At the Sign of Triumph

by David Weber

  “Always such a way with words,” Hahlynd replied with an off-center smile. Then he shrugged. “Wish I could disagree. But look at it this way—assuming we get past these people, we’ve still got the entire Gulf to cross before we get to Gorath. Given normal weather for this time of year, that’s got to be at least as much a challenge as this, don’t you think?”

  “That’s a strange way to encourage someone, Sir.”

  “Best I can come up with, I’m afraid,” Hahlynd replied, and raised his spyglass, studying the Charisian galleons as his screw-galleys charged to meet them in a buffeting rush of ice-edged wind and pitching explosions of spray.

  * * *

  “Now those have to be some unhappy people, Sir,” Captain Sympsyn said, and looked up at the set of his ironclad galleon’s canvas, studying it as if considering some way it might be tweaked.

  “I’m sure they are,” Tymythy Darys replied.

  The admiral wasn’t looking at his flag captain at the moment; he was still peering through the raised angle-glass bracketed to the inner face of HMS Lightning’s seven-foot armored bulwark. He had to angle it almost parallel with the ship’s keel, because the screw-galleys were taking advantage of their weatherly rig and screws to come at his flagship head-on. Now he straightened and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “I’m sure they are,” he repeated, “but I don’t think that’s going to slow them up very much. And it’s pretty clear what Raisahndo’s up to.”

  Sympsyn nodded, his own expression less than delighted. With their screws to supplement their sails, the screw-galleys were faster than the Dohlaran galleons, despite their smaller size. The seas were approaching ten or eleven feet, and the galleons’ bigger, deeper—not to mention more strongly built—hulls ought to have allowed them to make considerably more speed than the small, frail screw-galleys. Their commander was driving them dangerously hard, however, despite the sea conditions. He was clearly prepared to run some serious risks in the execution of his portion of the Dohlaran battle plan.

  And they obviously had a plan.

  “They’re trying to get across our line of advance,” the admiral continued, speaking to himself as much as to his flagship’s commander. “The question in my mind is whether they plan to stay clear until they can take up firing positions on our disengaged side after their galleons get to grips with us, or if they’re going to try to get in close and hit our rigging, slow us down before we get to grips.”

  “Might be a little of both, Sir,” Sympsyn offered. “If I was them, I’d see about putting some shot through our masts and spars while I waited for the galleons to catch up.” He shrugged. “Might not achieve anything, but you never know till you try. And if what happened in the Kaudzhu Narrows is any guide, they’ll probably try to swarm in once the action’s general and go for our rudder.”

  Darys nodded, still rubbing his chin. The rescued handful of survivors from Kahrltyn Haigyl’s crew all agreed that the screw-galleys had gotten in close on Dreadnought—close enough to be out of the play of her guns—and then hung off her quarters, pounding steadily away at her rudder, and that persistent pounding had ultimately paid off. He didn’t doubt they’d try to repeat the performance here … if they could. But there was a world of difference between a single, unsupported galleon—no matter how well armored she might be—and what the Dohlarans faced this afternoon.

  In fact, there was an even bigger difference than they might yet realize.

  “I think that’s exactly what they’ll try to do,” he agreed. “Although,” he added judiciously, “I also doubt they’d mind a bit if we decided to avoid the threat by breaking off and letting their galleons by us.”

  “They’d probably drop dead of heart failure, Sir,” Sympsyn said dryly. “I suppose that’d be one way to take them out without firing a single shot.”

  Darys chuckled, but his flag captain had a point. A very good one, in fact. Whatever else might be true, the Royal Dohlaran Navy and the Imperial Charisian Navy had come to hold one another’s tenacity in lively respect.

  Not a whole lot of quit in either of us, I guess, he thought. And of course, in our case, there’s the minor matter of what Dunkyn would have to say to me. He snorted. Come to think of it, I’d rather face the round shot!

  * * *

  So much for the best possible outcome, Pawal Hahlynd thought with a certain bitter amusement.

