Where the Blood Calls 3: Old Wounds Turned New

Medical Log. April 10, 1818. Portlethen Bay, Scotland. Nothing like being a fish in a net when the fisherman’s a monster.

Author’s Note: Where the Blood Calls is a serialized fiction story in Upon Our Seas, In Our Skies, which is a fantastic collaborative corner of The Môrdreigiau Chronicles by the ever talented Leanne Shawler ! It’s a world of change and industrialization where magic has been set loose on the world of the 1800s. Here, in this corner, we’ll follow the escapades of one Dr. Rebekah Verity Thorne with her work and adventures about the new, hospital Aetheric Dirigible, the HMS Dawn Javelin.

New installments or chapters will materialize every Wednesday as long as the story allows!

Missed a chapter? You can find the full list here.

Previously. The captain’s orders had been straightforward; sail down to the fishing town and render aid where possible. Simple, until it wasn’t. The brazen beasts of Welsh legend attack in force. Swarms erupted from the water and diving at the landing party, teeth bared for locals and landing party alike.

Moving fast, Rebekah and Corporal Seith Maddock grabbed nearby survivors, and headed for shelter. After a pitched battle, Captain Vane and the others went to join them. Which was when the real trap was sprung…

Medical Log. April 10, 1818. Portlethen Bay, Scotland. Nothing like being a fish in a net when the fisherman’s a monster.

If ever there was a proper idea of how hell smelled, it was a broadside against a shoreline of people. There was rancid smoke and sweat. A tang of gun oil—from Maddock’s uniform most likely—along with the sharper stench of raw terror and burned clothing.

Then there was the blood. Oh, how it sang from pain—I nearly cried.

I put sanity in my vest pocket and threw open the shack door. Maddock instantly stepped out in front of me. Bits of glassed sand pelted the Marine, turning him bronze again.

“This way!” I yelled to the landing party. “To the fishing shack!”

It had been six and Captain Vane. Now there were three still walking, and three barely able to move. I closed my eyes over the seventh, as I saw his shade stand up from his ragged body.

“Barnes. I’m sorry,” I murmured, blinking back wetness from my eyes.

“Not your doing,” came the whispered reply. With a nod, the midshipman I’d barely met scattered into the wind and was gone.

The living crashed into the weather-beaten shack like an errant wave. I grabbed anyone who looked unsteady, hauling them to the nearest piece of floor or battered cot. Maddock stepped in behind the lot of us, a living door of metal blocking the last bits of flying debris as the latest cannon shot struck the shore.

It had been crowded in the hut, but now it was almost suffocating. The place hadn’t been made for so many occupants at once, and certainly not for any sort of medical shenanigans. A stink of smoke, powder, and sweat made an unholy combination with the scent of blood.

But I had work to do.

“Corporal, hand me the twine,” I snapped. “No, the green—”

His bronze hand passed over the colorful thread. Then he reached over to help me finish another bandage in a long line of them.

“Like this?”

I nodded. “Precisely like that.”

That done, I turned to the next in line; then the next after that. I hummed one blood’s song after another until it turned into a concert of wet injuries. Wounds puckered with each note, refusing death by inches under my Gift. Finally done, I sat back, feeling drained from using my Gift so much at once. Tension filled the shack to the brim, amplified by the distant rumble of cannon-fire—the Javelin was giving as good as she got.

That tension concentrated around a figure on the far side of the hovel. Not Captain Vane, he was still partly dazed from the explosions. This was the ranking Royal Marine who looked like a storm ready to blow. Red-faced and jaw tight, his hands were clasped behind his back as if inspecting troops.

“Begging your pardon… Doctor Thorne?”

The stress on the word ‘doctor’ felt like a slap. With nothing to save me from the impending moment, I stared holes into the man.

“Yes, Leftenant… Angwin is it?” I replied.

“Indeed.” He pursed his lips. “Is this,” he waved a hand at the shack and notably the villagers, “crucial at this moment? Surely we could prioritize who gets tended, given this is a forward fighting position—”

“Flummery!” I snapped, voice as sharp as a pistol crack. “What? Should we flip a coin, Leftenant? Issue lots?” Fists clenched by my side, I stood, tugging at my smudge and blood-stained vest; eyes blazing. He wanted rank to matter. I wanted people to live. “Before you go on about ‘keeping the beasts at bay’ or some other cogswaddle, look around!”

“You see here, madam—!” Angwin protested.

