The Tyrant

Chapter 18

"Casull probably beheaded every priest in Chalice before he set out," jeered Thicelt, glancing up approvingly at the clear blue sky. "You can bet he's had them praying for bad weather for the last three months straight."

Standing next to him on the raised quarterdeck of the huge quinquireme which served as his flagship, Demansk smiled coldly. Whether or not the King of the Isles had actually executed any priests, Demansk had no doubt at all he was thoroughly disgruntled with them by now. And with his own deities, for that matter. Especially Lemare, the Goddess of the Sea.

The weather was perfect — had been for a week, with no sign of any change. The sea was calm, the winds just heavy enough to have made the fleet's passage down the coast and across the Western Ocean to the archipelago a matter of an easy week's voyage. Now, the largest fleet ever assembled in history was off the northeast coast of the island of Chalice. From his vantage point on the elevated quarterdeck, Demansk could see the caldera which formed the harbor of the capital, if not the city of Chalice itself. And, not too far to the west, perhaps ten or fifteen miles, the snow-covered Peak of the Sun God. The largest volcano in the archipelago was still somewhat active, although it had never erupted in historical times. There was a thin plume of smoke rising from its crest to the heavens-and rising almost straight up. Even at that altitude, obviously, the winds were light.

Demansk didn't doubt that every morning for the past many weeks the first thing King Casull IV had done, rising from his sleep, was to go out upon his balcony in the royal palace and stare up at that volcano. And then curse bitterly, seeing the same steady rise of the plume.

Half a century ago, the Confederacy had conquered and absorbed the Emeralds; and then, with that example before them, had coerced the Roper League and Hagga into accepting "auxiliary nation" status. From that moment forward, with the entire north coast of the continent under their control, there had been only three things which had kept the Confederacy from finally putting paid to the obnoxious pirates from the Western Isles.

The first was the increasing turmoil and lack of discipline among the Vanbert nobility, whose energies became more and more devoted to endless scheming and maneuvering for internal power. No one had been willing to allow any Speaker to gain enough power to amass the resources necessary to subjugate the archipelago-resources which, technically speaking, were quite easily within the reach of the Confederation. As Demansk had just proved, in a few short months.

The second was that when a leader did emerge who had the power to do so-Marcomann-he had been preoccupied with maintaining his own power. For all his undoubted ability, Marcomann had been guided by no vision whatsoever beyond his own aggrandizement. So he had turned the resources of the Confederacy toward a conquest of the western coast, the last area of the northern continent which still held enough territory to provide the land grants needed to win and keep the allegiance of his huge army.

Which, however shrewd a maneuver that might have been from the standpoint of keeping power, did the Confederacy no real good at all. It simply stoked the flames of internal feuding-Demansk's own father had spent most of his life preoccupied with gaining new lands in the west for his family-and just gave the pirates a fertile new area for plundering. Helga, in fact, had been seized in one of the raids on the western coast which had become so easy for the pirates in the last two decades.

The third and final factor was weather. Even for superb sailors like the Islanders and the Emeralds, bad weather could prove disastrous. For the lubberly Vanberts, one of the obstacles to devoting the resources needed to create the kind of giant fleet that Demansk had done was that a single storm could destroy it in a day. More than one Vanbert fleet, though none anywhere near as large as Demansk's, had met that fate.

Demansk had maneuvered successfully past the first two obstacles. The problem of weather he had solved in the simple and straightforward manner he had built the fleet itself. He'd simply timed his attack to coincide with the one time of year, late spring and early summer, when the weather in the northern reaches of the Western Ocean was almost invariably mild.

Still, it had been a gamble, even if one with good odds. But now that the gamble had paid off, Casull had no choice but to come out and fight a sea battle-against a fleet that was at least five times larger than anything he could assemble himself.

