Death Whispers 37: To Defy the Sea

Aug 8, 1722. Port Royal, Jamaica, or what was left of it. Helping the desperate run for their lives.

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: After the explosion of the Arcane Engine, Pedro wakes to find himself back aboard the Silk Duchess. Safe and sound? Not so fast. Instead, battered and bruised, memories return in snatches of what happened. The rest are filled in by his friends, and the man who rescued him from the sea… Captain Dryden Storm. The latter doing to pay back the debt of Pedro freeing him from the Bindweaver Curse, but promise he’d return to face Pedro later for a reckoning over the mysterious ghostfire. As if that wasn’t enough, the group tries to Gate to Port Royal, only to find the town being drowned by the very hurricane trying to surround them. That is, unless they try and do something about it…

Aug 8, 1722. Port Royal, Jamaica, or what was left of it. Helping the desperate run for their lives.

I’ve never watched the weather try to murder a town before. But that was exactly what I saw.

“Head to the far western docks!” I yelled to the survivors and waved my good arm in that direction. “Longboats are waiting to get you to safety!”

I stood on what was likely the last stable wooden footpath between Port Royal and the docks. Ragged clumps of people shuffled along, ushered by crew from the Rising Eel and Silk Duchess. We were allies for the moment against what Mother Nature had sent to kill us.

Lightning flashed a challenge. I clutched my battered satchel a bit tighter, shaking my head. Soaked to the skin, hat long gone, I felt like the storm was trying to strip me apart.

“This day is getting longer by the moment,” I murmured, before helping an elderly couple onto the footpath. With a weary smile, I sent them down to the longboats and safety.

Port Royal’s streets were nothing but a memory. Broken wooden planks, mud, and rain washed through the town. Every avenue was a dangerous stream looking for victims. Blood streaked the occasional debris, a final marker for those already lost.

Durner joined me a moment later, and we waded along the edge of the dying dock, looking for any stragglers. Mud sloshed nearly to our knees, the wind lashing at us. All we found were sad memories, and certainly nothing left alive.

On the way back to the western docks, Elara marched through the weather, meeting us halfway.

“Any left?” She asked, pushing damp brown hair out of her face.

Suddenly, the storm shifted sideways, hammering us with a downpour. We hunched our coats and huddled together while the small torrent subsided.

“We hauled one fisherman out of the mud. He’ll live,” I said over the storm.

“Aye,” Durner agreed. “That was the worst of it. The last found hiding in town are on their way down to the longboats.”

Pain throbbed up my wood-infected left hand and into my arm. My brewed elixirs bought me time, but not much, and exhaustion wanted to steal the rest.

“Any others?” Elara asked, words clipped.

She studied the flooded streets off in the distance, and I saw a small shudder run through her. Without a word, she held her wings tight against her back, tugging her coat closer as if against the world.

I wiped more rain out of my face. The rising water in Port Royal felt like a ticking clock against our efforts. It’d already invaded some homes, scavenging furniture for the tide.

Durner shook his head, brushing water off his own face and beard.

“No, Cap’n. Not so far.” He waved a hand at the slush rising around buildings. “That water’s a warning shot from the hurricane. It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

As if to punctuate the mood, a building ten yards away gave a low moan. We watched, speechless, as the sun-weathered, blue-painted walls rippled. Slowly, the old woodcutter’s home sank, swallowed whole by the loose, watery sand like a hungry snake.

The sand squeezed and the wood-frame collapsed. In seconds, the tortured wood pleaded with a lingering mournful wail, then vanished. For a long, trembling moment, none of us spoke, until Elara broke the drenched quiet.

“I, ah, see what you mean.” Elara swallowed uneasily. “We should check one last time, then make for the longboats.”

Durner nodded, wiping more water from his face. Voice more craggy than ever.

“Aye, Cap’n. Won’t take long. I’ll grab a few to lend me a hand.”

He tossed me a slight, sideways warning glance, and I shook my head a little. That earned me a tiny nod, before Durner stalked off to enlist help for the last search.

“Thank you for not volunteering,” Elara said quietly. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve been through a lot, Pedro.” The typical hardness in her voice turned soft with a sigh. “I do appreciate it.”

