"I don't think so," he said after a moment, speaking just a bit more slowly. "The wind's veered too far round."
"I was afraid of that. Still, it may be for the best. The men can use the rest."
Merlin turned to face the prince squarely.
"Cayleb, you aren't thinking about going into Crag Reach after them tonight, are you?"
"That's exactly what I'm thinking," Cayleb said, and Merlin's frown deepened.
"Cayleb, you've got only thirteen ships-assuming none of the others lose contact on the way, and you're talking about threading a needle in the dark! The passage between Opal and Crag Hook is barely twenty-two miles wide; it's raining hard; night's falling; the wind's still rising; we've got sixteen-foot seas; and every depth your charts show is eight hundred years out of date!"
"Agreed," Cayleb said calmly. "On the other hand, according to the charts, the main channel's over nine miles wide and almost sixty feet deep until you're past the northern tip of the island. Things may have changed since Hastings created the original charts, but there should be enough margin to let us in."
"In the middle of a rainy night?" Merlin demanded. "Without waiting for Domynyk or any of the stragglers?"
"We'll lose at least a couple of days making rendezvous with Domynyk and then getting back into position," Cayleb pointed out.
"Which doesn't change the fact that it's going to be darker than the inside of a barrel by the time we can get there. Your lookouts won't even be able to see Crescent Island, much less avoid running into it!"
"Ah, but I have the aid of a wizard, don't I, Seijin Merlin?" Cayleb replied softly. "You can see Crescent Island, and probably Opal Island and Crag Hook, all at the same time. So Dreadnought will take the lead, and the others will follow in our wake."
"But why run the risk of having one of them go astray?" Merlin argued. "If one of our galleons goes ashore in weather like this, we'll probably lose her entire company, and Thirsk isn't going anywhere. Certainly not before daylight!"
"No, he isn't," Cayleb agreed. "But I'll tell you what he is going to be doing." Merlin raised both eyebrows, and Cayleb shrugged. "He's going to be putting springs on his anchor cables. He's going to be ferrying as many of his heavy guns as he can ashore and setting them up as shore batteries. He's going to be thinking about what we did to him, and thinking about the fact that Crag Reach is a lot better suited to his galleys than the open sea was. And he's going to be doing everything he can to offset his men's panic and shock. He's going to use every single day-every hour-we give him to make arrangements to kill as many of my men as he can when we finally attack."
"But-" Merlin began, and Cayleb shook his head.
"I know that if we wait for Domynyk, we can still destroy every ship Thirsk has, whatever he does in the meantime. But if we give him the time to prepare, we're going to lose ships of our own. Nowhere near as many as he will, I'm sure, but we'll be forced to come to him on far less favorable terms, and there's no way he'll give in without a fight-probably a nasty one, at such close quarters.
"On the other hand, if we go in tonight, while his men are still exhausted and terrified, while he himself is probably still trying to grapple with what we've already done to him, the momentum will all be on our side. His men will feel trapped and helpless, and men who feel that way are a lot more likely to simply surrender instead of fighting to the bitter end."
Merlin had started to open his mouth in fresh protest, but now he closed it. He still thought Cayleb's scheme was risky, but he had to admit the prince appeared to have adjusted quite nicely to the notion that the more-than-human abilities of his seijin-or wizard-were there to be used. And given Merlin's own capabilities, the notion of entering Crag Reach in the middle of a near gale, wasn't quite as insane as it had appeared at first glance.
Yet that wasn't what chopped off his protest. No, what did that was the realization Cayleb was right.
It wasn't really something which would have occurred to Nimue Alban, for there'd been no surrenders in the war she'd fought. There'd been only victors and the dead, and the very concept of quarter had been meaningless. Merlin had allowed for the effects of demoralization and panic on the combat capability of the enemy, but he hadn't gone the one step further and remembered that honorable surrender was a deeply enshrined part of Safeholdian warfare.
And, he admitted to himself, he'd been too concerned with the potential difficulties of simply penetrating Crag Reach to consider how terrifying a night attack in a "secure anchorage" must be. Especially on a night such as this one promised to be . . . and on the heels of the sort of nightmare day the men on the receiving end of it had just endured.