He couldn't simply keep the fleet in the harbor at Chalice, much as he might have wanted to. Granted, that harbor-and the city itself which rose up along the inner slopes of the caldera-was about as impregnable a fortress as any in the world. The ancient volcanic crater in which Chalice nestled still had three quarters of its circumference left. Casull could have easily blocked the narrow entrance to the harbor and bled the Vanberts for weeks, if they tried to break through.

Nor would he have had to use many men to guard the crater rim. Chalice had no walls for the simple reason that it didn't need any. The knife-edge ridges of the caldera itself were superior to any curtain wall and battlements ever constructed.

But that was also Chalice's weakness. The city was the best harbor in the world, true, but it was only a harbor. There was nothing-not a single path, much less a road, across the stark terrain which circled it-which connected Chalice by land with the rest of the island. The city depended on seaborne trade and fishing for everything, beginning with the food it consumed every day. Ironically, it was the worst city in the world to withstand a siege, for all that it could withstand it the best in narrow military terms.

"Right there," said Thicelt, pointing to a place farther south along the island's coast. "That's where we'll build it."

The admiral was pointing to a long and wide beach about ten miles south of the city, which curved easily and gently for another five miles or so. More than enough space, even for Demansk's gigantic fleet, to beach most of the ships. All of them, really, except the quinquiremes and the special woodclads-and what relatively few ships were needed to maintain a blockade of the harbor.

Demansk's eyes lifted beyond the beach. At a distance of not more than half a mile, a low mountain range paralleled the shore. The mountains were rocky, but still heavily forested. There was enough stone and wood there, within easy reach, for the Confederacy to build all the dwellings and breakwaters and piers it would need to turn the area into a giant-sized version of the military encampments for which its army was famous. With a harbor as good as most in the world.

Give him a summer, unmolested by the pirate ships bottled up in the harbor, and Demansk could build what amounted to a city as big as Chalice itself. A crude and primitive one, true, but more than adequate for the purpose.

That new city, of course, would also be dependent on seaborne trade for its survival. The soil in the northern third of the archipelago's main island was too rocky and sandy to make good farming land. But so what? Demansk would have control of the sea, not the Islanders. And long before winter came, with its bad weather, Chalice would have succumbed from starvation. By late autumn, under normal conditions, Chalice would be stocked full of food to carry it through the winter. But now, still in late spring, the city's larders would be almost empty.

No, the only chance King Casull had was to defeat the Vanbert fleet in an open sea battle. And with no way, even, to stage the battle in narrow waters where Casull could keep most of the Vanbert navy from swamping him.

No way, at least, in the real world. Theoretically, Casull's best move would have been to abandon Chalice without a fight and move his capital and his forces to the inner islands of the archipelago. Then, at least, he would have been in a position to fight battles in the relatively constricted-and often treacherous-waters of the various inlets which separated the islands. He could have maneuvered and retreated, as needed, to allow only a portion of Demansk's fleet to get at him at one time, always with the hope of luring his enemy's ships onto the inlets' many shoals which were not listed on any charts.

"And I'll bet he's also cursing the whole history of the Kingdom," said Thicelt, his thoughts paralleling Demansk's own. "Some other realm, maybe, the King could play a waiting game. But not with us pirates."

The heavy lips twisted into something that was halfway between a rueful smile and a jeer. "We're not good at that sort of thing, the way you Vanbert cloddies are. Easy come, easy go. Cut the King's throat and find another one."

Demansk nodded. The Islanders were notorious for their unstable politics. That was the flip side of their equally notorious egalitarianism. "Egalitarianism," at least, in the sense of personal opportunity. The Islanders' rulers were the most autocratic in the world, true-but any man could aspire to become the King, if he had the talent and the luck.

The Islanders had none of the mainland's ingrained respect for "blood lines." Any man, at least, if not woman, could rise to any station in life. And, of course, fall just as far if not farther-and even faster. As Sharlz said, one slice of the blade. Long live the new King, and toss the old one's carcass into the harbor for the sharks.

