.IX.

Guarnak, Mountaincross Province, Republic of Siddarmark

“Well, Captain Bahrns, I’d say they know we’re here now,” Zhaimys Myklayn observed as another volley of rifle fire whined and bounced from HMS Delthak’s casemate.

“You might have a point about that, Master Myklayn,” Bahrns agreed judiciously as he peered out the vision slit.

He was more cautious about that than he had been. Young Ahbukyra Matthysahn wouldn’t be using his right hand to sound any more shrieks on Delthak’s whistle. Not after the flattened rifle bullet screamed in through the slit and turned his elbow into shattered bits and pieces. They’d suffered a dozen casualties on the gundeck, as well, from the same source, and more among his infantry, but his gunners and the troop barges’ riflemen—and carronades—had repaid the Temple Loyalists at a usurious rate.

Which’ll be damned small comfort to their survivors, he thought grimly. But at least I won’t be losing any more infantry in this next bit, thank God.

He was feeling the exhaustion now, and he knew that was true of all the rest of his people, as well. It certainly ought to be, given that they’d been sailing across the interior of the Republic of Siddarmark for almost an entire five-day.

And as Myklayn had just pointed out, whatever had paralyzed the semaphore stations was clearly no longer a factor. Not at their current position, at least.

“How much farther d’you think we can get, Captain?” Myklayn asked in a lower voice, and Bahrns shrugged.

“I’d love to go all the way to Saiknyr. That’s not what the orders call for, though … and probably just as well.” Bahrns grimaced. “We’re running more risk than a sane person would going as far south as Guarnak.”

“Had the same thought m’self,” Myklayn acknowledged, and grinned. “Guess it’s just as well there’s not so many sane people aboard your ship, then, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Master Myklayn!” Bahrns said virtuously, then ducked reflexively as another volley of rifle fire spanged off the conning tower’s armor.

“Master Blahdysnberg!” he called down the voice tube. “Those … people on the north bank are beginning to irritate me!”

“I’ll deal with them for you in just a minute, Sir!” Blahdysnberg’s voice came back, and two guns in the forward section of Delthak’s larboard broadside bellowed almost before he finished speaking.

The rifle fire slackened immediately, and when Bahrns looked back out, the Church infantry who’d been drawn up in a two-deep line to blaze away at the invaders had been turned into so much ripped and torn flesh.

“Very good, Master Blahdysnberg!” he said.

“Thank you, Sir!”

Delthak’s black paint had acquired any number of scrapes, scratches, and scars during the course of her thousand-mile voyage to her present position, but her armor had sneered at the worst the Army of God could do, and speed had kept her ahead of any effective response.

So far, at any rate.

He coughed as gun smoke drifted up the access ladder from the gundeck. That gundeck was a close enough approximation to hell when the guns were firing, he thought; his stokers, laboring over the boiler furnaces, opening the iron doors and shoveling in the coal, raking out the ash and clinker, cleaning the grates even as they continued steaming, had it worse. He’d seen to it they had all the fresh water they could drink and used extra hands to spell them whenever he could, and when the Delthak Works had designed the conversion, they’d provided the fire and engine rooms with blowers, sucking in air through mushroom-headed ventilators spaced across the hull between the funnels. That helped a lot, as well, but he knew exhaustion was even more of a factor for them than for the rest of his crew.

Not that much longer, boys. We’re more than halfway home—assuming we ever get home, of course.

He moved to the forward view slit, and his lips drew back as he saw what he’d come for. The city of Guarnak was a major transshipment point on the Republic’s northern canal system; at this moment, it was also the forward staging base for Bishop Militant Bahrnabai Wyrshym’s entire army. With no word from anyone since they’d set out, Bahrns had no idea how the campaign in the Sylmahn Gap was proceeding. For all he knew, Wyrshym’s men had blown their way through the Gap and were advancing on the capital at this very instant. But from the huge raft of barges, moored two- and three-deep along the curving canal front, and the mountains of crates, bags, and casks piled along the wharves—

It looks like Baron Green Valley got here in time, after all, Halcom, he thought with savage glee. And, oh my, what a lovely target he’s given you!

“Both engines slow astern! Helm, come a half-point to starboard!”

