Hell's Foundations Quiver (116 page)

Like most of the officers and men serving in Baron Sarmouth's squadron—and like
all
of them actually serving aboard
Destiny
—Cahstnyr had immense faith in the baron's judgment. He'd served as the commander of
Destiny
's Marine detachment for the last two years, and Sir Dunkyn Yairley had never gotten his ship or her people into something he couldn't get them back out of again. And that didn't even consider his most recent feat. Sailing an entire squadron into exactly the right position to intercept that convoy of prisoners was an accomplishment worthy of Emperor Cayleb himself. Anyone who could pull that off had an almost unlimited line of credit where Brahdlai Cahstnyr was concerned!

But still.…

Oh, be still, Brahdlai!
he scolded himself.
If the Admiral wants to seize an island, then we'll by Langhorne seize an island. And we'll damned well
hold
it, too, if that's what he wants!

Still, it did seem a little … audacious for someone with Sarmouth's reputation for carefully calculating and planning before he committed his command to action. And exactly what might have brought him here, of all places, eluded Cahstnyr.

Well, hopefully if it “eludes”
you,
it'll do the same thing to the frigging Temple Boys!

He hoped so, although if nothing else it was certain to draw a … spirited response from the other side.

Shyan Island lay smack in the middle of the entrance to Saram Bay in the Province of Stene, the primary western anchorage of the Royal Dohlaran Navy now that the Dohlarans had lost Claw Island. Unfortunately, “smack in the middle” was a somewhat misleading term. It was almost a hundred and sixty miles from Saram Head to Cape Rhaigair. For that matter, it was seventy-five miles from Shyan Island to Shipworm Island on the other side of the Basset Channel, and the channel was sixteen miles wide at its narrowest point. Even at low water, the navigable channel was over twelve miles wide, and that meant no one was going to be forced into range of batteries on Shyan, “smack in the middle” or not, under any conceivable normal circumstances. That was why the
Dohlarans
hadn't bothered to put guns on the island.

So far as Cahstnyr could see, there was absolutely no strategic or tactical value to occupying Shyan. The forty-odd-mile-long island didn't even offer a decent anchorage or a reliable source of fresh water. The only thing seizing it was likely to accomplish was to really, really piss off the Dohlarans—and the Harchongians to whom Saram Bay and all of its islands legally belonged. And since the island lay less than two hundred and fifty miles from the city of Rhaigair, which was home to both a major Harchongese dockyard and the primary support facilities for the RDN, it was likely that they'd try to do something about it.

Maybe that's what the Baron has in mind
, the captain reflected as the launch neared the squadron flagship.
We know they got hurt pretty damned badly themselves at the Kaudzhu Narrows. Even if we hadn't already figured that out for ourselves, the people we took back from the Inquisition have confirmed it in spades. And you overheard the Baron telling Captain Lathyk they can't have
Dreadnought
back into action yet yourself, Brahdlai. So maybe what he wants is to draw them into attacking us here, without
Dreadnought
and before they get all of their own ships back into service
.

It made a sort of sense, and whether it did or not, it was up to Baron Sarmouth to decide what the squadron did, not Major Brahdlai Cahstnyr.

 

.V.

The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

“Well, your good friend Thirsk doesn't seem to be doing very well these days, does he, Allayn?”

There was a typically cutting edge in Zhaspahr Clyntahn's tone, but there were others present, and Allayn Maigwair reminded himself not to roll his eyes. Instead, he simply paused in his walk across the Courtyard of Saint Mahrys and turned to face the Grand Inquisitor. It was unusual for Clyntahn to buttonhole someone—especially another member of the Group of Four—outside his office or a council chamber, and especially not when there were other witnesses, like the dozen or so priests and upper-priests taking advantage of the morning sunlight. He usually had an ulterior motive when he did, and that was a pity, the Captain General thought. Up until that very moment he'd been rather enjoying his own walk. The early-September air had just enough bite to be bracing and the leaves were just reaching the truly spectacular point in their seasonal change. There wouldn't be many more clear, enjoyable mornings like this one and he resented the interruption. Especially since Clyntahn was clearly in one of his moods.

