“Brace for impact!” Adrian shouted into the speaking tube. A man began pounding on a bell with an iron bar, loud enough to be heard even over the monstrous CHUFFF . . . CHUFFF . . . of the cylinders.
“Reverse engines!” he cried again, and wrapped his arm through a cloth-padded iron loop bolted to the timbers of the blockhouse interior.
Closer and closer, the sudden lurch as the paddles reversed, but far too late to do more than begin to slow the ram. Then . . .
BOOOMM. The hull of the galley thundered like a giant drum, then cried out in a shrieking of snapping planks and timbers. Adrian was wrenched forward with a violence that almost pulled his arm out of its socket, and banged his head hard enough to bring blinding tears to his eyes, despite the padded leather helmet he wore. Somewhere there were screams of agony; men with broken bones, or those thrown against scalding metal and losing skin and flesh. When Adrian blinked his eyes clear and looked out the vision slit, he whooped nonetheless.
The galley was sinking, and fast. The Wodep hadn’t just punched a hole in its side; the glancing blow had ripped ten yards of planking free of the slender strakes, and cracked most of those. Galleys had to be built lightly, if they were to be rowed at all; the Wodep was a massive lump of oak and iron by comparison, and when the two came together at high speed it was like a crockery pot striking pavement. As he watched, the other ship heeled over, raised its bow high and went straight down like a stylus punched into a watermelon.
“Left ten, paddles ahead one quarter—and well done, well done!” he shouted into the speaking tube.
The skipper yelled delight also, and pounded him on the shoulder. “With this ship, and you in command, sir, we’ll sweep the Confeds back to the peasant pigstyes where they belong.”
Adrian’s grin left his face. “Rejoice,” he said. “You’re to have the honor of serving under the direct command of Prince Tenny, son to our overlord King Casull.”
“Oh, shit,” the man mumbled, staring at Adrian with dismay and then clapping a hand over his mouth.
“You really don’t want to say that,” Adrian murmured.
“Ah—thank you, sir. Yes,” he went on, in a louder tone. “The Prince will lead us to glory!”
Well, he can’t go far wrong, with a good crew and this ship, Adrian thought.
Don’t count on it, lad, Raj thought grimly. You haven’t seen as many high-ranking nitwits pull defeat from the jaws of victory as I have.
probability—
“Don’t tell me,” Adrian muttered. “There isn’t a damned thing I can do about it anyway.”
He looked eastward. There the Confederacy fleet was making ready for battle; according to intelligence, Justiciar Demansk was leading one squadron. Helga was still with him . . . and maybe he could make her keep to shore. Adrian was painfully conscious of the fact that he couldn’t imagine stopping her from doing something she wanted to do, whether as husband, father, or god incarnate with a thunderbolt in his hand.
ELEVEN
“Well, thank the gods, sir,” the coastland skipper of the galley blurted, his nasal singsong accent strong under fairly fluent Confed.
“Yes?” Justiciar Demansk replied, raising an eyebrow. “I merely said you should adjust the rowing pace as you saw fit.”
“I was thanking the gods I’d gotten one who understands a ship isn’t commanded from the same end as a velipod. Sir. Thank you, sir. I don’t mind the risk of getting killed, it goes with this trade, but I’d rather not lose my ship because some damnfool landsman won’t listen. Thank you again, sir.”
Demansk nodded frostily and turned his attention elsewhere. The Confederacy’s Grand Fleet of the West was making as good time as he could expect . . . when everyone was supposed to keep station so close their oars were almost touching. Speaker Emeritus Jeschonyk thought that that would reduce the risk of the fleet being disordered; as long as they kept to the holy line, the faster, lighter Islander vessels wouldn’t be able to nip in with ram-and-run attacks.