Off Armageddon Reef (55 page)

That, too, was a new innovation. Before Merlin's intervention, each gun had been primed with loose powder from the gun captain's powderhorn and, when the moment came, it had been touched off with a red-hot iron rod or a length of slow match. But burning matches and glowing irons had never been the safest things to have around loose gunpowder, especially on a narrow, pitching deck filled with moving men, so still more changes had been made.

Now the gun captains took goose quills packed with fine-grained gunpowder from the cases at their waists, and inserted them into the vents. They stripped away the wax-covered paper seals to expose the powder filling, and metal clicked as their Number Twos cocked the gunlocks. The firing mechanism was an adaptation of Merlin's “flintlock,” which was essentially identical to the lock used on the new muskets, but without a priming pan. Instead, when the striker came forward, the flint struck a milled steel surface and showered sparks over the powder-charged quill.

The entire evolution of running in, loading, and running back out took less than two minutes. Intellectually, Gray Harbor had already known it could be done that quickly with the new guns and carriages, but actually seeing it drove home the enormity of the changes about to transform naval warfare. Bringing a kraken into action on an old-style wheelless carriage, without cartridges, and with powderhorn priming, would have taken at least four times that long.

The earl stepped across to the bulwark, careful to keep well clear of the recoil paths of the lighter “carronades” which Seamount had cast specifically for the quarterdecks and fore decks of ships like
Typhoon
. They threw the same weight of shot as the rebored krakens, but they weighed less than half as much, they were less than half as long, and they required only half the crew. They also used a much lighter charge and were shorter ranged, although the care Seamount had taken in boring them out meant they—like the refurbished krakens—had substantially smaller windages than any previous artillery piece and were correspondingly more accurate across the range they did have.

Gray Harbor looked forward. The old galley
Prince Wyllym
and three equally old, worn out merchantmen had been anchored at two hundred-yard intervals in the relatively shallow water just off the Trhumahn Bank. The extensive sandbank lay far enough off the normal shipping routes to allow the Navy to train unobserved, and the water shoaled enough in its vicinity to make it practical to anchor the target vessels. Now Commodore Staynair's flagship led the other four ships of his squadron in line-ahead towards his targets under topsails, jibs, and spankers alone.

Compared to Gray Harbor's old galley command,
Typhoon
seemed to crawl under so little sail, and, in fact, despite the breeze, she was making good no more than two knots, at best, with barely a fifth of her total canvas set. But those sails were what Merlin and Seamount had designated “fighting sail”—yet
another
change from Gray Harbor's day, when galleys had struck their yards and canvas completely below before engaging.

Even at their slow, dragging pace, the ships of the meticulously dressed line were covering almost seventy yards every minute, and the waiting targets drew closer and closer. Gray Harbor was almost as impressed by the station-keeping displayed by Staynair's captains as he was by any of Merlin's innovations. In his experience, even galleys found it difficult to maintain precise formation, and sailing ships were still less prone to staying where they were supposed to be. On the other hand, by the time fleets of galleys smashed into each other for the hull-to-hull melee which resolved their battles, formation-keeping was seldom an issue any longer. That wasn't going to be the case for gun-armed galleons, and Seamount and Staynair had drilled their crews mercilessly with that in mind.

There!

Gale
drew even with
Prince Wyllym
and the early afternoon was filled with a sudden bellow of smoky thunder. Even at this range—two hundred yards astern of the flagship—the abrupt, simultaneous detonation of eighteen heavy guns was like a hammer blow across the top of Gray Harbor's head. The flagship disappeared into a sudden, dense cloud of powder smoke, and Gray Harbor's eyes widened as a hurricane of shot slammed into the anchored galley.

Splinters and broken bits of timber flew. The galley shuddered visibly as the tempest of iron blasted into it, and something deep inside Gray Harbor cringed as he visualized—or tried to—what it would have been like for
Prince Wyllym
's crew, had she had one aboard.

He knew he'd failed. He'd seen battles enough during his own Navy days, but even the heaviest galley carried no more than ten or twelve guns, of which no more than four or five could normally be brought to bear upon a single target. And broadside weapons were seldom much bigger than the three-inch piece called a “falcon,” which threw only an eight-and-a-half-pound ball. He'd seen what
single
heavy cannon balls could do, as they demolished hulls and smashed through the fragile bodies of human beings in hideous sprays of blood, torn tissue, and flying limbs. But he'd never seen what the next best thing to
twenty
of them could do in a single one of Seamount's new “broadsides.”

