“Only from us, even if you’re right, Alyk. I expect Baron Sarmouth’s people will have a little something to say about his travel plans if you are, though.”
“Assuming the Baron’s guessed right.”
“That’s very small-minded—and mercenary—of you,” Zhaztro scolded, and Cahnyrs grinned. The flag captain was an old friend of Dunkyn Yairley’s, and he’d bet the baron five gold marks that he hadn’t guessed right.
“Oh, I’m sure Dunkyn’ll catch up with him in the end, Sir. I just think it’s going to take a little longer than he thinks it will.”
“Well, in the meantime, we have our own fish to fry,” Zhaztro said, returning his attention to the large-scale chart on the table between them.
“I just hope the seijins are right about those ‘sea-bombs’ of theirs,” Cahnyrs replied, his humor fading noticeably. “I hate the very idea of those damned things! Hell of an unfair weapon.”
“Excuse me, Sir,” Commander Lywys Pharsaygyn cocked his head, “but isn’t the idea behind any weapon to give you an ‘unfair’ advantage over the fellow who doesn’t have it? Which, by the way, if memory serves, is something you sneaky Charisians have been doing for years now!”
“Point, Commander. A very good one, actually.” Cahnyrs nodded. “I guess what truly pisses me off is that the Temple Boys and their friends came up with the idea first.”
“I’ve noticed Old Charisians have a certain … youthful enthusiasm for coming up with things first, Sir,” Zhaztro’s chief of staff observed with a smile. “I almost said that they take a childish pleasure in it, but that probably would have been disrespectful.”
“Grossly so,” Cahnyrs agreed. “Especially because it would be so accurate,” he added with a cheerful nod, and Zhaztro chuckled.
Like himself, Pharsaygyn was an Emeraldian, and he’d been with Zhaztro for six years now, ever since Darcos Sound, where he’d served in Arbalest—as a common seaman, of all things. Of course, he’d been a rather uncommon sort of common seaman, however the muster book had described him. The younger son of a prominent Eraystor merchant family with powerful Church connections, he’d been destined for seminary and a career with Mother Church. In fact, one of his uncles was a Schuelerite upper-priest serving in the Inquisition in Zion itself, and Pharsaygyn had offered his services to the Emeraldian Navy as a clerk because he’d genuinely believed what his uncle had told him about Charis and the reason Mother Church was supporting Hektor Daykyn’s war against the island kingdom.
Zhaztro had heard about him from one of his own cousins, a Manchyr importer who’d done business with the Pharsaygyn family, and grabbed him before anyone else realized he was available. He’d never regretted it. Pharsaygyn had served with distinction and courage as Zhaztro’s flag secretary throughout that short, disastrous war … and his disillusionment when he discovered the truth about the Inquisition’s allegations had been brutal. Instead of leaving naval service, however—which he would have been fully entitled to do, as a short-term volunteer—he’d sought Zhaztro’s assistance in obtaining a commission when the Emeraldian Navy was folded into the Imperial Charisian Navy. He’d passed the competitive examination with absurd ease, although he was scarcely the finest shiphandler in the world. Then again, Zhaztro wouldn’t have applied that label to himself, where galleon command was concerned, either.
More to the point where his present duties were concerned, Pharsaygyn had never really wanted command. He’d been a born staff officer who’d enjoyed Zhaztro’s total confidence and he’d transitioned from secretary to flag lieutenant the instant his Charisian commission came through. And then, last year, following a well-deserved promotion, he’d moved directly to the position of 2nd Ironclad Squadron’s chief of staff. Zhaztro had offered to help him find a command of his own, instead, but he’d turned that down flat.
“I’m not a real officer like you, Sir,” he’d said with a smile. “God help the poor seaman stuck in a galleon under my command the first time we hit a real blow! Let’s face it, Sir—I’m just around till the job’s done. Better to steer a career officer into a positon like that. He needs it on his resume a lot more than I do.”
That “not a real officer” was a gross disservice to his accomplishments and value, but Zhaztro had decided he was probably right. Personally, the admiral would have offered even odds Pharsaygyn would seek ordination in the Church of Charis once the Group of Four was defeated, but until then, the commander was fully focused on bringing about that defeat.
“The truth is, Sir,” he said to the flag captain now, “that sea-bombs are the sort of weapon that’s going to appeal to the weaker navy. They’d be an ideal way to deal with something like this squadron, too. In fact, if they did have them, they’d have put them right damned here.”
He tapped the chart with the index finger of his mangled left hand—he’d lost the last two fingers at Darcos Sound—and his expression had turned much more serious, but then he shrugged and shook his head with a smile.
“As for coming up with things first, if it makes you feel any better, I’m willing to bet Baron Seamount did come up with the idea well before any Temple Boy did. It’s the sort of thing that would occur to him—a way to achieve an enormous economization in force while denying a more powerful enemy fleet passage through defended waters. And it’s also exactly the sort of thing Admiral Lock Island or Admiral Rock Point would’ve told him to stick in the very bottom of his seabag and forget about.” He shook his head again, his smile even broader. “The last thing they would’ve wanted would’ve been to suggest the idea to someone like Dohlar before Thirsk thought of it on his own!”
“I hate it when he turns all logical, Sir,” Cahnyrs complained.
“Unfortunately, it’s one of the reasons I keep him around,” Zhaztro said just a bit absently, frowning down at the chart.
South Channel lay two hundred miles behind Eraystor, and her true target, Rhaigair Bay, at the mouth of the Rhaigair River, lay before her. And while Rhaigair was far smaller than Saram Bay, it was also a much more difficult objective.
There were four passages through the islands which guarded the Rhaigair approaches, but only two of them really mattered.
Sand Passage, the westernmost channel, between the mainland and the twin islands the Harchongians called The Sisters, was suitable only for light craft and shallow draft fishing boats. That completely disqualified it for his purposes.
Broad Channel, the next possibility to the east, between The Sisters and Sharyn Island, was—as its name suggested—the widest approach. It was also shallow, although the soundings showed sufficient depth for a City-class ironclad … if she was careful and chose the right stage of the tide. Unfortunately, the Harchongians had spent a year or so after Gwylym Manthyr’s foray into Gorath Bay driving a double line of pilings across the eight-mile-wide channel. The Lywysite-equipped dive teams which had been sent out to Earl Sharpfield could probably have cleared the barrier, but not without investing five-days in the effort … and risking serious loss of life along the way, given water temperatures at this time of year.
The rather unimaginatively named East Channel—farthest to the east, between East Island and Knobby Head, the closest point on the mainland—was normally more than deep enough for his ships, but it was also subject to silting from mud carried down the Rhaigair River. His best information on its current depth of water was … problematical, and he had a pronounced aversion to reprising HMS Thunderer’s role from last July.