From Avenger's foc'sle Blade and Prince Durouman watched them go.
«If the barrels work as well as the captains expect them to, Kul-Nam and all his fleet are doomed,» said Blade.
«Yes, but are they expecting too much?» said the prince.
«There is no way to answer that until we fight our battle.»
The allies did not have long to wait. Toward sunset of the fourth day a scouting galley hove into view, one mast gone and the signal for the approaching enemy flying from the other. The fleet weighed anchor and crept out to sea as the last light drained from both the sky and the water. They settled down to wait, the crews sleeping at their battle stations, masts bare and oars trailing, all guns loaded.
Aboard Avenger Blade, Prince Durouman, Duke Tulu, Emass, and the admirals of the Five Kingdoms held their final council of war. The tactics Blade had planned for the battle were simple-so simple he'd expected arguments against them.
He got none. Prince Durouman, Tulu, and Emass clearly understood the reasoning behind the plan; it was important to capture Kul-Nam's flagship, and every other consideration was secondary at the moment. The five admirals didn't care about that, but they did see that Blade's tactics involved a headlong charge at the enemy. That was the style of fighting they liked, the style of fighting that gave them the best chance to prove their warrior's courage.
Normally Blade would have felt like beating the admirals over the head until he'd beaten some sense into them. Commanders who thought more of courage than of skill usually led their men into disaster. This time he was able to ignore the problem.
Now all that remained was for Kul-Nam to do his part.
The Emperor seemed to be cooperating. Dawn brought the Imperial scouts up over the horizon. Two hours more and the rest of the fleet was hull-up and bearing down on the allies. Blade waited until he could count the Imperial fleet-forty armed sailing ships, a hundred galleys-and saw it shifting into its usual broad crescent. Then he ordered the formation signal hoisted on Avenger's foremast-and Prince Durouman's battle standard hoisted on the mainmast.
This was the next to the last signal he planned to make, the next to the last he could hope that the whole fleet could see. Galleys scuttled about in all directions like a swarm of mad waterbugs, as though all one hundred and forty captains and crews were suddenly drunk. Blade hoped that Kul-Nam's admirals would think just that and allow their own confidence to swell accordingly.
It was half an hour before the allied formation was pulled into the shape Blade intended. By that time Kul-Nam's fleet was only a couple of miles outside gun range, coming on now like a solid moving wall of wood and canvas, silent gun muzzles and rhythmically beating oars. The sailing ships had all their canvas spread and showed no signs of shortening it at all.
That was not good, but under the circumstances it was inevitable. There was more wind today than Blade liked — not enough for a sailing ship to outrun a galley moving at full speed, fortunately, but plenty to let the sailing ships maneuver freely. Most of Kul-Nam's admirals had more sense than the late lamentable Sukar; they would probably take advantage of the weather.
Blade-scrambled up to Avenger's foremast to take a last look over his fleet. In theory every one of the hundred and forty galleys should now be where she could do her intended part in the coming battle without any more signals. He hoped so. There was only going to be one more.
He cupped his hands and shouted down to the men on the signal halyards.
«Hoist the attack.»
They must have had the flag already bent on. A ball soared up to the masthead and broke apart into a great black flag, streaming out on the wind. Avenger's bow guns went off, one by one. Cheers floated up to him on the wind as the crews of nearby galleys jumped up and down, waving hats, helmets, and swords. Then Avenger's drummers broke into the attack stroke, and the flagship surged forward.
Behind her and around her surged a hundred and thirty-nine other galleys, in Blade's special formation. It was not the standard simple-and simple-minded-crescent. Instead, it looked like a gigantic, squared-off letter U, with the open end of the U facing astern, away from the Imperial fleet.
Each side of the U was formed by a single line of forty light galleys. The base was formed by a triple line of larger ones, twenty in each line. In the center of the second line were ten of the largest, including Avenger. Each of the ten mounted a siege engine on her stern, with barrels stacked ready to load. Every one of the hundred and forty galleys had a barrel and spar lashed to her ram, jutting out sixty feet ahead and six feet below the surface, invisible and hopefully lethal.
The idea was to drive home a straight thrust with the sixty larger galleys, while the others protected either flank. Extended in its usual crescent, the Imperial fleet would try to fold its wings around the attackers' flanks. At the same time it would be weaker in the center, more vulnerable to the massive punch that Blade hoped to drive straight home.
«Home» did not mean just the enemy's center. It meant Kul-Nam's own flagship, and ultimately the Emperor himself. Blade was scanning the enemy lines now, trying to make out the ship flying the Imperial standard. He doubted if Kul-Nam would refuse to fly the standard or permit it to be flown aboard several ships to conceal his location. The man was too arrogant and too jealous to take that kind of sensible precaution. Still, Blade could not see the black eagle on red anywhere in the forest of masts and sails and other bright flags and banners ahead.
Finally he decided to leave that job to the lookouts and get back to his own duties. He swung himself into the shrouds and slid down to the deck so fast he scorched the palms of his hands on the rough rope.
Prince Durouman met him as he landed. The prince was pale and sweating with excitement and anticipation.
«Did you see the flagship?»
Blade shook his head. «The man must be holding well back.»
Prince Durouman cursed and pounded one gauntleted fist into the palm of the other hand. It was his dearest wish to see Avenger laid alongside the Emperor's flagship and personally lead her boarding party into the Emperor's private cabin to kill him there.
Blade understood that a hundred years of frustration and anger and waiting for this moment of vengeance lay behind Prince Durouman's desire. He still didn't think much of it. As far as Blade was concerned, it would be putting the prince and therefore his whole cause into unnecessary danger. There would be no boarding party or death grapple with the Emperor if it could be avoided. Blade would be perfectly happy to blow the flagship apart or send it to the bottom with all hands. That would be less melodramatic but just as effective.
White smoke rose from one enemy ship after another, and whiter fountains of spray began to rise among the advancing allied fleet as the Imperial sailing ships opened fire. They were shooting badly, but not so badly that all their shots missed. Blade saw a mast go overboard from one allied galley, saw another swerve wildly as half the oars on one side were suddenly smashed or tossed into the air.
Beyond the flanks of the allied fleet Blade could now see Imperial galleys sweeping forward. They too were opening fire, but no galley captain would depend on guns if he saw an opportunity to close and ram. Then the lighter allied galleys would have their chance-and so would the Sunday punch they were thrusting ahead of them under the water.