Death Whispers 25: Bloody Passages, Bitter Remedies

Aug 2, 1722. Off the coast of Jamaica, and the dead village of Westmere, aboard the Silk Duchess. Facing down angry storms and death…

Author’s Note: Death Whispers of the Etherwave is a serialized fiction story that is a part of Legends of the Privateers. Each chapter will appear weekly.

Missed a chapter? (or ‘Episode’ if you like!) Well, never you worry, as we’re only just getting started! The full list of chapters will appears here!

Transformed by the cataclysm of 1712, Doctor Pedro Sangre and his four courageous privateer companions confront mysterious and evil forces that plague innocent people. Together, they grapple with uncanny forces and myths come to life, risking everything to preserve peace and set right what has gone wrong.

Previously: Caught between fire and undead fury, Pedro confronts Lucas Argall at last. The wavebinder, now wood wraith, suggests a hellish deal: where Pedro would join forces with Lucas to free the cursed spirit in the Codex, then rip away Death itself. An act that might turn loose unimagined undead horrors in the process. Pedro refuses as his allies come to his aid, but like with every decision, every action, it can come with a cost…

Aug 2, 1722. Off the coast of Jamaica, and the dead village of Westmere, aboard the Silk Duchess. Facing down angry storms and death…

It was hard to say which hurt worse, the running fight for freedom through Westmere, or the people we lost along the way.

I stumbled away from the last longboat from the village, then slumped against the damp railing. The Silk Duchess leaped among the waves, riding them with a desperate precision. All around us, rain fell in sheets driven sideways by the wind, slapping anyone still on deck.

Both the storm and overexertion aggravated my shoulder wound. Needles of hot pain stabbed along my back, which was almost a distraction from the light headache. Deck crews rushed by in their canvas waxcloth coats to secure longboat and rigging. Others helped the Duchess fight back against the storm. The ship’s wood frame creaked in anger, as if snarling at the weather.

Meanwhile, the sea grabbed for everyone with watery claws. Waves crashed against the schooner, spilling over the railing to kiss the stained deck planks with each greedy attempt. It was like the sea herself churned, eager to drown anyone nearby as the price for passage.

“That’s the last from Westmere, Cap’n!” Durner’s craggy voice boomed to my right, cutting through the thunderstorm.

“Understood!” Elara barked over the wind, boots planted, back straight against the driving rain. “Secure that longboat! We don’t need it thrashing the Duchess!”

I started to help, but Durner stopped me quick. He pointed at my shoulder with a stern look, then shook his head. With a resigned nod, I resumed my perch against the railing. Below decks would have been safer, but my tiny cabin felt miles away, even though it was a few feet.

Elara stalked the deck midships close to me, wings fluttering with anxiety. The deck crew scurried around her in a hive of frantic activity while she scowled at the rolling sea and churning thunderclouds with hard jade eyes. Quick as a wink, she scaled the ladder to the helm and took up position beside the ship’s pilot.

“Storm’s getting worse!” She yelled. “Get the last of the survivors below with the others! Move!”

The ship lurched drunkenly to port, and I latched onto the chestnut stained railing with an iron grip. Once the Duchess righted, I pushed off with a hard groan, then turned toward my cabin.

“Small victories,” I murmured, then wiped rain and other moisture from my face. “But still, how many of the villagers did we lose? How many of our own crew?”

My thoughts burned hot over the events of the past hour. Recent memories had become a haze of blood, fire and fury, wrapped in a ragged wool blanket of loss.

“This has to stop,” I said with a hard sigh. “If I could just find the next step Lucas and Storm are going to take, we could get ahead of them.”

My footsteps echoed dully against the damp wooden deck planks hammered by the rain. It was a marching drumbeat for my thoughts.

“That or bait.” I pulled my mouth into a tight line. “Bait. If I had the right bait, we could lure the wood wraith out. Lure both Storm and Lucas out.” I shook my head, bitter thoughts crowding me. “I don’t know nearly enough about dealing with a wood wraith.”

