Each side of the U was formed by a single line of forty light galleys. The base was formed by a triple line of larger ones, twenty in each line. In the center of the second line were ten of the largest, including Avenger. Each of the ten mounted a siege engine on her stern, with barrels stacked ready to load. Every one of the hundred and forty galleys had a barrel and spar lashed to her ram, jutting out sixty feet ahead and six feet below the surface, invisible and hopefully lethal.

The idea was to drive home a straight thrust with the sixty larger galleys, while the others protected either flank. Extended in its usual crescent, the Imperial fleet would try to fold its wings around the attackers' flanks. At the same time it would be weaker in the center, more vulnerable to the massive punch that Blade hoped to drive straight home.

«Home» did not mean just the enemy's center. It meant Kul-Nam's own flagship, and ultimately the Emperor himself. Blade was scanning the enemy lines now, trying to make out the ship flying the Imperial standard. He doubted if Kul-Nam would refuse to fly the standard or permit it to be flown aboard several ships to conceal his location. The man was too arrogant and too jealous to take that kind of sensible precaution. Still, Blade could not see the black eagle on red anywhere in the forest of masts and sails and other bright flags and banners ahead.

Finally he decided to leave that job to the lookouts and get back to his own duties. He swung himself into the shrouds and slid down to the deck so fast he scorched the palms of his hands on the rough rope.

Prince Durouman met him as he landed. The prince was pale and sweating with excitement and anticipation.

«Did you see the flagship?»

Blade shook his head. «The man must be holding well back.»

Prince Durouman cursed and pounded one gauntleted fist into the palm of the other hand. It was his dearest wish to see Avenger laid alongside the Emperor's flagship and personally lead her boarding party into the Emperor's private cabin to kill him there.

Blade understood that a hundred years of frustration and anger and waiting for this moment of vengeance lay behind Prince Durouman's desire. He still didn't think much of it. As far as Blade was concerned, it would be putting the prince and therefore his whole cause into unnecessary danger. There would be no boarding party or death grapple with the Emperor if it could be avoided. Blade would be perfectly happy to blow the flagship apart or send it to the bottom with all hands. That would be less melodramatic but just as effective.

White smoke rose from one enemy ship after another, and whiter fountains of spray began to rise among the advancing allied fleet as the Imperial sailing ships opened fire. They were shooting badly, but not so badly that all their shots missed. Blade saw a mast go overboard from one allied galley, saw another swerve wildly as half the oars on one side were suddenly smashed or tossed into the air.

Beyond the flanks of the allied fleet Blade could now see Imperial galleys sweeping forward. They too were opening fire, but no galley captain would depend on guns if he saw an opportunity to close and ram. Then the lighter allied galleys would have their chance-and so would the Sunday punch they were thrusting ahead of them under the water.

A determination to watch his invention work under battle conditions filled Blade. He sprang into the rigging again, ignoring the steadily increasing beat of the enemy's guns. He had barely settled into the crow's nest when he saw a pirate galley swing out on the left flank, driving in against an Imperial opponent that had wandered too close. Blade held his breath, cursing mentally. The captains were supposed to save the barrels for use against sailing ships first, not against galleys. But a pirate captain who saw a chance to strike down an Imperial opponent would be sorely tempted. This one had obviously yielded to temptation.

The two galleys seemed to be drawn together as if both were magnetized. Then the sea erupted all along the port side of the Imperial galley. Oars, planks, and men flew into the air on top of a great upheaval of dirty water. The water seemed to hang suspended for a moment, then crashed down on the Imperial galley's deck and the wreckage along with it. Before the spray stopped falling the wounded galley was already beginning to list sharply to port.

The pirate galley slid to a stop with her ram almost against her victim's side. Then she started backing away. A puff of smoke from her foc'sle told Blade that at least one gun remained in action. Both masts were tilted at unlikely angles, but both still stood. Otherwise she showed no signs of damage.

Blade swung his gaze to the opposite side of the fleet as another explosion roared out there. Black smoke towered up from the sea, and at the base of the tower the broken halves of a galley from Nullar were slowly settling into the water. Not as agreeable a sight as the first explosion.

The enemy's gunfire still mounted steadily, most of it apparently aimed at the flanks of the allied fleet. One of the galleys in the first line of the center was dropping back past Avenger with her foc'sle a splintered and smashed wreck. Otherwise only a few shots seemed to be passing close enough for Blade to hear them or even see their fall.

He could ignore that. What he could not ignore was the damage the lighter galleys on the flanks were taking. One galley after another was dropping out now. There were no longer fairly neat lines on either side but a series of ragged clusters of ships, some of them already too crippled to maneuver their secret weapons. Imperial galleys were swooping down on them like vultures on dying animals, guns hammering and the sun gleaming on the armor of the boarding parties that crowded their decks.

Not all of the damage was on one side, of course. An Imperial galley made the mistake of stopping a hundred yards in front of a galley of Belthanor that still had her full speed. There was a sudden surge forward, a barrel driven hard against the Imperial galley's stern, and an explosion that made Blade wince. Half of the Imperial galley was gone when the smoke lifted, blown to pieces by the magazine explosion. The other half floated for a couple of minutes, then slipped down out of sight.

The Belthanor galley backed away slowly, only a few oars working on each side. She was not fast enough to escape an Imperial galley that drove in past the floating wreckage and swept alongside. Instantly the decks of both ships were a tangle of fighting men. The battle was still going on when smoke from guns and burning ships laid a curtain across that stretch of sea and cut off Blade's view.

Blade was a worried man. The barrels were working. He'd conceived and built a successful weapon. But they weren't doing what he'd planned. The Imperial attack was hammering on his flanks as if there were no other ships in the whole allied fleet that could be any danger to them. It was all galley against galley so far, and he had not expected this to happen. He had built a sailing-ship killer, and now there were no sailing ships within range.

In another fifteen minutes there would be. The Imperial center was holding position and formation as if every ship were tied to every other. But in another fifteen minutes his attack on the center would have no protection for its flanks. From what he'd seen, he guessed that twenty of his flanking ships were out of action entirely, another twenty too slowed to use their weapons. That left-

A rocket soared up above the enemy's center, trailing a broad cloud of green smoke. Instantly other rockets rose from either end of the first line of the Imperial sailing ships. A moment later Blade realized that the ships of that line were beginning to turn, separating into two groups as they did so. One group was swinging to starboard, the other to port. Behind them Blade could at last begin to make out the Imperial second line.