Demansk was counting on that, in fact. Even more in the long term than the short one. For his plans to work, he needed a quick victory here-and a relatively bloodless one. Not only for his own troops, but for the Islanders themselves. The last thing in the world he wanted was a holocaust. He needed those Islanders alive and healthy. In the short term, for the expertise which Gellert had given them in the making of the new weapons. In the long term-although this was still hazy in Demansk's mind-because he needed to infuse at least some of that egalitarianism into Vanbert itself.

That last would take decades, of course, and would not be something that Demansk himself would live to see. But, standing in the golden sunlight on the quarterdeck of his flagship, the image of his blond half-breed bastard of a grandson came to mind.

New blood. Mix it up. We've gotten stale, and corrupt, like layers of unstirred sediment.

Thicelt's voice broke into his musings, bringing his thoughts sharply back to the immediate demands of the moment.

"There they are!" the admiral barked, pointing with a rigid finger. "Casull's not going to waste any time."

Demansk followed the finger. At first, all he could see was the screen of war galleys which formed the vanguard of Casull's approaching fleet.

Impressive ships, those. They looked like so many sea serpents basking in the sun on the surface of the waters. Long, narrow, very low in the water; every line of them seemed to shriek speed. They looked deadly enough even without the glaring eyes and snarling teeth painted on their bows, just above the bronze rams.

The rowers on those ships were working easily, at the moment, just enough to keep Casull's ships in line and steady-the galley equivalent of a swimmer treading water. Casull's warships were making no attempt to close the final distance of half a mile which still separated the two fleets.

They were waiting for something. Demansk could guess what that was, even without Thicelt's keen eyes having spotted them already.

Then, he saw the first plume of smoke. And, a moment later, threading its way between two of the galleys, the first of Casull's steam rams. Between the distance and the wind, he still couldn't hear the sound of the engines. But he could remember what that noise was like, from his experiences with Thicelt's own steam ram at the siege of Preble. Like the heavy breathing of a monster, its claws working a treadmill which made the great paddlewheels turn.

It was nothing of the sort, of course, as Demansk had learned after capturing Thicelt's. Just a machine; more complicated than any Demansk had ever seen before, but not different in principle. Both Thicelt and his son Trae understood quite well how the things worked, even if Demansk's own understanding was still a bit hazy beyond the level of what will it do?

"Four of them? Is that still the latest word from your spies?"

The moment he asked the question, Demansk silently cursed himself. That was nervousness speaking, nothing else. Thicelt had given him the latest report just the evening before, and there was no way that any more recent report from the islander's spy network on Chalice could have reached him since.

Sharlz seemed to understand that, for he made no response. Or, perhaps, it was simply that he was so intent on studying the oncoming steamships that he hadn't heard the question. Either way, Demansk was grateful.

The momentary lapse had, at least, one beneficial side effect. It enabled Demansk to suppress, quite easily, his urge to start telling his admiral how to maneuver his ships. Thicelt was the expert here, not Demansk-even more with the matter of the steamships than with the fleet as a whole. Demansk had chosen him to be the admiral of this fleet in the first place-the first Islander in history to command any Vanbert fleet, much less its largest-precisely because he knew that Casull would have chosen his best captain to command the first of his new steam rams.

Nothing which had happened since had led Demansk to regret that decision. Thicelt had handled the greatest fleet in history with the same ease with which, in years past, he had handled every vessel put under his command. The man was, quite simply, a superb seaman and naval officer. Even if his heavy gold earrings and shaved head and beak-nosed dark features still made him seem exotic to Demansk. Not to mention his sometimes outrageous sense of humor.

"Not yet, not yet," Thicelt was murmuring to himself. "Wait a bit, want all of them way out there where they can't retreat…"

That was apparently the Islander's own way of keeping his nerves steady. Probably effective, even if it was far beneath the dignity of a proper Vanbert nobleman to emulate. But Sharlz, like any Islander, didn't give a damn for that kind of "disrepute." In times past, Demansk could remember hearing Thicelt poke fun at the "steady silent calm" which Confederate nobles prized so highly. Probably even fuck that way. Which is okay with me. No wonder I get invited into so many Vanbert beds.

