Chapter 19
Drimpal climbed down the stairs until only his head remained in view. He shouted to the men, “Bring her to my cabin.” He pointed to the water creeping up the deck at the front of the ship. “And get a crew down there and mend the break.”
“Aye, sir,” a man said from the ship’s deck. They pushed and pulled Bree to the hatch.
“Stop it,” Bree complained. “You don’t have to manhandle me. I’ll go peacefully.”
A howl sounded behind her. The men halted.
Bree snapped her head around. Morla stood on a low balcony of the ruins, hands high in the air, braying to the sky.
Her hair hung straight. So too did her long dress.
The woman was soaking wet. She pierced Bree with her gaze and lifting her chin, she smiled. Bree was sure the woman winked.
“The witch is sinking the ship,” one of the men said, fright filling his face.
Bree frowned as the men quickly nudged her to the opening.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go down.”
She turned and, holding on to the rails, carefully stepped down the steep ladder of stairs.
They think Morla is a witch. What did her winking at Bree even mean?
Did she have a plan? Was she responsible for the ship sinking?
Bree didn’t believe in magic, but she couldn’t think of any other reason for such a catastrophe to happen.
And Morla had appeared proud of her accomplishment.
Had she forgotten Garlain was down there somewhere? Was she trying to kill him?
And what about her? Morla saw she was being taken prisoner. Why didn’t she use her magic to stop the bandits? Bree’s feet hit the below deck with a thick thud. Was the princess a part of the bandit’s scheme?
A man dropped beside her and taking her upper arm, pulled her through a short, narrow passageway. Where the passageway ended, Bree spied hammocks hanging from the boards above.
The brigand opened a door but because of the lilt of the ship, it jammed. Letting Bree go, he banged his shoulder against the door, and it flew open with him stumbling into the small cabin.
He quickly rebalanced and clasping Bree’s sore arm, pulled her into what could only be the captain’s quarters.
Drimpal was there and he looked up and said, “See what you can do with the ship.”
“Aye, sir.”
The man closed the door behind him as Drimpal leered at Bree.
She shivered and averted her eyes, looking around the room. It was smaller than she thought a captain’s cabin might be, but it was big enough to take a bunk, a desk, a small table bolted to the floor and two chairs, also bolted to the floor.
The thought of him touching her had her heart racing and her panting breaths made her light headed but at the same time, her body felt so heavy, it was as if her feet were also bolted to the floor. She hoped the men couldn’t save the ship. She hoped it sank before Drimpal could do anything to her.
Drimpal moved to a cupboard next to open shelves that filled the entire right wall. Using the swag of keys that he kept on his belt, he unlocked the doors and pulled out bag after bag of what looked to Bree like coin bags and filled his shirt with them.
He opened a chest on the desk. It was filled with gold coins.
He grabbed an empty bag from the drawer and began filling it with the coins.
The ship jerked forward, and the bag fell, coins spilling out across the floor and rolling to the front of the ship.
Bree teetered and fell against the wall of cupboards so that her upper arm, already freshly bruised by the manhandling, hit the hard wood of a shelf.
Pain radiated through her arm and she cried out.
She held on to the shelf and tried to balance as the ship continued to dip down.
Drimpal scanned the cabin and huffed a curse. Shoving another bag full of coins down his pants, he gave Bree a slimy smile. “You will be thankful you chose me when we get to Darndale. You will be well looked after.”
She cringed and moved back into the shelves.
He gazed at the chest and closed the lid, locking it with one of his keys. He patted it as if it was a puppy. “I will find you again.”
Bree threw him a look of disgust as he took her arm. She cried out at the stab of pain, but he ignored her.
“Quickly,” he said, and jerked her to the door.
“You’re hurting me,” Bree exclaimed.
“Dying will hurt many times more if we don’t hurry. The ship is sinking.”
Bree tripped over some of the fallen coins. “Ouch.” She remembered how Garrett told Laura to feign an injury. If she could get him to leave her there, she could find Garlain. “I think I sprained my ankle.”
“Ignore the pain.” He hauled on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Blast it. Help me.”
Bree took a step but cried out as she fell to the floor. “I can’t. I can’t move.”
Drimpal grabbed her injured arm and pulled. “Get up. You’re mine and you won’t die this day.”
The door flew open and Perlos, his face white and distraught, glanced at Bree and then gaped at Drimpal.
“Sir, we have to abandon ship, it is lost.”
Drimpal pushed past him, shouting, “Bring her.”
Perlos bent to take Bree’s arm but she moved it away. “No, I think it’s broken, and so is my foot. I can’t leave.”
He stood up and looked at her, as if judging her weight. His shoulders slumped. “I cannot lift you. You’ll have to walk.”
“I can’t, you idiot, go, save yourself.”
He glanced through the door and back to Bree. The ship jerked again. He ran out of the door and Bree let out a laugh. She got to her feet and looked down the hallway.
“Garlain,” she called as she walked through the rows of empty hammocks swinging from their ties off the ceiling. Bags and clothes were strewn over the entire floor. Thankfully, none of the crew were below at that moment.
Near the end she found a low, small door. She opened it and peered into the darkness. “Garlain!”
Letting out a puff of air, and with her heart lodged in her throat, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the doorway.
Bree stopped and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light.
Barrels and bags lined both sides of the walls, leaving only a narrow crawling space between them.
