Off Armageddon Reef (92 page)

“Father always told me ‘gallant' and ‘stupid' usually meant exactly the same thing,” Cayleb said.

“A smart man, your father,” Merlin replied.

“Yes, he is,” Cayleb agreed. “But as it happens, I think I
do
have to be here. Unless, of course, you're prepared to explain to the Captain just how it is that
you
know exactly where to go?”

Merlin had opened his mouth to respond. Now he closed it again, glowering at the prince. Unfortunately, Cayleb had a point. By now, every man in the galleon fleet was firmly convinced Cayleb could literally smell his way to the enemy. They were thoroughly prepared to follow his “instincts” anywhere, and not at all surprised when they found enemy warships wherever he took them, which neatly deflected any attention from Merlin's contributions. In the long term, that was undoubtedly a good thing, but in the short term, Merlin wasn't at all happy about Cayleb's risking himself on a harebrained stunt like this one.

Come on,
he told himself.
It's not really a “stunt” at all, is it? Because Cayleb's right; if we pull this off, Black Water's going to be in for a really nasty surprise about sunrise
.

No doubt he would, but Merlin could think of all too many examples from Old Earth's history of essential men and women who'd gotten themselves killed doing important but not
essential
things.

“Well,” Merlin murmured into the prince's ear now, “if you're the one doing all the explaining to the Captain, you'd better tell him to alter course about half a point to starboard.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Cayleb said with an ironic smile and crossed to where the schooner's captain stood watching his ship's sails.

The light galley
Sprite
ghosted slowly along on one more leg of her endless patrol.
Sprite
's Emeraldian crew wasn't especially fond of Duke Black Water. They hadn't particularly cared for the orders which subordinated their own navy to the Corisandian's command. And they especially hadn't cared for the orders which had kept them at sea for the last three and a half five-days.

Every member of the galley's seventy-five-man company knew they were out here primarily as an afterthought. Oh, it was always
possible
the mysteriously absent Charisian galleons might try to come creeping up behind the combined fleet from the north. It wasn't very likely, though. Especially not in light of how persistently the Charisian galleys had insisted on heading
south
.
Sprite
's crewmen didn't object to the notion of having someone watch the main fleet's back; they simply didn't see why
they
should be stuck with the job.

Her captain had ordered a single reef taken in her sail just after sundown. Not because the wind had freshened enough to pose any sort of threat, but because he had to reduce sail if he wanted to maintain his assigned position to windward of the main fleet's bigger, slower galleys. He'd also turned in after supper, leaving the deck to his second lieutenant, and most of the rest of his ship's company was working assiduously to get all the sleep it could before yet another boring day of playing lookout.

“There,” Cayleb whispered into the ear of
Seagull
's captain, and pointed to leeward.

The schooner was on the starboard tack, broad reaching with the wind coming in over her starboard quarter. And there, almost precisely where the prince had predicted, were the running lights of a small vessel.

The moon had set, and the schooner, all of her own lights extinguished, was sliding along under jibs and foresail alone as she crept stealthily closer to the galley.

The picket boat was even smaller than
Seagull
, little more than sixty feet in length, if that. Her stern lanterns picked out her position clearly, and the schooner's captain nodded to his crown prince.

“I see her now, Your Highness,” he whispered back, and Cayleb's lips twitched as he heard the semi-awe in the man's voice.

“Lay her alongside, just like we planned,” he said, carefully suppressing the amusement in his own voice.

“Aye, aye, Your Highness.”

The captain touched his shoulder in salute, and Cayleb nodded, then stepped back over beside Merlin and Ahrnahld Falkhan.

“And when he
does
lay us alongside,” Merlin said just loud enough to be certain Falkhan could hear, “
you
stay right here aboard
Seagull
, Your Highness.”

“Of course,” Cayleb replied in a rather absent tone, watching as
Seagull
changed course very slightly, edging ever closer to the unsuspecting galley, now little more than a couple of hundred yards clear.

“I
mean
it, Cayleb!” Merlin said sternly. “Ahrnahld and I are
not
going to explain to your father how we managed to let you get killed taking a dinky little galley, is that understood?”

“Of course,” Cayleb repeated, and Merlin looked across at Falkhan.

The Marine lieutenant looked back and shook his head, then jerked it to indicate Sergeant Faircaster. The burly, powerfully built noncom stood directly behind the crown prince, and he looked quite prepared to rap the heir to the throne smartly over the head if that was what it took to keep him aboard
Seagull
.

Which, Merlin reflected, suited him just fine.

“
Now!
”

Seagull
's helmsman put his tiller sharply up to windward, and the schooner slid neatly alongside
Sprite
. Someone aboard the galley spotted her at the very last minute and shouted in alarm, but it was far too late to do any good.

Grappling irons flew, biting into
Sprite
's timbers as the two vessels ground together. The watch on deck—no more than a dozen men, all told—whirled, gaping in horror as
Seagull
came crashing out of the night. The schooner's side was a solid mass of rifle-armed Marines, bayonets gleaming with the dull, murderous reflection of
Sprite
's running lights, and then those same Marines swept across
Sprite
's deck.

Bayonets thrust. Clubbed musket butts struck viciously. There were a few screams and more shouts, but not a shot was fired, and it was over in less than thirty seconds. It took a little longer than that for the crew trapped below decks to realize what had happened, of course, and for
Sprite
's captain to accept it and formally surrender his ship. But there were only seven casualties, all of them Emeraldians, and only two of them fatal.

It was a neat little operation, Merlin conceded. And, best of all from his perspective, there hadn't been time for Cayleb to get himself involved in the boarding action even if he'd wanted to.

“All right,” the crown prince said now, standing beside Merlin on the afterdeck of the captured galley, where he'd just accepted the surrender of
Sprite
's stunned, disbelieving captain. “Let's get the prize crew aboard. Then we've got to go back and get the rest of the fleet up here.”

King Haarahld lay in the gently swaying cot, dutifully pretending to sleep.

The fact that there wasn't very much else he could do didn't make it any easier. What he really wanted was to call Captain Tryvythyn into the chart room and begin discussing possible deployments. In fact, the temptation was very nearly overwhelming. Except, of course, that Tryvythyn would undoubtedly wonder what had inspired it. And except for the fact that although he knew Cayleb was almost certainly less than fifty miles from where he himself lay, that was
all
he knew.

It wasn't as if he and Admiral Lock Island and their commodores and captains hadn't discussed possible tactical situations and their responses to them exhaustively over the past months. Every one of his senior officers knew exactly what all of them were supposed to do, and Haarahld felt confident they would understand not simply his orders, but the purpose
behind
those orders, when the time came.

But the fact that there wasn't anything he needed to be doing didn't keep him from wishing there were.

He glanced at the stern windows, wondering if the sky beyond them really was just a bit lighter than it had seemed the last time he looked. It was possible, although it was more likely wishful thinking on his part.

He smiled at the thought, amused despite the tension coiling tighter and tighter inside.

Yes, the sky definitely
was
lighter, he realized, and—

The pager vibrated against his forearm again. This time, twice.

“It's a good thing you're young enough to not need very much sleep,” Merlin said a bit sourly, and Cayleb grinned at him.

“Be honest, Merlin,” he said. “You're just pissed because I behaved myself last night and didn't give you anything to complain about.”

“Nonsense. I'm not ‘pissed'; just astonished,” Merlin replied, and this time Cayleb laughed out loud.