David Weber - How firm a foundation

More gunshots exploded out of the darkness ahead of them, and he swore silently as he heard screams from farther out on the river. He had no idea who was behind those shots or what in God’s name anyone was doing out here on the riverbank in the middle of nowhere an hour before dawn. What mattered was that the boats on the open river were far more visible than the men hiding in the impenetrable shadows under the willows, alders, and conewood along the bank.

“Stay low!” he commanded, pitching his voice as low as possible. “Keep in the water as long as you can and follow me!”

Wading through ice-cold, neck-deep water would have been a slow, exhausting process even without the current. They couldn’t possibly move as quickly as he wanted to, and with gunshots continuing to crack from the darkness, it seemed to be taking even longer. Then someone in one of the boats managed to begin returning fire, which added the delightful possibility of being shot in the back by their own people. The good news-for Aplyn-Ahrmahk and his people, at least-was that there seemed to be at least three times as many bullets headed out from the bank at the other boats and away from them.

He felt the river bottom underfoot smoothing as it shallowed, more sand mixed among the rocks and gravel, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks as the footing improved. He’d picked his destination more by instinct than by anything resembling deliberate thought, but that instinct had served him well, he realized. He and his boat crew were coming up on the river side of a huge, fallen conewood trunk that screened them completely from anyone on shore.

He stopped for a moment, looking around, making sure the rest of his people were with him. There were only ten of them, and he bared his teeth while the muskets continued to fire out of the darkness. He saw the blink-lizard glow of slow matches scattered under the trees, and his eyes narrowed.

“Matchlocks, boys,” he told them in a low voice. “Nice little lights to help us find the bastards, and it sounds like they’re loading loose powder. They’re going to be slow. Get in close and rip their guts out, got it?”

A chorus of growls answered him, and he nodded sharply.

“And while you’re at it, howl like you’re all damned Marines!” he said with a savage grin. “Now- after me, lads! ”

His boat crew exploded out of the water, vaulting over the conewood trunk with naked steel in hand. Aplyn-Ahrmahk carried his sword in his right hand and a wicked, spike-backed boarding tomahawk in his left, and the high, baying warcry of the Imperial Marines came with him. It sounded as if there were at least fifty of them, he thought wildly, and then a figure loomed up in front of him.

A cavalryman, he thought, taking in the dimly seen helmet. But armed with a matchlock. That meant a dragoon, not a lancer or a hussar, probably, and Delferahkan dragoons didn’t have breastplates, and that meant Charisian cutlasses had chisel points, as well adapted to thrusting as to slashing, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk felt the jerking quiver of someone else’s muscles transmitted up the blade as he drove a foot of steel into the man’s chest. The dragoon shrieked, clutching at the impaling blade, but Aplyn-Ahrmahk kicked him away and went charging past him, screaming like a madman just like the rest of his boat crew.

The dragoons who’d been waiting in ambush reared up from their firing positions, turning towards the demons who’d suddenly materialized in their midst, and shocked astonishment turned almost instantly into panic. It was impossible for either side to know how many enemies it actually faced, and surprise-and fear-didn’t lend themselves well to making accurate estimates.

Aplyn-Ahrmahk hacked down another opponent. A third man came at him desperately, matchlock clubbed, completely forgetting the sword at his own side in his panic. The lieutenant ducked under the musket, but the dragoon was on the wrong side for his cutlass. The tomahawk lashed out, coming up from below, driving its sharpened, spur-like hook up through the man’s jaw and into the roof of his mouth. The Delferahkan’s scream chopped off in a hot spray of blood, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk lost his grip on the suddenly slippery tomahawk as the body fell.

Another dragoon loomed up-this one an officer who’d remembered his sword. It was several inches longer than Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s cutlass, but the lieutenant had served under Sir Dunkyn Yairley. That meant every midshipman (and ensign) spent a solid hour at sword drill every single day, and the instincts Sylvyst Raigly had helped pound into Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s muscle memory took over. He twisted away from the Delferahkan’s frantic, clumsy thrust and his left hand lashed out, capturing the wrist of the dragoon’s sword arm. The Delferahkan was bigger, taller, and broader-shouldered than Aplyn-Ahrmahk, but the lieutenant’s wiry strength and the advantage of surprise were enough to shove the other man’s arm almost straight up as they slammed together, chest-to-chest. At which point Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s cutlass drove into his belly with all the elegance of a meat ax.

The officer went down with a bubbling scream, and suddenly there was no more fighting. Instead, there were only moans, sobs, and-in the distance-the thud and thunder of galloping hooves disappearing into the darkness.

“Anybody with a prisoner, hang on to him!” Aplyn-Ahrmahk barked, and then turned back to the river.

“That’s the best I can do, Sir,” Lywys Taibor said. The healer’s mate looked drawn and weary, and well he should. The ambush had cost the boat party heavily, with five dead and twice that many wounded. Now he stood up, rubbing his back, and looked glumly down at Lieutenant Fairghas Gowain, who lay unconscious on the rough pad made of captured Delferahkan saddle blankets.

“How soon is he going to wake up?” Aplyn-Ahrmahk asked. He felt as tired as the healer’s mate looked, but he couldn’t afford to admit it.

“Dunno, Sir,” Taibor said honestly. “Head wound like that, he may never wake up. Or he could come to in the next ten minutes. If you want me to guess, probably not for a day or two. And I don’t know if his wits’re going to be wandering when he does come to or not.”

“I see.” Aplyn-Ahrmahk gazed down at the lieutenant for several moments, then patted the healer’s mate on the shoulder. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “And not just for the prognosis. The lads are lucky they had you along.”

“Did what I could, Sir,” Taibor replied in an exhausted voice. “But I’d be lying if I said I was happy about ’em. Got at least four we need to get to a proper healer fast as we can, or we’ll lose them sure as Shan-wei.”

“Understood.”

Aplyn-Ahrmahk patted him on the shoulder again, then walked to the riverbank and stared out across the cold, clear water.

Lieutenant Gowain, HMS Victorious ’ first lieutenant, was in command of the entire operation. But now he was unconscious indefinitely, and Lieutenant Bryndyn Mahgail, the senior Marine, was dead. Which left Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk-all sixteen years old of him-in command and the next best thing to two hundred miles from the nearest senior officer.

At least they’d taken three of the dragoons alive, and the Delferahkans had been so shocked by the abrupt reversal of their ambush that their tongues had wagged freely. It was also possible the sight of Stywyrt Mahlyk contemplatively sharpening a knife as he smiled evilly in their direction might have had some bearing on their loquaciousness, of course.

Aplyn-Ahrmahk had kept them separated from one another to deprive them of any opportunity to coordinate their stories, yet all three of them had told basically the same tale.

Word of the attack on Sarmouth had spread even faster than Admiral Yairley’s plan had allowed for. Worse, some idiot upriver from the port had actually believed the boat expedition’s warnings that the horrible Charisian heretics were sending an entire invasion fleet up the miserable Sarm River! Aplyn-Ahrmahk couldn’t understand how anybody with the sense to pour piss out of a boot, to borrow one of Mahlyk’s favorite phrases, could have credited that story, but according to all three of their prisoners, one of the Earl of Charlz’ bailiffs had actually believed the Charisians were burning both banks of the river as they advanced deep into the heart of Delferahk. He’d sounded the alarm and sent out parties of dragoons to scout for the invaders.