With her heart still racing, she inched along the space.
She briefly wondered how long her heart could go on like that.
The ship tilted. Water seeped around her hands and knees.
A cry hitched in her throat. She pushed her hand hard against her heart and willed herself to think.
The captain’s cabin was at the stern, and the bow was already sinking into the river when she was forced below. That’s where she was, in the bow of the ship, and it was being flooded. “Garlain!” she shrieked into the darkness.
A sound floated to her ears. She stopped and held her breath. Banging. Someone was banging on something.
The ship lurched and she slid along the floor toward the sound, landing on another door. With aching arms, she pried it open but could see nothing in the pitch blackness. “Garlain!”
She drew back and swallowed down a sob. Who knew what was in there? But if it was him, he might be hurt. “Garlain?”
A head appeared out of the doorway and Bree fell to the side against a bag, holding her heart with her hand to stop it leaping out of her chest.
It wasn’t her father. It was some kid.
“Who are you?” Bree asked.
“A seaman who wished he’d never signed up for this voyage.”
“Is there someone else down there?”
He scrambled through the doorway. “No. The ship is sinking, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and quickly, I think. Are you sure no one else is down there?”
“No one. A knight was, but I think he’s been drawn out of a hole in the ship. He’d be fish food on the bottom of the riverbed by now.”
“No.” Hot tears burned her eyes. Bree couldn’t lose her father now. She hadn’t even had time to talk with him properly. No. She wouldn’t believe he was dead. “How, how do you know?”
“The master’s man sent me to get him to safety but when I went in there, he was gone, and the hold was full of water. The door closed and I couldn’t get out. If you hadn’t come upon me, I would have died as well.”
He nudged Bree toward the stern.
“If we don’t hurry, we’ll both drown.”
The water crept up to her waist as Bree stared down into the watery darkness. If Garlain wasn’t there, there was no point in her staying. She could only hope he got out somehow.
She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said.
Once out of the first door, they stood up and waded through the water.
Using the hammocks for balance, they made it to the passageway.
The water was only knee deep there but was rising rapidly.
Thankfully, the passage was narrow, and Bree could push her hands against both walls and clamber up the hall to the stairs.
Once up the stairs and through the hatch, Bree had to hold on to the hatch door to stay upright. The ship was sinking fast and half the back end had already gone under. Her feet were in river water even at the hatch.
Men were diving into the river, swimming away from the suction of the ship as fast as they could. Drimpal jumped in and immediately disappeared under the water. He came back up again and spluttered.
Bree bit her bottom lip. The idiot was going to drown. Good riddance, she thought, but immediately felt bad. She harrumphed. Why should she feel guilty? The man was prepared to keep her as a slave. His head disappeared under the water.
“Drimpal’s drowning,” Bree said.
“Every sailor should know how to swim,” the youth said, shaking his head at his captain.
Bree snorted. “He probably does, but the idiot has bags of coins on him and the weight of them is pulling him under.”
The young man hurried to the side of the ship and grabbed a man, who was about to jump. “You there. Come with me. We must rid Drimpal of the bags of coins before the halfwit drowns himself.”
The men jumped and Bree stumbled through the water, holding anything she could as she headed to the railing. More men must have seen Drimpal go under, because they were already pulling his head above the surface.
Once the youth retrieved the first bag of coins, he immediately shoved them into his shirt. Bree let out a puff of air. She hoped he wasn’t stupid enough to try to take more than he could safely swim with.
The other men soon realized what was dragging their captain down and hands accosted Drimpal, freeing him of his burden, until he was able to tread water by himself.
The ship’s sinking hull began pulling them into its wake. They swam hard and as far as Bree could tell, they all got out of harm’s way, swimming downriver and to freedom.
Morla’s keening filled the air above Bree.
Why, why, why? was all that ran through Bree’s mind as she searched for the gangplank.
Realizing it was no longer attached to the ship, she leapt over the rail and swam the short distance to shore.
Morla’s wailing pushed her on and she hauled her sodden self out of the water and trudged up the two wide stairs to the veranda.
She stopped beside Morla, and grabbing the woman’s wet sleeve, pulled the princess around to face her.
“What are you doing?” Bree shouted in her face. “This isn’t a game. Garlain was on that ship. You killed him!”
“I cannot stop it. What is done is done.”
Bree stared at the sinking ship. “But Dad...”
Drimpal and his men had jumped overboard and swam to safety, but her father wasn’t part of the fleeing group. New tears welled up and burnt her eyes. The bandits were going to survive but they left Garlain to drown in the river. It isn’t fair.
Bree turned back to the riverbank. Horland and the prisoners still fought bravely but they were outnumbered, and one by one the prisoners fell. Horland fought three beasts, cutting, and slashing and heaving his heavy sword in all directions.
“You used magic to sink the ship; use it again to stop the bandits and find Garlain.”
Morla grinned and her eyes shone wildly. She ripped her arm out of Bree’s clasp and once more, raised both hands over her head. She keened to the sky.
Bree tried to pull her arms down, but Morla was stronger than she looked and refused to budge. The woman is crazy.
Her keening went higher in tone and again higher still. Bree covered her ears. So did the men on the riverbank as they stopped and looked at the princess.
At the diversion, Horland sideswiped the man and ran to the edge of the bank and leapt onto the ship’s deck.