Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “Dunkyn, it’s been almost ten years, and you’ve made this trip—what? A dozen times since then?”

  “More like ten.”

  “All right, ten times since the battle. And you’ve had dinner with Kaudzhu and a bevy of his officers each time, then sat around the table drinking good whiskey, smoking those terrible cigars of yours, and telling each other your side of the Jihad. You know how warmly Thirsk talked about you when he was in Tellesberg, too.” A flicker of regret passed through Cayleb’s brown eyes as he spoke Thirsk’s name. “Trust me, nobody in Gorath’s likely to rake up the past while we’re here!”

  “Which doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of people who’d like to rake up the past,” Sarmouth pointed out. Cayleb shook his head in exasperation, and the earl smiled. “I do have access to the SNARCs, too, you know,” he said. “And I know there are still a few grudges being nursed over there.” He tilted his head in the direction of Cape Toe. “And in the city, for that matter. Little hard to blame them when I’m the one who blew their original fortifications into ‘dust bunnies,’ to use Merlin’s charming phrase. Oh, and the one who leveled the city walls, while I was at it!” He chuckled a bit sourly. “If I were them, I’d still be pissed at me!”

  “All right, it’s true you aren’t universally beloved in Dohlar,” Cayleb allowed. “You’re a long way from universally hated, though, and you know that, too. For that matter, the people who love you least are the ones who never personally crossed swords with you. You know, the sort who’re always perfectly willing to send someone else out to get killed? Personally, I’ve never had much of a problem with the notion that I’m not hugely popular with people like that, myself. What matters a hell of a lot more is that most Gorathians understand how careful you were to avoid civilian casualties. I’ve taken a look at those SNARC reports, too, Dunkyn. Most of the people who’re truly pissed off at you are the manufactory owners whose establishments you turned into rubble and the Church hangers-on who lost their leverage when Thirsk and Dragon Island kicked the Inquisition the hell out of Dohlar. It’s not the average citizens of Gorath, at any rate. And it’s certainly not their navy!”

  Sarmouth considered that for a moment, lips pursed in thought, then nodded, because Cayleb was right. He’d devastated the Royal Dohlaran Navy at places like Saram Bay and the Trosan Channel, as well as right here in Gorath. He didn’t like to think about how many Dohlaran seamen he’d killed in those battles. But he and his opponents had emerged from the crucible of combat with a sense of mutual respect. The Dohlarans had been outgunned and outclassed in every quality but courage and discipline, facing the finest, most powerful fleet in the world, yet they’d fought every step of the way, every weary mile from Claw Island to Gorath Bay. They’d done that without ever simply giving up the way the Navy of God had … and not all of those battles had been Charisian victories. The ICN had been a long time forgiving the Kingdom of Dohlar for what had happened to Gwylym Manthyr and his men when they were surrendered to the Inquisition, but very few Charisian seamen had blamed the Dohlaran Navy for it.

  It was odd. Who would have guessed, at the start of the Jihad, in the initial campaign that culminated off Armageddon Reef and in Cayleb Ahrmahk’s night attack on Crag Reach, that Dohlar would emerge as Charis’ only true peer on the seas of Safehold? Or that in a war marked by atrocity and massacre the Royal Dohlaran Navy would win the ICN’s grudging admiration not just for its courage but for its integrity and honor, as well?

  And that was Thirsk’s doing, Sarmouth thought, gazing at that half-masted flag above the modern breech-loading guns. His and Caitahno Raisahndo’s and Pawal Hahlynd’s. And now Pawal’s the only one left.

  “You’re right, Cayleb,” the admiral said. “I know you are, too. It’s just—”

  “It’s just that you hate the reason we’re here,” Cayleb finished for him, quietly, when he paused, and Sarmouth nodded.

  “I guess I do,” he admitted, and shook his head. “Who would’ve thought it, all those years ago?”

  “Only someone who knows you, Dunkyn,” the emperor said, patting him on the shoulder. “Only someone who knows you.”

  * * *

  “Damn, that’s a big boat,” Sir Rainos Ahlverez, Duke Dragon Island and commanding officer of the Royal Dohlaran Army, observed as Thunderbolt glided smoothly across Queen Zhakleen Harbor towards the Gorath waterfront. “It’s lots bigger than anything you’ve got, Pawal!

