Enlightened Empire

Chapter 382: All-around Confidence

When Governor Ichilia spotted the beacon tower on Sachay’s shores, General Scolo atop the tower had long found the invading fleet. Since the traditional battleships of Medala sat low in the water and had no crow’s nests, the scouts on the towers had a huge advantage when it came to their line of sight. Not to mention that they were equipped with telescopes, which further compounded their advantage.

They had been warned by the king’s ghost network that House Ichilia was likely to attack within these few days, so they had long expected them to arrive and were on high alert. However, the fact that it was the general himself who would find the enemy first on one of his daily routine inspections was nothing less than providence. At least Scolo thought so.

“Enemy attack!” he shouted, which prompted the actual guard on the tower to join him and confirm his observation. After all, he wasn’t really in charge of spotting. Rather, he was in charge of the entire front line.

Before Dedrick had returned back to Arcavia, he promoted his old buddy Scolo to general as one of his last acts. It hadn’t been that long since he had followed Master Corco to this strange land. When he had arrived, he had been merely one of many commanders within a mid-sized mercenary troop. Now he was in charge of an army larger than the wolves had ever been. Thus, he took his new role very seriously.

Every day, he would march along the coast of the Narrow Sea to inspect the beacon towers and make sure that those inside were doing their jobs right. And this time, he had surprisingly caught the enemy fleet the second he looked out at sea.

Once both of the guards inside the tower had confirmed his observation, the tower began to play its true function. According to the manual they had been handed, one of the guards operated the system of pulleys and levers at the bottom of the tower, which moved the strange construction on top.

With this setup, they were able to move several loose planks of wood into all kinds of configurations. These configurations all had ascribed meanings, so once they were spotted by the adjacent towers, the guards there would then interpret them. They, in turn, would repeat the message with their own beacon tower, until it had spread all across the southern kingdom’s northern border. Within minutes, every guard from Saniya to Qarasi Castle knew about the attack.

Thus, they had announced the arrival of the enemy fleet, and soon the entire shoreline came alive. In fact, even though he was the general in charge of these troops, Scolo didn’t really need to do much. All his preparations had been finished in the previous days, so his troops long knew what they had to do even without him.

As the message traveled along the Narrow Sea, it reached smaller units of one hundred soldiers each, stationed in camps between the beacon towers. Once they received the message, they would become active. All of them were long ready to march, and without further orders would travel on the new roads along the coast, to congregate here, at the origin point for the message.

The soldiers would walk by themselves, while the cannons were dragged along by donkeys, oxen, and some particularly strong cultivators from within Saniya’s private army. Even the ghost warriors had been mobilized to help carry the load. Since King Corco intended to travel fast and surprise the traitorous governor with his assault, he had left most of the army’s cannons to him, something Scolo was very grateful for.

After all, they would be far more useful in a naval battle than they would have been in an open battlefield like what had been expected down south. Thus, dozens of cannons would soon arrive together with his soldiers.

In the meantime, Scolo and the two guards in the beacon tower had begun to construct the defenses along the shoreline. In preparation for today, every beacon tower along the coast was loaded to the brim with sandbags and ammunition.

When the first group of infantry reached the tower, they immediately joined in and helped pile up temporary defenses around the earthen trenches that had already been dug up in days prior. Thus, the open beach around the beacon tower was quickly transformed into a fortified position.

By the time the first cannons arrived, there were plenty of emplacements to put them, and the enemy ships were only just getting within firing range. Thus, a clockwork of operations had been successfully concluded. With great satisfaction, Scolo had the cannons manned, and then gave the order to fire. With a thunderous roar, a one-sided war had begun.

When Divitius fell down onto the planks of the ship’s bow, the war had begun. It was a war he had thought would only come after they had landed was already here. It hit them at their most vulnerable, and caught them completely off guard. However, this wasn’t the time to be frightened and confused.

First, the commander of the troops had to show strength and bravery. At least this much, Divitius knew about warfare. Once his men were stabilized, he could assess the situation, and then make the right decision. His future, the future of his family, depended on it.

His hands found strength again as they clawed into the ship’s railing and hoisted his body back onto his feet. The sound of thunder was still there, the cannons on the opposite side were still firing, but now he had the presence of mind to truly see them for what they were.

Not as bad as I thought.

That was the governor’s first assessment. Although the cannons were landing in several places around them, the fire felt sporadic. Each impact made an impressive visual impact, but they arrived only a few at a time, with large gaps of time between each volley. So far, they had yet to hit a single one of his ships. Divitius observed the rising smoke from opposite shore to estimate their numbers based on the speed of their reload.

Maybe five, or maybe ten? Surely no more than that.

In the end, the number of cannons was less than impressive. They must have been unlucky to choose their landing site in a place where the southern army had cannons ready, or maybe they had spread their cannons along the entire coastline. Either way, they had stretched themselves too thin. Those were maybe enough numbers to deter a small number of ships typical of a coastal raid, but certainly not enough to stop their giant invasion fleet. Thus, the governor’s decision had been made.

“Orders!” he shouted, and soon his attendant appeared behind him.

“Master, please order.”

“Tell the fleet to speed up. Push through the bombardment and punish them for their insolence. And man the cannons! We have at least four times as many as them, so let them taste what true power is!”

“Understood.”

