A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  Lock Island and Rock Point had given considerable thought to their formation.

  Of their twenty- five galleons, only the twelve Rock Point had taken to Larek had shells in their magazines. For that matter, ten of Lock Island’s thirteen galleons couldn’t have fired the new ammunition if they’d had it. They mounted the “old- style” long krakens with which the Royal Charisian Navy’s galleons had originally been armed, but the shells had been designed for the “new- model” krakens, which fired a thirty- pound shot instead of the older guns’ thirty-five- pound shot.

  The formation they’d adopted alternated Rock Point’s shell- armed ships with Lock Island’s own galleons. The only exception to that was the lead pair—Ahrmahk and Darcos Sound, both from Lock Island’s original squadron. So far, there’d been no need for the shells, given the crushing surprise they’d achieved in the initial engagement, and Lock Island had no intention of allowing the other side to know the new weapon existed until he had an opportunity to use it decisively. So they were going to fight their way into Harpahr’s sprawling formation with old- fashioned round shot, and only then would Rock Point’s ships switch to shells.

  While they last, at any rate,the high admiral thought grimly.

  Now he watched as his flagship drew closer and closer to the Church squadrons and felt himself tightening internally once more.

  What ever happens, these bastards are about to get hurt worse than they ever imagined,he told himself.

  The leading Church galleons began to fire.

  The range was still long, especially for inexperienced gun crews firing in such poor visibility. The thunder and lightning of their broadsides shredded the night, yet almost all of their twenty- five- pound and twelve- pound shot plunged harmlessly into the sea, and the Charisians held their fire. They sailed through the splashes, flinched at the thudding sledgehammer sounds as the occasional shot actually struck one of their ships. Most of the leading Charisians were purpose- built units, however, with the heavy framing and thick scantlings of true warships. The weak Church gunpowder and lighter shot were no match for their stoutness.

  Here and there, round shot wailed through the air above a ship, or punched through a topsail like invisible fists. Shrouds were sliced away, and seamen swarmed up ratlines to splice severed lines. A few shots—a very few, luckier than their fellows—found targets of flesh and blood. A twenty- five- pound shot erupted through Ahrmahk’s quarterdeck hammock nettings. One of the carronade gunners dropped without a sound as his head vanished, and two more men on the same gun went down, writhing as their blood patterned the planking.

  A casualty party hurried them below to the waiting surgeons and healers, and one or two of the flagship’s men looked at one another uneasily. Most, however, simply stood there, watching the flashes of the enemy’s guns, waiting. The high admiral could hear at least some of them commenting scornfully on the Church gunners’ lack of accuracy, and he found himself grinning as one gray- haired gun captain turned his back on those gunners, pulled down his trousers, and waved his bare buttocks at the enemy.

  A roar of laughter went up, mixed with catcalls and some incredibly obscene suggestions for how to improve the insult, and the gun captain redoubled his efforts. It was unacceptable, of course, and his division officer’s snarled rep- rimand recalled him quickly to his own responsibilities, but Lock Island doubted the youthful lieutenant’s heart had really been in it.

  “I think they’re just wasting powder and shot, Ahrnahld,” Harpahr said quietly, watching his lead ships fire, and his flag captain shrugged.

  “I don’t doubt it, My Lord. On the other hand, there’s no way to stop them from here. It’s possible they’ll get lucky, for that matter—actually kill a Charisian or two, maybe even bring down a spar. And, frankly, I’d rather have them firing, even if they’re not hitting anything, than eating themselves up with worry. Besides,” his teeth gleamed faintly, reflecting the distant broadsides, “in another twenty minutes they’ll be close enough they will be hitting something.”

  The two fleets’ slow, steady approach was totally different from the initial clash. There would be no ambush, this time. No sudden surprise of artillery thundering out of the night. This time both sides knew what was coming, and the Church gunners began to score more hits as the range was slowly but steadily pared away.

  A crashing sound, and a chorus of screams from forward, told Lock Island that at least one Church round shot had finally gotten through. It might have found an open gunport, he thought, or it was possible the range had fallen enough for even Church gunpowder to start punching through his ships’ sides.

