Only one of those shells had hit Fleet Wing so far … thank God. It was fortunate her captain’s cabin was stripped, its furnishings bustled below, whenever she cleared for action, or else he’d need new furniture. Not to mention a new portrait of Irys. But he’d gladly have traded all his possessions for what that bursting shell had cost him. It had left three dead, four wounded, half a dozen shattered planks, and a pair of badly damaged deck beams in its wake, and it had been touch and go for several minutes for the firefighting parties.
But Fleet Wing had given as good as she’d gotten and then some. Even with the SNARCs’ remotes, it was hard to be certain amid all of this smoke and confusion and artillery thunder, but it looked like the Dohlaran’s people were losing ground on her fire. Hektor was astonished she was still in action at all, after being hit by no less than three 30-pounder and a pair of 14-pounder shells, but they were made of stern stuff, those Dohlarans. Their ship might be on fire, they might be outgunned, and water might be rising slowly in their bilges, yet they were still trying to fight their way past Fleet Wing to get a better count on Baron Sarmouth’s squadron. He liked to think he’d be as persistent—and as gutsy—in their place, but—
The brig Sword of Justice disappeared into an expanding ball of fire as the flames finally reached her magazine.
* * *
“So much for unsolved mysteries.” Caitahno Raisahndo tried not to sound bitter as he stood under his cabin skylight. He also tried not to think about the price his scouting units had paid to buy him the information—the fragmentary information—Gahryth Kahmelka had just marked on the chart. He’d have preferred a more complete report, but that was more than flesh and blood could have given him.
And what he did have was bad enough.
At the moment, Kahmelka stood at his shoulder and Ahrnahld Mahkmyn stood on the other side of the chart table, signals pad and pencil poised. Of the two, the flag lieutenant looked less concerned, although Raisahndo suspected appearances could be deceiving. Mahkmyn was too smart not to realize how bad things were … but he was still too young—and too junior—to feel comfortable being obvious about it in front of his flag officer.
The sunlight streaming down through the skylight illuminated the chart’s markings pitilessly while Hurricane creaked gently about them. Raisahndo listened to the ship’s quiet voice and found himself wondering if she realized what was about to happen to her.
He hoped not. Almost as much as he wished his own imagination didn’t already hear the shrieks—from splintering wood, not simply bleeding flesh and blood—which would replace that quiet all too soon.
You can still scatter and order them to run for it, he reminded himself. You’ve got a good twenty miles to work with, his fleet speed can’t be more than a knot or two faster than yours even with all that frigging copper, and he’s got the smaller squadron. He doesn’t have the numbers to chase all your people, so at least some of them would almost have to make it clear.
Unfortunately, the directions available for running were limited.
Unless he wanted to flee back the way he’d come—which would simply be a slower version of suicide, given what had to have happened to Rhaigair by now—the only directions his ships could run with any hope of avoiding the enemy were east or southeast.
The toe of Shyan Island Shoal prevented him from turning south … unless he wanted to risk ending up embayed in the forty-mile-wide sheet of water bitten out of the shoal between Mussel Shell Ledge and Broken Hawser Rock. As it happened, he very much didn’t want to end up there—there was a reason the local fishermen called that deceptively welcoming water Drowned Man’s Sound—but the wind had continued to veer. It was not only freshening but blowing roughly from the north-northeast, now—a good six- or six-and-a-half-point shift since the day before. Barring a miracle (and those seemed to be in short supply for Mother Church’s defenders) it was going to go on veering, and if it did, Sarmouth would be easily able to cut him off before he rounded Broken Hawser.
And finding himself in Drowned Man’s Sound on a lee shore with the wind and sea getting up and a hostile squadron lurking up to windward would be … unpleasant.
He couldn’t escape to the north or northeast, either. Shipworm Shoal was squarely in the way to the north. He couldn’t run away through it, and he didn’t much fancy cramping himself between it and a more powerful fleet.
The northeast was out because he’d have to sail almost directly into the wind. His schooners and the screw-galleys might be able to do that, assuming it veeered no farther; his squareriggers couldn’t possibly come close enough to the wind.
And at this particular moment, Baron Sarmouth’s squadron was perfectly placed to the east of him, blocking any escape due east and ready to cut him off whichever direction he tried to run.
All of which meant that however widely he scattered, his ships couldn’t—literally could not—evade interception. All he’d accomplish by trying to scatter and run for it would be to transform his squadron into a mob of fugitives, incapable of supporting one another when the moment came.
It’d be Armageddon Reef all over again, with me as Malikai this time around, he thought harshly.
On the other hand, his bleeding scouts’ best estimate was that the Charisians had no more than thirty galleons—thirty-five at the outside—to his own forty-three. True, at least one was a sister of the captured Dreadnought, and where there was one, there might be more than one. And it seemed likely that at least some of the others were more of the Charisians’ damnable “bombardment ships,” with far more powerful armaments than even Hurricane boasted. But a forty percent advantage in hulls was still a forty percent advantage, especially if he was able to keep them under firm tactical control, at least until the action became general. And that didn’t even consider the possibilities Hahlynd’s dozen screw-galleys presented.
You’re not going to find better odds, no matter what you do, and you aren’t going to evade him. Time to bite the bullet and use your numbers, he told himself … and tried not to think about the numerical advantage Duke Malikai had enjoyed off Armageddon Reef.
“All right,” he said out loud, looking up from the chart, “at least we outnumber them damned near two-to-one, counting the screw-galleys. According to our spies, they should have at least half a dozen galleons our scouts aren’t reporting, though. It’s always possible—likely, really—that they’re there and we just haven’t seen them yet, but it’s also possible they’re still up watching North Channel. If they are, we need to hit them as soon as we can, before they whistle up any reinforcements. If we can punch through and get fifty or sixty miles farther east, we’ll clear Broken Hawser whatever the wind does. Give us that, darkness, and maybe a little heavy weather, and at least some of the lads are likely to be able to break for home.”
Kahmelka nodded, his expression tight but his eyes steady.
“I don’t think this is a time for finesse,” Raisahndo went on grimly. “If he wants to close with us, then I’m willing to close with him … and the sooner the better.” He switched his gaze to Lieutenant Mahkmyn. “We’ll have a general signal, Ahrnahld.”