By Schism Rent Asunder (66 page)

He let his voice trail off, and the smiles he and his first officer exchanged would have done credit to their ship's namesake.

*   *   *

“Sail ho!”

Hauwyrd Mahkneel looked up sharply at the lookout's announcement.

“Five sail—no, at least
seven
sail—bearing nor'-nor'west!”

“Seven?” The captain shook his head.
“Seven?”

“Something must have gone wrong, Sir.” Mahkneel hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud until Lieutenant Gahrmyn responded to him. He turned and looked at the other man, and Gahrmyn shrugged. “I don't know what it might have been, Sir, but obviously something did. If I had to guess, I'd wager something tipped Sir Vyk's hand early and these are the ones who managed to make sail and avoid the boat parties.”

Mahkneel grunted. Gahrmyn's explanation was almost certainly the right one, but that didn't help him very much. Seven ships would be almost a quarter of the total number of Charisian galleons in Ferayd when
Arrowhead
departed for her part in this operation, and he had exactly one galley with which to stop them.

And if
any
of them get away, someone's going to want
my
arse fried on a spit, and never mind the fact that I can only intercept one of them at a time!

“Clear for action, Master Gahrmyn,” he said crisply.

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

Gahrmyn touched his shoulder in salute, turned away, and began shouting orders of his own. Bosuns' whistles blew, the deep-voiced drums began to roll, and feet pattered wildly as
Arrowhead
's crew responded to the summons to battle.

“Deck, there! I can see at least
nine
of 'em now!” the lookout shouted, and Mahkneel grimaced.

The numbers weren't getting any better, but at least these were merchant ships, not war galleons.
Arrowhead
's broadside armament might be little more than a joke compared to what King Cayleb's galleons were reported to mount, but eight falcons, each throwing an eight-pound shot, ought to be sufficient to deal with any mere merchantman. And if it wasn't, the forecastle's chase armament—one fifty-pound doomwhale and a flanking pair of thirty-pounder krakens, mounted to fire straight ahead—certainly would. The problem wasn't whether or not he could stop any galleon with which he managed to come to grips, but the fact that he didn't see any way a single galley could “come to grips” with
nine
of them before most of them, at least, sailed right past him.

Well, the
Writ
says Langhorne knows when a man's done the best he can. I'm just going to have to hope Mother Church and the King are equally understanding
.

“Do you want to use the chase guns or the falcons, Sir?” Lieutenant Gahrmyn asked.

“A single shot from the doomwhale would turn one of these people inside out,” Mahkneel said.

“Yes, Sir. I know.”

“On the other hand.…”

Mahkneel rubbed his chin thoughtfully. What he'd just said to Gahrmyn was undoubtedly true. The chasers were far more gun than would be needed to stop any merchantman ever built … but they would certainly be more impressive than his falcons. And he could use the chase armament to plug away at them from astern if they decided to keep running, as well. Under these sea conditions, his gunners' accuracy wouldn't be anything to brag about. In fact, they'd be lucky to hit their target at all at any range much above sixty or seventy yards. But they might
get
lucky, and even if they didn't, merchant seamen faced with the prospect of fifty-pound shot pitching into their hulls might just decide against tempting fate.

“Have the Gunner go ahead and load the chasers,” he said after a moment. “And tell him I'll want the warning shot fired from the doomwhale.” Gahrmyn's eyebrows rose, and Mahkneel chuckled sourly. “I don't much like heretics, Rahnyld, but I'd just as soon not kill anyone I don't have to. And if
you
were a merchant seaman, how would you feel about having a doomwhale fired across your bow?”

“Actually, Sir,” the first lieutenant said with the first genuine smile Mahkneel had seen out of him since they'd received their orders, “I think that after I got done pissing myself, I'd probably strike my colors as quickly as humanly possible!”

*   *   *

“What do you think he's going to do, Sir?” Kevyn Edwyrds asked quietly as the Delferahkan galley came plowing through the strengthening whitecaps towards them.

