"Sheet home the topgallants!" Manthyr commanded.
"Sheet home!" the officer in charge of each mast echoed.
"Ease the buntlines and clewlines!" the pinrail captains commanded, and the topgallant sails fell like vast curtains, billowing above the already drawing topsails as the powerful wind filled them.
"Haul around on the sheets!"
Dreadnought leaned harder to the press of her increased canvas as her topgallants were braced round. She drove across the beam sea in sharp, white explosions of spray, and her starboard gunports dipped closer to the water. But the same increased angle of heel lifted her weather gunports higher, and she bore down upon the galleys ahead of her like a stooping hawk.
A final broadside from her starboard guns slammed into the galley to leeward, and Cayleb looked astern. Destroyer was setting her own topgallants to match the flagship, and beyond her, above the billows of smoke as she fired into the same hapless galley, he could see more canvas blossoming from the other ships in his column.
He glanced at Merlin with a tight, kraken-like grin, then turned back to the south as Captain Manthyr altered course very slightly to bring his port guns to bear upon yet another Dohlaran galley.
* * *
Gahvyn Mahrtyn, Baron White Ford, stood like a statue atop King Gorjah II's aftercastle. Captain Kaillee stood beside him, and both of them stared up to the north. The Tarotisian galleys had been leading the combined fleet, and King Gorjah II was near the head of the entire formation. White Ford was too far south to see clearly what was happening, but his lookouts left him in little doubt of the totality of the disaster.
"How did they do it, My Lord?" Kaillee muttered beside him, and the baron shrugged.
"I have no idea, Zhilbert," he admitted candidly. "But how they did it doesn't really matter at the moment, does it?"
"No, My Lord," Kaillee agreed grimly, and turned to look at his admiral.
White Ford continued gazing northward. The wind carried the intermittent rumble of the heavy cannonade to him, and the sound was growing both steadier and louder as it drew closer. His lookouts had reported "many" galleons, but he was quite certain they hadn't seen all of them yet. If Haarahld of Charis had run the insane risk of sending any of his galleons this far from Rock Shoal Bay, he would have sent all of them. And just from the weight of fire White Ford could hear, they had to be steadily reducing the Dohlaran ships astern of him to wreckage.
He looked up at the sky. The sun had moved well to the west of noon, and the clouds which had hovered on the eastern horizon earlier in the day were sweeping steadily-and rapidly-closer. Indeed, their outriders were already overhead. More rain, he thought. Soon. And judging by how quickly it was coming on, the wind was going to increase still further, as well.
He turned and looked to the west. Crag Hook, the finger of rocky cliffs reaching out to the southwest to shelter Crag Reach, was broad on his starboard beam, and he felt a deep, burning temptation to alter course. If he passed between Crag Hook and Opal Island into the sheltered waters of the reach, his ships would be protected from the weather rolling in from the west. And in those sheltered waters, they'd be able to maneuver under oars, able-in theory, at least-to give a better account of themselves against the vengefully pursuing galleons.
But . . .
"We'll hold our course," he said, responding to Kaillee's unasked question. "And we'll shake out a reef, as well."
Protest hovered behind the flag captain's eyes, and White Ford's bark of laughter was harsh.
"It's tempting," he admitted, waving his right arm at the passage into Crag Reach. "It's very tempting, and I know I'm risking the ship by increasing sail in this wind. But if we take shelter in the reach, they'll either come straight in after us or else hover off Opal Island to keep us penned up like sheep until they're ready to attack. And when they do, those guns of theirs will chop us up for kraken bait."
Kaillee looked rebellious, and White Ford shook his head.
"I know what you're thinking, Zhilbert, but listen to that." The wind brought the thunder of cannon to them more clearly, and the baron grimaced. "They don't just have more guns; they're firing them much more rapidly, as well. It's the only explanation for how they can be producing that much fire. And"-he smiled grimly-"it also explains why they were putting so many guns aboard galleons in the first place, doesn't it?"
"Yes, My Lord. I suppose it does."
Kaillee's look of rebellion faded, but one of deep concern remained, and White Ford understood perfectly. They were still almost two hundred and fifty miles north of Cape Ruin, and there was no protected anchorage between Crag Reach and Demon Bay.