  In the months since the Kaudzhu Narrows, some of Risahndo’s officers had expected—or claimed to expect—the Charisians to refuse to expose unarmored galleons to his screw-galleys now that they’d demonstrated how dangerous they were. They’d argued the Charisians’ regular galleons would back off, opt to hold the range open, whatever their ironclads might do. The more optimistic had even suggested the screw-galleys’ threat might be enough to strip the unarmored ships away entirely, leave the ironclads to take on the entire squadron by themselves. Hahlynd, on the other hand, hadn’t believed that for a moment—that wasn’t the way Charisian seamen were built—but he’d been willing to concede at least the possibility that they’d be … more tentative after the Narrows.

  Until now, of course.

  The Charisians had turned, all right, but only to open their broadsides. The range was little more than twenty-four hundred yards now, but his screw-galleys would do well to mark a target at much over six hundred under these conditions of wind and sea. The Charisians were far larger, heavier ships—twice the length of his own, with a beam to match—which made them much steadier gun platforms. Coupled with their rifled guns, that equated to a major advantage in effective range, and he watched the lead ship’s outline shifting, lengthening from a narrow, bows-on silhouette to show its full long, lean length … and gunports. Her next astern followed her around, showing an identical profile, and his jaw tightened as the third Charisian turned. She had none of the telltale rust streaks visible on the two leaders, marking the spots where wind and the weather had worn away their armor’s protective paint, but—

  “Signal to Admiral Raisahndo,” he said.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “‘Confirm two leading galleons are ironclads,’” Hahlynd dictated. “‘Estimate at least two three-decked ships in company.’” He heard someone suck in sharply at that, but he never lowered his glass or looked away from the Charisian ships.

  “Add one more signal,” he added.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “‘Engaging.’”

  * * *

  “So they are going to try to use the screw-galleys as their battering ram, My Lord,” Captain Lathyk said.

  He and Sarmouth stood side-by-side in Destiny’s mizzen rigging, each with an arm looped through the shrouds for safety’s sake while they peered through their double-glasses.

  “I think at least part of this is Hahlynd exercising his discretion,” the baron said now. “Raisahndo’s still trying to run; he’s too smart to do anything else. I’m sure he’d be delighted if he managed to inflict damage on us, but Hahlynd’s primary mission was to kick the door open for their galleons and then hold it open as long as he could. Engaging Tymythy and tying him up, forcing him to maneuver against the screw-galleys rather than letting them get in close the way they did against Dreadnought, would be one way to do that. For that matter, it’s even possible they thought they could bluff him into breaking off and letting them through rather than risk a repeat of the Narrows.”

  “Never going to happen, My Lord,” Lathyk said flatly.

  “Of course it wasn’t … and they knew it as well as we did.” Sarmouth never lowered his double-glass. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t have to try. And if they’d pulled it off it would’ve been worth losing every one of his screw-galleys. I suspect they thought they had a better chance of that than they really did, too. Unless I miss my guess, Hahlynd’s only just now realized what Tymythy has with him.”

  Lathyk made a wordless sound of agreement, and Sarmouth wondered exactly what was going through Pawal Hahlynd’s brain at this moment.


  The Dohlaran admiral understood the odds, the actual balance of combat power, as well as anyone on the Charisian side. And he also had to know this day was effectively the Royal Dohlaran Navy’s death ride. He’d seen Dreadnought up close, seen her in action. After that experience, he could have had no illusions when the first steam-powered ironclad turned up in the Gulf of Dohlar. He was one of the Dohlaran admirals who’d made a point of using his brain from the very beginning and, like Raisahndo, he was one of Earl Thirsk’s closest allies. For that matter, Greyghor Whytmyn, who was married to Thirsk’s younger daughter, Hailyn, was Hahlynd’s nephew by marriage. And, like his friend the earl, Hahlynd could have been under no illusions about why his nephew had been summoned to Zion. He knew—he had to know—the Group of Four was losing and that the Kingdom of Dohlar was about to pay a terrible price for its loyalty to the Temple. Yet there was no more give, no more surrender, in Pawal Hahlynd than there was in Lywys Gardynyr. He would do his duty, however grim, to the very end, without flinching.