The low-slung galley was making heavier going of it than the galleons, but there was an undeniable rakish gracefulness to her, compared to the high-sided, round-bowed galleons. She was a coastal design, far smaller and with a much shallower draft than any Charisian galley. She couldn't have displaced much more than a third of
Kraken
's thousand tons, and she had much lower and sleeker castles fore and aft than a Charisian galley would have shown. That smaller size made her faster under oars in calm conditions, but it also left her at a greater disadvantage in a seaway. Bursts of spray exploded over her sharply raked bow, and green water swept back on either side to cream whitely over the angularity of her rowing frame. It must, Fyshyr thought, be … lively aboard her. Which wasn't going to do a thing for her gunnery.

“From the looks of things, he's planning to put a shot across our bows from one of the chasers,” the captain said out loud. “If he fires at anything over a hundred yards, we'd be safer if he were shooting
at
us, I think.”

“He might just get lucky, Sir.”

“He might. Still, I'm thinking he'll probably want to get closer than that before he fires the first shot. It's going to take him a good ten minutes to reload an old-style gun under these conditions, maybe longer. So, if he fires one shot—probably from the main chase, although he
might
use one of the flankers—and we don't stop, he'll want to be close enough to make sure he's got at least a decent chance of hitting us with the other two.”

“So how do you want to handle it, Sir?”

Fyshyr kept his eyes on the oncoming galley while he considered Edwyrds' question.
Kraken
's carronades were loaded and ready, although her camouflaged gun ports were still closed. The question in his mind was whether or not that camouflage would hold up.

Part of him was tempted to fire as soon as the galley entered his effective range. Which, he admitted to himself, wasn't going to be much above a hundred yards, maximum, under these conditions even for his gunners. But in order to fire, they'd have to open the ports and run out the guns, and that was going to take at least a few seconds. Long enough for an alert galley's gun crews to get off their own shots first. Of course, there was always the question of just how accurate and
effective
those shots might be, especially if they were rushed, wasn't there? Still.…

“We'll hold our course for now,” he said. “If we can, I want to encourage him to waste at least one of the shots from those chasers of his.”

*   *   *

Mahkneel glowered at the untidy gaggle of galleons.

They showed no sign of stopping, despite the fact that only a drooling idiot could have misunderstood his own intentions, but at least they hadn't done the one thing he'd been most afraid of. If they'd scattered, tried to evade
Arrowhead
independently, the galley could never have caught more than one or two of them at most, under these conditions. But they hadn't done that. Instead, they'd stayed huddled together like frightened sheep, which suited him just fine.

“That one, I think,” he said to Gahrmyn, pointing at the leading galleon. It was bigger than most of the others, and it had drawn a good quarter mile in front of its fellows. And while the others were crowding up to windward, staying as far from
Arrowhead
as they could, the leader had actually fallen off the wind a bit, which was going to bring him closer to Mahkneel's guns.

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

The lieutenant saluted, then made his way forward to personally pass the word to the gunner, and Mahkneel nodded in satisfaction. That sort of thoroughness was typical of Gahrmyn.

*   *   *

“That's right,” Fyshyr half crooned to himself, watching the Delferahkan closing on
Kraken
. “Just a
little
closer.…”

*   *   *

“Very well, Master Gahrmyn!” Mahkneel shouted through his leather speaking trumpet.

The first lieutenant straightened from where he'd been personally peering along the barrel of the massive, four-and-a-half-ton doomwhale in the open-backed forecastle. He didn't reply to Mahkneel's order, except to wave one hand in acknowledgment, then nod to the gun captain.

The gun captain bent over the breach of his weapon for a moment, checking its sighting for himself, then stepped aside and pressed the red-hot iron in his right hand to the primed venthole. Smoke flashed upward from the priming, and then the massive gun spewed fire and smoke as it went leaping back along the deck on its wheelless timber mounting. The shock of recoil slammed the soles of Mahkneel's feet, transmitted through
Arrowhead
's deck planking as the breeching tackle snubbed the gun's movement, and the white fountain as the round shot plowed into the water well over a hundred yards beyond the galleon was visible despite the whitecaps.

