They loomed out of the morning mist like ancient monsters, born of sea spray and storm clouds and the breath of the earth as it came into being-- yet Ridge knew they were nothing more than wood, and metal, and war cries hammered into steel.
And the admiral's ships rose to meet them.
The Waverunners raced through the water cutting through the waves to circle around the armada like birds of prey. The enemy sailors who stood at the wheel did not appear worried. Ridge would not have been either. Waverunners had been designed as messenger ships and only recently renovated for battle, and they presented little threat to a fully-armed war ship. For that reason, they would not target the larger boats, only the smaller ones.
"Admiral?" A captain paused, one foot on the rope ladder that hung down over the deck of his ship.
"Go on." Ridge would not be riding on his usual boat. No, the Thunder Pearl sat ready and waiting, and it was long past time she should have reclaimed her captain.
Out at sea, the Waverunners closed in on their targets, engaging them.
Evert Diomangue was the admiral in charge of the armada and it gave him no small pleasure to know it would be his fleet that finally captured Port Glory and-- most likely-- won the war. But he hadn't anticipated this move-- Ridge's Waverunners did not converge on his own Waverunners, instead they teamed up on the medium war ships. Ridge had made a colossal mistake, he thought. No Waverunner could hope to destroy a war ship. But they weren't alone, he realized. With each pair of Waverunners was a merchant ship, built for speed, space, and protection from pirates on a long journey. As each slight Waverunner pinned one of his ships between them, the bigger merchant boat would blast it with its cannon.
Evert's fingers trembled on his spyglass. It required a complicated maneuver to carry out this trick but Ridge's boats were sailing perfectly. No casualties yet, and he had already lost a ship.
It didn't matter. His fleet vastly outnumbered Ridge's. And the other admiral could never have forseen the tricks he had planned.
As Evert turned away from the side of his fleet, his specially-designed Waverunners broke away and sailed towards the mouth of the Steelflow river, the stream that wound around to the back of the fort. Ridge would never see them coming.
YOU ARE READING
The Defense of Glory
Historical FictionThe small iron-clad boat chugged into the harbour, dragging a wake behind it in the stormy sea. Its small three-man crew was soot-smudged and breathless, all of them wide-eyed and trembling. "We saw'm!" One cried aloud, pushing himself over the rail...