  He glanced at Sylmahn Baikyr. Moonlight poured through rents in the cloud cover now, turning sails to polished pewter, and Ahrmahk’s captain stood motionless, narrow eyes measuring ranges, evaluating firing arcs, looking for gaps between enemy ships. The fingers of his right hand drummed slowly, rhythmically, on the scabbard of his sheathed sword. Another round shot ripped through the midships hammock nettings. It killed a Marine, chewed a two-inch semicircle out of the back of the mainmast, then careened off into the darkness somewhere on the far side of the ship.

  Baikyr didn’t even flinch. He just stood waiting, and Lock Island felt a sudden surge of warmth—of affection—for his dapper little flag captain.

  Still the range fell. Ahrmahk’s bowsprit thrust out ahead of her, aimed like some knight’s lance, but at a solid mountain range of moon- washed canvas and waiting broadsides, not at another knight. Gunports began to flash ahead of her—scores of them, hundreds. Round shot howled through the air, punched into her bows, ripped through her sails. More of her crew went down, wounded or dead, and other men stepped into their places. Grips tightened on handspikes, on the staffs of rammers. Knuckles whitened, here and there lips moved in silent prayer, and still the range fell.

  Even to Lock Island, it seemed incredible that so many guns could throw so many shot at a single target without ripping Ahrmahk to pieces. The thudding sounds grew more frequent, louder. Splinters flew. More men screamed. The fore topgallant mast pitched over the side. One of the foredeck carronades took a direct hit and its carriage disintegrated, throwing a deadly sheet of splinters across the deck.

  And then, finally, his flagship—still without firing a single shot—began pushing her way physically through the gap between two of the Church galleons.

  Harpahr watched the leading Charisian come on like some moonlit, unstoppable juggernaut. His gunners were hitting her—he knew they were! Yet she seemed invulnerable, invincible. He saw holes appearing in her sails, and the sea around her was ripped and torn as tons of iron churned its surface. At least some of those shot had to be hitting her, had to be killing and maiming her men.

  Then her fore topgallant toppled like a felled tree, and he held his breath, waiting to see her turn away at last, clear her own broadside so she could reply to her tormentors.

  But she didn’t. She just kept coming, and he felt a deep, formless emotion stirring within him. It wasn’t fear he felt, yet it was something close. Dread, perhaps. He’d seen battle. He knew the sort of iron discipline it took to absorb that kind of pounding—to see that many cannon thundering away, hurling their hate at you—and still keep coming. He knew what he was seeing... and he could already sense the brutal price that courage and discipline were going to exact from his own men.

  An iron hurricane thundered into Ahrmahk’s bows just as she passed between NGS Holy Warrior and NGS Crusade. It came from yet a third galleon, lying almost directly across her own path, and her entire foremast swayed, then plunged downward, crashing into the water alongside. Her main topgallant mast went with it, and there were more screams and cries from forward. Two of her lieutenants went down, and Sylmahn Baikyr looked at his first lieutenant.

  “You may fire, Master Vykain,” he said.

  Harpahr winced as the lead Charisian fired at last.

  For an instant, he thought the ship had exploded as both broadsides erupted simultaneousl
y. Yet even as he thought that, he realized how wrong he was. Despite the pounding she’d taken during that long, slow, dreadful approach, there was a venomous precision to her fire. Her guns crashed out, two- by- two, spardeck carronades firing in unison with the heavier gundeck guns beneath them, and their accuracy was fearful to behold.

  HMS Ahrmahk had paid a terrible price to break the Church line. A quarter of her crew were casualties. Her foremast was gone. She was slowed, lamed, with five guns out of action before she ever reached her enemies. But it was a price she had known she was going to pay, and she and her crew made no mistake.

  Her guns had been double- shotted this time. They slammed their hate into Holy Warrior and Crusade, raking both ships simultaneously. Men shrieked and died aboard the Church galleons. Holy Warrior staggered, helm control obviously lost. She fouled one of her consorts in a crashing thunder of wooden hulls grinding together. Yardarms locked, masts snapped, and she and her sister wallowed aside.

  HMS Ahrmahk was in little better state. Crusade swung round to larboard, turning to run before the wind, bringing her own larboard broadside to bear. A third of the Church ship’s guns had been dismounted or disabled, but if her men were less experienced than Ahrmahk’s, they were no less determined. The remaining guns blasted at the Charisian flagship, and this time, most of them hit. The rest of Ahrmahk’s mainmast thundered down, and Bryahn Lock Island went to his knees as a heavy wooden block, swinging from the mizzentop like a lethal pendulum, literally picked a Marine up and hurled him into the high admiral.

