Off Armageddon Reef

by David Weber

  "If I may?" he asked, holding out his hand, and the corporal handed the weapon over with a broad grin, followed by his cartridge box.

  Merlin accepted both of them and calmly loaded the rifle. He shook powder into the pan, then turned back to Cayleb.

  "May I assume you had a target in mind, Your Highness?" he asked mildly.

  "As a matter of fact, I do," Cayleb assured him with a grin even broader than the corporal's. "In fact, I think I may have found one that will challenge even you, Merlin."

  Merlin merely raised an eyebrow, and Cayleb turned and pointed downrange. Not at the mannequins which had served as the Marines' targets, but beyond them. Well beyond them, Lock Island realized, as he saw the additional mannequin standing all by itself at least four hundred yards away from them.

  "That does seem rather a long shot, Your Highness," Merlin observed.

  "Oh, I'm certain you can do it!" Cayleb said encouragingly. Merlin gave him a moderately reproving look, then stepped slightly out in front of the front rank of Marines.

  He gazed downrange, sapphire eyes intent. None of the people watching him realized he was using a PICA's built-in laser-ranging capability to determine the exact distance to his target. It worked out at four hundred and twelve yards, and he nodded to himself.

  Unlike any of the flesh-and-blood humans about him, Merlin knew the average muzzle velocity of the new rifles. No one on Safehold had yet gotten around to developing the chronograph which someone on Old Earth would have used to measure the muzzle velocity of a firearm, but Merlin didn't need one. Or, rather, he had one already built in.

  Now he cocked the lock and raised the rifle into firing position. A red crosshair superimposed itself on his vision, well above the mannequin, as his CPU calculated the bullet's trajectory and indicated the proper point of aim, and he captured the front sight in the open V of the simple rear sight and aligned both of them on the glowing icon only he could see.

  The crosshair steadied itself. In fact, it steadied with literally inhuman precision, for no flesh-and-blood human could have held that rifle so utterly, completely still. And then Merlin smoothly and steadily squeezed the trigger.

  The striker snapped forward, the pan flashed, and the rifle spewed out the usual cloud of powder smoke as it slammed thunderously back against his shoulder with the brutal recoil of any large-caliber black-powder weapon. Then, four hundred and twelve yards downrange, the mannequin's helmet leapt off its head and spun flashing in the sunlight before it thudded to the ground.

  "Oh, dear," Merlin murmured, turning to Cayleb with a smile. "I'm afraid we're going to need another new helmet, Your Highness."

  * * *

  "I see why you wanted to keep all this out of sight, Your Highness," Lock Island conceded two hours later.

  He stood with the crown prince, Merlin, and Lieutenant Tillyer, waiting while a couple of Marines fetched his and Tillyer's horses for the return journey to King's Harbor.

  "It is something we'd like to keep under wraps," Cayleb replied. "And Major Clareyk and Lieutenant Layn have been doing some interesting things working out the best tactics. It's not just as simple as standing in place and blazing away, although that's probably going to be effective enough at first, given our range advantage and rate of fire. Eventually, though, both sides are going to have rifles, and when that happens, standing out in the open is going to be a good way to get lots and lots of people killed very quickly."

  "I can well believe that," Lock Island said, with a shudder which wasn't at all feigned.

  "The fact that every rifleman becomes his own pikeman as soon as he fixes his bayonet is also going to have a major impact in any boarding action, My Lord," Lieutenant Falkhan pointed out diffidently, and Lock Island nodded.

  He understood the reason for the odd-shaped lugs on the rifle barrels now. The thing Merlin called a "ring bayonet" was essentially a knife with a fourteen-inch, two-sided blade and an open ring formed into one end of its cross guard. The ring fitted down over the muzzle in front of the front sight, and a simple half-twist locked a cutout in the knife's hilt over the lug to hold it firmly in place. The weapon could still be loaded and fired, although the rate of fire slowed drastically, and, as Falkhan had said, it literally turned each musket into a boarding pike. Which meant it would no longer be necessary for Marine musketeers to drop their firearms once the melee began.