He wasn't the only one who'd realized that. It was amazing how quickly their departing juniors created a bubble of privacy about them, and he wondered if the loss of his audience disappointed the Grand Inquisitor.

“I've never actually met the Earl, you know, Zhaspahr.” He allowed just a hint of impatience into his own voice. “On the other hand, I'm unaware of any disastrous reports from Dohlar. Or are you still talking about the prisoner convoy?” He showed his teeth briefly. “I thought you'd instructed Kharmych and Lainyr to ‘investigate thoroughly' before you leapt to any conclusions?”

There wasn't much doubt in Maigwair's mind about the conclusions to which the Grand Inquisitor intended to leap as soon as his “thorough investigation” was out of the way, but there also wasn't a great deal he could do about it.

He'd personally read all the initial reports, and he couldn't see a great deal the convoy commander might have done differently. Zhaspahr could moan and complain about how they should have been sailing with darkened ships to conceal themselves from the Charisians, but that was a lot more than merely being wise after the fact. It was also a case of being willfully stupid. There was a reason ships sailing in company—which rather described transports sailing under escort—showed lights at night; it helped them keep track of one another and maintain station. That was hard enough to do with sailing ships in broad daylight, given the fact that every single one of them handled differently from every other one ever built, but it was hard for an escort to protect a transport when they couldn't even
find
one another! And he'd noticed that Clyntahn's Inquisition still hadn't explained exactly where all those fresh
Charisian
ships had come from, either. It seemed most likely to him that they'd sailed from Corisande, but that was only a guess at this point. And since no one had warned either Thirsk or his escort commander about the mysterious enemy reinforcements, and since Clyntahn's office had specifically approved Thirsk's plans, it seemed just a little irrational—even for him—to condemn people who'd been doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing for having done it.

Of course, the officers who'd surrendered the transports rather than sending them and all of the heretics chained aboard them to the bottom …
those
officers would have some serious explaining to do in the eyes of Clyntahn's agents inquisitor. Maigwair didn't like to think about what their decision to do the only sane thing was likely to cost them, yet he also knew he'd be unable to protect them from the Inquisition.

“I'm not talking about
that
fiasco,” Clyntahn said unpleasantly. “I'm talking about the fact that despite the ‘magnificent victory' at the Kaudzhu Narrows, he seems incapable of preventing the Shan-wei-damned heretics from doing whatever the hell they want in the Gulf of Dohlar.”

“Excuse me?” Maigwair cocked his head. “He's dispatched half of the Dohlaran Home Fleet to the Malansath Bight to drive out the heretic commerce-raiders, and I'm not aware of any reports of fresh depredations in that area. And according to the last estimates your people gave me, the heretics have at least twenty-five of their galleons—possibly as many as thirty—in the Gulf.”

Although
, he added to himself,
so far you haven't given me a single clue as to how you
came up
with that number. Frankly, I'm pretty damned sure it's only a guess, and probably not a very good one. But I sure would love to see whatever information that guess is based on. Of course, I'm only Mother Church's Captain General, aren't I? Why should
I
possibly need the best numbers available and some sort of an idea as to how reliable they might be?

“Until he's completed repairs to the ships damaged in the Kaudzhu Narrows,” he continued out loud, “his margin of superiority is dangerously thin, especially if the frigging heretics bring up another one of their ironclads before his gun founders have been able to produce new ammunition for the one Admiral Rohsail captured.” He shrugged. “Under the circumstances, it seems to me that keeping at least the eastern end of the Gulf clear of raiders and open to our commerce rather than dissipating his strength by sending detachments all over the Gulf chasing heretic squadrons—which will probably outnumber any detachment that actually catches up with them—is a reasonable and prudent policy on his part.”

“And while he's doing that, the heretics are getting ready to take Saram Bay away from him,” Clyntahn half snapped.

“Who told you that?” Maigwair demanded.

“The information came in from your own local commander! I saw the same semaphore report
you
did, damn it! The bastards are digging in on that island—what's its name? Shyan?”