It was still a questionable decision, he reflected. It could be argued either way, and rightfully so. Yet he was coming to suspect that Cayleb Ahrmahk would always prefer the more audacious solution to almost any problem. That could be a bad thing, but only if the prince allowed his instincts to overrule his cold calculation of potential advantages and disadvantages. And despite Merlin's initial reaction, that wasn't what was happening here.
It looks like he's inheriting more than just a throne from his father, Merlin thought, remembering Haarahld's cool, calculating response to the horrendous odds against his kingdom. I wonder if there's a gene for this sort of thing?
"All right, Your Highness," he said finally, his tone rather more formal than had become the norm. "If you're determined to do this, I suppose the least your tame 'wizard' can do for you is help."
"That's the spirit!" Cayleb said, smacking him on the water-streaming backplate of his cuirass, and turned to look over his own shoulder.
"Captain Manthyr! General signal: 'Form line astern of me. Prepare for night action. Repeat to all units.' Then let's get our night lights lit and hoisted while we've still got a little daylight. After that," he bared his teeth at the flag captain, "I want you to change course."
V
Crag Reach,
Armageddon Reef
Earl Thirsk stifled a groan of pure exhaustion as he lowered himself into the chair. His belly rumbled, with a sudden sharp pang, as the aroma of the hot food his valet had managed to put together reminded him he hadn't eaten since breakfast, the better part of thirty-six hours ago.
He started to reach for his wineglass, then stopped, and his mouth twitched wryly. The last thing he needed on a completely empty stomach was wine, and he picked up a large buttered roll, instead.
He bit into it, and at that instant, it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He forced himself to chew slowly, savoring it rather than wolfing it down like a half-starved slash lizard, then swallowed with a sigh of pleasure.
He leaned forward, gathering up his fork and knife, and cut a piece of the broiled mutton on his plate. It followed the roll into his mouth, and he closed his eyes, chewing blissfully.
It was a small enough pleasure after a day like this one, he thought, and swallowed. He allowed himself a small sip of wine, and grimaced as it washed the mutton down.
He didn't know even now exactly how many ships he still had under his command. The best estimate he'd been able to put together was that there were between forty-five and eighty, including what he thought were all the surviving supply ships. That wasn't very much out of a combined fleet which had numbered over a hundred and seventy only that morning.
He forked up a steaming bite of buttered potato, although the food suddenly seemed less tasty, despite his hunger, as he contemplated the day's endless chain of disasters.
He didn't know how many of the other ships of the fleet had actually been lost, but he knew the number was high. He'd personally seen King Rahnyld's corpse-littered wreck-and the wave-washed bodies floating away from it-just before the shattered hulk rolled over and sank. He'd seen the funeral pyres of at least another dozen ships, billowing up where they'd either taken fire in the midst of combat or been set ablaze by the Charisians. He hoped the enemy had at least allowed their crews to take to any surviving boats before firing their ships behind them, but he wasn't even certain of that.
He paused a moment, then shook his head, irritated with himself.
Yes, you know they did allow the crews of at least some of their prizes to abandon first, he told himself. Hell, you've got over a hundred and ninety survivors aboard Gorath Bay, alone!
Which was true enough. But the number his own ship had picked up only underscored all of the hundreds-thousands-of other men who'd been aboard Malikai's other galleys.
He cut another piece of mutton and put it in his mouth, chewing methodically.
He'd seen nothing but sinking wrecks and blazing hulls as his flagship sailed along in the wake of the running battle. The Charisian galleons appeared to have left no surviving galleys behind them. They'd been twice as fast as his own ships, especially after they'd set their topgallants, and they'd used that speed to chase down their prey relentlessly, steadily overtaking-and sinking-every galley in their path. There'd been nothing at all he could do about that, but it was probably just as well they'd been too fast for him to catch, he told himself grimly, remembering the old story of the hunting hound who'd "caught" the slash lizard.