Confirmations came back, and Delthak slowed, turning to her right in the bend of the canal, bringing the three guns of her forward battery—and all eight of the guns in her larboard battery—to bear on that sprawling cluster of barges and supplies.

“Master Blahdysnberg!”

He didn’t use the voice tube, this time. Instead, he leaned over the edge of the access trunk, and Pawal Blahdysnberg appeared at the base of the ladder, looking up.

“Yes, Sir?”

“This is what we came for, Pawal,” Bahrns said simply. “Make it count.”

*   *   *

Bishop Militant Bahrnabai stood on the second story of one of the canal-front warehouses, staring through his spyglass at the ugly, black monster turning to bring its guns to bear on his helpless barges, and tried not to curse.

It was hard.

Langhorne! How in Shan-wei’s name did they get within two days—two days!—of Guarnak without anyone so much as telling me they were coming?! Did they just fly across everything between here and the coast?! Where the hell was the semaphore?! Hell, for that matter, hasn’t anyone but me ever heard of horseback couriers?!

There was going to be Shan-wei to pay for this, and he wondered where the other one of them was. There were supposed to be two of them, according to the fragmentary reports he’d finally gotten, but only one was anywhere to be seen.

Maybe somebody actually managed to sink the other bastard, he thought venomously. That would be nice. But now—

He’d done what he could, especially after what the heretics had done to his gun line outside Serabor. That debacle still left a sour taste in his mouth, but Gorthyk Nybar had been absolutely right to pull back. Some of Wyrshym’s other officers had argued for digging in farther forward—at Terykyr, perhaps—but Gorthyk had been right yet again. With the high road bridge across the Wyvern Lake narrows destroyed, the heretics couldn’t follow up their advantage before the Army of God figured out how to respond to their newest weapons. And they weren’t leaving the cliff-top lizard paths to the enemy any longer, either. The vicious fighting among the clouds was costing him more men than the heretics—he was certain of that, given their Langhorne-forsaken ability to load and fire while prone—but he had more men, and the back-and-forth, bickering action at least kept them from getting those … those portable cannon of theirs around behind his main positions. And no matter what the heretics at the other end of the Gap might do, his army had tightened Mother Church’s grasp on everything north of the Moon Thorns and west of Ranshir Bay. He was perfectly willing to sit here and keep the cork in the bottle while the Grand Inquisitor’s agents figured out how the heretics had accomplished their latest surprise.

And once we know that, once we’re able to do the same thing, we’ll head right back down the Gap and kick their asses up between their ears!

The thought was a distant voice in the back of his brain as he looked down at the thirty-one twelve-pounders—most of his army’s surviving field guns—emplaced along the canal side behind hasty breastworks of sandbags and paving stones. The range was absurdly short as he watched them take their aim, and he felt his lips tighten in anticipation. The tiny bit of information he’d received suggested shells, at least, had no effect on the thing’s armored sides, so he’d ordered them to load with round shot … and to fire with double powder charges.

His artillerists understood the threat that black monster represented, and they hadn’t even blinked at his dangerous command.

Now that long row of cannon exploded in a thunderous, rolling blast, and the brown water around the Charisian ship was suddenly lashed into white, tormented foam by plunging masses of iron.

*   *   *

Delthak’s hull rang like an enormous bell—or perhaps more like an even more enormous set of wind chimes, Bahrns thought, listening to the rapid-fire impacts of iron round shot on his ship’s steel armor. One punched through the starboard funnel, sending smoke streaming out both sides of the new vent. More hit the navigating bridge punching ripping holes through its wooden planking. At least three hit the conning tower itself, with a clanger like the world’s biggest sledgehammer. But for all the noise, all the fury of muzzle flash and smoke boiling above the enormous battery of field guns, not a single man aboard Delthak was injured.

Halcom Bahrns looked through the view slit as his ship came almost to a halt under the pull of her reversed engines.

“Stop engines!”

“Stop engines, aye, Sir!” the telegraphsman responded, and the bells jangled as the last of Delthak’s forward momentum dissipated.

“Any time now, Master Blahdysnberg!” he called down the access way.

“Cover your ears, Sir!”

The response was scarcely proper, Bahrns thought with a grin, but it was good advice, and he took it … just as Delthak fired back at last.