  "At the same time, Bryahn," Cayleb said very seriously, "one reason I wanted you to see this is that we have a decision to make, and I want your views on it before we do. Specifically, do we really want to begin issuing rifles to all our Marines?"

  "What?" The high admiral felt his eyebrows arch in surprise at the question. "Why shouldn't we want to, Your Highness?" he asked after a moment.

  "I can think of two main reasons," Cayleb replied. "First, it takes much longer to make a rifle than it does to make a smoothbore musket. We can probably produce as many as three or even five smoothbores for each rifle. Master Howsmyn's going to move musket production to his new Delthak foundry as soon as he can. He ought to be able to begin producing them there sometime late next month, and putting it all under one roof will let him be sure all the interchangeable parts are really interchangeable."

  The prince made a face, and Merlin hid a smile. Over the past few months, Cayleb had become aware of the disadvantages inherent in the absence of a truly uniform system of measurements. The notion of using interchangeable parts wasn't a totally new one, but if two different manufactories' "inches" weren't actually identical, the parts one of them produced wouldn't work in the muskets the other one produced. Which was why Howsmyn was making certain that all of his facilities used the same-sized units of measurement used at King's Harbor.

  "Once he has his rifle shop fully set up there, which is going to take a month or so longer, he'll have two or three times as many rifling benches as he has now," Cayleb continued. "The overall production rate will go up, and the production ratio will shift a bit in the rifles' favor, but rifling barrels takes time and represents an entire additional stage in the process. Which means we'll always be able to produce smoothbores more rapidly than rifles. And while the range advantage of a rifle is really nice to have, we've also got to think in terms of having enough of them to do the job.

  "Second, once we begin issuing them, and once they're used in action, everyone's going to want the same sorts of weapons for their infantry. And, let's face it, it's not going to be that difficult to duplicate them. We're not introducing any new principles or processes in the weapon itself, aside from the flintlock, which isn't an especially complicated proposition."

  "So you're thinking about holding the new bullets in reserve," Lock Island said slowly, and Cayleb nodded.

  "We'll be able to rifle the barrels of existing muskets a lot faster than we could build them as rifles from scratch," he pointed out. "If we hold the new bullets 'in reserve,' as you put it, we can take advantage of the superior rate of fire and the new bayonets immediately and still have a decisive advantage up our sleeves once other people begin duplicating flintlock muskets. And all the smoothbores we've built in the meantime will be available for rifling when the time comes."

  "But even that's going to be a fairly fleeting advantage, Your Highness," Lock Island pointed out.

  "Oh, I know that." Cayleb nodded again. "I'm not saying I'm wedded to the concept of delaying the introduction of the rifles. I'm simply saying that I think it's something we need to consider. Either way, Major Clareyk needs to go ahead developing tactics for both the smoothbores and the rifles, of course."

  "You're certainly correct about that, Your Highness," Lock Island said a bit grimly. Cayleb cocked his head, and the high admiral snorted. "Your Highness, dealing with Nahrmahn, and probably Hektor, isn't going to be the end of this, you know. In fact, it's only going to be the beginning. So whether we introduce the rifles immediately or not, we're going to need them soon. Probably very soon."

  V

  Royal Palace,

>   Eraystor

  Prince Nahrmahn sat back in his chair, resting his forearms on the carved wooden armrests, and watched without expression as an extraordinarily ordinary-looking man followed Baron Shandyr and Trahvys Ohlsyn, the Earl of Pine Hollow, into the meeting chamber of his Privy Council.

  The bodyguards outside the meeting-chamber door braced to attention as Nahrmahn's first councillor and spymaster walked past them; the two guardsmen standing behind Nahrmahn's chair did not.

  "So," the prince said as the door closed behind the new arrivals. "I understand you have some fresh report for me?"

  His tone wasn't encouraging. Not that any of them were surprised.