"I imagine we're going to lose some more galleys, if the wind makes up the way it looks like it's going to," the baron said unflinchingly. "But bad weather will make it harder for them to run any more of us down, and we'll have a better chance against the sea than we will against that."
He jerked his head back to the north, and finally, slowly, his flag captain nodded not just in acceptance, but in agreement.
"Yes, My Lord," he said.
"Good, Zhilbert." White Ford laid one hand lightly on Kaillee's shoulder, then inhaled deeply. "And make a signal to all ships in company to make more sail, as well."
IV
HMS Dreadnought,
Off Armageddon Reef
"Secure the guns, Captain," Crown Prince Cayleb said.
"Aye, aye, Sir," Captain Manthyr replied. "Master Sahdlyr, secure the guns."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Lieutenant Bynzhamyn Sahdlyr was Dreadnought's second lieutenant, but he was acting as first. Lieutenant Gyrard was among the ship's nineteen wounded.
All along the ship, bone-weary seamen ran the guns in one last time, cautious with their two-ton charges on the pitching deck. Handspikes under the cascabels heaved up, depressing the guns' muzzles until the loaded round shot rolled out onto the deck, pushing the wads before them. Then hook-headed staffs were used to extract the powder cartridges before the guns were wormed to scrub away the worst of the built-up powder fouling and vent holes were thoroughly cleaned. Gun captains inspected the pieces carefully, then tampions and vent aprons were replaced and they were hauled back up to the closed gunports and secured for sea.
While the guns crews worked, Cayleb strode to the taffrail and looked astern. Destroyer still forged along in Dreadnought's wake. She'd fallen farther astern-at six hundred yards, the interval between them had grown to twice what it had been at the start of the action-but she was making up the lost ground steadily.
It was hard to make out very much beyond her. The setting sun was invisible beyond the thick cloud cover, foam was beginning to blow in streaks, and what had begun as gusting showers of rain was turning into a steady downpour. The sails of Destroyer's next astern were dimly visible through the rain and spray, but the ship herself was impossible for Cayleb to identify, and he couldn't see the other ships of his column at all.
The crown prince turned his head as Merlin stepped up beside him. Lieutenant Falkhan stood between them and the rest of the quarterdeck, affording them privacy and serving as a discreet suggestion to others that they should do the same.
"Are they all still back there?" Cayleb asked. He had to raise his voice to a near shout to carry through the tumult of rain, wind, creaking timbers, and waves.
"Not quite." Merlin raised his own voice as he gazed out into the darkening rain. But his eyes were unfocused as he studied not Destroyer, but the overhead imagery Owl was feeding him from his SNARC. "The column's not as neat as it was. Dagger and Dreadful are sailing almost abreast, and most of the ships have changed their relative positions. All of them left the line at some point to deal with a cripple or someone trying to run, and Damsel and Torrent never managed to rejoin-they're making for Samuel Island-but we didn't lose any of them. The other twelve all got back into formation somehow, and they're still back there."
"I can hardly believe it," Cayleb confessed. He turned to look forward along Dreadnought's decks. "I mean, I knew the new guns were going to give us a tremendous advantage, but still . . ."
His voice trailed off. Merlin nodded, but his expression was shadowed with more than rain and spray.
"We may not have actually lost a ship, but didn't get off scot-free," he pointed out, and it was Cayleb's turn to nod grimly.
Dreadnought herself had taken sixteen hits, nine of them from guns at least as heavy as her own. She'd been holed below the waterline twice, but the carpenter and his assistants had hammered wooden shot plugs into the holes to stop the leaks. One of her foredeck carronades had been dismounted, and most of its crew had been killed by the same hit. Another round shot had taken a bite out of her mainmast. That, fortunately, had been a glancing hit, and before he'd been wounded, Lieutenant Gyrard had "fished" the wounded portion of the mast by lashing spars into place to stiffen it, like a splint on a broken arm.
The port anchor had been shot away, as well, and there were dozens of new splices in the running rigging, not to mention holes in almost every one of her sails. But despite all that, and despite her seventeen dead and nineteen wounded, the majority cut down by flying splinters, she was in incredibly good shape.