Demansk almost chuckled at the memory. It hadn't just been boasting, either, from what Trae had told him. Thicelt was apparently as skilled at seduction as he was at seamanship.

" Now, " Thicelt hissed. An instant later, he was waving his arm and the little corps of signal drummers on the quarterdeck began beating a new rhythm.

Demansk turned his head, looking over the stern. There, hidden behind the quinquiremes which formed the front line of Demansk's fleet, were the dozen new woodclads which Trae and Thicelt had designed for him. Their captains had obviously heard the signal, since the vessels were beginning to move forward.

Very slowly. Not only were these new ships incredibly heavy and ungainly, with the immense slabs of wood which formed their hulls-in complete contrast to the normally light construction of war galleys-but they were also powered by a relatively small number of oars. Given the nature of what they had been designed for, the woodclads had only a single bank of oars. And, while each huge oar had five men working at it, the angle was awkward also. The first bank of oars in most galleys was situated low, close to the water, giving the rowers the best possible leverage. This bank was high up, with the oars slanting down at a steep angle. The last man on the oar, on the inmost side, was forced to swing his arms over his head.

Slow. Slow, and incredibly awkward. But it shouldn't really matter. The woodclads had been designed for one purpose, and one purpose only-to serve as a counter for Casull's new steam rams. They didn't even have to defeat the rams, just hold them off while Demansk's fleet overwhelmed the rest of Casull's ships.

Demansk had learned enough, from his one prior experience with steam rams, to know that he could have overwhelmed them also, even with normal war galleys. Given, at least, the size of the fleet he commanded. But he would have suffered great casualties in the process, and that was the one thing he could not afford. Not only because he would need those soldiers later, but because he would need their loyalty as well-which, in the days and weeks and months to come, he was going to be stretching to the limit. But he thought he could manage the thing, so long as his men weren't festering with resentment at the loss of too many of their friends and comrades. Not the least of the reasons Marcomann had been so popular with his soldiers was because he gave them light casualties as well as good pay and bonuses.

"We'll find out," he murmured. Then, for a moment, felt a bit chagrined at the untoward lapse into Islander loquacity.

He saw Thicelt smiling out of the corner of his eye. "Good, good," murmured back the ex-pirate. "Why not? You'll be breaking traditions in much bigger ways, soon enough."

It was uncanny, really, the way Thicelt seemed able to read Demansk's mind. Despite the social and cultural distance which separated them-not to mention the racial and religious ones-Demansk had discovered that in many ways he found the Islander closer to him than any of his advisers. Even Prit Sallivar, whom he had known since they were both six-year-old boys.

With a little sense of shock, Demansk realized that he liked Sharlz Thicelt. Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. The understanding brought concern rather than pleasure. Could he afford such a personal indulgence?

He decided to worry about it later. The woodclads had emerged from the fleet and were taking their positions against the oncoming steam rams. Less than two hundred yards now separated the opponents.

The sidewheel paddles of one of the steam rams suddenly began churning the water. Demansk could now hear the engines-that animal-sounding chuff-chuff he remembered-and see heavier smoke begin pouring out of the twin tubes poking up from its turtle-shaped carapace. "Funnels," Trae called them.

"Damn," hissed Thicelt. "I was hoping they'd all try a ramming run. Get rid of the problem quick."

Demansk understood the logic, even if he didn't entirely share the confidence that Thicelt and Trae had in the ability of the woodclads to withstand a ram. But… in this area, he freely admitted, his admiral and his son were the world's two experts. Well, leaving aside that weird Emerald genius named Adrian Gellert who had designed these infernal new devices in the first place.

Within fifty yards, the steam ram was up to full speed. The paddles were whipping the water into a froth, tossing a double curl of spray ahead of the ram as it came charging forward. That also Demansk could remember from the siege of Preble-at full speed, assuming the engines buried in its bowels didn't fail, a steam ram could outrace even a war galley.

