“The men who row are free men?”
“Of course. You would not have slaves at the oars. Rowing a ship is a skill years in the learning. A good oarsman is prized and well-rewarded. His share of any valuables taken by the crew is greater than the men who do their work with sword and spear. Do the Romans use slaves on their galleys? It is no wonder their ships are seen so seldom in these waters.”
“I am not sure,” Caroline said. “I do not travel by sea very much.”
“That explains your ignorance of all things nautical.” Praxus smirked. This kid was turning out to be an officious little prick.
“At least I’m not a slave,” she retorted.
“You are not? I thought you were slave to Maximus.”
“I am not. I serve no one. We are equals and free.”
“I see how he is with you. He is protective, but not as a brother would be to a younger sibling. You serve him in your own way.” Praxus leered now.
Caroline blushed crimson. This little brat thought she was Dwayne’s boy toy. She wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed for herself or for Dwayne. Sure, they were intimate, and it showed in their body language, she guessed. But she didn’t like this kid thinking what he was thinking, and she wasn’t sure why it bothered her.
“There is no shame,” he said and touched her arm. “That is how I serve Echephron.”
She feigned indifference to this remark, but turned her head from Praxus so he could not see her blanch at the visual of this boy having relations of that kind with that twisted old man.
“I wish to rejoin Maximus,” Caroline said and made her way over the planks sternward. Praxus shrugged, then joined her.
She found Dwayne trying to make sense of something Xin, the ax man, was saying to him. Crewmen stood about, looking amused at the exchange. Xin was losing his patience with this Roman’s lack of communication skills. A ripple of laughter spread among the watching men each time Dwayne shook his head at something Xin said.
“Nope. Not following you, dude,” Dwayne said. The men guffawed and stamped the deck with their bare feet. This routine was going over bigger the madder Xin got. Dwayne smiled at the men near him and the laughter increased.
Caroline shouldered through the amused crewmen to reach Dwayne. Praxus followed in her wake.
“What is this about?” Caroline said.
Xin glowered at her, then turned to Praxus to bark off a string of words punctuated with flying spittle.
“Ahinadab has decided you are not demons and will spare your lives,” Praxus said.
“We are grateful for that,” Caroline said.
“You will be sold as slaves when we reach the next port. He expects to get a high price for you two, as unusual as you are.”
“That is better than being killed, is it not?” Caroline said. They would have a chance to escape and find some way to communicate with her brother so the Rangers could find them. She wasn’t sure how this would be accomplished, but now that they would be spared, she and Dwayne would have the rest of this sea voyage to work that out.
The blood drained from her face at Praxus’ next words.
“What’s going on?” Dwayne asked her. The crew exploded in laughter.
“They’re going to sell us as slaves,” she stammered, eyes locked on Xin’s cruel face.
“Well, for now, that’s our best option in this shitty place, right?” Dwayne said and touched her arm to reassure her.
“But first they’re going to castrate us.”
38
Boys Will Be Boys
The crew was still howling with laughter at Dwayne’s reaction to this development when the Ranger slammed a fist into Xin’s face.
All ninety-nine pounds of the first mate’s body left the deck and hurtled into the encircling crewmen, sending a half-dozen of them to the boards. One fell into the oar decks with a cry. Xin’s nose was crushed flat, and blood jetted from his nostrils and mouth. He lay unmoving on the deck as the others closed in with a roar.
Hands gripped Caroline from all around as she tried to move to Dwayne’s side. Praxus was shoved away. Caroline yipped in surprise and then shouted in protest as the sweating men combined their weight to drive her down to the deck surface.
Dwayne moved back toward the mast. He was bigger and stronger than any of the men aboard the Lion, but there were so many more of them. His only chance, and Caroline’s, was to keep all hands off him and make cutting off his balls too expensive an option for them to keep trying. And he had to do it before they got Caroline’s pants off and found out that nature beat them to it.
Ranger training kicked in. The hours and hours spent with aikido and Krav Maga instructors gave him the instincts to overcome this scenario, for now.
He backed up and slammed an elbow hard into the face of guy behind him, who crashed to the boards with a ruined face. Another hand reached for him, and he took hold of it and broke the owner’s arm. The little bastard stumbled back shrieking; a stick of white bone jutting through the torn flesh of his forearm.
The rest of the ship’s company rushed forward to reach Dwayne. He saw the gleam of a sword blade in someone’s fist. More were pulling knives. Dwayne looked around for something, anything, to use as a weapon.
Nothing.
His back slammed into the mast and he ducked. The tip of a long-bladed sword sliced over his head close enough to feel the wind of its passage. It chopped a long splinter from the wood above his head. Dwayne kicked out and drove his foot hard into the swordsman's gut. The blade dropped to the deck. Dwayne grasped for the handle. A spear point jabbed into the boards near his hand and he backed off. The spearman jabbed the long point at his face. Dwayne retreated past the mast going sternward. More crewmen with spears
