A Mighty Fortress (136 page)

“Time to go below,” he said out loud. Keelhaul cocked his head, ears lifted, and whined again, louder. “No arguments,” Lock Island said more sternly. “There’s not a damn thing you can do up here. Now go with Henrai!”

Keelhaul gave him one more piteous look. Then the big dog’s ears drooped and he heaved unhappily to his feet and crossed slowly to Lieutenant Commander Tillyer, toenails clicking on the deck planks, audible even above the sound of rain drumming on the cabin skylights.

It wasn’t really a lieutenant commander’s job to take a pet below for safety, but Keelhaul and Tillyer were old friends. The dog was a lot more likely to actually go—and, even more importantly, to
stay
— if Tillyer saw to his incarceration in the bosun’s storeroom well below
Ahrmahk
’s waterline. Given how hard it was to actually sink a wooden warship, that was one of the safest places in the entire ship, and Lock Island felt grateful it was so as Keelhaul gave him one more reproachful, over- the- shoulder glance, sighed heavily, and followed Tillyer out of the cabin.

“I trust the High Admiral won’t take this wrongly, but it’s always reassuring to see the way all about you leap instantly to obey your commands.”

Lock Island turned, cocking his head at Sylmahn Baikyr, his flag captain. Baikyr was small, compact, dark- haired and dark- eyed, and an elegant dresser. It was said (probably accurately) that he’d spent more than a master’s mate’s yearly salary on his dress uniform.

He was also competent, smart, and as close to absolutely fearless as any man Lock Island had ever met. In fact, he reminded the high admiral a great deal of a younger version of Rayjhis Yowance.

Well, I should sure as hell
hope
he’s all those good things!
Lock Island thought with a mental snort.
The Navy’s high admiral isn’t supposed to choose flag captains by picking names out of a hat!

“I’m glad you find it reassuring, Sylmahn,” he said. “And considering how many years you’ve known Keelhaul, I’m sure you understand that getting him to do
anything
he doesn’t want to do is akin to carrying a thirty- pounder from one end of the Tellesberg waterfront to the other on your back . . . only harder.” He grimaced. “Trust me, winning that particular battle of wills is going to make kicking Harpahr’s arse look like a walk in the park!”

“I’m glad to hear it, Sir,” Baikyr said with a smile.

“Good. In that case, I’m sure you won’t mind clearing the ship for action, Captain.”

“At once, Sir!” Baikyr replied, and saluted sharply.

Normally, the urgent tattoo of drums would have sent
Ahrmahk
’s crew scurrying to action stations. Not to night, however.

Artificial sounds had an astonishing ability to carry preposterous distances across water. Wind and rain, the sound of waves, the hum of rigging, could be depended upon to deaden much of that sound, but no one was much inclined to take unnecessary chances this night. And so, aboard every one of the twenty- five Charisian galleons forging through the Stygian darkness, no drum sounded as men were sent to their stations by quiet orders.

Feet pattered across decks. Muffled thumps and bangs came from below as internal partitions were dismantled and sent down into the hold—along with furniture, paintings, officers’ wine cabinets, flag officers’ armchairs, cabin rugs. Gun trucks squeaked and rumbled as breech ropes were cast off and the massive carriages were trundled back from where they normally stood, nestled firmly against the side of the hull and lashed there. Lead aprons were removed from touchholes. Gun locks were fitted. Tompions were removed from muzzles. Rammers and worms came down from overhead racks, tubs of water were arranged between each pair of guns, buckets of sand were scattered over the decking to provide traction... and absorb blood.

Forward, the gunner issued cutlasses and boarding pikes. The newfangled pistols which had been invented for the Imperial Guard had become much more common, and now simpler, smoothbore versions were issued to senior petty officers and seamen. Wolves—the light, swivel- mounted anti- personnel weapons of choice—were issued and hauled up to the fighting tops. Carronade gunners swarmed along the upper deck, preparing their own weapons while rain bounced from the stubby barrels like freshwater spray. Until the upper- deck guns heated up, the flintlocks’ reliability would be suspect, so lengths of old-fashioned slow- match were wrapped around linstocks and placed in canvas-screened tubs where the betraying glow would be sheltered from hostile eyes and extinguishing rain, alike.

Above the decks, more hands spread protective nets to catch falling blocks and severed cordage. Other seamen rigged chain slings to support the yards. Boats which were normally stowed amidships were hoisted out, put over the side to tow astern, where they could generate no lethal splinters if they were struck by enemy shot. Below decks, surgeons laid out knives and saws, healers laid out fleming moss and ban dages, and sick-berth attendants scrubbed down the mess tables where wounded men would all too soon lie sobbing in agony.