  Damn, I wish we didn’t have to kill men like that just to get to scum like Clyntahn, the baron thought bitterly. Not enough for that fat son-of-a-bitch to murder God only knows how many millions of innocent ‘heretics,’ himself. Oh, no! He’s got to put us in the position of killing good, honorable men if we want to stop him.

  And now it’s time for me to go kill a few thousand more of them.

  He lowered his double-glass but his gaze stayed on the suddenly tiny sails of the screw-galleys, driving unwaveringly to meet Admiral Darys’ division.

  “I believe it’s time for the rest of us to join the party, Rhobair,” he said.

  “Yes, My Lord. I’ll have the signal made.”

  * * *

  “They’re coming down on us, Sir,” Captain Trahvys said harshly, and Caitahno Raisahndo nodded.

  “It’s what Sarmouth had in mind from the beginning,” he replied. “He’s taking a hell of a chance, but unlike us, he’s got an entire navy left even if he loses his whole squadron. And if it works.…”

  He stood on Hurricane’s quarterdeck, watching the incredible panorama as the two enormous fleets flowed towards one another. Sarmouth had broken the rest of his line at last, turning each division in it simultaneously. Now four short, compact columns forged down upon Raisahndo, ready to turn back to form a single line of battle to windward or leeward, whichever seemed best when they overhauled him, and he knew exactly what the Charisian admiral had in mind.

  He sucked me as far up to windward as he could, and he was willing to risk losing the wind gauge to do it. Not that there was ever much chance of that, really, I suppose. But that’s why he was in that long, single line from the beginning—specifically so he could detach his last division and swing it directly across our only escape route. He couldn’t have known he’d get the opportunity, but he had it ready from the start in case he did. Why else put such heavy firepower at the rear of his line? If Pawal’s right—if those frigging ironclads really do have three-deckers in company—this is his Wednesday punch. He’s throwing a haymaker straight into our teeth, risking what we might accomplish against it in isolation before he catches up with us, because we don’t have any choice but to fight our way past it. And that slows us. Just maneuvering against it would do that … and anyone who takes damage aloft in the process is dead meat, no matter what else happens, unless I’m willing to abandon the cripples. And he’s faster, anyway. If that division in front of us can slow us down for an hour—Shan-wei, half an hour!—he’ll be right in among the rear of the Squadron. And when that happens—

  “General signal, Lewk.” His voice was hammered iron. “‘Make more sail. Engage the enemy more closely.’”

  * * *

  “It looks like being a little different today, Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Kylmahn said quietly. “I don’t think those damned screw-galleys are going to enjoy this one bit.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht agreed, never looking away from the Dohlaran squadron.

  There was an ugly edge in his chief of staff’s voice, he thought. An edge of vengeful anticipation. He couldn’t really blame Kylmahn for that—not after the Khadzhu Narrows. Yet he was a bit surprised to discover that he didn’t share that sense of anticipation. Or perhaps he did. But if so, he was more aware of what the men aboard those screw-galleys must be thinking as they charged headlong into such a massive weight of guns.

  No cowards over there, he thought. No butchers, either … not really. Only men. Men with families, with wives and daughters and sons too many of them will never see again. And men who are no more going to turn away from their duty than my men did at the Narrows.

  He lowered his double-glass and looked up at the set of Floodtide’s canvas. The ironclad led Baron Sarmouth’s Second Division—Floodtide and the sixty-eights Dynzayl Tryvythyn, Turbulent, Vindicator, Sand Point, and Bruxtyn—steadily southwest. If it worked the way Sarmouth had hoped it might, that powerful division would come crashing in about the time Raisahndo’s lead galleons became closely engaged with Admiral Darys’ even more powerful squadron. And while that was happening, Sarmouth would lead his own division completely across the Dohlarans’ rear and come ranging up from leeward.

  It might not work, he thought. But for it to fail, Raisahndo had to somehow break past Darys without being drawn into a melee.…

  And that’s not going to happen, Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht thought with grim, curiously regretful satisfaction. Not going to happen in a million years.

  * * *

  “Fire!”

  The long line of massive cannon hurled themselves inboard in a crashing bellow of thunder, and HMS Lightning’s tall, black side disappeared behind a wall of flame and smoke. Astern of her, her next in line, Seamount, followed suit, and thirty-two heavy shells went wailing across the waves.