The captain of the woodclad it was aiming for apparently shared Thicelt and Trae's confidence in his vessel. Either that, or he was simply a very conscientious officer. Whatever the explanation, Demansk could see that he was following orders. Rather than trying to meet the ram head on-no way to avoid it, of course, with such a clumsy ship-he was turning his ship broadside, presenting the juiciest possible target to the ram.

For a moment, Demansk found himself wondering if that maneuver would alert the commander of the steam ram that something was amiss. But, here also, Thicelt's greater experience held true. The Islander had described to Demansk how difficult it was for the captain of a steam ram to think clearly, in the middle of a battle. The engines were not so many feet away from the little armored blockhouse near the bow from which the captain commanded the vessel. Between the din they produced and the poor visibility allowed by the narrow viewing slits in the blockhouse itself, Sharlz said it was like trying to fight while in a shroud. A very protective shroud, granted, but a shroud nonetheless.

And any decision to break off a final ramming drive had to be made quickly. It only took the ram a few seconds to cross the final distance-less than half a minute-before the order to reverse engines was made. That was necessary, of course. Not even one of these new warships could withstand the shock of ramming at full speed.

"Too late now," came Thicelt's soft, satisfied words. "He's committed." The admiral pointed to the woodclad's rigging. "That captain's good, too. Willem Angmer, that is. He's already got the rigging in place."

So he had. The woodclad had unusually heavy masts, very well braced. Partly that was to withstand the impact of a ram, which would normally snap off any mast which hadn't been taken down yet. Even with the heavy bracing, the only reason the woodclad's mast would survive was because of the bulk of the ship itself.

A woodclad's masts were not designed to be taken down in battle, anyway. Because the other reason for the heavy construction was that the masts also served as a weapon. They were Trae's design which he had worked out with Thicelt in the first days after his father brought him into his plans.

The woodclads were triple-masted vessels. The sails had been taken down well before the battle started. The great yardarms which normally held up the sails doubled as derricks. Sailors working on the deck heaved at ropes which levered up extensions onto the yardarms. At the end of each extension rested a huge clay jar, suspended by much smaller ropes. Very similar in design, except fatter in cross-section, to the containers which were used to ship oil. In fact, the things had been made by the same Solinga manufacturer who normally made the oil jars.

The end result was that when the steam ram finally struck the side of the woodclad, the jars would be hanging well out over the deck of the steam ram itself. One of them directly, and the sailors at the next closest mast were already starting to swing that jar toward it. Trae had designed the extensions with hinges which enabled them to cover an arc, not simply the area beneath the yardarms.

Demansk held his breath. The steam ram was now almost invisible to him, on the opposite side of the intervening woodclad. All he could see was the two funnels and the spray being thrown up by the paddlewheels as they reversed.

He saw the woodclad tip, and could almost feel the shudder which ran through it. The rowers on their benches, holding tightly to the oars which they had brought inboard, were shaken back and forth. The sailors at the ropes on the decks, even though they had braced for the impact also, reeled wildly. Several of the ones holding the rope which was swinging the second jar lost their footing entirely. Their jar began swinging wildly.

Demansk winced. "If that thing falls on our ship…"

Thicelt's lips were pursed. "Indeed. I think in the future we'll tell the sailors- there it goes!"

His outstretched finger was pointing at the other jar, the one already hanging over the steam ram. The two men assigned to the task had cut the rope holding it up. Demansk could see the jar plummeting downward. The rope which had been holding it up came whipping behind, up and out of the simple pulley through which it had been threaded.

An instant later, he lost sight of the jar. He thought he heard it shattering on the curved iron deck of the steam ram, but wasn't certain.

It hardly mattered. That it had shattered was not in doubt. Demansk could see the squad assigned to the next task already at work. The "incendiaries," Trae called them. Four of them, now standing at the rail of the woodclad and firing their odd-looking arquebuses down at the steam ram.

"Odd-looking." For a moment, Demansk found himself amused by the thought. How quickly we adjust. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have called any firearm "odd-looking."

