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probably clear themouth of the bay,” he said after a moment. “What I’m not so sure about is that we’ll be able to get into the approaches to Tabard Reach. I suppose”—he showed his teeth—“we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”
    *   *   *
    Lightning streaked across the purple-black heavens like Langhorne’s own Rakurai. Thunder exploded like the reply of Shan-wei’s artillery, audible even through the wind-shriekand the pounding, battering fury of waves approaching thirty feet in height, and ice-cold rain hammered a man’s oilskins like a thousand tiny mallets. HMS Destiny staggered through those heavy seas, running before the wind now under no more than a single storm jib, a close-reefed main topsail, and a reefed forecourse, and Sir Dunkyn Yairley stood braced, secured to a quarterdeck lifeline by aturn around his chest, and watched the four men on the wheel fight to control his ship.
    The seas were trying to push her stern around to the east, and he was forced to carry more canvas and more weather helm than he would have preferred to hold her up. It was officially a storm now, with wind speeds hitting better than fifty-five miles per hour, and not a mere gale or even a strong gale, andhe suspected it was going to get even nastier before it was over. He didn’t like showing that much of the forecourse, but he needed that lift forward. Despite which he’d have to take in both the topsail and the course and go to storm staysails alone, if the wind got much worse. He needed to get as far east as he could, though, and reducing sail would reduce his speed, as well. Deciding when to makethat change—and making it before he endangered his ship—was going to be as much a matter of instinct as anything else, and he wondered why the possibility of being driven under and drowned caused him so much less concern than the possibility of losing legs or arms to enemy round shot.
    The thought made him chuckle, and while none of the helmsmen could have heard him through the shrieking tumultand the waterfall beating of icy rain, they saw his fleeting smile and looked at one another with smiles of their own.
    He didn’t notice as he turned and peered into the murk to the northwest. By his best estimate, they’d made roughly twenty-five miles, possibly thirty, since the visibility closed in. If so, Destiny was now about two hundred miles southeast of Ahna’s Point and four hundred andsixty miles southeast of Silk Town. It also put him only about a hundred and twenty miles south of Garfish Bank, however, and his smile disappeared as he pictured distances and bearings from the chart in his mind. He’d made enough easting to avoid being driven into Silkiah Bay—probably—if the wind did back, but he needed at least another two hundred and fifty miles—preferably more like three hundred—beforehe’d have Tabard Reach under his lee, and he didn’t like to think about how many ships had come to grief on Garfish Bank or in Scrabble Sound behind it.
    But that’s not going to happen to my ship , he told himself, and tried to ignore the prayerful note in his own thought.
    *   *   *
    “Hands aloft to reduce sail!”
    The order was barely audible through the howl of wind and the continuous drumrollof thunder, but the grim-faced topmen didn’t have to hear the command. They knew exactly what they faced … and exactly what it was going to be like up there on the yards, and they looked at one another with forced smiles.
    “Up you go, lads!”
    In the teeth of such a wind, the lee shrouds would have been a death trap, and the topmen swarmed up even the weather shrouds with more than usual care.They gathered in the tops, keeping well inside the topmast rigging, while men on deck tailed onto the braces.
    A seventeen-mile-per-hour wind put one pound of pressure per square inch on a sail. At thirty-two miles per hour, the pressure didn’t simply double; it quadrupled, and the wind was blowing far harder than