Chapter 25

The Kushor

Kanmi watched the last bit of shoreline disappear as they passed the last part of the continent, continuing on towards Britannia, hoping the god of the sea that his ship was named for, was watching over them. Normally they would travel further along the northern part of Gaul until they got to the shortest span between the two landmasses, but that required traveling between the northern part of Iberia and the southern coast of Britannia.

They’d already encountered a handful of merchants and fishermen since passing the corner of Iberia, and the closer they got, the more likely the Romans would be able to guess their destination. Unlike the ships of the Northmen, their quinquereme was too heavily loaded to just pull up onto any beach. If they only had the triremes, they could have found one of the shallow sandy shores to pull onto, but they needed the quinquereme to carry all the men and equipment they needed for this campaign.

The larger boats’ deeper drafts meant that they needed some kind of port. Although it would be preferable to have an actual built-up port with a functioning harbor, the governor’s loss of the island kept that from being an option, leaving only the natural harbors scattered along the coast, where they could get close in and use smaller boats to ferry everyone ashore. It would be a slow process, however, which meant it was important to not attempt it under fire, and that they needed to keep the Romans guessing about where they would land until enough of their force was ashore to form a beachhead.

Luckily they had a series of surveys of the southern half of the island going back twenty or thirty years, so he knew what his options were. Which is why he was forced to cross as soon as they could, heading straight north once they hit the corner of Iberia, even though it meant a long stretch without the visibility of land they could follow.

Although the waves didn’t get to the heights they would if he moved directly away from the continent, he still had his ships pull into a tighter formation, which was a problem all on its own.

The Victoria

“Knowing where you are and if you’ve traveled too far north or too far south should keep you on that line,” Ky said, handing the circular metallic object he’d had Hortensius work up, back to Valdar. “At night, you can also use the North Star to do the same thing.”

“That’s basically how we’ve been doing it, getting direction from the North Star or the sun, but I never imagined it was anything more than a general guide of which direction we were facing.”

“Which is probably pretty effective. If you have the right maps, showing you the seas broken down in sections that match the degree marks on the astrolabe, you can always know exactly where you are, at least when going east or west. There are ways to tell where you are north and south as well, but that will take more time; so for now, this will have to do.”

“I don’t suppose you have one of those maps handy?” Valdar asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Ky said, handing over a rolled piece of vellum, the prepared animal skin was expensive but able to hold up to the constant humidity on the ship.

Valdar unrolled it, looking at the burned-in lines and shapes of the continent showing the known world. Ky had another version he’d hand over later that showed North America and the Pacific, instead of stopping partway across Asia. He needed to lay more groundwork before he revealed what the entire world looked like and he didn’t want them trying an Atlantic crossing in the ships they currently had, as they wouldn’t stand up to it. As it was, this would go a long way to revolutionizing sea travel, especially once they finished with this invasion force and he could get Hortensius to produce compasses. The two together would be enough to allow vessels to break from the coastlines, creating more efficient trade routes and opening up new lands to them.

“You realize the value of this? Your enemies would be able to do a lot with something like this.”

“I do, and they’re our enemies now,” Ky said. “And I suggest you keep it close, although eventually, I expect it will get out. All of our ship’s masters will need something like this if we’re going to continue our expansion and become self-sufficient. We can’t let the fear of our enemies getting this keep us from using it. We’ll just have to come up with new advantages once these get out.”

“None of which helps now, since knowing where we are doesn’t tell us where their fleet is.”

“Between the ships you have circling the area and the fishermen we asked to keep an eye out, we have a rough idea where they are.”

“Rough being the key word. A few mille passus this way or that, and we could completely pass their entire fleet. And it’s costing me a fortune to have them circling the sea between Iberia and Britannia, instead of running back up towards Asia now that the northern ports are starting to lose their ice.”

“Rough is enough and we’ve already agreed to cover your losses while they help search for the fleet. As long as we can get within thirty or forty mille passus, I’ll be able to direct our forces to them. Besides, I have a good guess of where they’re going to land, especially if your last captain was right about seeing them head straight off from the coast.”

“He was a pretty far distance away, but he’s an experienced seaman. If he said they held a northern course, then they did, so unless it was a feint and they suddenly turned east to head up the channel, then yes, I think that’s right.”