Gale
was a hundred and fifty yards from her target. That was long range by most naval gunnery standards, although her krakens had a theoretical maximum range of three thousand yards. The chances of actually hitting something from a moving ship's deck at anything over a quarter-mile or so were remote, to say the least, however. Indeed, most captains reserved the single salvo they were likely to have time to fire before closing for the melee until the very last moment, when they could hardly have missed if they'd tried and might hope to sweep their opponents' decks with grapeshot and wreak carnage among the other ship's boarders. The number of guns
Typhoon
and her consorts carried, coupled with their rate of fire, changed that calculation, however.

Even at the squadron's slow rate of advance, and even given its rate of fire, there was just time at this range for each gun in
Gale'
s broadside to fire twice before her own movement carried her beyond the zone in which it could be trained far enough aft to bear on
Prince Wyllym
.

The second “broadside” was a much more ragged affair as the guns fired independently, each going off as quickly as its own crew could reload and run out again. The first broadside's billowing smoke, rolling downwind towards the anchored targets, more than half-obscured the crews' line of vision, as well, yet both of those broadsides smashed home with devastating effect. The actual holes the round shot punched in the galley's hull weren't all that large, but Gray Harbor knew exactly what was happening
inside
that hull. Splinters—some of them four and five feet in length, and as much as six inches across at the base—were being blasted loose. They were scything across the ship like screaming demons which would have clawed down any unfortunate seaman in their paths.

Other shots went home higher up the galley's side, smashing down entire sections of her stout bulwarks, sending yet more lethal clouds of splinters howling across her upper deck. Commodore Staynair had thoughtfully placed straw-stuffed mannequins here and there about the target ships' decks, and Gray Harbor saw huge clouds of straw flying in the sunlight, like a golden fog bank which would have been a ghastly red under other circumstances, as splinters and round shot tore them apart.

Then
Gale
was past
Prince Wyllym
, ready to fire upon the first of the anchored merchantships, while
Typhoon
, following in the flagship's wake, approached the battered galley.

“Stand ready, Master Ahlbair. We'll fire by sections, I believe,” Captain Stywyrt said conversationally through the rumbling crash of
Gale
's last few shots.

“Stand ready to fire by sections!” Ahlbair shouted through his speaking trumpet in turn, and
Typhoon
's captain stepped up beside Gray Harbor at the bulwark as the gun captains took tension on the lanyards attached to the gunlocks. Stywyrt gazed thoughtfully at his approaching target, shoulders relaxed, eyes intent. This might be the first time
Gray Harbor
had actually seen the new weapons in action, but Stywyrt and the other members of the Experimental Squadron had been drilling with them for five-days now. The captain clearly knew what he was about, and his left hand rose slowly. He held it level with his left ear for several seconds, then brought it slashing down.

“By sections, fire as you bear!
” Ahlbair bellowed, and the forward guns thundered almost as he spoke.

Gale
had fired every gun which would bear in a single, massive broadside.
Typhoon
's guns fired in pairs, gundeck and upper deck together, as soon as the gun captains could see their target in front of their muzzles, and she mounted nineteen broadside weapons to
Gale
's eighteen. It was a long, drawn out, rumbling roll of thunder, not a single brazen bellow, and the ship's fire was even more accurate than
Gale
's had been. So far as Gray Harbor could tell, not a single shot missed, despite the range, and
Prince Wyllym
shuddered in agony as round shot after round shot smashed into her splintering timbers.

The guns themselves lurched back, wooden trucks thundering across the planking, muzzles streaming smoke and embers. The stink of burning powder clawed at Gray Harbor's nose and lungs, and he coughed, more than half-deafened despite the cotton stuffed into his ears. The deck seemed to leap up underfoot, battering the soles of his feet, and
Typhoon
twitched as each pair of guns recoiled and the breeching tackle transmitted the force of three and a half tons of recoiling bronze directly to her timbers. The thick, choking clouds of smoke turned the deck into twilight before they went rolling slowly away from the ship on the breeze.

By allowing his gunners to fire independently, as soon as they bore upon the target, Captain Stywyrt had bought them a few precious moments of extra time to reload. As in
Gale
's case, each gun crew was responsible for reloading and firing as rapidly as it could, and Gray Harbor watched them as they launched into yet another choreographed burst of chaos.