“And it's doing them exactly no good,” Maigwair retorted. “Not even their guns have the range to cover the entry channel effectively, and without an ironclad of their own, they aren't going to challenge the batteries protecting the anchorage. There are almost two dozen of Brother Lynkyn's eight-inch rifles covering the approaches to Rhaigair, Zhaspahr, and six of the new ten-inch guns will be arriving there within the next three five-days.”

“Then why are they occupying it?” Clyntahn shot back.

“Probably because they hope Thirsk will do exactly what
you
seem to want him to do. The only way he could evict them would require him to send a big enough piece of his fleet off to defeat them, and they're clearly hoping for a chance to defeat a portion of his forces in isolation. On the other hand, once he's completed his repairs—and once he has the captured ironclad back in service—he'll have plenty of firepower to drive off their galleons. At which point, Shyan Island ceases to have any importance one way or the other. It's possible the heretics might think they could hold off Thirsk's fleet if they have sufficiently powerful batteries of their own on the island, but I wish to Langhorne they'd try it! There's no water on Shyan, Zhaspahr. That means they couldn't stand any lengthy sieges the way their garrison at Talisman Island can. So as soon as Thirsk is strong enough to operate freely in the western Gulf again, they'll almost certainly pull their troops off of Shyan rather than leave them there to be blockaded into surrender.”

“So you're prepared to tolerate this … this
lethargy
on his part?”

“At the moment he's doing exactly what I want him to do,” Maigwair said flatly. “If you object to the strategy, then offer me a better one and we'll debate it. I'm not a perfect strategist and I never claimed to be one, so it's entirely possible you or someone else may have thought of something I haven't. Until you bring it to my attention, though, there's not much I can do with it.”

He held Clyntahn's eyes with his own for a heartbeat or two, until the Grand Inquisitor shrugged his beefy shoulders irritably.

“I'm telling you the heretics are up to something. No doubt they're getting ready to run rings around your precious Thirsk all over again. But, no, I haven't ‘thought of something' you haven't. I'd just feel a lot happier if Thirsk and your other commanders seemed to be capable of thinking of
anything
—especially something remotely smacking of
offensive
thinking—on their own.”

He jerked a curt nod at his fellow vicar, then turned on his heel and strode away across the now deserted courtyard.

Maigwair watched him go, feeling the implicit threat in his final sentence. The problem wasn't that Maigwair and his commanders didn't have plans; it was that Clyntahn didn't like the ones they had. Unfortunately for what the Grand Inquisitor might have preferred, however, Rainbow Waters was right. They had neither the time, nor the mobility, nor the resources to launch any sort of offensive action in the northern lobe of the Republic of Siddarmark before winter shut down operations. Given that unpalatable truth, and coupled with the degree of mobility the Charisians had displayed in the winter just past, it was time to disaster-proof their positions to the greatest possible extent for the winter while preparing to resume the offensive as early next summer as weather conditions permitted.

All indications from Clyntahn's spies were that the Charisians' newest weapons went through ammunition the way a hungry dragon went through a cornfield. Those same weapons gave even relatively small Charisian formations spectacular hitting power, as Eastshare had demonstrated in Cliff Peak, but the need to keep those formations provided with adequate ammunition reserves seemed to be putting a cap on the total number of weapons they could provide. It might well be a transitory problem, but it was clearly a factor at the moment—assuming Clyntahn's spies could find their arses with both hands and a candle—and the recently confirmed report about the disastrous fire at Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's Delthak Works suggested it might persist longer than Maigwair had originally hoped it would.

In the meantime, the second wave of the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels had reached the same camps in which Rainbow Waters' men had overwintered. The Army of God training cadres who'd worked with the first wave had already begun improving the new troops' training, and they'd learned a great deal about how to go about that over the previous winter. By spring, an additional Harchongese army, three-quarters of a million strong, would be ready to take the field. They'd be short on rifles, but relatively well equipped with artillery, and another half-million or so men were being raised, trained, and equipped for the Army of God, as well. Their weapons wouldn't be as good as the heretics', but that was a situation with which Mother Church's defenders had become unfortunately accustomed to coping, and coupled with the forces already in the field, it would allow him to send the better part of three million men against Charis and Siddarmark.