  “Larboard your helm!” Baikyr’s clear voice cut through the bedlam, and Ahrmahk swerved to starboard even as her speed dropped. She slammed into Crusade bodily, the shock driving more men from their feet. Crusade’s mizzen-mast went down with the impact, grappling irons flew, and Bryahn Lock Island drove himself to his feet, checked his sword, and drew his pistols.

  “Away boarders, Master Vykain!” Baikyr shouted, and HMS Ahrmahk’s Marines and seamen howled the high, piercing Charisian war cry as they hurled themselves across onto the other ship’s deck with their high admiral at their head.

  Behind Ahrmahk, Darcos Sound came driving through the gap the flagship had created. She bore down on Holy Warrior and her fouled consort, larboard broadside thundering, then drove past, deeper into the confusion and smoke and bedlam. Behind her, Daffodil, one of Rock Point’s galleons, fought her way through, pounding with round shot, battering a road towards the heart of the Church formation. And behind her came Crag Reach, and Margaret’s Land, and Greentree, and Foam.

  The Charisians maintained their formation with iron discipline as they broke through the outermost Church line, but once they were past that ordered formation, the chaos Lock Island had envisioned enveloped them. There were simply too many Church galleons swarming towards them. There was no possible way to avoid all of them, and the indescribable confusion of a night action churned the chaos into a wild melee that no man could have hoped to sort out.

  No one broke. No one ran. Perhaps one would have expected that of a navy with the ICN’s traditions, yet its opponents were just as stubborn, just as determined. Say what one might about Zhaspahr Clyntahn, level what ever charge one wished at the corruption of the Group of Four, scorn the self- serving avarice of a corrupt and venal Church hierarchy if one would, there were no cowards aboard the Church’s ships that night.

  Lock Island and his officers and his men had known precisely what sort of action they intended to create. They’d embraced it with the cold, calculating courage of a navy with an all but unbroken record of victory, and they’d walked straight into it deliberately.

  The crews of the Navy of God had thought they knew what was coming, but they’d been wrong. They’d trained, they’d practiced, they’d drilled, but they’d never experienced it, and nothing short of experience could truly have prepared them for it. Man- for- man and ship- for- ship, they were outclassed by their opponents in every category except one: courage. They were terrified, confused, with no clear idea of what was happening, and yet they stood to their guns. They were less accurate, they scored fewer hits, their round shot were lighter, but they poured fire back at the Charisians. And when Imperial Charisian Marines came storming aboard their ships after collision had locked them together, they met them at the bulwarks, on the gangways, with weapons in their hands and no give at all in their hearts.

  The last, desperate defense of HMS Royal Charis at the Battle of Darcos Sound had been the closest, most brutal, most ferocious engagement in the history of the Royal Charisian Navy.

  On this night, in this place, on these red- running decks, the Imperial Charisian Navy found its equal.

  “God wills it!”

  Flame gushed up from the pistol’s pan as Lock Island squeezed the trigger. The heavy, rifled bullet slammed into the Temple Guardsman’s face in an explosion of blood, black in the moonlight. It was the pistol’s second round, and there was no time to holster it as the dead guardsman’s companion kept coming. Lock Island dropped the smoking weapon to the deck and his sword leapt into his hand.

  “Langhorne and no quarter!” someone else was howling as the high admiral parried aside the guardsman’s boarding pike. One of his own Marines lashed out with his musket, burying his bayonet in the guardsman’s side, and the Temple Loyalist went down shrieking.

  Lock Island staggered as another Church galleon came grinding in along Crusade’s other side. The newcomer had been badly battered—she’d lost her mizzenmast, and her larboard bulwarks looked as if they’d been pounded flat by some maniac with a sledgehammer—but her gangways were black with seamen and guardsmen, and steel gleamed dully in the smoke- choked moonlight.

  “Charis! Charis!” he heard voices screaming.

  “Death to the Inquisition!” someone else bellowed, and he felt the wild, half- maddened fury of his own Marines and seamen.

