It was exactly what Merlin had wanted, although he'd never wanted it this soon, before he-and Charis-had had time to prepare for it. But Nimue Alban had been a student of military history, and so, unlike the Group of Four, Merlin did know what all-out religious war could be like, and as he listened to that hard, powerful "Amen!" and joined his own to it, the heart he no longer had was cold within him.
Cayleb turned his head, surveying his flagship one last time. The decks had been sanded for traction. The guns had already been run in, loaded with round shot and a charge of grape, and run back out. Marines, armed with the new muskets and bayonets, were positioned along the spar deck hammock nettings and in the fighting tops, along with sailors manning the swivel guns Safeholdians called "wolves" which were mounted there. Buckets of sand and water for firefighting, should it prove necessary. Boat chocks, empty where the boats had been swayed out to tow astern. Above the deck, the rigging and sails stood in sharp, geometric patterns, capturing the power of the wind itself. And below decks, Merlin knew, as he watched one of the younger midshipmen swallow hard, the healers and surgeons waited with their knives and saws.
"Very well, Captain Manthyr," Cayleb said finally, deliberately raising his voice for others to hear as he turned to his flag captain. "Please hoist that signal for me."
"Aye, aye, Your Majesty!" Manthyr replied crisply, and nodded to Midshipman Kohrby. "Hoist the signal, if you please, Master Kohrby."
"Aye, aye, Sir!" Kohrby saluted, then turned to issue sharp, clear orders of his own to the signal party.
The hoist rose quickly to the yardarm just as the rising sun, with perfect timing, heaved itself over the cloud-girt eastern horizon. It illuminated the signal flags in rich, golden light, and a huge, hungry cheer went up from Dreadnought's company. Few of them could read that signal hoist, but all of them had been told what it said, and Merlin's lips twitched under his mustachios.
If I'm the only person on this entire planet who remembers any of Old Earth's history, he thought, I might as well go ahead and crib all the good lines I can think of!
Cayleb had loved the message when Merlin had suggested it to him last night, following Staynair's departure.
"Charis expects that every man will do his duty," those flags said, and as the rising sun picked out the signal, Merlin heard Dreadnought's cheer echoing wildly from her next astern, frayed by the wind but powerful.
Cayleb turned to him with a smile.
"Well, you were certainly right about that," he said. "In fact, I-"
"Sail ho!" The shout from the lookout echoed down.
"Enemy in sight!"
* * *
Earl Thirsk heaved himself up into Gorath Bay's crow's-nest, panting from the exhausting climb up the ratlines. He was too old-and too out of shape-for that sort of exertion these days, but he had to see this for himself.
He settled his back against the vibrating tree trunk of the mast, and forced himself not to wrap one arm about something to steady himself. The galley's roll was far more pronounced this high above the deck, and the crow's-nest seemed to be swooping through an even wide arc than he knew was the case.
It's been too long since I had to climb up here, a corner of his mind thought, but it was only a very distant reflection as his own eyes confirmed the lookout's impossible reports.
The wind had freshened steadily overnight and veered around perhaps one point to the north. The waves were high enough to make rowing far worse than merely awkward, especially for the Dohlaran galleys, with their lower oarports, and shallower hulls. In fact, he knew he was driving Gorath Bay harder than was really safe under these conditions, and if he'd dared, he would have considered ordering his squadron to take a third reef to reduce sail area further.
But the one thing he couldn't possibly do was to reduce speed. Not when there was already such a gap between his squadron and Duke Malikai's flagship. King Raynahld was hull-down from Gorath Bay's deck, almost completely out of sight, and White Ford's ships were even further ahead. This was no time to let the gap between them widen . . . especially not when at least twenty-five galleons of the Royal Charisian Navy were bearing down upon the spread out, straggling "formation" of the combined fleet.
They couldn't be here. Despite the evidence of his eyes, despite the golden kraken on black flying from their mizzen peaks, his mind insisted upon repeating that disbelieving thought. Even if Haarahld had known what was coming, he couldn't possibly have predicted where to find the combined fleet! And only a madman would have sent so much of his own navy out into the middle of this vast wasteland of saltwater on some quixotic quest to find the enemy.