The Number Four on each gun drove home the soaking wet sponge on one end of his rammer. It slid down the bore, hissing as it quenched any lingering embers from the previous charge. The gun captain stopped the vent, pressing his thumb—protected from the heat by a thick leather thumbstall—over the vent hole to prevent air from entering the bore and fanning any embers the sponge might have missed as a fresh cartridge was rammed home, followed by another round shot and wad. Gun trucks squealed as the gun was run back out. Handspikes clattered as it was trained farther aft, priming quills went down vent holes, gunlocks cocked, the gun captains drew the firing lanyards taut, looked to be certain every member of their crews were clear of the recoil, and yanked. The flint strikers snapped down, sparks showered over the priming quills, and the guns bellowed yet again.

It was ear-stunning, a bedlam which had to be experienced to be believed, and
Prince Wyllym
's battered side began to literally cave in.

Ahead of
Typhoon
,
Gale
's broadside thundered again as she took the first of the anchored merchantmen under fire. The merchant vessel was more lightly built than the galley, and the effect of the flagship's concentrated fire was even more horrific. Gray Harbor could make out few details, thanks to the obscuring gun smoke, but he saw the target's mainmast suddenly quiver, then topple slowly over the side. Even as it toppled, he heard a crashing rumble from HMS
Tempest
,
Typhoon
's next astern, as
her
forwardmost guns came to bear on
Prince Wyllym
, and he shook his head.

Thank God Merlin is on
our
side
, he thought.

“I'm impressed,” Earl Gray Harbor said.

He, Cayleb, and Merlin stood atop the King's Harbor Citadel, looking down at the anchored ships of the Experimental Squadron in the basin below. Ahrnahld Falkhan and the rest of Cayleb's Marine bodyguards waited for them on the uppermost floor of the stone keep. It was much cooler there, for the summer sun was hot overhead, and it gave the crown prince and his companions privacy as they stood under a canvas awning that popped quietly in the breeze blowing over the fortress.

“Sir Ahlfryd told you you would be, Rayjhis,” Cayleb replied now, and Gray Harbor chuckled.

“Baron Seamount told me I would, true,” he acknowledged, and glanced at Merlin. “He also told me I shouldn't pay much attention to your efforts to give him the credit for it, Merlin.”

“I suppose there's some truth to that,” Merlin acknowledged, turning to face the earl fully. His relationship with Gray Harbor was very different from what it had been, and the first councillor raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“I did provide the original impetus,” Merlin said in response. “And I suppose many of the underlying concepts came from me, too. But I would never have had the practical knowledge and experience to put those concepts into effect without Sir Ahlfryd and Sir Dustyn. And the work on tactical formations has been almost entirely Sir Domynyk's and Sir Ahlfryd.”

Which, he reflected, was truly the case. The Royal Charisian Navy had developed a sophisticated tactical doctrine for its galleys, along with standard formations and an entire conceptual framework. As Baron Seamount had noted that very first day, however, none of those formations or tactics had been built around broadside armaments. But his navy was accustomed to thinking in terms of developed doctrine, not the sort of free-for-all brawl most other navies seemed prepared to settle for, and he and Staynair had sat down and essentially reinvented the line-of-battle tactics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the first conversion had been completed for the Experimental Squadron. They'd been practicing and refining them ever since, and Merlin was frankly awed by their accomplishments.

“As I say,” he went on, “we really needed that experience. And Cayleb's had more than a little to do with making things work, for that matter.”

“That much, I can believe,” Gray Harbor said, and smiled approvingly at his crown prince. “Cayleb's always been mad about the Navy.”

“Oh, no, he hasn't!” Cayleb said with a chuckle. “Not since you and Father sent me to sea, at any rate!” He looked at Merlin and shuddered dramatically. “There's this unfortunate tradition, here in Charis,” he explained. “For some reason, people seem to feel the heir to the throne ought to know how the Navy works, so they send him off to sea as a midshipman.
And
,” he added feelingly, “his superior officers are expressly forbidden to treat him differently from any other midshipman. I got to ‘kiss the gunner's daughter' more than once.”

“‘Kiss the gunner's daughter,' Your Highness?” Merlin repeated with raised eyebrows, and it was Gray Harbor's turn to chuckle.

“The bosun's responsible for disciplining the midshipmen,” he explained. “That means miscreants find themselves bent over one of the guns while the bosun thrashes them firmly enough even a midshipman might think twice about repeating his offense.”

“Oh, I always thought twice,” Cayleb said cheerfully. “I just went ahead and did it anyway.”

“Somehow, I find that depressingly easy to believe,” Merlin said.