I could’ve made light of the moment, spouting some bravado or a light joke. But some moments shouldn’t be tarnished by cheap answers. She deserved better.

“Of course, querida.” I gave her a thin smile. “It’s the right thing to do.”

She gave me a thin, rueful smile, then a gentle squeeze on my good arm.

“Then I’ll see you back aboard,” she said. “Don’t stay too long. The weather has gotten bad enough, that this’ll be the last trip with the longboats. They’ll leave within the hour, so please be aboard.”

“Yes, querida. Don’t worry,” I replied.

She arched an eyebrow at me, then headed for the longboats.

After she left, I hurried through the punishing rain to the end of the western docks. Skaldi and young Jonas Banderwood, a gunner’s mate, were there with four other sailors. The lot of them were shepherding a group of Port Royal refugees along the damp steps to the shore.

“Skaldi? Is this the last here?” I called out.

His eyes snapped up to me before he nodded. He patted Jonas on the shoulder, then stepped over to me so I could better hear him over the driving storm. The brass metal veins along his skin glowed like hot embers, a sure sign of concern. Lightning flashed overhead to stab the clouds.

“These are the last from here. The only others I know about are up under the sea hag’s shelter.”

I sighed wearily, glancing up at the hill with its eerie green glimmering dome.

“No one’s gone to get her and the ones with her?”

Skaldi laughed bitterly.

“A couple tried and got run off for it.” He clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “Pedro, you know sea hags the best. The captain’ll kill me for asking, but if you’re able, we could use the help.”

Skaldi pursed his lips, glowering at me under his thick brows.

“Just in case she argues.”

I let out a wry, hoarse chuckle.

“My friend, I only know one sea hag, and yes, she’ll cause you trouble. She does it to everyone. But… I’ll do my best.”

Once the refugees were off to the Silk Duchess, we made the slow, treacherous climb up the soaked hill to the glimmering shelter and its perpetually irate creator.

Sea hags tended to be protective of the towns they lived near. But this? It felt like something else.

It was easier to see the death of Port Royal from atop the hill. What buildings weren’t already washed away, sank into the sand like scuttled ships.

I watched bits of roof, splinters of homes, and even a few raw, exposed ribs of small boats tumble along. A deadly soup churning through the town’s corpse. The air turned foul, thick with the stench of a waterlogged coffin, fresh from a grave.

After that, I turned to face the problem at hand.

The misty, crackling dome was as large as a massive barn. Morowen stood at its center, attention split between the hurricane and her shimmering shelter. Every minute or so, she’d sweep a hand through the air, sending a fog of glimmering light up to patch a thin spot or hole.

Morowen herself looked like the storm had dragged her a mile. The calico dress and worn leather boots she preferred were mud-stained wrecks. A blue shawl hung damp around her shoulders, a deeper cast than her sea-blue skin. Her shark eyes looked tired and haunted.

A small group of fifteen refugees huddled near her. Men, women, and children were all wet and terrified. Some looked at her. Others watched while their town drowned a slow death.

I waved the sailors with me.

“Get them out. I’ll talk to Morowen.”

The instant she saw me, the sea hag’s expression went darker than the hurricane. Her eyes snapped to Skaldi and the others, then back to me.

I saw tension war with anger, then something softer, before irritation masked over it.

“Pedro!” she spat, eyes hot with exasperation. “I have this. Go away!”

Skaldi hesitated, but I waved him on again, then sighed.

“You don’t, Doña Morowen,” I said flatly. ”Not against a hurricane.”

She replied with a derisive snort, then bared her sharp teeth as the Duchess’ crew helped the refugees gather their belongings.

I stepped in the way again, risking her turning me into an equal volume of crabs. Her lips curled into a snarl.

The shelter she’d made, even if needed steady repair, had cut out the abusive weather. It was a small relief. I glanced over my shoulder at the approaching hurricane crawling across the waves. It felt far too close for comfort.

Still, I stood my ground.

“You’re a sea hag, yes. But even you have your limits, Morowen. You’ve told me as much.” I frowned, with a pinched expression. “We’re taking these people to safety. You too, if you’ll come along.”

She didn’t reply, so I waited a heartbeat before I added a bit more.

