“Well, it’ll be dawn in about three hours,” he pointed out, breath-steam gleaming in the chill night as it caught the binnacle’s reflection. “Assuming the bastards persist in not showing up between then and now, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to feed the men early, just in case.”
* * *
“Still with us, I see. Nice of them to be so punctual!” Lieutenant Hahlbyrstaht observed as the sunrise slanted sharply across the waves to gild the distant topsails with gold. He shook his head. “And right where you said they’d be. Sort of reminds me of that business in the Fern Narrows last year.”
“We’re not supposed to talk about that, Zosh,” Hektor reminded him, and Hahlbyrstaht nodded.
“Point taken, Sir,” he said rather more formally, then grinned. “It’s still an impressive trick, though, Skipper, and I’m not the only man aboard who thinks that. Is this ability to smell the enemy something His Majesty taught you?”
“No, but I sometimes think it might be something Sir Dunkyn taught Cayleb back when Cayleb was a midshipman.” Hektor smiled as someone in far-off Siddar City snorted an imperial sort of chuckle over his com earplugs. Then he shrugged. “Actually, it wasn’t all that hard to figure out where they’d pretty much have to be under these conditions.”
“Maybe not, but staying close enough to see them at first light without blundering right the hell into those two fellows in the dark was just a tad more challenging,” Hahlbyrstaht countered, and pointed at the topsails of a pair of Dohlaran brigs less than four miles clear of Fleet Wing. The closest galleons were at least eight miles beyond them. “I found it a little worrisome, anyway. Of course, I realize two-to-one odds are a mere nothing for seasoned Charisian seadogs like us!” He snapped his fingers with fine disdain. “Still, it could’ve gotten lively.”
“Which is why I knew I could rely on our ‘seadog’ lookouts to do such a good job.” Hektor smiled again. This time, actually, it was more of a grin. “The Admiral always told me caution can be a great motivator and that a little honest fear does more to keep a man on his toes than any amount of confidence.” He shook his head, his grin fading. “I sometimes wonder if he really realizes how much … moral authority it takes to say something like that to a ten- or eleven-year-old midshipman.”
“‘Moral authority’?” Hahlbyrstaht snorted. “That’s something the Baron has in spades!”
“Oh, I think you could say that,” Hektor agreed. Then he turned to look to the northeast, shading his eyes with his good hand as he gazed into the sun. “I assume Sojourn’s up there where she’s supposed to be?”
“Yes, Sir. Last time we looked, anyway.” Hahlbyrstaht chuckled sourly. “Of course that was before we had the damned sun shining right into our eyes. I imagine she’ll be able to read our signals just fine, but seeing her confirmation hoists’ll be just a bit tougher.”
“Well, if she’s up there, I suppose we should update Commander Cupyr and ask him to pass it along to the Admiral.” Hektor grimaced. “We should be able to see his confirmation sometime in the next, oh, hour or so.”
.V.
Off Shipworm Shoal,
Gulf of Dohlar.
“I don’t suppose anyone mentioned where the delay was, Master Zhones?” Lathyk asked, gazing at the time chop on Fleet Wing’s original dispatch.
“No, Sir. I’m afraid not,” Passed Midshipman Ahrlee Zhones replied. The sandy-haired, bespeckled midshipman—he wouldn’t be legally old enough to receive his ensign’s commission for another ten months—had become Baron Sarmouth’s acting flag lieutenant with the Duke of Darcos’ departure from Destiny.
“I could send back an inquiry, if you’d like me to,” he continued, although he manifestly didn’t want to do anything of the sort, and the flag captain’s lip twitched. Not so very long ago, Zhones had been HMS Destiny’s signals midshipman. It would appear his tribal loyalties were alive and well.
“No, don’t bother, Master Zhones,” he said. “Probably nothing serious. But,” he added, looking up from the dispatch at Sarmouth, “we should’ve had this at least forty-five minutes ago, My Lord.”
“In a perfect world, yes.” Sarmouth was bent over his chart table again, busily swinging dividers while he measured distances. “In the real world,” he laid the dividers aside and gave Zhones a quick flicker of a smile, “as I believe the Emperor’s said upon occasion, ‘shit happens’. In this case, somebody probably had to wait for the sun to get out of his eyes.” He shrugged. “It’s not as if it was all that time-critical, Rhobair. The important point is that we’ve got it now, and—assuming Raisahndo’s maintained speed and heading—we’re about sixty miles north-northeast of him. And, of course, that the wind seems to be veering in our favor,” he added with pronounced satisfaction.
“Yes, My Lord,” Lathyk agreed, looking down at the chart with him.
“Then I want us underway on a south-southeast heading as soon as possible.” Sarmouth ran his index finger across the chart in a flattened crescent that swept about twenty miles south before it angled back to the west. “If everything works perfectly—and as we just pointed out, in the real world it doesn’t—we should find our Dohlaran friends right about here.”
He tapped a spot thirty miles south of Shipworm Shoal and about fifty miles west of Shyan Island, and Lathyk frowned, running mental calculations for a moment. Then the flag captain nodded.
“About fifteen o’clock, I make it, My Lord,” he said with a faint edge of admiration. “Plenty of daylight left to work on them.”
“That’ll depend on how soon they see us and what they do when they do.” Sarmouth twitched a shrug. “Actually bringing them to action could be trickier than we’d prefer, but at least we’ll have plenty of sea room to do it in!”
Lathyk nodded again. A lot of flag officers would have immediately altered course to intercept Raisahndo as soon as possible. Sarmouth, on the other hand, had made it clear to all of his captains that he wanted to entice the Dohlarans as far out to sea as he could. A running battle at sea would play to the Imperial Charisian Navy’s strengths, not the RDN’s, and the heavy swell farther out would limit the Dohlaran screw-galleys’ utility. The waves were no more than six feet tall at the moment, but the wind looked like freshening once more as it veered slowly but steadily eastward, and even six feet would be a much bigger problem for the low-lying and fragile screw-galleys than for blue-water galleons. It might not make a great deal of difference, but Sarmouth was the sort of flag officer who thought about things like that.
Besides, once they had the Western Squadron well out to sea, it would have a hell of a time crawling into another hidey hole before they laid it by the heels.
“Yes, My Lord,” the flag captain said. “Master Zhones and I will just go and start passing the signals.”
* * *
“Watch your head, Sir!”
Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk hurled himself backwards as Stywyrt Mahlyk grabbed the back of his tunic and heaved. An instant later, the heavy block—streaming two or three feet of tarred hemp—crashed to the deck with skull-crushing force, right where he’d been standing, and bounced high into the air.
“Thanks, Stywyrt,” he said, but he never looked away from the clouds of smoke rising from the Dohlaran brig.
Most of that was gunsmoke, but there was woodsmoke, as well, pouring up out of her midships hatch. At least a third of her crew were desperately fighting the flames, but the rest of her people had other business, and even as he watched, half a dozen more red eyes winked from within the cloudbank streaming from her gunports. Unlike Fleet Wing’s last duel with a Dohlaran brig, the range was short enough for this one to get her carronades into action, and white columns of spray rose around his schooner as the smoothbore shells hit the water.