Allamu told Sabit of his salvation upon the dolphin’s back, and the hospitality of the fisher folk. She nodded as he spoke, her hands occupied with preparing the boar for butchering. She worked quickly with a sharp, dainty bone knife. Somehow, no matter how many cuts she made, its white surface never seemed to stain with blood. Wensa watched the gory work pensively.
“Were you buoyed from the depths by a servant of the gods, as well?” Allamu asked Sabit as she hoisted the boar carcass off the ground to drain.
“No, I clung to the slaver captain’s sealed cask,” Sabit replied. “The seal was ingenious and kept out even the raging waters that splintered our craft. It kept me from the watery embrace of the deep long enough for me to paddle to shore. Dazed with thirst, I stumbled foolishly into a clumsy snare by a stream. Hanging by my leg from a tree branch, my head throbbing, I hadn’t even a moment to free myself when the snare’s layer emerged from the brush, spear in hand.
“Even upside down and dying of thirst, I could see he was no warrior,” Sabit continued. “He held the spear like a tool rather than a weapon. His wide-legged stance spoke of life at sea, unaccustomed to the solidity of land. Most of all was the look of disappointment in his hungry eyes.
“‘You were hoping for something to eat,’ I said to him. He nodded and replied in the tongue of the Soke of Kelmaars, ‘Aye, no delicate woman of standing should have come to this accursed place. It is a sin to see the fairer sex wither and starve.’
“I laughed as best I could with my parched throat. ‘Cut me down and we’ll see if I’m too delicate and fair to hunt you some meat,’ I said. And so he did. His name is Melcior, the captain of a seafaring vessel. I have hunted for him, his crew, and their devoted passengers these last days. They will take me with them when they leave.”
Allamu grinned broadly. “Leave it to Sabit to turn a snare trap into a posting as a hunter and the promise of passage back to the world. But what are sailors and holy men from Kelmaars doing all the way here, without provision?”
“I wondered the same myself,” Sabit said. “But I gained no insight into that until the third day.”
—–
Wayfarings of Sabit: Isle of the Wicked is copyright (c) 2016 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every weekday. You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller