The Wicked Heroine
Page 69
Chapter Thirty
The water seeped in quietly, insidiously. It curled around the bars and gently flooded the areas beneath the men’s benches. Its calming, briny warmth belied its deadliness; Sengril inched further up his bench, away from the encroaching liquid, and wiped a trail of blood from his temple.
“I’ve half a mind to just slip on in, Stervan,” Armala said with a half-smile, as he held a selected book on his lap.
“How do you plan to counter your additional buoyancy?”
Armala rattled his ankle chain in response.
“Ah. Thought of everything, did you?” Sengril asked lightly, noting that one of the guards’ bodies outside the bars had enough water under it to float now. The unlucky man had been felled as his head struck a wall when the ship had shuddered several minutes ago. “Me, I will wait here on my bench. Perhaps the crew will scare away whatever is attacking us, and they’ll pump out the water down here in time to save us.”
Armala barked a laugh. “You always were the optimist. I’ll miss that about you.”