David Weber: How firm a foundation

In effect, his “squadron” was essentially an advanced listening post… and better than three thousand miles from the nearest friendly base. All sorts of unpleasant things could happen to a small, isolated force operating that far from any support-as, indeed, what had happened to Mountain Root and Valiant demonstrated. Under the circumstances, the ICN had scarcely selected that squadron’s commander at random, particularly in light of the delicate situation with the Grand Duchy of Silkiah. Silkiah Bay opened off the Gulf of Mathyas just to the north of Staiphan Reach, and dozens of “Silkiahan” and “Siddarmarkian” merchantmen with Charisian crews and captains plied in and out of Silkiah Bay every five-day in barely sub-rosa violation of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s trade embargo. Anything so blatant as the intrusion of a regular Charisian warship into Silkiah Bay could all too easily inspire Clyntahn to the sort of rage which would bring a screeching end to that highly lucrative, mutually profitable arrangement, and Yairley had to be extraordinarily careful about avoiding any appearance of open collusion between his command and the Silkiahans.

In theory his single galleon was sufficient to discharge his responsibilities in the event of a Desnairian sortie, but in the real world, he was all alone, totally unsupported, and had no friendly harbor in which he could take refuge in the face of heavy weather, all of which had to be weighing on his mind as the implacable masses of angry-looking cloud swept closer. If he was particularly perturbed, he gave no sign of it, however, although his lips were pursed and his eyes were thoughtful. Then he drew a deep breath and turned to Lathyk.

“We’ll alter course, Master Lathyk,” he said crisply. “Put her before the wind, if you please. I want more water under our lee if this wind decides to back on us.”

“Aye, Sir.”

“And after you’ve got her on her new heading, I want the topgallant masts sent down.”

Someone who knew Lathyk well and was watching him closely might have seen a small flicker of surprise in his eyes, but it was very brief and there was no sign of it in his voice as he touched his chest in salute.

“Aye, Sir.” The first lieutenant looked at the boatswain’s mate of the watch. “Hands to the braces, Master Kwayle!”

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

The glass continued to fall, the wind continued to rise, and lightning began to flicker under the clouds advancing inexorably from the south.

Destiny looked oddly truncated with her upper masts struck. Her courses had been furled, her inner and middle jibs struck, storm staysails had been carefully checked and prepared, and single reefs had been taken in her topsails. Despite the enormous reduction in canvas, she continued to forge steadily northeast from her original position at a very respectable rate of speed. The wind velocity was easily up to thirty miles per hour, and considerably more powerful gusts were beginning to make themselves felt, as well. Large waves came driving towards the ship from astern, ten feet high and more and crowned in white as they rolled up under her quarter to impart a sharp corkscrew motion, and lifelines had been rigged on deck and oilskins had been broken out. The foul weather gear was hot and sweltering, despite the rising wind, although no one was optimistic enough to believe that was going to remain true very much longer. Their current position was less than three hundred miles above the equator, but those oncoming clouds were high and the rain they were about to release was going to be cold.

Very cold.

Aplyn-Ahrmahk would have been hard put to analyze the atmospheric mechanics of what was about to happen, but what he saw when he looked south from his station on Destiny’s quarterdeck was the collision between two weather fronts. A high pressure area’s heavier, colder air out of the west was driving under the warmer, water-saturated air behind a warm front which had moved into the Gulf of Mathyas from the east three days earlier and then stalled. Due to the planet’s rotation, winds tended to blow parallel to the isobars delineating weather fronts, which meant two powerful, moving wind masses were coming steadily into collision in what a Terran weatherman would have called a tropical cyclone.

Fortunately, it was the wrong time of year for the most violent form of tropical cyclone… which was more commonly called “hurricane.”

Ensign Aplyn-Ahrmahk didn’t need to understand all the mechanics involved in the process to read the weather signs, however. He understood the consequences of what was about to happen quite well, and he wasn’t looking forward to them. The good news was that Captain Yairley’s preparations had been made in ample time and there’d been time to double-check and triple-check all of them. The bad news was that the weather didn’t seem to have heard that this wasn’t hurricane season.

Don’t be silly, he told himself firmly. This isn’t going to be a hurricane, Hektor! Things would be getting worse even faster than they are if that were the case. I think.

“Take a party and double-check the lashings on the quarter boats, Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk,” Captain Yairley said.

“Aye, Sir!” Aplyn-Ahrmahk saluted and turned away. “Master Selkyr!”

“Aye, Sir?” Ahntahn Selkyr, another of Destiny ’s boatswain’s mates, replied.

“Let’s check the lashings on the boats,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said, and headed purposefully aft while Selkyr mustered half a dozen hands to join him.

“Giving the lad something to think about, Sir?” Lieutenant Lathyk asked quietly, watching the youthful ensign with a smile.

“Oh, perhaps a little,” Yairley acknowledged with a faint smile of his own. “At the same time, it won’t hurt anything, and Master Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s a good officer. He’ll see that it’s done right.”

“Yes, he will, Sir,” Lathyk agreed, then turned to look back at the looming mass of clouds rising higher and higher in the south. The air seemed thicker and heavier somehow, despite the freshening wind, and there was an odd tint to the light.

“I thought you were overreacting, to be honest, Sir, when you had the topgallant masts sent down. Now”-he shrugged, his expression unhappy-“I’m not so sure you were.”

“It’s always such a comfort to me when your judgment agrees with my own, Rhobair,” Yairley said dryly, and Lathyk chuckled. Then the captain sobered. “All the same, I don’t like the feel of this at all. And I don’t like the way the clouds are spreading to the east, as well. Mark my words, Rhobair, this thing is going to back around on us before it’s done.”

Lathyk nodded somberly. The predominant winds tended to be from the northeast in the Gulf of Mathyas during the winter months, which would normally have led one to expect any wind changes to veer further to the west, not to the east. Despite which, he had an unhappy suspicion that the captain was right.

“Do you think we’ll be able to make enough easting to clear Silkiah Bay if it does back on us, Sir?”

“Now that’s the interesting question, isn’t it?” Yairley smiled again, then turned his back on the dark horizon and watched Aplyn-Ahrmahk and his seamen inspecting the lashings which secured the boats on the quarterdeck’s davits.

“I think we’ll probably clear the mouth of the bay,” he said after a moment. “What I’m not so sure about is that we’ll be able to get into the approaches to Tabard Reach. I suppose”-he showed his teeth-“we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

Lightning streaked across the purple-black heavens like Langhorne’s own Rakurai. Thunder exploded like the reply of Shan-wei’s artillery, audible even through the wind-shriek and the pounding, battering fury of waves approaching thirty feet in height, and ice-cold rain hammered a man’s oilskins like a thousand tiny mallets. HMS Destiny staggered through those heavy seas, running before the wind now under no more than a single storm jib, a close-reefed main topsail, and a reefed forecourse, and Sir Dunkyn Yairley stood braced, secured to a quarterdeck lifeline by a turn around his chest, and watched the four men on the wheel fight to control his ship.