Beneath a Burning Sky (The Dawnhawk Trilogy Book 3) by Jonathon Burgess Page A

Wintermourn flatly.
    “Of course.” Gwydion leaned back with a glass of brandy. “We will treat this action like a duel; we’re not going to let them prepare. We need to keep the pirates off-balance.” He took a drink, savoring it, and then held the admiral with his sharp, wolfish gaze. “I’ve had time to mull over that idea I mentioned earlier. After watching the progress of the earlier sabotage, I am convinced that it is a sound one. Speed is better than stealth, any day. Return to your ships. Send word to the rest of the fleet. I’ve changed my mind about tomorrow. The pirates are certainly distracted at the moment, just as I said they would be. So we begin the invasion in three hours’ time.”
    A flurry of complaints echoed about the walls.
    “What? That’s not nearly enough time—”
    “It’s not quite midnight!”
    “The men are all asleep. Or drunk—”
    “We won’t be able to see a thing—”
    Admiral Wintermourn held up a hand for quiet. The captains quieted.
    “Doctrine dictates that, when possible, any fleet action should be initiated at high noon,” he said, “dawn at the earliest, for visibility and tactical advantage. If nothing else, navigating those waterways you so worry about, in the dark, will be impossible.”
    “Not impossible,” replied the prince calmly. “The Glory will provide lighting from above. The galvanic lanterns are quite powerful enough. Send in twenty of the newest paddlewheel steamships, with the rest of the fleet held in reserve out here. They’ll have the easiest time of it and bring as much force to bear as we can, for the moment. Why send only men when we can have warships? I know for a fact that mooring anchors were built by bright lads back in Darrenway for attaching to these sheer coastal cliffs in order to offload the marines. They’ll be invaluable in those ravines—break them out. As for the men, rotate shifts as we prepare and get them awake after they’ve rested a bit.” He stopped to chew another bite of hare, meeting the admiral’s gaze as he swallowed. “Tell me, my good admiral, how wise would it be to wait for noon when fighting an enemy who flits about the sky?”
    “Nevertheless,” said Wintermourn in tones of iron. “Attacking before dawn—”
    “Will leave the enemy far more vulnerable when we do cross blades. If our boys were to try hopping from islet to islet, or worse, were we to send one ship at a time up those channels, we would get picked off and swarmed, even with the Glory to assist. If they’re ready when we send in a column, the pirates will bomb at their leisure, stopping up our whole advance and turning the waterways into a graveyard. No, we’re not going to give them that kind of chance. I mean to get the drop on them and be in that pirate town when the sun rises, if possible—that or this Graveway Lagoon, at the worst. Oh. A standing order: any Mechanists encountered are not to be harmed. Capture or cripple them, but do not kill them.”
    “I cannot—”
    “I do not care,” hissed the crown prince, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. “Admiral, you seem to forget yourself. I am in command of this fleet action. You are my subordinate. Do not think to test me upon that. Do not think it at all.”
    He dropped his fork and grabbed the hilt of the longsword at his side. It slid an inch from the sheath, shedding soft golden light that illuminated the room.
    Wintermourn stared. “Danlann...” he whispered, recognizing the Blade of the Kingdom itself. The sword wasn’t just Worked, it was a powerful and priceless object, the subject of countless legends through five hundred years of Perinese history.
    The silence that followed was absolute. Wintermourn looked to the crown prince and held his gaze. The assembled captains of the fleet watched on. Wintermourn knew his face was flushed. He felt enraged that someone would dare speak to him so.
    But what was to be done? Higher authority could only come from the king