But he had grown accustomed to the sight of arquebuses and cannons by now, even if he didn't have his son's easy familiarity with the devices. And even Demansk could tell that these guns were never designed for normal combat. Their barrels were much too short and wide, as if they had simply been designed to fire something coarse at very close range.

Which, indeed, they had-and the word "fire" was appropriate. Demansk heard four little explosions, coming so close together they sounded almost as one, and saw what looked like four lances of flame spearing down onto the still-invisible steam ram.

Within three seconds, the ram was no longer invisible. Not exactly. The inflammable liquid with which the shattering jar had coated the steam ram-some ungodly concoction made up by Trae and his design team of apothecaries-turned-arsonists-erupted in flame. Followed, an instant later, by a huge cloud of roiling black smoke.

Again, Demansk found himself holding his breath. This was, in theory, the most dangerous part of the operation-especially if the enemy vessel's ram had become wedged in the heavy baulks which formed the woodclad's "hull."

They weren't really part of the hull. The true hulls of the woodclads were heavy in their own right, much more so than a normal warship's. But the real protection came from heavy timbers bolted on, which could be replaced after a battle.

Provided, of course, that the woodclad itself survived the battle. The problem wasn't the ramming damage. Demansk could see for himself, now, that Thicelt and Trae's estimate had been quite correct. The woodclad had obviously come through the impact with no real damage to the ship's own structure. An impact like that would have broken a normal war galley in half. Or, at the very least, hulled it enough to cause it to sink rapidly. Instead, the woodclad, after recovering from the initial jolt, was remaining level and steady. From what Demansk could see, it hadn't even sprung any leaks.

No, the real danger came from the fire which the woodclad had created on its enemy. If the Islander's ram hadn't gotten wedged, the thing should pass easily enough. Demansk could see that the woodclad's crew had taken up positions to combat any spreading of the flames onto their own ship. Except, of course, for the oarsmen nearest to it, who were now frantically using their oars to try to push off from the burning enemy ship.

If the ram was not wedged, they weren't in much danger. As much as seamen feared fire, it wasn't really likely to happen here. The heavy timbers of the woodclad's hull wouldn't take flame easily, and the sailors had already removed all of the sails and rigging which presented the worst fire hazard.

But if the ram was wedged…

A vivid image came to Demansk's mind. Trae's infernal oily concoction, spreading all over the steam ram as the jar burst. Rivulets of the horrid stuff, already starting to burn, spilling through the ventholes and the gunports-slits narrow enough to provide protection from missiles, but not from a mass of liquid. Then, in the hellish interior of the steam ram, the stacks of wood which it used to fire its furnace-and, worst of all, the gunpowder for its guns. Most of it stored more or less safely away in the powder room, to be sure, but not all of it.

He grimaced. If the woodclad was still right next to the steam ram when that stuff was reached by the flames…

"They're safe," pronounced Thicelt. Again, the pointing figure. "Look-they've made a space, and Willem's already getting the rowers working. The ram couldn't have gotten wedged."

Sure enough. Within fifteen seconds, the woodclad had moved thirty yards away from the steam ram. Demansk could now see the enemy vessel clearly. Insofar, at least, as the flames and smoke which seem to cover most of its surface allowed him to see anything.

"She's gone," said Sharlz. His voice held a trace of horror as well as satisfaction. "That'll be pure agony in there. And not really even any way to get out, except-yes, look! One of them's doing it!"

Demansk saw one of the gunports, all of which had been shuttered, swing open. An instant later, a man came spilling out, barely managing to squeeze through the narrow opening. He fell headfirst into the water. Within seconds, two more men followed him.

Thicelt was shaking his head. "Can't be many of them get out that way. The main hatch'll be impossible. By now it'll be too hot to even touch." His eyes ranged the water, narrowing as he saw the fins cutting through it here and there. "One or two of them might make it to another ship. No redsharks in these waters. But even greenies and Lemare's Maidens are nothing to share an ocean with."