  "We do, My Prince," Pine Hollow said, speaking to his cousin rather more formally than was his wont. "And, no," he continued, in a drier tone "it's not news you're really going to want to hear."

  Something almost like a smile flickered at the corner of Nahrmahn's mouth, and Shandyr allowed himself a feeling of cautious relief. The prince's mood had been . . . difficult ever since the first intimations of the disaster Shandyr's organization in Charis had suffered. Pine Hollow understood that, and the baron was grateful to the first councillor for his willingness to help divert the brunt of Nahrmahn's displeasure from Shandyr's own shoulders. The fact that Trahvys Ohlsyn was probably the one man on Safehold whom Nahrmahn unreservedly trusted didn't hurt a thing, either.

  "Well, that certainly has the virtue of frankness," the prince said after a moment. Then the almost-smile, if that was what it had been, vanished, and he switched his gaze to Shandyr.

  "You may as well go ahead and tell me," he half-growled.

  "Yes, My Prince." Shandyr bowed and indicated the man who'd accompanied him and Pine Hollow. "My Prince, this is Marhys Wyllyms." Nahrmahn's eyes narrowed slightly, and the baron nodded. "Yes, My Prince. Master Wyllyms has finally managed to reach home."

  "So I see."

  Nahrmahn regarded Wyllyms thoughtfully as the man went to one knee and bent his head. The prince let him kneel there for several seconds, then waved one hand.

  "Rise, Master Wyllyms," he said, and waited until Wyllyms had obeyed the command. Then he cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips. "I'm relieved to see you," he continued, "if not exactly delighted by the fact that you're here. I trust you can give us some firsthand information as to exactly what went wrong?"

  "I'll do my best, Your Highness," Wyllyms replied respectfully. "All the same, Sire, please remember that I've been trying to find my way home without being taken by Wave Thunder's agents for over two months. The information I have is certainly out of date by now."

  "That's understood," Nahrmahn said brusquely. "Just tell us what you do know."

  "Well, Your Highness, as I've already reported to Baron Shandyr, I'm not at all sure what originally caused them to suspect the Duke. When Gray Harbor came to the townhouse, he and the Duke met privately in the library, and I was unable to overhear any of their discussion. I do know the Duke had ordered fifteen of his guardsmen to stand ready for his summons outside the library, though, because I personally took his note to his Guard captain. After he and Gray Harbor had been alone in the library, except for Gray Harbor's personal guardsman, for perhaps fifteen minutes, I heard the bell ring and his men entered the library."

  Wyllyms paused for a moment, then shook his head with the expression of a man who wasn't certain his next few words were going to be believed.

  "Your Highness, I knew the quality of the guardsmen the Duke had summoned, and I personally ushered Earl Gray Harbor into the library. After handing the Duke's note to Captain Zhahnsyn, I took it upon myself to deliver brandy to the library, as well, in order to pick up whatever information I could. At that time, the Duke, the Earl, and the Earl's guardsman were the only ones in the room, and although I wasn't supposed to know it, I also knew that the Earl's guardsman had been placed in his service years earlier by the Duke himself. Knowing all of that, I felt confident the Duke's men would easily take Gray Harbor into custody, if that was what he intended. What might have happened then was more than I could begin to predict, although I suspect the Duke was prepared to act upon the contingency plans for a coup he'd made long ago. I can't believe he might have had anything else in mind after ordering his men to seize the Kingdom's first councillor, at any rate!

  "But what did happen was that I heard the sound of fighting from inside the library. Lots of fighting, Your Highness. It couldn't have lasted more than a very few minutes, but there shouldn't have been any, not with Gray Harbor alone against what amounted to sixteen of the Duke's men.

  "With the lateness of the hour, there'd been very few other servants in that wing of the house when Gray Harbor arrived. Those who had been present had been sent away by Captain Zhahnsyn, presumably on the Duke's orders to avoid any unfortunate witnesses. So, what with the noise of the storm and all, I doubted anyone else had heard the fighting.