*   *   *

Wyrshym’s eyes went wide in astonishment as eleven thirty-pounders fired almost as one. Their shells slammed into the tight-packed barges, completely ignoring his thundering fieldpieces, and explosions answered. Huge flashes, clouds of splinters, pillars of smoke—they spewed up like loathsome, hell-born mushrooms, and as he watched those cataclysmic explosions, the bishop militant was enormously grateful he’d ordered the barge crews ashore.

He looked back at the iron ship and saw his field artillery’s round shot bounce like so many spitballs. Some of them went spinning high into the heavens, but others continued across the canal, crashing into buildings on the far side.

And they were accomplishing exactly nothing.

“Message to the artillery,” he grated, never turning away from the window or lowering his spyglass.

“Yes, Sir?”

Wyrshym heard the quaver in the white-faced lieutenant’s voice, but he was hardly in any position to rebuke the youngster for that! And at least the lieutenant, like those artillerists along the canal, was standing his ground in the face of yet another hell-spawned heretic invention.

“They don’t even care about our guns right now,” he said. “They’re too busy concentrating on the barges and our supplies. But once they’ve finished with that, they’ll get around to the guns. Tell them to pull back. There’s no point getting them destroyed for nothing.”

*   *   *

The Guarnak canal front was an inferno, roaring like a Delthak Works blast furnace.

The barges were a burning, smoking sea of flame, and more shells ripped into the warehouses beyond, setting fresh blazes with every shot. Three stupendous blasts had answered direct hits on barges loaded with gunpowder, and Bahrns was just as happy they’d been as far away as they had. A sixty-foot chunk of wreckage from one of them had been blown straight into the air and crashed back into the canal barely fifty yards from Delthak’s prow. He didn’t like to think about what that could have done if it had hit the top of the casemate. At the very least, it would have carried away the funnels, and probably the ventilator intakes, as well.

And there was enough wreckage floating in the canal now to make him nervous about his propellers, too. Especially since it was too narrow for him to turn around.

He looked back at the Church artillery and discovered it was gone.

Wrong move, Halcom. Idiot! The barges and the warehouses weren’t going anywhere, so why didn’t you deal with the artillery first and then take your time with the immobile targets, genius?

Well, no one was perfect, he supposed, returning his attention to the river of fire which had once been a line of wharves piled with supplies for the Army of God. He probably hadn’t destroyed anywhere near as much of Wyrshym’s supply depot as it seemed, but every little bit helped.

Besides, destroying these supplies isn’t really what the operation’s about, is it?

“Dead slow astern both,” he said.

“Dead slow astern both, aye, Sir.”

“And now we’re going to be very careful, Crahmynd,” he said quietly to the helmsman. He’d deliberately rested Fyrgyrsyn, changing the watch schedule to do it, to be sure he had his best man on the wheel at the critical moment, and the gray-haired petty officer looked at him and nodded.

“Just you give the orders, Sir,” he said calmly.

“I’ll do that thing.”

Bahrns patted the helmsman’s shoulder, then moved to the aftermost vision slit, peering back across the casemate. The smoke from the pierced funnel didn’t help, and neither did all the other smoke from the raging fires Delthak’s guns had set. At least the wind was out of the northwest, pushing the worst of it to one side. And at least he had a good ten feet of overhang aft of the propellers. That ought to find the canal bank and stop him before he rammed the screws into it, though the rudder was another matter.

Just as long as we don’t find something hidden in the water that strips a shaft, he thought almost absently.

“A quarter-point of starboard helm,” he said.

“Quarter-point of starboard helm, aye, Sir.”

*   *   *

Bahrnabai Wyrshym’s eyes burned with futile rage as the monster which had savaged Guarnak backed impossibly away.

How does that damned thing work? Schueler seize them all! What kind of deviltry are they dabbling in now?

He didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine how that ship moved without mast or sail or oar. It was impossible according to everything he knew, and yet it was happening before his very eyes. It was moving stern-first through the water, just as smoothly, if not as rapidly, as it had moved when it came charging to the attack.

And there wasn’t one damned thing he could do about it.

*   *   *

“Tow secured, Sir.”

“Very good, Master Cahnyrs.”