Another gunport opened and two more men spilled out. By now, the woodclad was eighty yards off. A third gunport began to swing open, and Demansk saw a man crawling through.

Before he'd managed to get more than his shoulders through, however, he seemed to fly out of the gunport. As if The steam ram seemed to belch. Then… swell; then-suddenly, the entire vessel disappeared in an eruption and a cloud of smoke three times the size of the one that had already engulfed it. Even at the distance, Demansk couldn't help flinching a little. Sharlz, he noticed vaguely, didn't even try.

He held his breath. No one really knew what would happen if the powder magazine of a gunship exploded. If Trae and Thicelt's best estimates were accurate, even the woodclad should be safe-it was almost a hundred yards off, by now. Demansk himself, and the rest of the fleet, should be perfectly safe at a much greater distance. But-no one had any real experience with the thing, in real life.

There came another, louder, explosion. Suddenly, rising up through the cloud of smoke, came the weirdest apparition Demansk had ever seen in his life. It looked like- what?

" The Lady of the Sea save us, " whispered Thicelt. "Blew the whole shell off in one piece."

Demansk realized that what he was seeing-vanishing now back into the smoke-had been the iron armor of the enemy vessel. The bolts which held it together hadn't given way. Instead, when the magazine blew, it had simply lifted the armor off the ship itself. The shell must have guided the explosion's force mostly against the wooden hull proper.

"The rest of it just disintegrated," added Thicelt. "Must have."

Sure enough. When the smoke finally cleared away, which didn't take much more than a minute, there was nothing left. A few pieces of wooden flotsam, here and there; a couple of bobbing heads-men still alive and swimming toward the nearest Islander galleys-and… nothing else. The armored shell must have plummeted straight down to the bottom once it hit the water.

"Shallow waters here," murmured Thicelt. "Good divers… we might be able to salvage something."

The built-up tension erupted from Demansk in a bark of laughter. Very bad for tradition, that. But-who cared?

"Give it up, Sharlz! You're not a scruffy pirate any longer. Special Attendant and Admiral of the Fleet, remember?"

Thicelt grinned. "Old habits. Sorry." The grin vanished as fast as it came. A moment later, Thicelt was bellowing new orders.

The woodclads beetled their slow way toward the three surviving steam rams-which, for their part, had already turned broadside and were beginning to roll out their cannons. Clearly enough, no steam ram captain was going to try another ramming maneuver.

The signal drums were beating wildly now, and Demansk could hear the signals being passed along by the drummers on the nearest ships. Thicelt had set the entire fleet in motion. The regular war galleys of the Confederate navy were surging forward. No slow beetling, here. Even if they weren't as fast and maneuverable as islander galleys, Vanbert triremes-even quinquiremes-could move quickly enough.

"It's over," said Thicelt, when he finally finished with his orders.

"It's just started, " protested Demansk.

His admiral shook his head, the gold earrings flopping back and forth. His face was unusually solemn. "No, Triumvir. Trust me in this, as I would trust you in a land battle. Casull's only hope was that his steam rams could work a miracle-repeat what one of them did at Preble last year."

He waved a hand toward the woodclads. "But they will keep them off. Those timbers will stand up well enough even against cannon fire. And with ten against three, even as slow as they are, they'll be able to keep the steam rams hemmed in. The rest of it will just be a giant melee. Too many ships in too small a space for clever maneuvers. It'll be a Vanbert kind of sea battle-and when was the last time anyone beat you at that? " He snorted heavily through a heavy nose. "For that matter, when was the first time?"

And so it proved. Within an hour, before the sun had even started its downward descent, it was all over. One of the steam rams, either from desperation or simply because it had a fanatical captain, managed to take a woodclad with it. Ramming again, and this time with the ram wedged. Even then, most of the crew of the woodclad was saved by the bold captain of a trireme, who risked bringing his ship alongside in time to evacuate them before the magazine blew and engulfed the woodclad as well as the ram itself in the destruction.

