much more consistently, and they could be adjusted for more finicky time increments. It was still something of a “by-guess-and-by-Langhorne” endeavor, but it was less a matter of guesstimating than it had been, and a little spread in detonation times wasn’t going to matter much. They were dropping their fire at steep angles into the fortress’ interior, and those same masonry walls were going to confine the shells-and their blast-right on top of the target. Not only that, but no fortress designer in the world had ever considered ways to deal with plunging fire like this. The interior of that fortress had no overhead protection at all, because it had never been needed before.
Jahras’ jaw clenched as the volume of (thoroughly useless) fire from Triangle Shoal dropped abruptly. The peculiar Charisian galleons were staggering their fire in an obviously preplanned fashion. Their steady, rolling broadsides were timed to see to it that at least one ship’s shells went plunging into the fortress every few seconds. They were maintaining a cauldron of explosions inside the fort. No wonder Stahkail’s fire was dropping! How in Shan-wei’s name had even Charisians come up with-?
The question chopped off with ax-like suddenness as the fortress’ main magazine exploded.
Rahzwail’s eyes widened as the fortress suddenly emulated Volcano ’s namesake. That was unexpected! The plan had been simply to drive the gun crews off their pieces and possibly disable the guns themselves, not to blow up the damned fortress!
Damn. They must’ve had even less overhead protection than we expected, he thought with an odd sense of detachment as he watched stonework, pieces of heavy wooden beams, an entire gun carriage and cannon, and (undoubtedly) bits and pieces of men launch themselves across the heavens, trailing comet tails of smoke as they arced outward. They seemed to hang at the tops of their trajectories for a long moment, and then they came plunging down into the water in explosions of white, and Rahzwail shook his head.
Looks like we’re going to have to introduce some additional new ideas in fortress design, he thought as a sizable piece of one fortress wall pitched wearily outward and slid down into a white cauldron of foam. I wonder how deep we’ll have to bury a magazine to keep a ten-inch shell from reaching it? And if rifled shells are as much heavier as Baron Seamount is predicting, how deep will we have to go to protect against one of them?
He had no idea what the answer to either of those questions might be, but he made a mental note to discuss it with Baron Seamount at his earliest opportunity. It was only going to be a matter of time before the other side figured out how to build its own angle-guns, after all. When that happened, it would probably be a good idea for Charis to be ahead of the defensive game, as well.
“Be so good as to send a boat close enough to the fortress to hail it, Master Byrk,” he said out loud, showing his first lieutenant a bared-teeth grin as shells continued to plunge into the target and the smoke of heavy fires came belching up from its interior to join the smoke and dust plume of the explosions still lingering above it. “I imagine they might be in the mood to consider surrendering, don’t you?”
“Well, that’s a thing, Sir Dunkyn,” Rhobair Lathyk murmured, gazing back at the smoke-gushing fortress. “Can’t say as I expected that! ”
“I don’t think anyone did,” Yairley replied almost absently. “Still, I’m not going to complain.”
“Oh, not me, either, Sir!” Lathyk grinned. “Matter of fact, if it takes a little starch out of those lads in front of us, I’ll be just delighted!”
His flag captain had a point, Yairley thought. His squadron had slowly altered course, coming around to a heading of approximately east-by-south, almost but not quite parallel to the line of Baron Jahras’ anchored galleons. They were closing only slowly now under topsails and jib alone, and here and there a Desnairian gun was beginning to thud in defiance. None of those shots were coming anywhere near Destiny- yet-but as the range continued to fall, that was likely to change.
“Very well, Captain Lathyk,” he said. “I believe it’s time.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.” Lathyk nodded and raised his speaking trumpet. “Man the braces!”
Baron Jahras was still staring at Triangle Shoal when he heard the bellow of fresh gunfire coming from the west. At first he thought the Charisian galleons approaching his line had opened fire, but then he realized his mistake. Somewhere beyond his line of sight, another cluster of those damned… bombardment galleons, or whatever the hell someone wanted to call them, had opened fire on the Sickle Shoal fortress, as well. That was too far away for Jahras to see from his current position, but off the top of his head he couldn’t think of any reason for that fortress to be any more successful than Stahkail’s had been.
He stamped to the forward edge of the poop deck, raising his spyglass and peering through it. From this close to the water he couldn’t actually see the fortress thanks to the curve of the earth, but he could make out the clouds of gunsmoke rising beyond Sickle Shoal. He knew it was pointless, but he was still trying to pick out some sort of detail when Captain Ahlvai cleared his throat.
“Beg pardon, My Lord, but it seems the heretics are about to come calling.”
Jahras lowered the glass and looked across Emperor Zhorj ’s starboard rail, and his expression tightened. The leading Charisian squadron had turned downwind once more, sailing directly into his anchored ships’ broadsides. He had enough of an angle on them to see their rigged anchors and realize they, too, intended to anchor by the stern, undoubtedly on a spring. With the wind setting steadily out of the northeast and the tide making, wind and current alike would help them maintain their positions. There wasn’t much subtlety to it, he thought harshly. A straight broadside duel, a pounding match. One he ought to be able to win, even if his guns were lighter, because he could bring so many more of them to bear. Except for the minor fact that unless he was sadly mistaken, every one of those galleons was about to begin firing the same sort of ammunition which had just blown the guts out of a heavy masonry fortress.
And we’re just a tiny bit more likely to catch fire-or sink-than a fortress, a mental voice told him.
“Open fire, Captain Ahlvai,” he said flatly. . VII.
Inner Harbor, Port of Iythria, Empire of Desnair
The afternoon tore apart in thunder, lightning, smoke, and screams.
HMS Destiny had missed the savage battle in the Markovian Sea, but she made up for it now. The Imperial Desnairian Navy was nowhere near the equal of the Navy of God. Its crews had less training, most of them had less motivation, and although their artillery had been manufactured to the same design, there was an enormous difference in its workmanship and quality. Most of Baron Jahras’ captains refused to load their guns with full charges, given their propensity to explode unexpectedly, and the gun crews (who tended to have a closer association with them) were even more leery of their weapons. Worse, Jahras had been more or less forced to settle for dry-firing their pieces for training, since he couldn’t afford to use them up before they were actually needed in battle. His gunners had mastered the motions of their drill, but it was a largely theoretical mastery, without the experience of the actual thunder of their weapons, the reek of smoke, and-certainly-without a live enemy on the far side of the gunport from them.
On the other hand, there were a lot of guns on those Desnairian ships, and Jahras’ galleons had been in place literally for months. His crews might be nowhere near the equal of their Charisian opponents as seamen, but then very few seamen were. And the Desnairians might not have the Charisians’ tradition of victory-because, again, very few navies did. But what those Desnairian crewmen did have was practice and complete familiarity with their commander’s battle plan, and while they might not have mastered the gunner’s trade in the brimstone reek of actual burned gunpowder, the motions of the evolution had been drilled into them mercilessly. They knew exactly what they were supposed to do, because their captains had explained it to them in detail and they’d practiced it over and over again. And if their fire might not be as accurate or as rapid as their opponents’, it was far more accurate and rapid than it would have been at sea, maneuvering under sail while the ship moved and surged