I turned to face Westmere over the water one last time, drawn by an uneasy feeling that the storm hadn’t swept everything out to sea.

Lightning ripped the clouds, covering the shoreline in a wash of bright white light. Three of the six Death Whispers stood together, a pace back from the rolling surf, mouths stretched wide in grotesque screams. Hasty funeral pyres dotted the landscape behind them.

Those we couldn’t bury, we tried to burn to keep them away from Lucas. Withering flames scattered damp orange light against the sun-bleached and peeling paint of blues, greens, and soft grays of the buildings.

As for the Death Whispers, we’d burned two of the others, and I suspected the one Durner tossed down the well was still there. Those three on the shore steamed as if the rain burned them like acid. Rotten pieces dribbled to the wet beach with a messy splat.

“Renwick mentioned that.” I narrowed my eyes. “Death Whispers can handle some water, but not a lot. It’s something to remember. At least they won’t walk under the ocean after us.”

I adjusted the soaked sling on my left arm until the sharp ache turned dull. Then I pushed through the driving rain and exhaustion for my cabin in the stern. I almost made it when someone grabbed my arm.

Instinctively, I reached for the last few vials at my belt, eyes wide, snarling. Lysander stepped back, hands up in a peaceful gesture.

“Pedro! Hold! It’s me!” he said sharply.

“Lysander… saints and devils…” Anything else I might say collapsed under the weight of a ragged sigh.

“I’m sorry, Pedro, but you’re needed,” he explained quickly. “It’s one of the survivors. A young man. He’s… Pedro, he’s dying. Slowly petrifying.”

“What? Where?” I replied with a ragged snarl. Anger instantly swapped places with exhaustion, throwing it overboard.

Lysander led me on a fast run through the rain, then down a hatch to the schooner’s narrow spaces below deck. We darted and dodged between crew, hammocks, and other spaces to the forward hold. It was one of the two places large enough to store anything, including drenched and battered survivors of a madman.

We came to a fast stop in a knot of villagers lit by battered lanterns. An older couple knelt down on makeshift bedding next to a young human man, really only a boy that wasn’t quite an adult. I wasn’t sure he was old enough to shave. His condition made me want to beat Lucas with a fireplace poker until the wood wraith was only haunted kindling.

I knelt down to check the boy’s health other than the obvious.

Thin and wiry, he had a healthy tan from his life under the Caribbean sun. Light brown hair was drenched with rain and possibly sweat. His clothes were ragged and torn, littered with signs he had gotten too close to something with claws. I suspected Lucas Argall, given the state of the boy’s arm. It had started to petrify into wood outward from a shallow claw mark just above his elbow.

“What’s your name?” I asked as gently as my abused throat allowed.

“Garvin,” the boy whimpered in a small, pained voice. “Garvin Hall, sir.”

I checked his eyes, then studied the wound. Panic screamed in my mind. What could I even do? Is there anything to do but make him comfortable in his last moments? I frowned and shoved those thoughts aside, diving into the work.

“It’s good to meet you, Garvin. I’m Doctor Pedro Sangre. An alchemist,” I replied.

“Doctor? I’m his mother, Felicity. Felicity Hall.” She was an older, matronly woman with gray shot through her light brown hair. “Is… is my boy going to be all right?” she asked in a trembling voice, moisture at the corner of her eyes. ”What’s wrong with him?”

The panic threatened to come back. I clenched my jaw, then shoved it away again. Before I could say a word, I felt a throb of reassuring heat from the tattoos on my hand. There wasn’t a whisper, just a feeling. Then, somehow, I felt the fatigue and exhaustion drain out of me, like water over stone. Gently, my head cleared, at least enough for this.

My eyes darted to Garvin’s mother, then at what I assumed was his father. I took a long breath, then let it out slow.

“Señora? Garvin’s been infected,” I explained carefully, leaving out so very much to not scare them. After a frown, I leaned down to study the wound and the petrification.