“Do you really think you can out-stubborn a hurricane?”

Deliberate calculations ran over her eyes. She glanced past me at the storm, then back to me.

“Is it done?” she demanded, tossing another gossamer stream of glowing fog at the dome. “I felt the seals snap earlier, then Tristam pulling on the Etherwave. After that? Nothing. So, did you do it?”

I longed for a bed or bunk and a lot of quiet.

“Damn it, Morowen, this isn’t…”

“Did you do it?” she yelled, cutting me off.

I saw the usual feral ferocity in her shark-like eyes, colored with irritation. But now there was also a wild desperation. A look that I expected from a gambler betting everything on the next throw of the dice, not a sea hag.

That stirred some new ideas I’d missed before. I heard the refugees being shuffled out of the shelter toward the shore.

“You rolled the dice on me, didn’t you?” I asked just loud enough to be heard over the howling winds.

Morowen clenched her jaw while her eyes flicked at the clouds, then back. It looked like her words were a bitter rind she couldn’t quite swallow.

“Yes,” she snapped. “After all our time together, he tried to murder me!” Morowen waved her hands in trembling, frantic motions, trying to express the horror of the memory. “Use me like ingredients in a stew! It took all I had to trap the bastard, and it wasn’t quite enough. So yes, I bet on you!”

I drew a long breath.

The simple answer would’ve been to say I’d solved it. But the Daughters of the Deep aren’t easily fooled. If I tried, she’d know. Better truth than trouble.

I withdrew the stained Codex from my satchel, holding it up for her to see as my answer. Thunder rumbled around us enough to rattle the world.

“It’s changed,” she muttered, scowling at the book.

Her eyes widened when she saw the engraving on the cover, then fixed me with a glare.

“What in the watery hells did you do, Pedro? The book’s different, but I still sense Tristam.”

“What I had to. He’s in here. Locked in.” I shook my head. “He’s not getting loose anytime soon.”

“A ghost trap,” she muttered. A wry, predatory smile flashed around her sharp teeth. “You clever bastard. You rewrote the Codex into a ghost trap.”

“I tried.”

“Good,” she snapped. “Now go away! Let me deal with this.”

“I would if you weren’t lying.”

Morowen twitched angrily.

“What?” Her expression flipped to primal rage. “I could kill you right here.”

“But you won’t,” I snapped back.

Slowly, I returned the Codex into my satchel.

“Morowen, I understand at least this,” I waved a hand in the air between us. “You almost killed yourself trying to stop Tristam, and it didn’t quite work. But this isn’t right.”

“You don’t know…”

“Yes, I do!” I growled, cutting her off. “Because I’ve been making this same mistake since I found the Codex!”

Her eyes flashed angrily at me with a hint of pain.

“Not the same, Pedro! That town is what I have left! Without it, I’m just an old sea hag rotting in the tide!”

I thrust a hand at the dying town.

“Morowen, that isn’t Port Royal! Port Royal is its people. Throwing your life away isn’t a solution. Come with me and help those people… your people.”

She sneered, but then her expression softened at the edges. The hag’s voice growled, its edge softer, with old pain pushing to the surface.

“Your captain’s not going to let me.”

“Pedro!” Skaldi yelled from outside the shelter. “We need to go! Floodwater is rising!”

I nodded at him, then turned back to the sea hag.

“Morowen, I don’t know what bad blood sits between you and Elara. But she won’t refuse you safe passage.”

I clenched my jaw.

“But if you stay? Neither of you gets a chance to mend this fence, if you want it. Do you really want the Port Royal survivors, or Elara, watch the hurricane tear you apart?”

For a tense moment, I thought I’d gone too far. Then Morowen’s shoulders sagged, hands dropping as she blew out a resigned sigh. I watched her eyes drift over the drowning town, clouded by quiet memories.

“Fine.” Then she stabbed a sea-blue finger at me. “But this is on your head if she leaves me stranded!”

I gave her a lopsided grin.

“Accepted.”

My grin evaporated at the sound of roaring water dragging the last of Port Royal bodily into the sea. Broken shutters sliced through the air alongside tree branches.

“Time to go,” I told her. “Time to start something new, one way or the other.”

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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.