“So do I.” Gray Harbor did his best to produce a properly disapproving glower. Unfortunately, it bounced off the crown prince's unrepentant grin without even a scuff mark.

“All the same,” the earl continued more seriously, “that ‘unfortunate tradition' exists for a reason, Your Highness, and the way you've taken hold out here shows why. I'll be honest, Cayleb. When your father first assigned this to you, a part of me thought it was solely a way to get
Merlin
out here without raising any questions. But I was wrong. He gave you this job because he knew how well you'd do it, too.”

Cayleb waved one hand, still enough of a boy at heart to be embarrassed by anything which sounded like praise, but Merlin shook his head.

“The Earl is right, Your Highness,” he said, rather more formally than he normally spoke to Cayleb these days. “In fact, I've been very impressed watching you and Baron Seamount in action. I think you have a natural feel for this sort of thing.”

And
, Merlin thought,
you're young enough not to have too many preconceptions to overcome in the process.

“So do I,” Gray Harbor agreed. “And I can understand why the two of you wanted me out here to see all this firsthand. I've read your reports to the King, and, of course, Cayleb's briefed the senior members of the Council several times, but until you've actually seen it, you can't really believe it or grasp all of the implications.”

Merlin nodded. Cayleb had handled those briefings because even now Gray Harbor and Wave Thunder were the only councillors who knew the truth about Merlin's contributions. But even though Gray Harbor had been privy to the full details from the very beginning, this had still been his first chance to actually see the new hardware. The demonstration had been carefully planned to show the new artillery in action under near-perfect conditions, as the earl understood perfectly well, but his genuine enthusiasm pleased Merlin enormously. It wasn't really a surprise—the first councillor was a highly intelligent man who also happened to be an experienced naval commander—but that made it no less welcome.

“At the same time,” the earl said, turning to look back out over the squadron's anchored ships, “I'm worried about how much time we have. Hektor's obviously getting more and more nervous about what we're up to, and I'm afraid our time may be running out more quickly than we'd hoped. Especially”—he turned his eyes back to Merlin's face—“in light of the reports we're getting out of the Temple and Bishop Zherald's offices right here in Tellesberg.”

“I know,” Merlin sighed. He leaned forward, bracing his folded arms on the battlements, and his sapphire eyes were distant, unfocused as he gazed across the harbor.

“I'm hoping,” he continued, “that the Temple's…agitation will settle down a bit once Father Paityr's latest reports have a chance to circulate.”

“In a reasonable world, that's probably what would happen,” Gray Harbor told him. “In a world where Hektor and our
good
friend Nahrmahn are pouring their lies into the Church's ear, it probably won't.”

The first councillor's expression was grim, and Cayleb nodded in bitter agreement.

“Do you think the Council of Vicars is likely to take an official position?” Merlin asked.

Even with his unwillingness to risk putting bugs inside the Temple proper, he had an excellent feel for what the Church's hierarchy was saying, thanks to his ability to eavesdrop on the Vicars' subordinates living in Zion. But he'd discovered that knowing what it was saying wasn't the same thing as knowing what it was
thinking
. Just as he'd come to realize that Gray Harbor and Haarahld had far more insight into the realities of Safehold's theocratic politics than he did.

“Probably not,” Gray Harbor said after a moment. “Not openly, at least. Their own intendant is reporting that we've violated none of the Proscriptions, which is only true, after all. The Church can issue whatever decrees and commandments she chooses, and no one has the authority to gainsay her, but the Council's usually cautious about appearing capricious. That doesn't mean the Vicars—or, at least, the ‘Group of Four'—won't do whatever they believe they have to, but, traditionally, they've preferred to act deliberately, after considering all of the evidence. Officially, at least.”

It was Merlin's turn to quirk an eyebrow, and Gray Harbor chuckled. The sound was both cynical and rather sad.

“Mother Church is supposed to be above issues of political power and greed, Merlin. Some of her clergy truly are—like Father Paityr, for example, or Bishop Maikel. But others—like Chancellor Trynair and his allies in the Group of Four—aren't. I wouldn't say this before any other ears, but the truth is that the episcopate and even the Council of Vicars is more concerned with the wielding of power than with the salvation of men's souls these days.” He shook his head slowly, brown eyes distant, and Merlin sensed how much it cost him to admit his own cynicism where the keepers of his religious beliefs were concerned. “Calculations are made in the Temple, and in the brothels and gaming houses of Zion, on the basis of political expediency and greed, as often as on the basis of doctrine or the
Writ
, I'm afraid.”

