Off Armageddon Reef (75 page)

Commodore Kohdy Nylz watched critically as his stern chasers opened fire. Despite the whitecaps, it was easy to spot where the shots had plunged into the sea, quite close to their targets, and he nodded in satisfaction.

“I hope the gun crews remember to fire slowly,” one of HMS
Kraken
's lieutenants murmured.

The commodore glanced at the youthful officer, but it was evident the lieutenant didn't realize he'd spoken aloud. Nylz considered replying to him anyway, then changed his mind. It would only embarrass the youngster, and the lieutenant hadn't said anything Nylz wasn't thinking.

His squadron had been selected for this particular maneuver because its artillery had been improved considerably. When Prince Cayleb and Admiral Staynair concentrated their efforts on the most advanced galleons, work on less advanced ships had been temporarily abandoned. The guns for some of those incomplete galleons had already been delivered, however, and Earl Lock Island and King Haarahld had seen no reason to leave them sitting uselessly ashore in an arsenal somewhere. Which meant
Kraken
and the other five galleys of her squadron had traded in their old-fashioned guns for the new-model weapons, with long krakens mounted fore and aft and carronades replacing falcons on their broadsides.

If everything went according to plan, the ten Corisandian ships pursuing him were going to find out about that shortly, but it wouldn't do to alert them
too
soon.

The commodore looked astern at his enemies, and his smile turned nastier as he thought about what was coming up from the east-southeast under oars alone.

“We've got the bastards now!” Tanlyr Keep exulted.

The Charisian galleys had obviously been assigned to keep a protective eye on their scout ships in case Duke Black Water had decided to send out a few fast ships of his own to pounce upon them. But the “protectors” clearly hadn't realized the allied fleet was actually at sea. They'd continued towards him, as if seeking to make positive identification, until he'd managed to close to within no more than ten miles.

They'd turned to run then, but one of them had suffered damage aloft making the turn. It looked as if her weather sheet had carried away, and her single big sail had flogged and flapped furiously for several minutes before her crew had been able to get it back under control. That had cost her precious speed, and his own ships had charged forward in pursuit.

Her consorts, instead of abandoning her to her own resources, had reduced speed to stay in company with her. They shouldn't have. The six of them were each individually bigger than any of Tanlyr Keep's ships, but he had ten galleys to their six, and heavy drafts from the Corisandian Army had been put aboard to serve as marines. More than that, his ships' smaller size made them faster under oars.

He'd taken advantage of that, going to the sweeps and adding their power to the power of his ships' sails, and the gap between him and the fleeing Charisians had slowly but steadily narrowed. Now it was time to—

“Deck, there!” The shout echoed down from the crow's-nest atop the mast. “More ships, bearing east-southeast!”

Tanlyr Keep froze, staring up at the lookout.

“I make it at least fifteen galleys!” the seaman shouted down. “They're coming up fast under oars!”

“Ah, they've seen the Earl!” Commodore Nylz observed as the galleys which had been pursuing him so doggedly suddenly wavered in their steady course. They were swinging wildly around, turning back up to the north, but that took them almost directly into the wind.

“Turn us around, Captain,” he said to
Kraken
's commander.

“It looks like it worked, My Lord,” Captain Hotchkys observed.

“So far, at least,” Lock Island agreed.

The pursuing Corisandian galleys had dropped their masts. Lock Island's own ships had been waiting with their sails already down while Commodore Nylz' squadron baited the trap. With their sails and yards sent down to leave only their bare, white-painted masts, Lock Island's twenty-four galleys had been far harder to spot; indeed, they'd been effectively invisible at any range much over ten miles or so. And, as Lock Island had anticipated, the Corisandians' attention had been focused upon their intended prey. No one had even noticed him until he'd closed to a range of less than seven miles, sweeping in on the Corisandians from their eastern flank.

