26
THE PIRATE’S PLAN
The next afternoon one of the gates banged open. Four soldiers with heavy crossbows stomped through and took position on either side, eying the prisoners while seven blindfolded men stumbled in. Six other guards collected the corpses, contorted around the drain in the center of the room, and the bodies of the two women, pushed against the far wall. The door clanged shut.
A few hours later, the same thing happened from a different door, and nine more men were pushed in.
“Is it usually men?” Pasha asked.
Mann answered from where he crouched, coughing against the ooze-covered wall. They squatted together, mostly not talking. The other Ristroans hovered nearby.
“Almost always. Women don’t fare well here. They need to do something pretty bad.”
“What about them?” Pash