“
More
often,” Cayleb said harshly. Merlin looked at him, and the crown prince's eyes were deep and dark with bitter memory. “There was a time,” the prince continued, “when Mother Church truly
was
a mother to all of her children. That day is gone.”

Merlin managed to keep his expression tranquil, but this was the most frankly he'd ever heard Cayleb or Gray Harbor express themselves on the subject of the Church, even after the interview with Father Paityr, and Cayleb's bitter observation hit him like a splash of cold water. He hadn't truly realized until this moment just how fully justified the Council of Vicars' concerns over Charisian restiveness under the Church's oppressive control actually were.

“Cayleb's right, I'm afraid, Merlin,” Gray Harbor said heavily. “On the other hand,” he continued, “probably exactly because of the way those political factors have come to influence the Council's decisions, the Vicars are extraordinarily careful to avoid drawing attention to them. The Group of Four will be very certain that any decision—any
official
decision—the Council or the Grand Inquisitor may hand down is carefully written. It will make the Council's orthodoxy and devotion to truth crystal clear. And, so long as Father Paityr insists on reporting we haven't fallen into error, haven't violated the Proscriptions by thought or deed, the Council has no justification for moving openly against us.

“That, unfortunately, doesn't mean the Group of Four
won't
move against us. Never forget, Merlin, that the Temple Lands are one of Safehold's great kingdoms. The Vicars aren't simply the princes of the Church; they're secular princes, as well. As such, they're as subject to political pressures and calculations—and ambitions—as any other ruler. Whether or not Mother Church openly condemns Charis for doctrinal error, the Council may well choose to put forth its secular power against us. We have not, perhaps,” he smiled faintly, “appeared sufficiently pliant for the Council's taste.”

Merlin looked at the first councilor, and Gray Harbor shrugged.

“Don't misunderstand me, Merlin. The King—and Cayleb and I—doubt neither the power nor the love of God. Nor do we doubt the Church was created and ordained to safeguard the salvation of men. But the Vicars are also men, and if those responsible for the salvation of others fall into error, into the snares of ambition, greed, and corruption, who will redeem
them?
”

“I don't know, My Lord,” Merlin said after a moment, his voice soft. If Cayleb's bitterness had been eye-opening, the implications of the earl's analysis were breathtaking.

“Neither do I,” Gray Harbor said sadly. “But, whether or not any of us dare to admit it openly, much of the Kingdom's current danger is the direct result of the Church's encouragement of Hektor and Nahrmahn. Charis has grown too wealthy, too powerful, for the Council's taste. There are many reasons for that, but the consequence is that the Group of Four has quietly and quite unofficially supported Hektor's ambition to…reduce our power. I suspect Hektor, for all his cunning, fails to grasp that having used him to humble us, the Council is scarcely likely to allow
him
to assume our present position. Nor does that matter at the moment.

“What matters is that, to date, the Group of Four has had only to support our enemies' natural ambitions. That, without your arrival, would have been quite sufficient for the Vicars' purposes, in the fullness of time. But you
have
arrived, and I very much doubt that the Council has any concept of how radically the conflict between us and Hektor and his allies is about to change as a consequence. When the Group of Four does realize the truth, it
will
act. Not officially, perhaps—or not as Mother Church, at least. But there are many avenues open to it, and I feel quite confident it will find one of them.”

The earl's voice was even grimmer than his expression, and Merlin turned to face him fully.

“My Lord,” Merlin said quietly, “if this ‘Group of Four' chooses to act against Charis with all of the Church's resources, can Charis survive?”

“I don't know,” Gray Harbor said softly. “I truly don't know. Before your arrival, I would have said we couldn't—that no single kingdom could possibly hope to. Now, I see some possibility we might, but only a possibility.”

“It wasn't my intention to bring Charis into direct conflict with the Church,” Merlin said.
Not yet, at least
, he added to himself with painful honesty.
Not until we'd built the kingdom up into something which might survive the confrontation
.

“I never said—or thought—it was,” Gray Harbor replied. “But the truth is, Merlin, that I'd long ago accepted that the best we could hope for was to stave off disaster for a time. For my lifetime, probably. Possibly for Cayleb's. But not any longer than that.”

Merlin glanced at the bitter-faced crown prince, and Cayleb nodded. For just a moment, the crown prince's mask slipped, and Merlin saw through the young man's habitual cheerful humor to the ultimate despair which had hidden behind it.