The other two rams managed to survive, but only by keeping their distance from the woodclads who kept after them. The battle between steam rams and woodclads became something almost ridiculous, with neither side able to inflict any real damage on the other. The rams were fast enough to stay away from the woodclads, but the frantic maneuvers forced upon them to do so-two ships trying to evade nine, even if the nine were much slower-meant that they couldn't fire too many well-aimed broadsides. And even the few they got off, just as Trae and Thicelt had predicted, did little damage to the heavy timbers of their opponents.

One ram did manage, early in the battle, to get off a broadside at a passing trireme which wreaked havoc on the ship. But that was the worst blow that any of the rams managed to land in the course of the whole affair.

Most of the battle was decided the old-fashioned way-maneuverable and expertly-guided Islander galleys against much clumsier and heavier Confederate triremes. Had the odds been even close to even, the Islanders might well have triumphed. But against the numbers they actually faced, it was hopeless. The best captain in the world, commanding the best galley, simply can't maneuver when hundreds of enemy warships are covering every part of his ocean. And whenever, as was inevitable, a Confederate warship did manage to grapple with an Islander galley, it was all over within minutes. The claws came down, and the world's most ferocious close-quarter fighters stormed across. Most Islander crews surrendered immediately.

The surrenders were accepted. On that subject, Demansk had given the clearest orders possible-and had representatives of Forent Nappur's "Special Squads" aboard every Vanbert warship to see to it that the captains followed orders. He was determined to avoid a bloodbath, if at all possible.

Whether or not it would prove possible, of course, would depend in the end on his enemy. No soldiers in the world, not even Confederate ones-not even Demansk's soldiers-could be kept under discipline if their tempers rose too high. Which, given a bitter enough battle, they inevitably would.

But there, too, whatever gods there might be seemed to be partial to Demansk that day. After an hour of relatively bloodless conflict, the islander fleet suddenly began to break. Within minutes, all the surviving enemy galleys-and there were still well over a hundred of them-were pouring back toward the safety of the harbor. The two surviving steam rams, whose captains must have been superb, covered their retreat.

Doing so, in truth, was not difficult. As soon as Thicelt saw the rout, and without waiting for orders from Demansk, he gave the signal to the fleet to break off the action. In most battles, of course-certainly with a general as good as Demansk in command-the pursuit would have been undertaken with ferocity. But Demansk's strategy was political as much as military, and for his purposes here, a simple defeat was sufficient.

More than sufficient, in fact. It was ideal.

Demansk turned to Thicelt and clapped his shoulder. "My congratulations, Sharlz. You've just won the greatest sea battle ever-and I'll see to it that the historians so record the thing. And now, you're fired."

Thicelt grinned. "Such is fleeting fame." Then, sighed histrionically. "Back to that inglorious 'special attendant' business again."

Demansk nodded, matching smile to grin. " 'Fraid so. You're a diplomat now. And you know the settlement I want."

"Settlement," snorted Thicelt. "Almost as bad as Emeralds, with their 'acumen.' " He clucked his tongue, somehow managing to do it as histrionically as the sigh. "Speak plainly, august Triumvir, just as that grandfather of yours you've told me about would have done." He jerked a thumb toward Chalice. "What you want is that pig skinned. Skinned, gutted, and the meat hung up to dry."

"Just the meat, Sharlz. You can leave them the skin and the entrails." He matched Thicelt's grin with one that was almost as wide. "You watch. Within a generation, your Islanders will be calling me Verice the Merciful."

He left the quarterdeck then, heading for his cabin where others would be waiting for new orders. So he never heard Thicelt's response. The Islander, after watching Demansk's departure, turned and stared at the still-invisible city where he had been born. The "jewel in a cup," as his people called it, the beautiful-and often vicious-city which had been the center of the archipelago's culture for centuries. And which, with one of its own sons as the midwife, was about to give birth to a new world.

"No, lord," he murmured. "In a generation, they will be calling you the same thing as everyone else. Verice Demansk, the Great."