  * * *

  “Make a note in the log,” Captain Trahvys told Hurricane’s duty quartermaster. He pulled his watch from his pocket, opened the case, then snapped it shut once more.

  “The enemy opened fire at seventeen minutes past sixteen o’clock,” he said.

  * * *

  Pawal Hahlynd saw the leading Charisian galleons vanish into the huge, volcanic gush of dark-brown smoke. None of the other ships in front of his screw-galleys had fired. No doubt they were well supplied with shells, but he’d gotten a good look at all them now, and any one of them was at least as powerful as any galleon in the Royal Dohlaran Navy. Aside from the ironclads, not a one of them could mount fewer than sixty guns, and at least two of them were units of a class no Dohlaran officer had ever seen. He knew what they had to be—the Inquisition’s agents had learned at least some details of the Zhenyfyr Ahrmahk-class—but most of the Zhenyfyr Ahrmahks had been earmarked for conversion into ironclads, cut down to a single gundeck because they’d offered the only hulls big and strong enough to carry the massive weight of the Rottweilers’ armor.

  These hadn’t been, and each of them showed three complete gundecks, counting the carronades on their spar decks. Ninety-eight guns, that was how many a Zhenyfyr Ahrmahk carried. The thought of facing that holocaust was enough to turn any man’s stomach into frozen lead. Intellectually, Hahlynd knew the ironclads were even more dangerous, but those tall-sided galleons, sides throwing back the spray like black-painted cliffs while better than forty guns grinned hungrily from their open ports, screamed “Danger!” even more shrilly than the low-slung, evil-looking ironclads.

  Yet whatever instinct might say, the three-deckers obviously mounted the standard 30-pounder smoothbores of the ICN, not the rifled 6-inchers of a Rottweiler, and the range was still at least a mile. No, they’d reserve their fire until someone was unfortunate enough to come deeper into their reach. Once someone did enter their range, though, that many shells would reduce any target to broken, flaming wreckage in mere minutes.

  The only Doharan ships with any chance at all of surviving that kind of fire were Hahlynd’s screw-galleys. If they waited for the conventional gall
eys to close enough to support them, they’d only be bringing their consorts into a vortex of destruction they could never survive. The likelihood that even the screw-galleys might was probably little better, but at least their armor would give them some chance.

  And that was precisely why he couldn’t wait, whatever his original instructions might have been.

  The ironclads to break our teeth … and the three-deckers to break our bones. That’s what Sarmouth means for them to do, and unless I can get in close enough fast enough—

  That massive double broadside crashed into the sea, throwing up thirty-foot pillars of water whiter than snow. They rose like a forest of titan oaks, tall and terrible, all around the screw-galleys Arrow and Javelin. The small ships clove the icy waterfalls, cranksmen bending desperately to their duty even as their ships leaned to the dangerous press of their canvas. Every man aboard those screw-galleys knew it was insanely risky to drive them so hard through such seas, that their hulls hovered on the brink of failure even before the enemy inflicted a single hit, yet they never hesitated. They sliced through the waves at almost twelve knots, clawing their way across the envelope of their enemies’ longer range, lying so far over to the press of the wind their lee rails were awash in a smother of white. Yet even at their speed, they’d need six minutes to bring the ironclads into their own reach, and in that time the superbly trained gunners of the Imperial Charisian Navy could fire as many as ten more broadsides.

  * * *

  “Gutsy bastards,” Zosh Hahlbyrstaht said quietly.

  Fleet Wing’s position, well to the northwest of the Dohlaran main body, put her safely beyond Caitahno Raisahndo’s reach. It also meant she was too far away to see a damned thing from deck level. Which was why Hahlbyrstaht and Hektor had climbed to the schooner’s maintop.

  The first lieutenant wasn’t very happy whenever his CO went up the mast, although he knew better than to say anything of the sort. And the truth was that, even with only one working arm, the Duke of Darcos was nimble as a monkey lizard. He’d been scooting up and down warships’ rigging since he was ten years old, he’d always been blessed with an excellent head for heights, and that single arm of his had grown amazingly muscular since he’d lost the use of the other.