The lookouts have spotted a ship to the south.
Briana was about to lash out in anger, when she recognized the voice in her head. It was Pascal, aboard her companion ship, Trumpet.
It’s Hu’s steam yacht, the young psychic added. And it’s following us.
Granger?
Briana pulled on her boots, gloves and storm mask, wrapped her whaleskin cloak around her shoulders and hurried above deck. Freezing rain lashed her cloak, and the wind snapped at the sails above her. Howlish had trimmed the mainsail and taken down the spinnaker. Even so, the storm was forcing him to luff. The rigging thrummed like plucked wire; the masts groaned. Masked crewmen were busy tying down the spinnaker and securing the fore jib. Under the heavy clouds the Mare Lux looked as dark and angry as she had ever seen it, a great shuddering cauldron of brine. She could smell it through the filters of her mask. The Herald’s sister ships, Trumpet and Radiant Song, lay some distance off the starboard side, their red hulls rising and then crashing down through the waves. Briana grabbed a rail and scanned the southern horizon. There! A single plume of smoke.
Howlish was in a jovial mood. After Briana had removed her mask and dumped it on the wheelhouse bench, he said. ‘Good morning, ma’am. Fine day for it, don’t you think?’
Briana shucked off her cloak. ‘A fine day for what?’
‘For sinking the emperor’s flagship, ma’am.’ The captain exchanged a glance with the navigation officer.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ she replied.
‘We could always claim he attacked us.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Not even Hu’s going to believe that one man operated the Excelsior’s cannon arsenal. Are there any other vessels in sight?’
‘The horizon’s clear, ma’am.’
‘Can we run ahead of her?’
Howlish shook his head. ‘Not in this wind, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We’d only tear the Herald to pieces. The Excelsior’s engines give her a huge power advantage over us.’ He glanced at his pocket watch. ‘At her present speed she’ll be alongside in about ninety minutes.’
Briana peeled off her gloves and threw them down on top of her cloak. Dealing with an angry father was the last thing she needed right now, especially one who didn’t appear to be the sort to give up and go away quietly. How would Ianthe react? Briana sighed. Sinking her old man might be the best solution after all.
‘Ready the ship for battle,’ she said to Howlish. ‘And signal the Trumpet and Song to do likewise.’
‘Signal?’ Howlish asked. ‘You want us to use the signal lantern?’
Briana nodded. ‘I don’t want these orders passing through the Haurstaf network,’ she said. ‘Pascal and Windflower are to maintain telepathic silence. We need to be able to deny all knowledge. And not a word of this to Ianthe.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
Howlish ordered full munitions crews to the gun decks and the Herald’s sails trimmed further, sacrificing speed for increased manoeuvrability in these high winds. Guild riflemen took up positions fore and aft, while the rest of the crew battened down in readiness. Signal lanterns flashed between the three Haurstaf vessels.
They were ready long before the Excelsior drew near.
Briana watched the steam yacht approach through the stern-castle telescope. She was two-thirds the length of the Haurstaf men-o’-war, but much lower and sleeker, with a single mast and three funnels behind the bridge. Judging by the amount of smoke she was disgorging, Granger was driving her engines hard. Her copper-clad bow cut through the waves like a dagger. Her cannon hatches were open, and the breeches of those antique guns gleamed along both sides of her hull. The sight of those guns unsettled Briana, but she tried to dismiss her nerves. Granger couldn’t possibly have found a crew to man them.
She returned to the hush of the wheelhouse to find Howlish in quiet conversation with the helmsman, signal officer and navigator. Howlish looked up at her arrival. ‘The Trumpet and Song are about to engage,’ he said. ‘They’ll fall back and signal a warning while we maintain our speed and heading. With any luck we can draw him between their guns. I don’t expect the Excelsior to give us much trouble.’
Briana nodded, but the uneasy feeling remained in her gut.
‘There they go now,’ Howlish said.
The two Haurstaf men-o’-war dropped behind, the Song maintaining her present heading while the Trumpet close-hauled westward across the Herald’s stern. Granger’s steam yacht did not deviate from its heading. It came thundering on, smoke pouring from its three funnels as it cleaved through the waves towards the waiting men-o’-war.
‘The Trumpet will start to signal now,’ Howlish said.
Briana saw the Trumpet’s signal lantern flashing repeatedly upon her quarterdeck. Granger made no reply but kept to his same steady course. He was going to pass between the two warships. ‘Why would he do that?’ Briana said. ‘Why expose himself to danger?’ She watched the steam yacht draw level with the Trumpet.
Howlish nodded to the signal officer. ‘Tell them to open fire.’
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.
The sound of cannon blasts rattled the dome’s duskglass panes. Flashes of firelight lit the waters between Granger’s yacht and the Haurstaf man-o’-war. A heartbeat passed before Briana realized that the flashes had come from the wrong ship. Granger’s vessel had opened fire on the warship.
‘The Excelsior just fired on the Trumpet,’ the signal officer said.
Howlish looked aghast. ‘He has a crew aboard?’
‘He’s blown a hole in her gun deck.’
‘Why isn’t she responding?’ Howlish said.
‘I see fires, captain.’
Crack, crack, crack, crack.
The steam yacht fired on the Trumpet again. Through the drifting smoke, Briana glimpsed fires blooming amidst the warship’s shattered gun deck. And then an explosion blew out the man-o’-war’s entire port side, throwing a cloud of wood splinters and dragon scales across the dark waters.
Boom, boom, boom.
‘The Song is responding, Captain.’
By now the second Haurstaf warship had closed on the yacht and opened fire. A score of artillery shells tore through the yacht’s port bulwark and bowsprit, shredding her foredeck and the upper corner of her wheelhouse. Scraps of wood puffed skywards, but the shots had been too high to do any real damage.
Crack, crack, crack, crack…
‘Port-side guns.’
The steam yacht’s cannons fired with a series of yellow flashes. Six, eight, then ten Valcinder cannons pummelled the Song’s hull in a full broadside attack. And still the shots kept coming, twelve, fifteen guns, the cannonballs smashing the warship’s armour to dust.
‘The bastard has a full gun crew in there,’ Howlish said.
The Trumpet was fully ablaze now and going down fast. Smoke engulfed the Song, but Briana thought she spied flames there too. The second warship was turning now, attempting to take herself out of the path of Granger’s guns while bringing her remaining cannons to bear on the yacht’s stern.
Briana heard Pascal’s voice burst into her head: We need assistance. I’m calling the Guild.
Do not contact the Guild, Briana replied. Maintain silence.
We’re on fire, Pascal exclaimed. Going down fast.
Maintain silence, Briana insisted. She broadcast the order to both women on the two men-o’-war. We’re coming to help. She turned to Captain Howlish and said, ‘Do something, help them.’
‘Two seventy degrees,’ Howlish growled to the helmsman. ‘Guns to bear on the enemy’s bow.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
We’re safe enough. Briana told herself. However mad Granger was, he wasn’t likely to kill his own daughter.
GD -DENY -REQ/VERIFY -CONFIRM – REQ/ASSIST
Granger punched the commands into the comspool and depressed the release valve. The orders would be meaningless to any crewman, but Granger didn’t have any crewmen aboard. What he did have was a comspool on the gun deck retrofitted with the flintlocks he’d removed from forty-eight Valcinder Ferredales and attached to the breech vents of those same cannons via a web of rapid-burning fuse cord. For good measure, he’d dipped the ends of each fuse in a concoction of sulphur, glue and yellow phosphorus.