cayleb as the nearest ship, the rearmost galley in the Northern Force's westernmost column, flying the red and gold standard of Emerald, turned suddenly into a kicked ants' nest of furious activity.

He didn't need his SNARC's overhead imagery to see it, either. He could scarcely believe how close Cayleb had managed to get, although he knew Cayleb himself was more than a little frustrated.

The crown prince was running well over two hours behind his own original ambitious schedule. He'd hoped to overtake Black Water's fleet before dawn, announcing his arrival only with the first broadsides, delivered from total darkness. But even with perfect information on the relative positions of the two fleets, he'd been unable to allow properly for vagaries of wind and current.

His irritation at the delay was probably a bit more evident than he fondly believed it was, Merlin thought with a grin. For all he'd already accomplished, there were times when Crown Prince Cayleb was very young.

Fortunately, he'd allowed for at least some slippage in his original timing, and the weariness of the enemy's lookout, coupled with the poorer visibility to the west, had allowed
Dreadnought
to get to within less than six miles before being spotted. Black Water's nearer two columns were hull-up, clearly visible from
Dreadnought
's deck, although no one else could see them quite as clearly as
he
could.

“Hoist the signal, Captain!” Cayleb snapped.

“Aye, aye, Your Highness! Master Kohrby,
if
you please!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

The colorful flags rose to
Dreadnought
's yardarm, streaming out in the wind, repeated by the schooners stationed up to windward of the galleons' battle line, and a hungry cheer went up from Cayleb's men.

“Number One hoisted, Sir!” Kohrby reported. “Engage the enemy!”

King Haarahld was half-finished dressing when the pager on his forearm vibrated yet again. This time there were three pulses, and he raised his voice in a shout to his cabin sentry.

“Charlz!”

The door flew open instantly, and Sergeant Gahrdaner stepped through it, sword half-drawn. His eyes snapped around the cabin, seeking any threat, and then he relaxed—slightly—when he found none.

“Your Majesty?” he said.

“Pass the word for Captain Tryvythyn,” Haarahld said. “And then, get me my armor.”

Lieutenant Rholynd Mahlry spun in place, staring disbelievingly up at the crow's-nest.

“Ships on the starboard quarter!” the lookout bawled frantically. “
Many
ships on the starboard quarter!”

Mahlry stared for another heartbeat, then raced across
Black Prince
's aftercastle to stare up to windward himself. For just a moment, he saw nothing—then he saw altogether too much.

“Beat to quarters!” he shouted, watching the endless line of galleons bearing down upon his ship. “Someone wake the Captain!”

“Signal to
Gale
,” Cayleb said, eyes fixed on the rapidly nearing enemy vessels.

“Yes, Your Highness?” Kohrby asked, chalk poised over his slate.

“Engage the enemy column nearest to windward,” Cayleb said.

“Engage the enemy column nearest to windward, aye, aye, Sir!” Kohrby said, and turned to his signal party once more.

“Captain Manthyr, we'll pass astern of at least the two nearer columns, if we can.”

“Aye, aye, Your Highness.” The flag captain gazed at the nearest enemy galleys for a moment, then looked at his helmsmen. “Bring her head two points to port.”

Captain Payt Khattyr came bounding up
Black Prince
's aftercastle ladder like a hedge lizard with its tail on fire. He hadn't waited for his armor, or even to dress, and he was bare to the waist as he arrived at Mahlry's side.

“Where—?” he began urgently, then chopped the question off as he saw the galleons for himself.

“They've altered heading in the last few minutes, Sir,” Mahlry said, pointing at the lead ship. “They're edging further up to windward.”

“Steering to cut us off from home,” Khattyr muttered. Mahlry didn't know whether the comment was intended for him, or not, but he found himself nodding in grim agreement with his captain's assessment.

“Make the signal for enemy in sight,” Khattyr said.

“I already have, Sir,” Mahlry replied, and Khattyr spared him a brief glance of intense approval.

“Good man, Rholynd!”

The captain turned back to his perusal of the enemy, and his jaw tightened as he saw the lines of gunports opening and the cannon muzzles snouting out like hungry beasts.

He turned to stare south, along the line of his ship's column.
Black Prince
was the rearmost ship in the westernmost of nine columns. There were twenty galleys in her column, all of them Emeraldian, and the next two columns to eastward were also Emeraldian, with the nearer one headed by Earl Mahndyr's flagship
Triton
. The fourth column was headed by the last ten Emeraldian galleys, followed by nine Chisholmian ships. The fifth consisted of another twenty Chisholmian galleys, led by Earl Sharpfield, in
King Maikel
. Then came the sixth column, composed entirely of Corisandian ships and led by Duke Black Water in the fleet flagship. Then another column of Chisholmians, and two final columns of Corisandians.

With an interval of two hundred yards between ships, even the shortest column was over two and a half miles long, and the the interval between columns was three miles. That meant the entire formation stretched twenty-four miles from east to west…and that a masthead lookout in
Black Prince
couldn't quite see the ships in the farthest column at all.

It also meant it was going to take time for Black Water to receive word of what was happening, and even longer for him to respond to it.

“Any signal from Earl Mahndyr?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” Mahlry said tensely, and Khattyr swallowed a curse.

He looked back at the inexorably advancing Charisian galleons. They had to be making good at least ten or eleven knots in the stiff breeze, he thought, watching them lean to the press of their mountains of canvas, probably more, and they were slicing steadily eastward. In another fifteen minutes—twenty-five, at most—they were going to be squarely across
Black Prince
's stern, and the captain felt his belly tightening down into a cold, hard knot at the thought. He'd seen what
galleys
armed with the new Charisian artillery could do, and the nearest Charisian galleons had at least twenty-five guns in her broadside, four times what their galleys had mounted.