Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) Jonathan Michael (red novels .txt) 📖

the vomit working its way up, my mouth watering heavily, and I take a moment to let it settle.

The initial pail I was dunked in isn’t filled with iron hooks or sharp blades as I’d thought. It’s filled with the red-hued water of the delta. There are fish casually swimming in place. A couple of them meekly flop about the deck beside the pail. Their scales are crusted over, drying in the day’s heat, with eyes staring into oblivion. Tiny serrated teeth fill their mouths. Piranha. I pick up the pail and empty the contents over the edge, trying not to let my fingers get bitten.

I’m not given much time to brood before one of the men returns. I don’t quite know who’s who on this boat yet, so I don’t know his name. Though, he is distinguishable. He appears to have been dunked into a tank of piranha himself. He’s a large fella with a thick build, bronze skin, and a buzzed head plaited with scars. He may be a giant simpleton the way he presents himself.

“Loif, am I right?”

“Excuse me?” The dialect isn’t one I’m accustomed to. A few of the anglers have similar vernacular, but not all of them. This is the first of them to approach me with more than a glare and a taunt.

“You’re a Loif, eh? A Heala?” He points to my head. “See?”

Obviously not being able to see what he’s pointing at, I feel around my head. It’s sticky and feathery, but the pain is gone. Whatever lacerations I had have healed. “Oh, a Lahyf! A Healer!”

“That’s what I said.”

“No…” I pause, deciding not to argue with him. “I mean, yes. I’m a Lahyf, born and raised.”

“Ah, I knew it. We don’ see many of you’re kind about. Not in the delta, o’ course. We don’ see nobody. In Greenport, I mean. Do you really practice it? Heal’n, I mean?”

“Uh…yes. Well…kind of. Not regularly, but I know the basics. Why?”

“You know…what we just put you through is a form of heal’n too.”

I clench my jaw and speak through my teeth. “What you just put me through is a form of torture and punishment reserved for the cruelest of criminals.” I pick at the feathers one at a time.

“Torture? No. Just an initiation process. A fee for being aboard the one an’ only Phish Skoola’. Me an’ the crew were just sayin’ welcome aboard. Woulda done it on day one, but the cap’n said to let you get your feet wet first.”

“It was unnecessary. I’m only going to be aboard this boat for a few days, and then you’ll never see me again.”

“Yeah roight. We’ll see about that.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” I reply, unsure what he means.

“Come on down and get yourself somethin’ to eat.”

“No can do.” I glare at him. “I have a mess to clean.  You heard the captain.”

“Cap’n schmap’n. You can finish it lata. Come get some grub. M’name’s Shiner Lockford, by the way. Nice to meet ya.”

“Sto…uh…Elder Alderock. Likewise.” I stumble my words and shake his hand. I find it ironic the first man to attack me on this ship and the first man to befriend me on this ship are one and the same.

Shiner introduces me properly to the rest of the crew. Something I would’ve thought the captain had done when I first boarded.

There are two large oaken tables in the mess hall below deck. The three men that assaulted me, or as they’d say, admitted me, are sitting at the same table as me, along with two other men. Shiner sits directly to my left and on the other side of him is Cudgel Cromarte, a man as large as a great bear, who is one of the fishermen like Shiner and one of my admitters. Directly across from me is Gentry Godswood, a clean-shaven, sharp-looking fellow who introduces himself as the boatswain of the Phish Skooler. And to his right are the two portly fellows, Chunk and Lump, of which one was my attacker and the other his identical twin brother. I don’t know which attacked me. Both are deckhands like myself, but with far more satisfying duties than my own.

Sitting at the second table are six other men. Two more fishermen, another deckhand, and the helmsman, whose names I’ve already misplaced. The remaining two are men of more notable rankings. Stripe McCord, Second Mate, and Stave Killstone, First Mate of the Phish Skooler.

The only two not sharing this meal with us are Captain Crowbill and the cook who I acquainted with while scrubbing the dishes from the previous meals.

Supper isn’t anything more than a bread bowl filled to the brim with chowder and a few jugs of mead, but I find myself in bliss. It’s not often I have a warm meal I didn’t have to kill, field dress, and cook. The previous two days, I’ve been left with the cold leavings once the crew had their share. It’s a pleasant change of pace.

“Elder, what’s with all the feathers?” Gentry asks after staring at me for a few clicks like I’m an imbecile.

“I brought a down pillow to a bear fight, sir. I think it’s evident, but the bear won.”

“Wait. There’s a bear on deck?” Shiner muses.

Not amused, Gentry reaches over and aggressively wipes the side of my head—more of a swat really—then licks his fingers.

“Honey? Where’d you get honey?” Gentry silently interrogates everyone else at the table. “I know Shiner’s guilty, but who’re the other miscreants who did this to you?”

“I’m not sure, sir. I was caught off guard by an unsolicited hug from behind. I didn’t see who did it, sir.”

“Are you telling me they tickled their fancy without your consent, lad? That’s a serious offense that won’t be tolerated. If it’s true, neither the predator nor the prey belong onboard this