The Charisian standard was to clear for action from a standing start, without warning, in no more than fifteen minutes. To night, it took twice that long, because there was time. Time to do it right. Time to make preparations without risking accident and injury. Time to double- check every single aspect of the process.

There was not a man aboard the flagship, or aboard any of the ships following in
Ahrmahk
’s wake, who didn’t understand exactly what they faced. Who hadn’t been told the odds, who couldn’t compute the chances of their own survival . . . or grasp what would happen if the ships invisible to them through darkness and rain were allowed to unite with the Desnairian fleet in the Gulf of Jahras.

They were experienced, most of those men. They knew the Charisian tradition. They didn’t think, didn’t merely believe, that they were the finest sea fighters in the history of the world—they
knew
they were, just as they knew what the Church of God Awaiting and the Inquisition would do to their homes and their families if they lost this war.

Bryahn Lock Island stood on his quarterdeck, feeling rain beat on his own oilskins, watching the projected map only he could see, and felt that in his men. Felt their knowledge, their fear... their determination.

“Be sure your mind is fresh enough to make the decisions worthy of the men under your command,” Domynyk Staynair had said to Cayleb Ahrmahk on another rainy night, before the Battle of Rock Point. Cayleb had told his cousin about it, and now Lock Island repeated that same sentence to himself.

“Sir, the ship is cleared for action,” Sylmahn Baikyr told him, touching the chest of his streaming oilskins in salute.

“Very well, Captain,” the high admiral said. “Be good enough to make the signal.”

“Sir! The Flag’s hoisted the signal!”

Captain Zakrai Wayst turned from a quiet conversation with the ship’s chaplain at the signal midshipman of the watch’s excited announcement.

“Has it, indeed, Master Hahlmyn?” His tone was calculated to steady the lad, and the midshipman drew a deep breath.

“Yes, Sir,” he said in a much calmer voice, and Wayst nodded.

The captain’s eyes were no longer young, but he doubted that would have made a great deal of difference. The downpour was so heavy he could barely see as far forward as the mainmast. He
might
have been able to pick out a faint glow, diffused across the plunging raindrops, from
Ahrmahk
’s big stern lanterns, shaded to be invisible from anywhere but astern, yet he wouldn’t have bet money on it. And he for damned sure couldn’t see the three red lanterns hoisted to the flagship’s mizzen yard.

But young Hahlmyn was a reliable lad, and Wayst was prepared to take his word for it.

“Have you acknowledged, Master Hahlmyn?”

“Aye, Sir! One red lantern at the fore topsail yard.”

“Very well, then. Repeat the signal to our next astern, if you please.”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

One by one, down the entire length of that rain- lashed line of galleons, the red lanterns rose. Their gleam was all but lost in the darkness and rain, but sharp-eyed lookouts had been awaiting them for hours. Ship by ship, they were sighted and acknowledged. It took time—a seeming eternity as Bryahn Lock Island waited on his quarterdeck at the head of that long column—but eventually Baikyr’s signal lieutenant saluted.

“
Darcos Sound
has hauled down her lantern, High Admiral.”

“Good,” Lock Island said calmly.

Zakrai Wayst could be something of a fussbud get, and there was no denying he had a pompous streak at least two feet wide, but he was as steady and reliable as a rock, and the man who could frighten him had yet to be born. That was why he commanded
Darcos Sound,
the second ship in Lock Island’s line. The lowering of the lantern from
Darcos Sound
’s fore topsail yardarm was the signal that Wayst’s own next astern—HMS
Daffodil—
had just lowered
her
forward lantern. There’d been simpler and faster ways to pass that information—indeed, both
Ahrmahk
and Rock Point’s flagship,
Destroyer,
were equipped to use those other ways, when the time came—but not yet. They were too... energetic. Too indiscreet. Still,
Darcos Sound
’s lowered lantern showed everyone astern of her had done the same thing, indicating receipt of
Ahrmahk
’s signal to prepare for battle.

As it happened, Lock Island knew that. He’d watched through the remotes Owl had deployed to smother the area.

This must’ve been driving Merlin crazy ever since he got here,
the high admiral thought now.
He’s been able to see so much—
know
so much—almost instantly, and he’s
still
had to rely on signal flags and lanterns and the speed of mounted couriers because no one
else
could see it. And, of course, because he couldn’t afford for his abilities to be labeled “demonic.”

“In that case, Captain Baikyr,” he said out loud, turning once more to face his flag captain in the pounding rain, “I believe it’s time we were about it.”