At the same time, she brought her elbow into the gut of the man standing on the opposite side, doubling him over long enough that she could s***h his throat open with the same knife. She dropped him down, too.
Footfalls clattered across the deck as more slavers flooded from the cabins.
The old woman paused long enough to call down into the hold, “Come on!”
She dropped the manacle key down the hatch as Anna clambered up. Then she set into the slavers rushing across the deck, ceramic knife still in her hand.
She slid among them like oil floating on water, slipping though and around them in a dance. Blood arced, men dropped groaning to the deck or toppled where they stood without a sound.
In a few moments, Anna and the old woman were alone. Bodies splayed around the deck now slippery wit