  “It’s not a ‘boat,’ damn it!” Pawal Hahlynd, Earl of Kaudzhu, commanding officer of the Royal Dohlaran Navy, hissed back at him. “She is a ship, you cretin!”

  “A boat’s a boat.” Dragon Island grinned unrepentantly. “Although that one’s big enough even someone like me probably wouldn’t get seasick if I went aboard it.”

  “I know you’re only an ignorant, landlubber general, Rainos,” Kaudzhu growled, “but if you embarrass me in front of Cayleb and Sarmouth, I swear to Langhorne I’ll bring in ringers from the Gorath Gulls for the next Army-Navy baseball game.” Dragon Island looked at him, and Kaudzhu shook a finger under his nose. “I mean it! Their manager’s my cousin, and I’ll swear his entire starting lineup into temporary service!”

  “Lywys probably would’ve appreciated my behaving myself, too, wouldn’t he?” the duke said after a moment, and shook his head with a fond smile. “Who would’ve expected that to matter a damned thing to me?”

  “He had that effect.” Kaudzhu’s smile was sadder than Dragon Island’s. “He always had that effect, even on bastards like Rohsail. And Rohsail was a much harder case than you were!”

  “So I’ve heard. Not as hard as my dear cousin Aibram, though.”

  “I wouldn’t want to speak disrespectfully about a member of your family, especially one who’s deceased, but if Duke Thorast’s brains had been Lywysite, they wouldn’t have been enough to blow a gnat’s nose. On a good day.”

  “That’s not the way a mere earl should describe the man who held one of the Kingdom’s most ancient and venerable duchies,” Dragon Island said severely. “Especially not since it’s overly generous.”

  Kaudzhu snorted and shook his head at the man who’d once been one of his bitterest enemies simply because of his family’s hatred for Lywys Gardynyr. No one outside his immediate family had missed Aibram Zaivyair, the previous Duke of Thorast, when overindulgence, too much wine, and pure bile carried him off. His son was only a minor improvement, but at least the current duke had learned not to challenge the united front of Thirsk and Dragon Island. Or, Kaudzhu acknowledged, his own contribution to that team.

  There were days—many of them—on which he deeply regretted Caitahno Raisahndo’s death, and not just on a personal level. Not only had Raisahndo been both a friend and a trusted colleague, he’d had a far better head for politics than even he himself had realized he did. A lot better one than Pawal Hahlynd had ever had, at any rate. He’d been the only real choice to command the Navy when Thirsk became First Councilor, and he and Rainos Ahlverez had been pillars of strength for Thirsk and Bishop Staiphan Maik as the earl withdrew Dohlar from the Jihad and fought just as hard for peace as he ever had against Charis. And it was Raisahndo who had overseen the organization of the rebuilt royal Dohlaran Navy’s command structure on the model of the Charisian admiralty. And then they’d lost him in that stupid, stupid boating accident. The admiral who’d survived the loss of his flagship in the Battle of Shipworm Shoal had drowned when a sudden summer squall capsized the longboat transporting him across Gorath Bay for a routine meeting that any of his subordinates could have chaired. His loss had been at least as severe a loss to his navy as Baron Seamount’s death had been to the Imperial Charisian Navy.

  But naval officers had a long tradition of stepping into dead men’s shoes. This wasn’t the first time Pawal Hahlynd had been forced to step into a friend’s place, and he’d done his best to fill Raisahndo’s. He wasn’t Raisahndo’s equal. He knew that, whatever other people might tell him. But he didn’t think he’d do
ne too terrible a job, and he hoped Caitahno approved of his efforts.

  And the truth is, you’re probably too hard on yourself, Pawal, he thought now, watching the huge Charisian warship follow the harbormaster’s cutter towards her assigned anchorage. You and the whole damned Navy don’t have anything to be ashamed of! Lywys never thought so, anyway, and he was probably a lot better judge of it than you are. And thank God he and Rainos patched up their differences!

  Thunder began to roll along the harbor fortification as the batteries rumbled out a twenty-four-gun salute, and Kaudzhu nodded in satisfaction as he noted the perfect, metronome-steady timing.