Divitius stepped back from the cannon at the bow and let his men do their work. Soon, the cool artillery piece would heat up, so he couldn’t keep his hand there anyways. Instead, he turned around and addressed the many warriors in the bellows of the ship, who were no doubt eager to reach land and get into the fight.

“Brave men of Ichilia! Now comes the hour of our glory! Our enemy’s numbers are weak, and their strength is small! But fear not! Whatever you will lack in fight today, you will make up in plunder of Medala’s richest city! The first man on solid ground earns a hundred Sila! First to kill a man get a thousand! First to kill a commander gets ten thousand! So show them what the men of Ichilia are made of! Show them our strength!”

Encouraged by their lord’s words as much as by his open purse, the warriors replied with enthusiastic roars. With a satisfied smile, Divitius looked at them for a second before he turned back towards the ship’s bow.

Once again, he observed the opposite shore, this time with a calm mind. His smile was long gone, but his confidence only grew. The fire from his enemies was still weak, and the ships around him had followed his lead and began to speed up. The defenders had caught him off guard at first, but things were still very much under control.

The sails of the Homeward blew out and carried Atau past Saniya, further into the Narrow Sea.

“We really caught a good wind, admiral.” Next to Atau, one of his sailors was staring up at the flared out sails. Since he couldn’t remember the sailor’s name, he had to be a new recruit. Every time a new ship left Saniya’s shipyards, he would lose some of his old crew, who would start their pwn captain’s careers on their own ships. So he never really stopped teaching simple things to beginners. It was a bother to teach land lubbers, or to remember their name, but by now he had gotten used to it.

“That’s fairly normal around here. This time of year, the warm streams of the Verdant Isles always carry warm water south, which influences the wind too. Most days during the winter, the western Narrow Sea give you strong eastward winds. That’s why it rains so much in Saniya too. All those clouds getting carried over from the open sea by the wind.”

“Oh, no wonder admiral is the admiral.”

The young man stared at Atau with wide eyed wonder, no doubt transfixed by his majesty. It sure was annoying. In the past, he would have just slapped the guy in the back of the head and moved on, but over the years, he had grown calmer and wiser.

“Sailor, can you go bother someone else?” the calm and wise admiral asked and stared at the nuisance with a strange look. Although he was annoyed, he was more interested. Why was this little sailor even talking to him? Wasn’t he afraid that he would get thrown overboard for bothering his master?

“Oh admiral, I forgot.” The little sailor slapped his head all by himself. “The Seaturtle sent a message. They’ve spotted the enemy fleet up ahead.”

For a second, Atau stared at the young sailor. If he had such an important message to send, why would he not lead with that? Quite unlike his young subordinate, Atau felt an immediate sense of urgency.

“Good. Return to your post, sailor,” he said thus to get rid of the pest.

“Aye aye, captain.”

Before the lazy sailor had even finished, Atau turned to his second and ordered to relay the information to the entire fleet. While his flagmen spread the message to the other ships, the admiral ordered the helmsman to stay course before he marched to the ship’s bow.

He wanted to get a look for himself before he made any rash decisions, and there was still time before his orders could travel through the entire fleet. Before he got the ready signal from all ships he could already spot the battlefield through his telescope.

From a cursory inspection, it looked like their estimates were correct. He counted maybe around fifty small rowing ships, stretched into a long front. What did surprise him, however, was that they were already in combat.

They’re faster than I thought.

Atau observed the battle for a while to get a better view on things. For now, it looked like the ships of House Ichilia still had the upper hand against the defenders. After all, the fire from the coast was sparse and it looked like those tiny Ichilia boats all had at least a couple cannons on board to fire back. Soon however, the return fire from the coastline intensified.

This wasn’t a surprise to Atau. If they were acting in accordance to the plan, then more and more cannons would reach the battlefield from all along the coastline. As the enemy ships got closer, the fire would become more intense, more concentrated, as well as more and more precise. Whether the Ichilia ships would even manage a landing under such pressure would remain to be seen.

Not long ago, Saniya’s army would have still been unable to undertake a massive operation like this one. After all, their bottleneck for many years had been the amount of gunpowder they could produce. Both the niter they imported from Chutwa and the stuff they got from the public toilets didn’t make them nearly enough powder to launch a major attack on the southern lords, fight a naval battle, and store powder in every beacon tower to defend the shores all at the same time.

However, when Sumaci gained control of the Green Island, they also gained a stable route to the Bat islands beyond it, and to all the niter hidden in the soil there. Over the past months, Atau had personally made many trips along that route, to ensure they would have enough ammunition for their future plans. As it turned out, the niter had come just in time. With the recent conspiracy, the powder came in handy much sooner than they had thought.

While the Homeward was still some ways away from the battlefield, with its captain lost in thought, the battle was heating up in the distance. The foremost of the attacking ships was losing speed fast. Many of its rudders had stopped completely, while others moved around erratically, with none of the previous rhythm.

From the look of the holes in the listing ship, it was taking water and the crew had fallen into a panic. Meanwhile, shielded from cannon fire by the destroyed ship, the rest of the fleet was closing in on the shore, still trying to force a landing. Now that they had gone deep enough, it was time to close the net. Finally, Atau and his fleet could join the battle as well. The winds were favorable, and everything was under control. If anything went wrong by this point, he only had himself to blame, and he had no intention of letting Corco down.

“Raise all sails!” he called out. “All hands on deck! Prepare for battle!”