Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [127]
‘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