  * * *

  “I think Thirsk was wise to finish demolishing the walls,” Sharleyan Ahrmahk said over the smoky thunder of the salute. She and Cayleb had both joined Sarmouth on Thunderbolt’s flag bridge to watch the cruiser’s final approach to Gorath.

  “I do miss them, in a way, though,” Cayleb said. She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised, and he shrugged. “I’ve watched every stage of the changes over the SNARCs, but my mental image of Gorath’s always been the one that imprinted on me back when I was merely Midshipman Ahrmahk.” He shook his head. “‘The Golden Walls of Gorath’ were really pretty spectacular, especially when the sun hit them in the afternoon. And I hate to think how long it took to build them in the first place.”

  “A lot longer than it took to knock them down, anyway.” Sharleyan’s tone expressed grim satisfaction.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Sarmouth observed, “it might be just a tiny bit more tactful not to mention that to our hosts.”

  “I have no intention of creating a fresh war with Dohlar, Dunkyn,” Sharleyan said dryly. “But we promised they’d come down, and you and your people damned well made sure they did.” She patted his arm approvingly, and it was his turn to shrug.

  “Actually, we just more or less blew holes in them,” he said. “Lots of holes, I’ll grant you, but we didn’t have the time—or ammunition—to do a proper job of demolishing them. I hate to think how much of Sandrah’s Lywysite the Dohlarans used completing the job! And if you’ll look over there where every damned citizen of Gorath appears to be standing, you can see what they did with the rubble.”

  He pointed to the west, where a vastly expanded quay extended well out into the harbor, built out of the golden stone which had once walled the Kingdom of Dohlar’s capital. He might have been wrong about every Gorathian’s being present, but not by much, Cayleb reflected.

  “Thirsk was the one who insisted on calling it the Warrior Quay,” Sarmouth went on, “but no one argued with him. Took them damned near three years to get it built, too! I’d say they had quite a lot of demolition to do even after our best efforts.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll guarantee you it was cheaper and faster to finish taking those walls down, after what you and your boys did to them, than it would have been to try to repair them!” Cayleb said.

  “That’s probably fair,” the admiral acknowledged.

  An officer on the cutter’s tiny quarterdeck raised a signal flag. He held it poised motionless for perhaps fifteen seconds while another seaman crouched over the pelorus, reading off the changing bearings to him until they reached exactly the right spot. Then he waved his flag sharply, and chain roared out of Thunderbolt’s hawsehole as her anchor plunged into the water.

  “Steam does take a lot of the challenge out of it,” Sarmouth observed.

  “Oh, please don’t climb back up on the ‘steam is killing seamanship’ wagon!” Sharleyan groaned.

  “Well, to some extent it is,” Sarmouth replied. His tone was dead serious, despite what looked suspiciously like a lip twitch. “Mind you, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and Lock Island’s still careful to teach the basics. I know no one’s ever going to have to control a line of galleons again, but knowing the difference between a tack and a buntline’s probably still a good thing.”

  Cayleb laughed out loud and Sharleyan shook her head in disgust.

  The Imperial Charisian Navy had established Safehold’s first formal naval academy on Lock Island, the island in the center of The Throat, the passage between the Charis Sea and Howell Bay. It’s full official name was the Bryahn Lock Island Academy, named for Cayleb’s cousin, who’d died in the Gulf of Tarot. It no longer hurt whenever Cayleb thought about Bryahn, and he was sure his cousin would have approved of the Academy’s curriculum, including even—no, especially—the time the midshipmen spent learning to handle schooners and old-fashioned square-riggers. For that matter, it would be a few years yet before the last of the ICN’s sail-powered warships were retired. The Navy’s fast schooners—armed now with modern, breechloading five-inch guns—were adequate for almost any routine patrolling or pirate suppression mission, and they had far greater endurance than any steam-powered vessel their size. Despite that, though, they were clearly the navy of the past, and Sarmouth was right that the skills required to command sailing vessels were no longer essential in a navy of steel, steam, and coal. But he was also right that the training in teamwork and sail-powered seamanship taught an appreciation of wind and weather—and the need to work together to survive the sea—that a fifteen- or sixteen-thousand-ton cruiser wouldn’t.

  Or not until it was too late to do any good, at any rate.

  “Well, whether or not Captain Pruhyt knows the difference between a tack and a buntline, that was as neat a job of anchoring as I’ve ever seen,” the emperor said now. “Remind me to compliment him on it.”

