Swashbuckling on the Edge

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The hard crust above us was pocked with three holes of similar size, letting some light into the cave. Here there was sand, a small stretch of it where the water receded. Beyond that was both a promising and eerie sight: a natural tunnel, formed in the volcanic rock.

My breath quickened. I didn't relish another journey through a pitch-black underground tunnel. Who knew where this one led? Perhaps to treasure. Most likely to death.

We landed and disembarked, but Barton didn't bother to remove our shackles. With a raised brow, he turned to me and gestured to the tunnel. Not wanting to go first, but also not wanting to seem a coward, I accepted the lantern Pivens offered me and stepped forward. Kent, still attached to me, stumbled after.

Realizing it would be impossible for both of us to travel shoulder to shoulder in the narrow passage, Barton sighed and ordered our guard to separate us. Kent tried to smile, but the expression just betrayed his nervousness. With another calming breath, I inched into the passage, Kent at my back, the others following him.

I really hoped this wasn't another of Ramirez's tricks.

We trekked through the passage in silence. My lantern only cut through the first few feet of the gloom, revealing nothing but black rock and an increasingly shrinking space. When I was forced to crawl forward on my hands and knees, it was suffocating. Kent's muttered comments about how creepy the place was were sort of nice, helping to keep me focused.

The floor vanished. I was plummeting into nothing. I shrieked.

Landing on my belly, I searched blindly until I found the edge of the sheer drop.

Kent bumped me, his hands scrabbling at my boots. "Zaina! What's happened?"

Relaxing, I let out a breath. "It's a ..." I lifted the lantern higher to get a sense of what I'd stumbled across. "A pit, I think."

Realizing the tunnel had opened into a roomier cavern, I inched way to standing, keeping the lantern high.

"You can stand up in here," I told Kent, reaching down to help him.

As the rest of them piled into the cavern, the extra lanterns revealed a wide, deep pit. No way to jump across, and deep enough that once you were inside, it was impossible to climb back out unaided. Whoever had carved this out of the rock had smoothed the walls of the pit.

Barton frowned at the obstacle, then glared at me as if it were my own fault. He turned to two of his men, ordering the first to lower the second into the pit.

Tallera pressed against my side while the two pirates used rope to secure the one unfortunate enough to be sent down into the pit. I twined my hand around hers and squeezed.

"Are you hurt?" I asked. I didn't mention the baby for fear Barton or the others would hear, but I shot a quick glance at her abdomen.

"We're fine," she whispered back, answering my second unspoken question. "This plan is really the best you could come up with?"

"My thoughts exactly."

"Did you have a better one, Kent?"

The pirates were climbing down into the pit. My lantern was taken away and used to help light the man in the pit's way.

"There's a rope bridge attached to the other side, captain!" he called out. "It's lying down here."

Barton knelt at the ledge, hand outstretched. "Throw it up!" he commanded.

He caught the loose ends of the crude rope bridge, no more than a tangle of knots, and pulled it taut. It stretched the expanse of the pit, but there was nowhere to secure it. At least two others would have to hold the bridge aloft while a third person crossed the precarious distance.