“Good. Then our course should get us close enough that I can bring us to the target.”

“Then we only have to hope those monstrosities are worth your men carving up my ship. With the wind like it is, I’ll be able to outrun any of their oar-powered ships, but I’m not going to be able to fight them,” Valdar said, pointing at the forward-mounted cannon pointing out on either side of the bow and then to the symmetrical pair on the other end of his ship, pointing off its stern.

“They will,” Ky said, looking past the guns at the open sea.

“I hope so. Now, can you explain to me again why we had to give my boat a silly Roman name?” Valdar said with a smirk.

They’d had this same argument every hour since Ky had come on board, although he was pretty sure the shipmaster was now doing it as a way of messing with him, since he wasn’t a fool and could understand all of the reasons why Ky thought the ship should be Britannian, not just borrowed from a Scandi merchant.

Ky was pretty sure the man just liked to argue, as he started to list all the reasons for the hundredth time.

The Kushor

Kanmi was tired as the sun came up across the water, showing they were still heading more or less north. They’d have to adjust their course once they saw land again, but all in all, he was happy with their progress, especially considering he had more boats under his command at one time than any other sailor in the history of the empire. It looked as if they’d lost another five ships during the night. Two he knew for sure, seeing them collide and hearing the screams. The rest was based on word passed from ship to ship when he called for a status check of the fleet, which meant it could have been a few more or a few less, but either way, the numbers were acceptable. He’d probably lose another handful before the journey was over, but they’d still land with an army large enough to crush whatever the Romans threw against them.

“Sail, my lord,” the lookout leaning against the prow of the boat called out, pointing north.

Walking past the exhausted rowers, Kanmi stared over the water, trying to make out what the lookout was seeing. The young man had been picked for his excellent eyesight and even with his help, it took several minutes for the Kanmi to find what he’d seen. The ship was still coming over the horizon and only the single sail was visible from this distance, although that was enough for him to identify the ship.

The sail was too large to be that of one of the fishing boats they’d seen and even a Roman trireme’s sail would be masted closer to the body of the ship than this was, with the ship up higher along the mast, which meant it was one of the Scandi. The quarrelsome merchants didn’t venture into the middle sea often but they were all over Oceanus and far down the coast of Oceanus. They paid their tribute and looked different enough to keep from having their ships seized when they came into ports, but they had a stark independent streak that Kanmi hated.

There’d been word that the Scandi had been more active in the area since the island fell to the Romans, taking advantage of the breaking of the Carthaginian control of shipping. The emperor had made comments that suggested their willingness to trade with the Romans was enough to change their status with the empire, making their ships open season for all Carthaginian captains, but as of now, that hadn’t happened. The Scandi had a healthy sense of self-preservation, though, and the several Scandi ships they’d seen had turned and run as soon as they’d seen Kanmi’s armada. This one seemed to have less sense, continuing on towards him, the body of the ship coming into view.

“If he keeps coming at us, send one of the unloaded triremes to intercept it. It can’t carry enough men to stop even one of our ships, but there’s a chance they’re working for the Romans and if they’re suicidal enough, they could set their ship on fire once they are in among ours.”

At their current speed, the small boats they used to pass messages as well as offload men and supplies couldn’t make it back and forth between them, which meant they had to use a message line with a waterproof pouch attached to a shot with a line thrown by the strongest man on the boat. It sometimes took several tries, but eventually, they made it.

Then something happened that Kanmi didn’t count on. As the ship closed the distance, two plumes of smoke appeared at the front of it, partially obscuring it from view. Kanmi was just starting to think about what could have caused the smoke to suddenly appear, when two booms like the sound of rocks falling from a great height onto a stone bottom, sounded several seconds apart, one after the other. Then the unthinkable happened.

There was a crashing sound on the ship to his left as wood planks shot into the air just above the waterline and men began to scream. He couldn’t see the ship on the other side of it, but the way the mast started to twist, something had happened there too.

They were in the middle of the ocean, so it wasn’t possible that they’d struck anything. The way the boards shot out, it was almost like when a catapult shot crashed into a ship, except that happened with a stone falling straight down, and that hadn’t happened here. The explosion had been at the water line and the boards had shot out horizontally, as if they were struck directly on. Which was impossible.