I slashed my hand in front of me, cutting off his protest. “We’re a landing party. Every hand and able soul is needed! You may hold rank, Leftenant, but unless you know how to use thread to do more than darn socks, stow that bilge! We’ll need everyone able to move if we’re to survive the next few minutes… and I don’t mean just the beasts!”

“Both of you, pipe down!” came a ragged voice of command from my left.

Captain Vane pushed up from his cot. Blue coat bloodied and burned; he was wounded, bandaged, but awake. Vane’s eyes flicked between myself and Angwin. The captain gave me the tiniest nod, then fixed a hard look on the Royal Marine.

“Leftenant,” Vane rumbled, his calm tone cutting over the noise as if it wasn’t there. “A word.”

“Captain,” the man stiffly replied, then huddled next to Captain Vane.

I turned away, giving them what privacy I could, and busied myself with counting supplies in my satchel. After that, I checked on my patients—save for Captain Vane—to steady my anger and nerves.

Finally, I eased open the door to peek outside. Overhead, the Javelin and the pirate dirigible swapped blows like street brawlers. Several others in the fishing town had done the same as I had. Townfolk conversed from their partly open doorways with each other—no one willing to chance the combination of water leapers and stray cannon fire. Maddock joined me at the door.

“Doctor? What did you mean about the beasts and surviving? Did you mean the pirates?” Even the worry lines in his forehead had worry lines.

I glanced up at him over my shoulder, then nodded, brushing loose strands of my dirty brown hair out of my face.

“Yes, I do.” The moment held its breath until it sighed. “Also, I’m fairly certain who the bloody bastard leading that pirate crew is. It’s the same one that devised a way to bring down the HMS Lewis Ross; the dirigible I was on when I first got my Gift. He was the man I was to marry, at least before he tried to swindle my family. One Captain Caleb Rourke of the Poseidon’s Pearl, late of the East India Trading Company. If my father hadn’t retired, he’d still be hunting the man.”

Maddock blinked, stunned as if hit on the head. “He caused the wreck of the Lewis Ross?”

I smiled ruefully. “Sounds like something out of the broadsheets, doesn’t it?” Slowly, I dabbed at the sweat and grime over my eyes. “Most of that’s a story for another time… but it’s still true. The Lewis Ross had moved in to help the HMS Providence when she signaled trouble. Something about a wild eel infestation. The captain took us in to help, thinking the report was cogswaddle—it wasn’t. It was a trap.”

“Captain Rourke?”

“The same,” I replied grimly. “That time, he let loose wild eels coated in a toxin on a fishing town. I recognized the oily, bitter stench in the air when we got here. The water leapers are coated with the same. Whatever it is, the stuff sends beasts into a frenzy. Still, the last time it was enough to distract both the Ross and the Providence. They never saw Rourke coming. He’s nearly pulled the same trick again today.”

I drew a deep breath, watching the air battle above us even as memories washed past. The occasional water leaper gave me the evil eye while jumping over the waves, but I ignored it.

“The Providence limped away to get help, but the Ross still went down, taking out part of a fishing town.” I gave Maddock another rueful smile as I softly beat a fist against the doorframe. “From there, I’m sure you know the rest.”

Maddock grunted; it spoke volumes. He backed that up with a quick, “Yes, ma’am. I’ve heard the stories about you.” Then he squinted, pursing his lips. “Why do it, though? What’s there to take?”

“The bodies.”

Maddock went as still as stone. I slid my tired eyes up to meet his.

“Captain Rourke and his bunch are resurrectionists. They create a disaster for the body count. Stokes the man’s reputation, and he turns a profit off the dead.”

“You said your father hunted Rourke?” Maddock asked, curiosity piqued.

I nodded. “Until he retired from the Admiralty, yes.”

Maddock’s eyes went wide.

“Wait. That Thorne family? Your father… you mean the Admiral Jaime Horatio Thorne?” he whispered at me. “You’re Hannibal Thorne’s daughter?”

“Yes, I’m that Rebekah Thorne. Not a story for now, though,” I murmured wearily. “Besides, Corporal, I’m not my father, nor he me. I’m my own person.”

Maddock opened his mouth to reply but nodded, then changed his tack. “What about the poison?”

I shook my head. “Makes some sick. Mostly it just irritates whatever poor beasts he’s scooped up and turned loose.”

As if on cue, the older fisherman keeled over to empty his stomach onto the floor.

“Confound it all!” I swore, grabbing Maddock by the shirtfront and dragging him with me as I ran across the room.

Maddock cleaned the fisherman’s face while I set to work with my Gift. Poison and open wounds were nothing alike. The blood resented the latter, but got into a confused panic over the former. I hummed the soft shanty in the fisherman’s blood, helping calm it down by giving a tune to follow.

