A Mighty Fortress (36 page)

But when the enemy ship took the offered advantage, Mahntain would execute the instructions he’d been given earlier.
Blessed Warrior
would immediately alter course, swinging from her heading of north- northwest to one of west by north or even west- southwest, taking the wind almost dead abeam. That course would carry her directly across the Charisian ship’s bow, giving her the opportunity to rake the larger, heavier galleon from a position in which none of the Charisian’s guns could bear upon her in reply.

As soon as he’d crossed the Charisian’s course, Mahntain would come back onto his original heading... by which time (if all had gone according to plan) the Charisian and
Archangel Chihiro
would have overtaken
Blessed Warrior
. The bigger galleon would be trapped between Wailahr’s two lighter vessels, where their superior number of guns ought to prove decisive.

Of course, it’s unlikely things
will
go exactly “according to plan,”
Wailahr reminded himself.
On the other hand, even if we don’t pull it off exactly, we should still end up with the tactical advantage
.

The Charisian wouldn’t be able to turn away to prevent
Blessed Warrior
from raking her from ahead without exposing her equally vulnerable—and even more fragile—stern to
Archangel Chihiro
’s broadside. She wouldn’t have much choice but to remain broadside- to- broadside with the flagship. So unless
Archangel Chihiro
took crippling damage to her rigging in the opening broadsides, or unless someone collided with someone else, the advantage should still go to the Desnairians.

And a
collision
will work to our advantage, too,
Wailahr thought grimly. Good as the Imperial Charisian Marines were, Wailahr’s crews would outnumber the Charisians by two- to- one. A collision that let him board the larger ship and settle things with cold steel wouldn’t exactly be the worst outcome he could imagine.

Captain Yairley watched the tip of
Destiny
’s jibboom edging steadily closer to the Desnairian galleon. He could read the other ship’s name off her counter now—
Archangel Chihiro,
which didn’t leave much doubt about who she’d actually been built to serve—and even without his spyglass, he could make out individual officers and men quite clearly.

Archangel Chihiro,
despite her shorter, stubbier length, stood higher out of of the water than
Destiny
, which undoubtedly made her crankier and more leewardly. She also had less tumblehome (undoubtedly a legacy of her merchant origins), and her forecastle and aftercastle had both been cut down at least somewhat during her conversion. She’d retained enough height aft, however, for a complete poop deck, and in some ways, Yairley wished
Destiny
had possessed the same feature.
Destiny
’s helmsmen’s quarterdeck position left them completely exposed—to musketry, as well as cannon fire—whereas
Archangel Chihiro
’s wheel was located under the poop deck, where it was both concealed and protected.

As if to punctuate Yairley’s reflections, muskets began to fire from the other vessel. They were matchlocks, not flintlocks, which gave them an abysmally low rate of fire. They were also smoothbores, which wasn’t going to do any great wonders for their accuracy, although pinpoint precision wasn’t much of a factor firing from one moving ship at personnel on the deck of another moving ship. Whether or not any particular target was actually hit under those circumstances was largely a matter of chance, although it was just a bit difficult to remember that when a musket ball went humming past one’s ear.

As one had just done, a corner of his mind observed.

Marine marksmen in the fore and maintops began returning fire, and if their rifled weapons weren’t a lot more accurate under the conditions which obtained, the fact that they were armed with flintlocks, not matchlocks, at least gave them a substantially higher rate of fire. Someone screamed at one of the midship starboard carronades as one of those matchlocks did find a target, and Yairley saw a body pitch over the side of
Archangel Chihiro
’s mizzentop and smash down on the poop deck with bone- pulverizing force as one of his Marines returned the compliment.

I think we’re just about close enough, now,
he mused, and glanced at Lathyk. “Now, Master Lathyk!” he said crisply, and the first lieutenant blew his whistle.

Sir Hairahm Wailahr didn’t even turn his head as the seaman’s body crashed onto the poop deck behind him. The man had probably been dead even before he fell; he was almost certainly dead now, and it wouldn’t have been the first corpse Wailahr had ever seen. He paid no more attention to it than he did to the splinters suddenly feathering the planking around his feet as three or four Charisian musket balls thudded into the deck. The other ship’s marksmen had obviously recognized him as an officer, he noted, even if they didn’t realize exactly how rich a prize he would make. Yet it was a distant observation, one which was not allowed to penetrate below the surface of his mind. The commodore was scarcely unaware of his own mortality, but he had other things to worry about as the tip of the Charisian’s long, lance- like jibboom started to creep level with
Archangel Chihiro
’s taffrail.

Langhorne, this is going to
hurt! he told himself. The Charisian was coming even closer than he’d anticipated. It looked as if the other galleon’s captain intended to engage from a range of no more than thirty yards. At that range, not even Wailahr’s relatively inexperienced gunners were likely to miss, and he grimaced as he considered the carnage which was about to be inflicted.

But on both of us, my heretical friend,
he thought grimly.
On
both
of us
.

Another few minutes, and—

“Larboard your helm!” Sir Dunkyn Yairley snapped. “Roundly, now!”

“Helm a-lee, aye, Sir!” Chief Waigan acknowledged, and he and his assistant spun the big double- wheel’s spokes blurringly to larboard.

The motion of the wheel moved the ship’s tiller to larboard, which kicked her rudder in the opposite direction. Which, in turn, caused the ship to turn abruptly to
starboard
.

Wailahr’s eyes widened as the Charisian suddenly altered course. It was the last thing he’d expected, especially since it sent her turning
away
from
Archangel Chihiro
— turning up to windward across his flagship’s wake, and not ranging alongside to
leeward
as he’d expected. Her yards tracked around with metronome precision as her heading altered, continuing to drive her, yet she slowed drastically as her new course brought her up closer to the wind, and Wailahr’s initial surprise began to turn into a frown of confusion as he found himself looking at the Charisian galleon’s larboard gunports.

Her
closed
larboard gunports, since it was her
starboard
broadside she’d run out when she cleared for action.

“Roundly, lads!
Roundly!
” Hektor shouted down through the hatch gratings.

The admonition probably wasn’t necessary. The officers and men in charge of
Destiny
’s main armament had undoubtedly heard Lieutenant Lathyk’s whistle almost as well as the carronade gunners on the spar deck weapons. Captain Yairley wasn’t the sort to take chances on something like that, however. It was one of his fundamental principles that a competent officer did everything he could
before
the battle to minimize the chance of errors or misunderstandings. They were going to happen, anyway, once battle was fairly joined, but a
good
officer did his best to see to it there were as few as possible . . . and that they didn’t happen any earlier than they had to.

And this particular evolution presented plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong.

As the ship rounded up to windward, the seamen who’d been ostentatiously manning the weather carronades (as any wall- eyed idiot on the other ship could plainly see) turned as one and charged, obedient to Lathyk’s whistle, to the opposite side of the deck. The short, stubby carronades of the larboard battery, already loaded and primed, were run out quickly, in plenty of time, but the heavier gundeck weapons were both much more massive and far less handy.

The good news was that no one aboard
Archangel Chihiro
had been able to see
Destiny
’s gundeck. Captain Yairley had been able to send full gun crews to his larboard battery without giving away his intentions. Now the larboard gunports snapped open, gun captains shouted orders, and men grunted with explosive effort as they flung their weight onto side tackles. Gun trucks squealed like angry pigs as they rumbled across planking which had been sanded for better traction, and the long, wicked snouts of the new- model krakens thrust out of the suddenly open ports.