Other galleons, Merlin knew, had been less fortunate. HMS Typhoon, from the original Experimental Squadron, in Admiral Staynair's column, had found herself running along between two particularly ably handled Tarotisian galleys. She'd hammered both of them into wrecks, but a lucky hit from their own artillery had cut her mainmast no more than a dozen feet above the deck. Worse, the collapsing mast had fallen across the Tarotisian to leeward, and the surviving members of the galleon's crew had stormed across the tangle of fallen spars in a desperate boarding attempt.
It had failed, amid horrendous casualties, inflicted in no small part by the flintlock muskets and bayonets of Typhoon's eighty Marines. But it had inflicted even more losses on Typhoon's company, as well. The galleon's total casualties amounted to over two hundred, better than half her total ship's company, and she'd lost contact with the rest of Staynair's column. But Captain Stywyrt was still on his feet, despite having suffered a minor wound of his own during the boarding attempt, and he had the situation under control. Despite the damage to her masts and rigging, she was still seaworthy, and he was conning her carefully through the rain and steadily rising wind towards the prearranged rendezvous off Samuel Island where the two supply ships awaited the rest of the fleet.
Very few of Cayleb's ships were undamaged, but none of the others had been as badly hurt as Typhoon. In fact, Dreadnought's damages were worse than most, probably because she'd been at the head of her column.
"What can you tell me about Domynyk and the other side?" Cayleb asked, leaning closer, until their heads were only inches apart.
He still had to raise his voice to be heard through the noise of wind and sea, but not even Ahrnahld Falkhan could have overheard him, and this time Merlin turned his head to look at him levelly. He raised one eyebrow, and Cayleb showed his teeth in a tight grin.
"It's a bit late for either of us to be pretending you need to withdraw to your quarters and meditate, Merlin," he said, eyes flickering with humor.
"All right," Merlin agreed, then stroked one of his mustachios thoughtfully for a moment.
"Traveler and Summer Moon are waiting at the rendezvous with Intrepid," he said, beginning with the supply ships and their escorting schooner. "All the other schooners are still in good shape, but they're worrying more about the weather than anything else right now. I imagine most of them will make for Samuel Island, too, as soon as they can.
"Domynyk's column is pretty much intact. Typhoon, Thunderbolt, and Maelstrom have all gotten separated from his formation-they're proceeding independently to Samuel Island, like Damsel and Torrent-but the others are still in company with him. Domynyk himself is still in action with the trailers from White Ford's formation, but I think at least ten or twelve of the Tarotisians are going to evade him in this stuff," he waved an arm at the weather. "White Ford's leading them, and he's driving them awfully hard for these conditions. He's also well past Cape Ruin. I think he's making for Dexter Point at the moment, but whether he's thinking in terms of Demon Reach or continuing to run I couldn't say.
"There're another five or six galleys to the east," he continued, gesturing at the almost pitch-dark eastern horizon, and his expression was grim. "Two of them are pretty badly damaged; I don't think they'll survive the night. The others may, but two of them are Dohlarans, and they're already in trouble."
He paused for a moment, staring off into the darkness where the men crewing those galleys fought for their lives against the hunger of the sea beyond even the sight of his eyes, then looked back at Cayleb.
"Earl Thirsk's in command of what's left," he said. "He's got about sixty galleys and all the remaining store ships, and he's rounding Crag Hook right this minute. He'll be safely anchored in Crag Reach within another two or three hours."
"I see."
Cayleb frowned, staring at nothing while he considered what Merlin had told him. He stayed that way for several seconds, then looked back at Merlin.
"What's our own current position?" he asked.
"So, now I'm your navigator, as well, am I?" Merlin retorted with a smile.
"When a wizard-or a seijin-appears to offer you his services, you might as well take full advantage of them," Cayleb replied with another of those tight grins.
"Well, for your information, we're about thirty-three miles south-southeast of the northern tip of Opal Island."
"And is Thirsk anchoring behind Crag Hook or in the lee of Opal?"
"Behind Crag Hook," Merlin replied.
Cayleb nodded again, obviously thinking hard, then grimaced.
"I can't remember the chart well enough," he admitted. "Could we make the passage between Opal and Crag Hook from here in a single tack?"
It was Merlin's turn to frown as he studied the satellite imagery relayed to him from the overhead SNARC.