  Then the new wave of boarders came streaming across onto Crusade’s deck in a torrent of hate and keen- edged steel.

  “After me, lads!” Bryahn Lock Island screamed and charged to meet them.

  Now, Domynyk Staynair thought. Now!

  Destroyerhad finally broken through the fraying Church line. At least ten of his and Lock Island’s galleons were yardarm- to- yardarm with Church galleons, cannon muzzles flaming at one another from as little as ten yards’ range or even lashed together, with furious boarding actions raging back and forth.

  Yet that island of madness had drawn in still more of Harpahr’s ships. They were closing on the Charisian intruders, preparing to swarm them under before anyone could come to their aid. And in the process, they’d created a clear space, room into which Destroyer could lead the truncated line behind her.

  “Now, Styvyn!” he barked.

  “Aye, aye, My Lord!” Styvyn Erayksyn, his flag lieutenant, shouted through the chaos, and crossed to the larboard side of the quarterdeck.

  Erayksyn had discarded his oilskins when the rain ceased. Now he reached into the pocket of his torn, smoke- grimed uniform tunic, extracted one of Commodore Seamount’s “Shan- wei’s candles,” and struck it on the breech of a carronade. It flared and flashed and sputtered to life, and he touched it to the fuse of a curious- looking contraption lashed to Destroyer’s taffrail.

  For a moment, nothing happened, and then something sputtered and glared even more ferociously. Erayksyn stepped back hastily . . . and the very first signal rocket ever used in combat on the surface of Safehold arced into the night sky. It soared upward, spewing a fiery trail that sent a stab of atavistic terror through men steeped in the restrictions of the Proscriptions of Jwojeng.

  If it hadn’t come at them cold, they would have recognized what it had to be. They’d worked and trained with gunpowder long enough to realize this was only one more application of a familiar material. But it did come at them cold, and when it exploded in a brilliant, thunderous flash high overhead, some of them—men who’d faced a maelstrom of howling round shot without flinching—panicked at last
.

  It didn’t last, that panic. There were those who understood what they were seeing despite the surprise, and there were others who simply didn’t care what Shan- wei- spawned deviltry the Charisian heretics might have brought with them. They rallied their more frightened companions, and the volume of fire which had faltered visibly when the rocket launched began to climb once more.

  But the rocket was only a precursor. Only a sign of things yet to come. As it exploded overhead, ten Charisian galleons—every one of Rock Point’s shell-armed ships which wasn’t already mired in one of the furious boarding actions—stopped firing round shot.

  “Langhorne!”Kornylys Harpahr gasped.

  Sword of Godhad so far avoided the melee, but his flagship was headed into the cauldron now, leading a dozen more galleons to seal off the Charisian penetration and crush the intruders. The admiral general had been as startled as anyone when the rocket hissed up from Destroyer, but he’d also been one of those who’d realized immediately that there was nothing demonic about it. In fact, he’d found himself wondering why the same idea had never occurred to him.

  What he hadn’t realized was what the rocket was for. For a few minutes, he actually hoped that it was a signal to break off, that the Charisians had realized they were too outnumbered to achieve victory. But then he discovered his mistake.

  He was looking directly at HMS King Sailys when the fifty- eight- gun galleon fired a full broadside of thirty- pounder shells into NGS Holy Writ at a range of ninety yards. Only three of the twenty- seven shells missed. Two fuses malfunctioned—the gunners using them for the first time hadn’t gotten them set properly. But that left twenty- two, and not even Commander Mahndrayn’s tests had truly prepared Rock Point and his crews for what happened next.

  Holy Writblew up.

  It was like some terrible avalanche of light. Baron Seamount’s fuses were still in the developmental stage. Unlike the impact fuses he’d designed for the rifled shells he’d been forbidden to produce, the smoothbore shells used timed fuses ignited by the flash when the gun’s propellant exploded, and he hadn’t yet managed to come up with a fuse compound with a completely uniform combustion rate. As a result, the shells detonated in a staggered sequence. All of them exploded in the space of no more than three seconds, yet there were discernible intervals between them—gaps long enough for the Navy of God to realize that what ever ammunition King Sailys had just fired, it was the shells themselves exploding. It wasn’t Holy Writ’s own ammunition; it was yet another new Charisian weapon.