A minute and a second poisoned patient later, I was back at the doorway for some air. Maddock joined me, keeping a wary eye on our group.

“Doctor?” He hesitated, as if sensing how delicate his next words were. “Why hasn’t there been some message about this Rourke? Especially since your father had been hunting him.”

I chuckled bitterly.

“Because the Admiralty would have to admit there’s a Gifted pirate on the loose, and what the confounded man’s been doing.” I clenched my jaw, then forced myself to relax. Idly, I waved a hand. “Oh, I’m sure there are crews out hunting Rourke, but it’s easier to bury embarrassment than spread panic.”

I watched the battle overhead, then turned to stare into the shack. My thoughts churned over the view, position, and what might happen.

“We have to leave. Someplace better that’s more defensible and where I can work,” I murmured.

Nearby, Captain Vane had finished his conversation with Lieutenant Angwin. The younger officer looked more red-faced than before. He bristled at my words.

“You’re not in command,” he snarled. “That’s the captain’s choice… Doctor.”

Never had I wanted to punch a man so hard that his ancestor’s teeth would rattle. Fortunately, Captain Vane interrupted my visions of ancestral dentistry assault.

“Leftenant!” Vane growled. The feeble cot creaked as the captain pushed upright again, then slowly climbed to his feet. He fixed the lieutenant with a hard stare. “I trust you implicitly, Leftenant. You’re top at what you do, but this is far from normal for any of us.” Vane sighed, looked around the small room, then at me. “I’m well aware of the Lewis Ross incident. If Doctor Thorne has an idea, I want to hear it… and so should you.”

I let out a long, measured breath. “Captain? Leftenant? We’ve two problems—first, Captain Rourke will come calling. He’ll want you as a hostage so he can butcher the Javelin. So we need someplace more defensible with more room. It’d be better for me and the Marines.”

Lieutenant Angwin narrowed his eyes. He was still put out, but I saw the gears turning. Good.

“Long hall. Shuttered windows,” he said.

“Common Hall,” the old fisherman nearby said in a weak voice. “Short run from here. Maybe five yards north at worst. Built to stand up against the worst the North Sea gives out. Thick shutters. Double-thick doors.”

“It’ll do,” Angwin replied thoughtfully.

I nodded, relishing the cooperation, then held up two fingers.

“Second? The Llamhigyn y Dŵr. They’ll try for us the instant we leave. Corporal Maddock can defend us, but Shielder or no, he can’t be everywhere. So,” I rounded on Maddock, “get me one. Alive. I need to scrape off whatever Rourke is using to rile them. If I can figure out something that keeps them at bay, we can run for the Common Hall.” I shrugged. “Perhaps even find a way to get the leapers to turn on Rourke’s people.”

Captain Vane grinned. “Not to mention a snare or three for the bloody bastards to trip over. Good. Done. Make it so.”

I turned just as a dizzy feeling washed over me, then a faint melody—a song of blood.

“Wait. They’re on their way,” I said, staring off into the middle distance.

Overhead, the roar of cannons shook the clouds, easily heard over the roar of waves along the shore. Dust sifted down from the rattled roof. The broadsides had increased, joined by the faint crack of rifles.

“The pirates?” Captain Vane asked.

“Yes, Captain,” I replied softly, meeting his concerned expression. “Rourke’s coming. I can feel it.”

This story is part of the Upon Our Seas, In Our Skies collaboration of stories, poetry and art set in the universe of The Môrdreigiau Chronicles. If you’d like to participate, follow this link for details and lore. You will be able to read all of the submissions here.

As for me, if you’re looking for more of what I write, take a look at Moonlight Curiosity Mysteries, Windtracer Tales, Legends of the Privateers, or any of my other works. Please consider subscribing as I would really appreciate the support, sometimes I post behind the scenes on writing, worldbuilding and more. Subscribers also get behind the scenes videos, chat and even a chance to help me with some advanced reading of books before they go to print!

Where the Blood Calls of Upon Our Seas, In Our Skies is a work of pure, unashamed fiction. In truth, when its not fending off pirates, problems, and perils, it’s rather thoughtful and contemplative. Often, it enjoys a good book by a fireplace with a fresh cup of tea. Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. So the blame really lies at his feet.

In fact, it could be said any resemblance to persons living, dead, or washed ashore is coincidental—if not pure flummery. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s, since the characters and the author are apt to argue like cats fighting over cream. Often.