Nylz' ships were turning upon their pursuers, as well. The range there had fallen to under
two
miles even before Nylz opened fire. And, just as Lock Island had hoped, the Corisandian rowers were already badly fatigued from their long, grueling pursuit. Apparently it hadn't occurred to them to wonder why Nylz hadn't been rowing nearly as hard as they had.

The Charisian ships had cleaner bottoms, as well as fresher rowers, and Nylz was closing quickly. Lock Island wouldn't be able to get into action with the Corisandians as soon as the commodore, but his galleys—coaxed carefully into position by signals from the scouting schooners and Nylz himself—would be up with the enemy within two hours. Probably less, if Nylz could manage to slow them down a bit.

Kraken
and her squadron mates had increased their rate of fire now that the trap had sprung. They were careful not to fire as rapidly as they
could
have—Lock Island and Nylz had no intention of letting Black Water realize just how dangerous Charisian artillery had just become—but as Lock Island watched, one of the Corisandian galley's starboard oars flailed in sudden confusion as a round shot pitched into them in an eruption of spray and splinters. At least four of the long sweeps shattered, splintered ends flying, and the earl could picture only too well what the butt ends of those shattered oars must have done as they flailed wildly about, breaking ribs and arms and cracking skulls.

The confusion was only brief, but more round shot were plunging into the water around their targets, or striking home with deadly force.

“Signal from
Speedy
, My Lord,” one of
Tellesberg
's midshipmen announced.

“Read it,” Lock Island commanded.

“‘Enemy van bears north-northwest my position, distance eighteen miles, speed seven knots,'” the midshipman read from the piece of paper in his hand.

“Thank you,” Lock Island said, and cocked his head as he consulted his mental chart. He couldn't see the schooner himself from deck level, but the masthead lookout and signal party could. She was still too far away for her signals to be read directly, so they were being relayed by her sister ship
North Wind
. Which put the main body of the straggling enemy fleet at least twenty-five miles—probably more—astern and directly to windward of Nylz' pursuers.

Those ships were making possibly three or four knots, while his own were moving at at least six, and cutting the angle to boot. If the rest of the enemy fleet was making good the seven knots
Speedy
's captain estimated, then it would take at least two and a half hours for its most advanced units to reach the ships he was pursuing.

If they realized what was happening in time—and moved quickly and decisively enough—it could get tight, but not, he thought grimly, tight enough to save his intended prey.

“That's the last of them, Your Grace,” Captain Myrgyn grated as a fresh pillar of smoke billowed upward.

“So I see, Captain,” Duke Black Water replied.

He forced his own voice to come out calm, but he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. Especially not Myrgyn.

He gripped his hands together behind him tightly enough to hurt and inhaled deeply.

“Very well, Captain,” he said, “there's no point continuing the pursuit. Take us home.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Myrgyn said heavily, and turned away to begin giving the necessary orders.

Black Water glared across the miles of water still separating him from the last of Tanlyr Keep's galleys. It would take him a good hour and a quarter to reach that flaming hulk, by which time it would have burned to the waterline and vanished beneath the waves. Nor was there any point in pursuing the Charisians, who'd already turned for home with the wind behind them, a good headstart, and—for all he knew—the
rest
of their accursed fleet waiting to ambush anyone who pursued
them
.

Even assuming he could overtake them at all, it would be a night battle, with all the confusion and chaos that implied. And it would have been his galleys—his sixty
remaining
galleys—alone against whatever he encountered, because neither the Emerald nor the Chisholm squadrons could possibly have made up the gap which had opened between them and him.

A part of him cried out to continue the chase anyway, to avenge the losses and humiliation which had been visited upon him. But the coldly logical part of him knew better.

They say you learn more from a defeat than from a victory
, he thought grimly.
Well, in that case we've learned a lot today, and I intend to see to it that
all
of us “allies” draw the same conclusions from our lesson.

What had happened to Tanlyr Keep this afternoon would serve as a very pointed reminder of the need for all of them to learn to function as a single, coordinated force. That would probably be worth what it was going to cost him and Corisande in prestige and moral authority.

Probably.