He shook his head again, this time in still-stunned shock. The survivors Gorath Bay had picked up had confirmed what he'd already realized. Somehow, the Charisians had figured out a way to fire heavy cannon three or four times as rapidly as anyone else in the world. He was still trying to get his mind wrapped around the consequences that implied for the art of naval war, but Prince Cayleb-and several of the survivors had identified the Charisian crown prince's flag aboard one of those deadly galleons-had delivered a brutal demonstration that those consequences would be . . . profound.
At least Thirsk had managed to get the ships still in company with Gorath Bay into the shelter of Crag Hook. Even here, behind the stony barrier of the curved headland, his flagship jerked and snubbed harshly, uneasily, at her anchor. Pelting rain drummed on the skylight overhead and ran gurgling off the decks and through the scuppers, and he could hear the wind whining in the galley's shrouds and lifting blowing spray.
The lamps swayed on their gimbals above him, flooding the familiar comfort of his great cabin with warm light, and he remembered other nights. Remembered sitting here, smoking his pipe, enjoying a cup of wine or a tankard of beer, warm and comfortable and made even more aware of it by the sound of rain or the sigh of wind.
But there was no comfort tonight. There was only the awareness that he'd won no more than a breathing space. Cayleb would deduce where he was without any difficulty. And having deduced it, he would do something about it.
From the survivors' stories, and his own observations, he doubted very much that Cayleb had lost more than one or two of his galleons, at most. The young Charisian prince had just won what was undoubtedly the greatest, most one-sided naval victory in history, and unlike Malikai, Cayleb was a seaman. The Royal Charisian Navy knew about finishing the tasks to which it set its hand, and the prince was unlikely to pass up the opportunity to make his victory complete. Within a day or two, Thirsk would see those galleons standing into Crag Reach, and when he did, it would be his turn to see his ships shot to pieces in front of his eyes.
But they won't win as cheaply against us as they did against Malikai, he promised himself.
He'd already issued orders for every galley to rig springs to their anchor cables as soon as it was daylight. The springs-hawsers led out of gunports and attached to the ships' anchor cables at one end and to their capstans at the other-would allow any of his ships to turn in place by simply winding the hawser around the capstan. It would enable them to aim their guns in any direction, which was about the best he could hope to do. His artillery still wouldn't be able to fire as quickly as Cayleb's obviously could, but Cayleb wouldn't be able to bring all of his firepower to bear simultaneously, either.
And next time, Thirsk thought grimly, what he can do to us won't come as a complete surprise, either.
He stabbed his fork into another potato and bared his teeth.
As soon as it was light, he would start putting parties ashore to find suitable spots for shore batteries, as well. It wasn't going to be easy, but he was confident he could find at least some-and given the steepness of the hillsides rising beyond the beach, probably high enough to give his guns greater reach. Once they were in place, the price Cayleb would pay for any victory would climb steeply.
It was even possible, he told himself, that if he could make the probable price high enough, Cayleb might decline to pay it. After all, he'd already shattered this prong of the allies' planned offensive, and his galleons had to represent a huge part of Charis' total naval strength. Given the choice between heavy losses in return for the destruction of an already defeated foe or returning with his own ships intact to support the rest of the Charisian Navy against the combined forces of Corisande, Emerald, and Chisholm, he might well choose the latter.
And you really want to convince yourself of that, don't you, Lywys? he told himself with a sour snort.
He swallowed yet another bite of potato, then blinked in groggy surprise as he realized it was the last bite. He'd also managed to consume the entire thick slice of mutton and the side of green peas. And, he discovered, peering into the empty bread basket, at least another three rolls.
He laughed and shook his head tiredly. Clearly, he was even more exhausted than he'd thought he was, and it was time he got some desperately needed sleep.
Things may not look any better in the morning, he thought, but at least a few hours of sleep on a full belly will leave me in better shape to deal with them.
He finished the glass of wine, stood, and stumbled off to his sleeping cabin.
VI
HMS Dreadnought,
Off Armageddon Reef
Merlin Athrawes stood in the mizzenmast ratlines, eight feet above the quarterdeck, and peered into the darkness.
