Chapter One - Making Waves
"He feeds the fish on deck," Calla said and quickly made her way up through the ship, only now and then making sure the land rat, as non-sailors were commonly called,could keep up.
Sure enough, in the early morning dawn, Ludo was standing aft, retching into the water, away from the wind. The ugly orc's face was greener than usual, and he looked annoyed - no, rightly pissed - at his predicament. Orcs prided themselves on being able to eat about anything, hardly getting poisoned or sick, and best of all, being able to taste if there was any poison or other bad stuff in food. Which was the main reason the big fella had been picked to assist in the galley, as often enough foods taken on for the crew tended to spoil if the journey was long or the weather conditions wrong. And what was worse for Ludo, he was the only one sick, which made one wonder. Was there such a thing as a disease only affecting orcs? If so, Oliandra had never heard of it, but then, there hadn't been that many orcs in the city - or the kingdom,at that. The wars with the savage northern orcs had been only a century ago, and try as they might, the more developed areas of the world still took a dim view on them. Never mind that the reason the orcs had attacked had had a lot to do with colonialism and racism to begin with.
Ludo looked up and managed a grin before he retched again. By now, only bile came out, but amazingly lots of it. Helifted a hand in acknowledgement but was unable to talk. Calla stared in fascination. "If he'll be keeping this up, he'll be poisoning the fish," she grinned.