And
now
what are you going to do, my fine heretical friend?
the captain thought sardonically.

*   *   *

“Well, that was certainly unfriendly,” Hairys Fyshyr murmured. Then he raised his voice.

“
Now
, Master Edwyrds,” he shouted.

*   *   *

Mahkneel was looking straight at the Charisian galleon. Even so, it took him two or three precious heartbeats to realize what he was seeing as the gun port lids, carefully painted to match the rest of the galleon's hull, opened abruptly. They rose as if they'd been snatched up by a single hand, and the short-snouted carronades thrust out of the sudden openings.

He opened his mouth, but Gahrmyn had seen it as well. The first lieutenant needed no orders, and
Arrowhead
's flank chasers bellowed almost as one. In fact, they fired too soon, while the bow was rising, and both of them went high. One of them missed entirely, and even though the other smashed into the Charisian's hull, it hit too far up her side to be effective. It tore a round, splinter-fringed hole through the bulwark, but then it continued onward on an upward trajectory to plunge into the sea far beyond the galleon without inflicting any further damage.

Arrowhead
was less fortunate.

*   *   *

Kraken
's deck bucked as twelve tons of carronades recoiled in a single, brutal bellow. Smoke billowed, momentarily blinding, despite the brisk wind. Then it was snatched away, rolling downwind like a shredding bank of fog, and Fyshyr bared his teeth as he saw the galley once again.

*   *   *

“Hard a port!
Hard a port!
” Mahkneel shouted, fighting to get
Arrowhead
round so her own broadside armament would bear while the forward gunners reloaded. Unfortunately, the galley had scarcely begun to answer the helm before the Charisian fired.

Despite their relatively narrow target, despite the fact that both their target and the deck beneath them were moving, and despite the shot which had already hammered into their own ship, the Charisian gunners made no mistake. At least eight round shot, each of them as heavy as either of
Arrowhead
's flank chasers could have fired, crashed into the galley's bow.

Men shrieked as the heavy shot plowed aft, killing and maiming anyone in their paths. One struck the starboard rowing frame, ripping lengthwise along it and cutting off sweeps like a scythe reaping wheat. Two more screamed down the oardeck itself, accompanied by lethal showers of splinters, and
Arrowhead
staggered as the intricately coordinated choreography of her rowers was brutally interrupted.

More iron swept aft at the upper deck level, punching completely through the forecastle, exploding out its open back like demons, and carving their own paths of carnage through the deckhands and the Marines waiting for orders to board the fat, helpless galleon after its surrender. One shot crashed directly into the timber bed carriage of the starboard chase flanker, dismounting the weapon and killing almost its entire crew, and yet another slammed into the capstan and sprayed a fan of splinters and bits of iron across the deck.

“Get her around!”
Mahkneel bellowed at his helmsman, and the helm went hard over. Despite the wild, flailing confusion of her starboard oars,
Arrowhead
retained enough momentum to respond, and the galley swept around, fighting to bring her port falcons to bear.

That was when Hauwyrd Mahkneel discovered that the preposterous reports about how quickly Charisian artillery could fire weren't preposterous, after all.

*   *   *

“Yes!”
Hairys Fyshyr shouted as his second broadside crashed into the Delferahkan. His gun crews knew how urgent speed was, but they were taking time to aim, as well, firing on the downroll so that every shot hammered into their target's hull, and another storm of iron smashed into the galley.

Arrowhead
was more heavily built than
Kraken
, but not nearly so heavily as a Charisian galley, and her turn had exposed her side instead of her narrow beam, giving
Kraken
's gunners a longer, bigger target. The heavy round shot smashed into her timbers, shattering and splintering, killing and maiming, and he could hear the screams of wounded and dying men as the galley's momentum carried her still closer.