The Prison-Made Queen novel Chapter 859

The mud flats were littered with debris and rotting branches, the air heavy with the smell of wet earth.

"Look! Down the bend—are those boats?"

Someone shouted from the front of the line. Following the pointing finger, the team spotted three battered wooden boats half-buried in the silt.

They looked like relics, their hulls stained with thick, green moss and their mooring ropes rotted away to nothing. But miraculously, the structural integrity of the wood appeared intact.

Talk about a lucky break. They had been dreading the river crossing, and now they had transport. As long as the hulls weren't completely rotted through, a little patchwork could make them seaworthy.

Bason and two of his men carefully waded into the mud, using the hilts of their combat knives to rap firmly against the planks of each boat.

A shower of decayed splinters rained down, but the underlying thud of the wood sounded solid.

"The core frames are still holding. We patch the gaps, and they'll float," Bason assessed. He turned to look at Callahan, who was silently studying the swift current. "Boss, if we can get these seaworthy, we should take the river."

Taking the water route would shave almost a full day off their travel time, bypassing miles of brutal, mountainous terrain. But the river was unpredictable, and the risk of capsizing was high. Bason preferred the water, but the final call belonged to the man signing the checks.

Callahan watched a massive, dead tree trunk get violently sucked under the churning water, his mind running the calculations. His dark eyes flicked back to Bason. "What's the absolute max capacity on these?"

"There's only three of them," Bason muttered, eyeing the largest vessel. "The smallest one can take four men, max. The biggest one? If we pack in tight, maybe six or seven."

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