The Middle Gate, between Fishnet Island and Alahnah Island, to its immediate west, was less than half that wide, which made it far easier to defend with artillery. But Tairayl’s Gate, the gap between Alahnah and Chelsee Point on the mainland, was over twenty miles across. No Dohlaran gun could hope to engage a target sailing down the middle of that broad expanse.
Fortunately, the water was shallower in Tairayl’s Gate than in East Gate Channel. The Middle Gate was actually the deepest of the three channels, and tidal scour combined with the current of the Gorath River to keep it that way. All three of them were deep enough for even the largest galleons, at least at high tide, but the deepwater channel through Tairayl’s Gate was more tortuous than most. In fact, it curved and twisted so sharply it was seldom used by galleons, since a wind that was fair for one leg of the passage was almost always dead foul for the next one. Threading a way through it could be a tricky piece of piloting even for a galley—or a steamer—no matter how well it was marked … and just now, it wasn’t marked at all. If any navy could navigate that passage even after someone had removed every buoy and extinguished every lighthouse, it was undoubtedly the Charisian Navy, but their armored steamers were far too valuable to risk casually. That was especially true after what had happened to them off Wreckers’ Island, he thought grimly, and he’d done what he could to make the choice even less attractive by placing sea-bombs at the trickiest points along the channel.
The Middle Gate had been harder to cover with sea-bombs because of the set of tide and current. The mooring cables kept breaking, and the Dohlaran merchant marine had discovered the hard way that a drifting sea-bomb had no friends. He’d persevered with the effort, but he couldn’t pretend he was satisfied with the result. On the other hand, its maximum width was under ten thousand yards. That was why the batteries on Alahnah and Fishnet accounted for well over a third of his total heavy rifles—including all six of the 15-inch rifles the Temple Lands foundries had managed to deliver—despite the islands’ small size. He had only twenty-five rounds for each of the 15-inchers, and the guns were actually shorter ranged than the 12-inch pieces, but they hit with devastating power and they were backed by twenty-four more 12-inchers and thirty 8-inch weapons. He rather doubted anyone who’d already experienced what the heavy Fultyns could do would choose to run that gauntlet at such a short range unless he had to.
All of that was true, but it was also true that it had never occurred to him when he’d planned the capital’s defenses that the Charisians might be able to sweep the sea-bombs out of their way. His reports from the previous day’s fighting were less complete than he might wish, but almost all of them agreed that they’d demonstrated an ability to do just that, even under heavy fire, and that made all of his planning suspect. From the reports he’d received, he doubted their bombsweepers made Tairayl’s Gate any more attractive, since the technique they’d developed apparently required them to steam in straight lines. Tairayl’s Gate didn’t lend itself to those sorts of courses.
The East Gate, unfortunately, did.
That was why he was standing atop this observation tower awaiting the dawn. If he’d been in Baron Sarmouth’s shoes, and if those fragmentary reports were accurate, his decision would have been simple. Assuming his converted barges truly could clear the sea-bombs, the East Gate’s simpler piloting, coupled with how much farther from the defensive batteries he could stay, made it his obvious choice. It was always possible he’d choose another route simply because it was less obvious. His tactics in the Trosan Channel and off Shipworm Shoal indicated how well he understood the advantages of surprise. But the Imperial Charisian Navy was equally well aware of the risk in being too clever, and East Gate’s attractions were simply too compelling to be ignored.
If the sea-bombs could be cleared.
That was why he’d committed the last fifteen screw-galleys of the Royal Dohlaran Navy last night.
He hadn’t planned on using them at all, even though he’d drilled them in night attacks ever since the Battle of Shipworm Shoal. That battle had made it obvious daylight attacks were suicidal even against ironclad galleons, far less the ICN’s steam-powered monsters, but he’d hoped the darkness might allow them to finally employ their spar torpedoes … until yesterday, at least. He hadn’t truly allowed for how fast and maneuverable—and incredibly hard to kill—the steamers were. True, his men had sent two to the bottom and severely damaged a third. Numerically, that was almost half the attacking force. But given the difference between the smaller steamers and the one the Charisians had named for Gwyllym Manthyr, it represented barely a quarter—if that—of Sarmouth’s firepower. Against that sort of armored target, only the spar torpedoes could hope to have any effect, but he’d quickly realized that the chance of a screw-galley getting a torpedo into attack range of something that fast and heavily armed, even in the dark, had been so slim as to be nonexistent.
But the bombsweepers were much smaller, unarmored, unarmed, and—if the reports were accurate—slower than the screw-galleys. They’d be easy meat for the screw-galleys’ massive forward batteries, most of which now mounted 8-inch rifles, and they represented the Charisians’ only path through the sea-bombs. So if the screw-galleys could get through to them, destroy or cripple enough of them to prevent the survivors from clearing the East Gate.…
There’d never been much chance of accomplishing anything more than a temporary delay, even if the attack succeeded, but the Navy’s honor—and the increasingly evident agents inquisitor patrolling Gorath’s streets—had demanded they try. And so he’d sent them out, knowing the Charisians had to be on the lookout for exactly that sort of attack, and their officers and men had never flinched. The black-painted screw-galleys, stripped of masts and sails to make them even harder to see, had slipped silently out of the harbor in the very last of the fading sunset, with scarcely a ripple to mark their passing, and Thirsk had planted himself atop this very tower to await their return.
He was still waiting.
You know what happened, he told himself grimly. They’d’ve been back by now if they were coming. The only real question is how many more hundred men you just sent to their deaths, Lywys.
His jaw tightened, but he refused to lie to himself. Those hadn’t been lightning flashes last night. They’d been too distant for him to hear anything over the steady, rhythmic wash of waves against the East Point beaches, but he’d known they were the savage flashes of artillery and the glare of Charisian star shells. The firing hadn’t gone on very long, and if any of his screw-galleys had survived it, there’d been plenty of time for them to return by now.
I am so tired of sending young men out to die for those bastards in Zion, he thought bitterly. But at least I—
A rim of blinding sunlight heaved itself over the eastern horizon, and Lywys Gardynyr’s jaw clenched painfully as the rich golden light raced out across the sixty-mile-wide stretch of water called Five Fathom Deep.
* * *
Had Thirsk only realized it, he was less alone than he thought he was. Sir Dunkyn Yairley might be standing beside Halcom Bahrns on Bahrns’ navigation bridge, but that didn’t prevent him from looking out over Five Fathom Deep with the Dohlaran earl through the eyes of the tiny remote on Thirsk’s shoulder, and his expression was grimly satisfied at the view they shared.