The skin wasn’t petrifying like I’d seen before. It wasn’t that fast, but it wasn’t slow either. This acted like an infection, a horrid venom, or fast acting gangrene. Healing potions could stop either, and if that failed, usually the limb was amputated. I decided on the first approach, even while my mind considered the second.

“Take this,” I said, pulling one of my deep crimson healing potions from a belt loop. “It’s a healing elixir.”

I put a hand behind the boy’s head, ignoring the pain in my hurt shoulder, then held the vial to his lips. He drank desperately. Immediately, I stared at the wound and the petrified skin.

It didn’t heal to normal skin, but the petrification did slow ever so slightly. Inside, I latched on to that thought. This could be cured, just not with healing elixirs. Those only delayed death, not prevented it.

“Delayed,” I murmured. “Quieted. Purified.”

I took off my tricorn hat, then ran a hand through my damp black hair. A desperate idea echoed in my mind like a deep toll of a bell. There wasn’t any logic behind it, just a guess. A strong guess based on observations.

“Señor? Señora?” I said quickly to Garvin’s parents. “This only slows the problem, not cure it. Still, I’ve an idea that could help. It’s risky and may not work. But I think it could be worth the risk.”

Felicity exchanged a fragile, wide-eyed look with her husband. Eyes damp, Garvin’s father nodded at me.

“Do what you think’s best, doctor.” His deep voice was thick with desperate emotion. “We’ve lost our home. Please help us not lose our only son.”

“So you both know, this could get worse,” I explained in a solemn voice, feeling a sadness haunt my eyes. “He could die faster. Petrify completely.” I glanced away a moment before I locked eyes with them both. “He could become… something else.”

Felicity put a hand on my arm in the sling.

“Doctor, please,” she said, eyes pleading.

Their look was a stab to my heart, but it put some needed steel into my spine. I made a mental note to carry a fireplace poker along for the next time we caught up with Lucas Argall. Then I pulled the potion of graveyard syrup, the bitter mix that kept my curse at bay, from my belt. It was my last vial until I had time to make more. Then I grabbed another healing potion.

“Lysander,” I said, voice hard as stone while I pulled the corks. “Go to my cabin and get for me whatever’s left of Lucas’ potion I found at the warehouse.”

The navigator recognized the vials in my hand, then pierced me with a hard look like I’d lost my mind.

“Pedro…”

Muffled thunder rolled around outside, like rocks rolling down a hill. I set my jaw, then shook my head.

“Damn it, Lysander, do it,” I ordered. “Go! We don’t have time to talk it out!”

Pain blossomed from my shoulder, but subsided when I adjusted my sling again. I lifted the vial of graveyard syrup in my other hand, eyes fixed on the cursed tattoos there. Lysander raced back in a moment later with only a little of Lucas Argall’s necrotic recovery potion in a small jar.

Tears streamed down Garvin’s cheeks. He whimpered as the petrification started up his arm again.

After a deep breath, I emptied the vials into the jar. My eyes were fixed on the tattoos across my right hand.

“Spirit, ghost, or other,” I whispered under my breath. “It’s time we meet in the middle.”

Then I cleared my throat and sang in a low voice.

“I’m a privateer of the sea, of the waves and wind…”

Green-white flames erupted up around my hand and engulfed the mixture in the jar. Abruptly, I felt the silent, golden power and presence of the Etherwave Arcana rush to my exhausted aid. I knew this might backfire, because all magic comes with a price. But, I had to try.

“Of course, Doctor,” a low voice whispered in my mind.

I swirled the mixed potions until they blended into an elixir the color of fresh-turned grave dirt. Then I put the edge of the jar to the boy’s lips. Silently, I offered a bargain of every ounce of my battered soul that this wouldn’t be his last drink on Earth.

Garvin drank. Thunder rolled again, and I held my breath with a small shudder.

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Hoist the Colors is a work of pure, unabashed fiction. Actually, when it's not swinging off the rigging, or shivering some timbers, it's rather shy and retiring. Did I mention it enjoys baking? Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. So he really is all to blame here.

Any resemblance to persons living, dead, shoved overboard, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author's, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.