Free The Gorgon's Blood Solution by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

girl shook her wrists free.
    “Cut the rope on my legs,” she said, wiggling her lower limbs towards him.
    There was a sound at the end of the dock, and Marco saw that the other Corsairs were returning to the dome.  The sorcerer was making motions to raise the edge and let the plunderers return.
    “There’s not time,” he whispered frantically.  “Here just climb down here, while I get Angelica.”
    He reached for her still-bound legs and pulled them towards himself, so that her feet dangled in the air beside him.  “Now, drop down and stand on this beam,” he told her as he guided her feet down, then reached up and hugged her torso as her feet circled and dropped, trying desperately to find the elusive beam.
    “Okay,” she said a moment later, her hands holding onto him.
    The boards of the pier rumbled, as the Corsairs started to return with their stolen goods.
    Marco ducked down, and grabbed her shoulder to pull her down out of sight as well; there wasn’t time to rescue Angelica after all, at least not until the Corsairs left the pier again, if they left again.
    They both sat down on the beam, and Marco wordlessly reached down with his knife to begin to saw at her remaining ankle shackles, sawing doggedly even as they heard footsteps directly overhead, and the sound of goods being dumped above them.  Marco stopped, and looked up at the servant girl’s face, their eyes locked in mutual fear as they waited, waited for something – for her absence to be noted, for the Corsairs to begin to move goods from the pier to the deck of the ship, for someone to suddenly swing a wicked blade downward at them – waiting for any fatal disaster.
    They held their breaths, and heard Angelica give a pair of muffled screams, provoked by some unknown indignity, then there was the sound of the Corsairs’ feet beginning to move down the pier once again, leaving their goods behind as they went forth to violate the city once again.
    “I’m going to go try to get Angelica,” Marco whispered to the girl next to him.  “Just stay here and stay quiet,” he told her without even looking at her, as he prepared to risk everything and climb up onto the pier.
    He raised his head up to evaluate the distance to Angelica, to see if it was as far from the edge of the pier as he suspected.  He was downcast to see that it was – he would have to climb completely up onto the surface of the pier to set the lovely girl from the noble family free, though he would at least be hidden behind the mounting pile of stolen goods that sat beneath and around Angelica.
    Marco cautiously crawled up along the backside of the loot, watching the sorcerer, who was occupied with lowering the yellow dome as the raiders went back out into the city. 
    “Angelica, don’t say anything.  I’m going to cut your ropes and set you free,” he whispered to the girl from behind her, as she lay facing outward towards the pier.
    “Who are you?  Are you a friend?” Angelica whispered back.
    “Yes,” Marco answered.  He stretched his hand around in front of her as he leaned atop her, and began to slowly saw the knife blade against the rope around her wrists.  He wished the knife were sharper, and cursed the fact that he had always settled for having the dull, rusty blade, never having expected to ever really use the weapon for any purpose since he had found it in his room on his first discovery of the refuge.
    He saw the sorcerer finish his magical functions, and he froze in place, not moving a muscle.
    “Hurry up!” Angelica hissed at him.
    The sorcerer started to turn, and Marco ducked down behind Angelica, leaving her wrist bindings only partway cut.
    ‘Where are you going?  Don’t leave me!” Angelica’s voice rose.
    “Ssshhhh!” Marco told her.  “I’m right here.”  He watched the sorcerer turn and walk towards them.  “I’ll start cutting the ropes around your feet,” he comforted her as he squirmed down the length of her body and