  “As opposed to ripping him a new arsehole if he’d screwed it up, you mean?” Sarmouth said with an innocent expression, and Sharleyan smacked him lightly across the back of his head.

  “I will have you know that my husband would not have ripped anyone ‘a new arsehole’ just because he mortally embarrassed the Imperial Charisian Navy, not to mention the House of Ahrmahk, in front of the Royal Dohlaran Navy and the entire population of Gorath. Please! He is neither small minded, petty, nor vindictive.”

  “Really, Your Majesty?” Sarmouth frowned gravely. “Forgive me, but that didn’t seem to be your position when he set that nil bid of yours in Tuesday night’s spades game. Am I missing something?”

  “You don’t want to go there, Dunkyn,” Cayleb said. “Believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

  “My, look at the time!” Sharleyan said. “Why don’t I just nip down below decks to get Merlin and Alahnah before one of you says something we’ll all regret?”

  * * *

  Earl Kaudzhu watched the smaller escorting cruisers drop their anchors. The evolution wasn’t executed quite simultaneously—the smallest of the visitors displaced almost seven thousand tons, nearly four times as much as the largest galleon he’d ever commanded, and there were limits to how precisely ships that size could synchronize a maneuver like that—but they came damned close. As he looked at those rakish stems, flaring bows, and bristling gun turrets, he realized the new Imperial Charisian Navy was just as professional and even more deadly than the old one had been.

  “How many of those smaller ones do they have, Pawal?” Dragon Island asked him in a more serious tone. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the cheers rippling along the crowded waterfront. This was the first time any Charisian monarch—or Chisholmian monarch, for that matter—had ever visited Gorath, and the Gorathians seemed to have decided to take it as a compliment. Kaudzhu considered the question for a moment, then shrugged.

  “Our current reports are that they have five of the Thunderbolt-class—that’s the big one out there in the middle—and nine of the Falcon-class. For right now, that is. We’re pretty sure they’re building at least six more Falcons, but we don’t think they’ve laid down any more Thunderbolts yet.” He smiled a bit crookedly. “Of course, our spies have never been as good as their spies. As far as I’m aware, that hasn’t changed.”

  “We haven’t seen any sign that their spies are getting suddenly clumsy over at Clearwater, either,” Dragon Island agreed
dryly.

  Clearwater Palace, just down the broad thoroughfare of Trumyn Avenue from what had been the Schuelerite Convent of Saint Tairysa, had been built two hundred years ago for the mistress (and half-dozen illegitimate children) of the current monarch’s seven- or eight-times grandfather. Its pedigree had always made it something of an embarrassment to the House of Bahrns, and Rahnyld V had handed it over as the Royal Army’s formal headquarters when Dragon Island—who’d been simple Sir Rainos Ahlverez at the time—was named to the Army’s command. After the Jihad—and Grand Vicar Rhobair’s decision to divest the Order of Schueler of much of its real estate—Saint Tairysa’s had been acquired by the Crown as the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s new headquarters, which put Dragon Island’s and Kaudzhu’s offices conveniently close together.

  “No, they haven’t gotten clumsy,” Kaudzhu said. “It does seem just a bit unfair that Charis is still the only realm with seijins working for it, though.”

  “Lywys got the odd letter from them,” Dragon Island pointed out. “Mostly to tell him about things I’m sure Cayleb and Sharleyan wanted us to know about, but I think it’s pretty obvious they wish us well. A lot more than they wish us ill, at any rate.”

  “‘They’ being Cayleb and Sharleyan or the seijins?” Kaudzhu raised an eyebrow at him, and Dragon Island snorted.

  “Both, at least for now. And just between you and me, I’d like to keep it that way!”

  “I believe you’ll find general agreement with that at Saint Tairysa’s,” the earl said dryly, as the visiting warships’ banners came down from their mainmast gaffs.

  Thunderbolt’s banner showed a pair of interlinked crowns above its kraken, one gold and one silver, which indicated that both Cayleb and Sharleyan were personally embarked. As the colors descended from the mainmasts, slightly smaller flags ran simultaneously up the stern-mounted staffs aboard each ship, marking the formal transition from a ship underway to one at anchor.