And yet, there they were.
The rain which had soaked the fleet all through the night had started to taper off as the overcast began breaking up shortly before dawn. There were still a few lines of showers following behind it, though, and fresh clouds were billowing up along the eastern horizon, promising still more rain by nightfall. And the earlier rainfall had reduced visibility to no more than a few miles until it cleared, which explained how those galleons could have gotten so near without being spotted.
Of course, it didn't explain how those same galleons could have known exactly where the fleet was through that same curtain of rain.
He drew a deep breath and raised his spyglass to examine the enemy.
He'd never seen sailing ships hold such precise formation. That was his first thought, as the lead ships of the two columns bearing down upon him swam into focus through the spyglass.
I've never seen that many gunports before, either, he thought a moment later as he watched them surging boldly through the whitecaps and ten-foot waves in explosions of flying spray. Obviously the rumors about how many guns the Charisians were putting aboard their galleons had been accurate. In fact, it looked as if they'd probably understated the ships' armaments.
As he continued to study them, he began picking out differences between the individual ships. At least half of them must be converted merchant ships, he decided. All of them had the new, Charisian-invented sail plans, but the conversions were smaller, although some of them seemed to have more gunports even than ships considerably bigger than they were. He was willing to bet they didn't all handle equally well, either, although there was no evidence of that yet. Still, they were approaching at least half again his own ships' speed, and they were doing it under topsails and headsails alone. It was obvious they still had speed and maneuverability in reserve . . . unlike his own laboring, foul-bottomed galleys with their single sails.
His mouth tightened at the thought. These weather conditions hugely favored the more seaworthy, more weatherly galleons. Almost worse, he knew his own stunned disbelief at seeing those ships here must be echoing through the entire fleet as the sighting reports were confirmed, demoralizing his officers and crews. The morning's prayers and exhortations from his ships' chaplains, for all the fervor with which they'd been delivered, weren't going to change that. And when those already frightened and apprehensive crews realized just how great a maneuver advantage the enemy held, their demoralization was going to get still worse.
Stop that! he told himself. Yes, it's going to be bad. Accept that. But you've still got over a hundred and fifty ships against no more than thirty! That's an advantage of five-to-one!
He nodded sharply, crisply, and lowered his spyglass, then swung down from the crow's-nest and started clambering back down the ratlines to the deck. All the way down, he repeated the numbers to himself, over and over again.
It didn't help.
His feet finally touched the deck, and he handed the spyglass to a white-faced midshipman, then walked gravely, calmly, across to Captain Maikel.
"There are twenty-five or thirty of them," he said levelly, waving one hand in the direction of the clutter of topsails appearing against the blue-patched, shredding gray rain clouds to the northeast. "They're formed in two columns. It looks to me as if they're planning to cut straight through our line-such as it is, and what there is of it"-his mouth twitched in a smile which held at least a ghost of genuine humor-"and then try to chew up whatever they catch between them."
He paused, and Maikel nodded in understanding, his expression strained.
"If they hold their present course, their weather column's going to cut across our course at least five or six miles ahead of us. I suspect-" he smiled again, tightly "-that King Rahnyld's sheer size has attracted their attention and they're planning to make her their first objective. If that happens, all we can do is maintain our present heading and try to come to the Duke's aid as quickly as we can."
"Yes, My Lord," Maikel said when the earl paused once more.
"Signal the rest of the squadron to maintain course and close up on us. I know most of them won't be able to, but every little bit will help."
"At once, My Lord." Maikel nodded to Lieutenant Mathysyn. "See to it," he said.
"After that, Captain," Thirsk said, "all we can do is prepare for battle."
"Yes, My Lord." Maikel bowed, and as Thirsk walked across to the weather bulwark and gazed up to windward at those oncoming topsails, he heard the deep-throated drums booming out the call to battle.
* * *
"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 ber 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!