  "I didn't know what was happening, myself, but from the sound of things, they weren't going the way the Duke had planned. So I positioned myself behind a door to one of the servants' passages from which I could watch the library door. If the Duke's men had prevailed, I was certain he'd come out of the library soon. He didn't. Instead, the library door opened, and a man I'd never seen before stepped out of it."

  "A man you'd never seen before?" Nahrmahn repeated, leaning forward in his chair with a frown of confusion.

  "Exactly, Your Highness." Wyllyms nodded as if for emphasis. "I knew exactly who was in the library—or I'd thought I did, at least. I suppose it's possible someone else could have arrived while I was taking the Duke's note to Captain Zhahnsyn, but he would have had to somehow enter the townhouse and find his way to the library without any of the other servants seeing him. Besides, I should have seen him when I served the brandy, and I didn't. Yet, there he was."

  "What sort of man?" Nahrmahn asked intently. Baron Shandyr was cautiously pleased by the prince's expression. It was certainly better than the sour, half-accusatory glowers which had been coming the spymaster's way of late.

  "Apparently an officer of the Royal Guard, Your Highness."

  "The Royal Guard?"

  "Yes, Your Highness. He wore the Guard's livery, with a lieutenant's insignia."

  "You say he came out of the library?" Nahrmahn asked, and Wyllyms nodded. "What did he do then?"

  "He called for a servant, Your Highness. So I opened the door and went to him."

  Nahrmahn's eyes widened ever so slightly, and he sat back once more.

  "You went to him," he repeated, an edge of respect in his voice, and Wyllyms shrugged.

  "I was a servant, Your Highness, and it was a servant he was calling for. It seemed unlikely he intended to arrest or attack whoever responded, and it was my best—possibly my only—opportunity to find out what had happened."

  "And what had happened?" Nahrmahn pressed.

  "At the time, Your Highness, I didn't really know. The stranger had pulled the library door mostly closed behind him, and I could see little. What I did see, however, was a great deal of blood and at least two bodies, both in the Duke's colors. As nearly as I could tell, every one of the Duke's men had been killed."

  "All of them?"

  "That was my impression then, Your Highness, and the rumors I managed to collect on my way north all agree that they were."

  Nahrmahn looked at Shandyr and his cousin for a moment, then back at Wyllyms.

  "What happened then?"

  "The Guardsman ordered me to summon a section of the Royal Guard, with an officer, from the Palace on Earl Gray Harbor's authority. I was to take the summons personally and directly, to return with the Guardsmen, and to have no discussion with anyone else along the way. I said I would, of course, and hurried off. As soon as I found one of the Duke's under-footmen, I passed the same instructions to him and left the townhouse."

  "And?"

  "And, Your Highness"—for the first-time Wyllyms' voice and body language showed a hint of trepidation�
��"because I had no way of knowing what might have passed between the duke and the Earl, or if the Duke had been taken alive, I executed my contingency instructions from Baron Shandyr. I went to Braidee Lahang's quarters and killed him."

  Nahrmahn sat very still for a moment, long enough for the apparently unflappable Wyllyms to begin sweating, then nodded.

  "That was well done, Master Wyllyms," the prince said. "Indeed, it sounds as if you did very well that evening."

  "Thank you, Your Highness." Wyllyms' taut shoulders relaxed perceptibly, and Nahrmahn smiled slightly.

  "But returning to this 'stranger' in the library," he continued, smile fading into a faint frown of concentration. "You have no idea how he came to be there?"

  "None, Your Highness." Wyllyms shook his head.

  "Do you have any idea who he was?"

  "According to the gossip I managed to pick up while making my way out of Tellesberg, it was the same man who broke up the attempt to assassinate Crown Prince Cayleb, Your Highness," Wyllyms said. "The most persistent rumor was that this man—a 'Merlin,' or something of the sort—had been given a commission in the Royal Guard as a reward for saving the Prince's life."