Halcom Bahrns acknowledged his second lieutenant’s report and stepped back into the smoke-reeking conning tower once more. The navigating bridge’s port wing had been smashed, and he wasn’t going to trust it to bear anyone’s weight until he’d had it thoroughly repaired. They’d lost a couple of ventilator intakes, as well, and there were actually three holes in the funnels, now that they’d had an opportunity to take stock properly. But that was it, the extent of their damages, and he turned to Myklayn.

“The helm is yours, Master Myklayn.”

“Thank you, Captain.” The canal pilot resettled his pipe between his teeth and looked at the telegraphsman. “Ahead slow both while we see how the tow holds.”

The bells jangled, and Delthak began moving once more.

They’d steamed back north to the confluence of the Guarnak–Ice Ash and Guarnak-Sylmahn Canals to pick up the fifteen hundred Marines and infantry they’d left to hold the critical locks in their rear. Bahrns was a little surprised that someone as offense-minded as Wyrshym was reported to be hadn’t thought about wrecking the lock behind them to prevent them from retreating. Writ or no Writ. It seemed like the logical counter to him, but to be fair, he’d had a lot longer to think about it than the bishop militant had almost certainly been granted.

And a lot more already smashed locks behind him.

Not that it really mattered. Any effort on Wyrshym’s part to do anything of the sort would have run into fifteen hundred rifles, two dozen mortars, and the flanking fire of eight fifty-seven-pounders, and there was no way the Army of God could have fought its way through that before Delthak returned to deal with it.

The canal builders had provided a sizable mooring basin where the canals came together. They’d intended it primarily to allow barges to run alongside one another and transship cargo without continuing all the way to Guarnak, but it had provided a handy layover point for Delthak’s barges, which would have fared considerably worse than she had under the fire of all those fieldpieces. It also, thank Langhorne, gave the ironclad plenty of room to turn, especially with her ability to back on one engine while going forward on the other. Unlike any other vessel Bahrns had ever commanded, she could literally turn in place, which was one more reason he was coming to love her unlovely, reeking self.

Now she headed up the Guarnak-Sylmahn Canal towards the Hildermoss River. Hador had gone ahead, securing control of the first three locks along the four hundred miles of canal between Guarnak and the river. Captain Tailahr had dropped off parties of Siddarmarkian infantry to hold each of them, after planting his charges, and Delthak would pick them up on the way through to rejoin her sister. In the meantime—

Halcom Bahrns stood on the sound starboard wing of his navigating bridge, looking astern, and bared his teeth in a wild, triumphant snarl as the complicated set of locks where the canals met erupted in thunder and flame, adding a fresh, gushing pillar of smoke to the pall rising above Guarnak.

And now we go home, he thought. Six more days … assuming nobody thinks to blow the locks in front of us after all, of course.

The semaphore chain followed the line of the canal, and his ironclads had been systematically destroying the towers as they went. A few thirty-pounder shells made marvelous wrecking crews. No doubt word of their invasion had run ahead of them, but the authorities farther up the line would have very little information to act upon before Delthak and Hador came calling. It was entirely possible they wouldn’t even realize the ironclads had been destroying every lock they passed through, and in Bahrns’ opinion, Seijin Merlin had been right. Whatever might have been the case with a military commander like Wyrshym, Langhorne’s injunction to maintain the canals and high roads was deeply ingrained in mainlander minds. That duty had never been as deeply impressed on Bahrns and his men, since Charis and Chisholm had so few canals, but it was an integral part of the lives of the men who serviced the canals and realized how much of the mainland’s economic life depended upon them. He’d seen evidence enough of that in Myklayn’s ambivalence where their task was concerned.

Merlin had argued that even though destroying the locks would have trapped the ironclads, it simply wouldn’t occur to most mainlanders. For one thing, with no inkling of the ironclads’ existence, or of the speed the new steam engines bestowed, their reactions were likely to lag well behind the threat, because they simply wouldn’t believe Delthak and Hador could move that quickly. But that solemn duty to maintain the canals and the locks would be an even greater factor.

So far, it looked as if the seijin had read the situation correctly, Bahrns thought, and reached out to rap his knuckles on a splintered section of the bridge’s planking.

Now to find out if he truly had.