Where the Blood Calls 7: Where the Blood Called

Medical Log. April 10, 1818. Six hundred feet off Portlethen Bay, Scotland, aboard the HMS Dawn Javelin, healing the hurt among the dogs of war…

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 other Wednesday as long as the story allows!

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

Previously. Caught between wreck, ruin, and a fate worse that death, Doctor Thorne tries a desperate gamble to buy time. The ploy worked but pitted her against her own personal nightmare: Caleb Rourke. It was a battle of wits, grit, and blood that came down to who understood their own Gift best! Which, in the end, left the pirate captain on shore while Rebekah escaped with her companions back to the safety of the HMS Dawn Javelin. A safety that was both fleeting, and temporary; mere calm before the real storm…

Medical Log. April 10, 1818. Six hundred feet off Portlethen Bay, Scotland, aboard the HMS Dawn Javelin, healing the hurt among the dogs of war…

I dove from the hatch as a cannon shot from Poseidon’s Pearl nearly ripped my head off. A storm of shattered wood lunged at me as I went flat. The world spun, smoke clawing at my lungs. I blinked. One moment I was on my face. The next I was partly upright against the door frame. My ears rang from the abuse of combat as Blake grabbed the next wounded sailor in line. The medical station had grown hot; the air thick with the stink of stale sweat and old blood.

“Inside.” I coughed against the back of my wrist. The blood-song was like a symphony. With a deep breath, I focused on the loudest notes. They were usually the people hurt the worst. “Get him in the chair,” I said, already using a knife to cut open the man’s sleeve, then widen the hole in his shirt. “Bullet graze. Arm and left side. Deep, but not serious. Hold still.”

The midshipman, a dark-haired young man barely old enough to shave, nodded; skin pale as a sheet. He watched me wide-eyed while I cleaned the wound, then sang with his blood. The wound knitted obediently. Blake already had a strip of bandage ready when I reached for it.

“I can’t decide if Caleb’s pirates are bad shots, bloodthirsty lunatics, or what,” I grumbled. “How ugly is it on deck?”

The Javelin shook again, and I patted the nearby wooden hull out of reflex. It never hurt to let the ship know I was thinking of her. Pops knocked against her wood from small arms fire.

Blake reached over to finish the bandage while I grabbed a bottle of willow bark extract.

“Rough,” the Scotsman replied with a ragged breath. “We’re a hospital dirigible, not a warship.”

I tapped some of the yellowish-brown powder into a cup of water, mixed it, then shoved it into the injured sailor’s hands.

“Drink.” I ordered him, then looked past Blake to the way out of my medical station. “Damn Caleb Rourke to the backside of hell. I should’ve ended him.”

Blake checked the sailor’s bandage once more. Satisfied it was secure, he took the cup from the young man before ushering him out.

“Ease off any lifting if you can,” he told him, then shot a sour look at me. “Ach, Doctor? That’s a load of pish if I’ve ever heard it! It’s not who you are.”

“All I’m saying is if I had killed him, maybe we wouldn’t be in a slugfest with a pirate ship!” I threw my arms up in frustration. A growing headache and shoulder pain suggested that was a bad idea. My stubbornness told them both to go to hell. “Damn it, Blake! Like you said—we’re a hospital dirigible, not a brawler!”

A roar of cannons from the deck above us punctuated my outburst. Another thunderous peal replied; obviously Caleb’s ship returning fire. Shouts rose in sudden alarm. Blake and I exchanged a sharp look; my gut tightened.

“Confound it,” I muttered, bolting from the medical station.

I’m the ship’s doctor. As such, that was normally my station during a fight. But a hospital dirigible shouldn’t be in a battle, so nothing about this was normal in the least. I reached the hatch at a dead run, scaling the ladder to the deck. Above, the Javelin was a nightmare of ruined wood and a haggard crew caught in mid-motion of a bloody fight. Lieutenant Angwin, gunpowder-stained from head to boots, noticed me first.

“Doctor? You shouldn’t be on deck!”

“I’ve got her, Leftenant,” called a familiar voice. I tore my eyes away from the horror, looking into the brassy metal eyes of Corporal Maddock. A thin smile crossed my face.

“Babysitting isn’t required,” I told him with a faint edge to my words.

“But bodyguarding certainly is, given who we’re fighting,” Blake said, appearing behind me. “Speaking of… where’d the bloody bastard get to?”

A lookout shouted, pointing just off the bow. I glanced that way in time to see Caleb’s ship, the Poseidon’s Pearl, brush the bottom edge of a gray storm cloud with its gasbag, then vanish. A fresh wave of alarmed shouts drowned the deck, thicker than the gossamer fog of gunpowder and smoke.

“Gone.” Maddock shifted his rifle to his offhand, pointing at the clouds. “Brushed that storm cloud and just… gone.”

I squinted at the clouds, but I didn’t look with my eyes. A dozen songs of the blood hummed around me, some fast, others slow. I memorized who on deck needed me soon, but turned my attention outward, away from the ship. Concentrating. Listening. Guided by my Gift.

Then I heard it. A seductive song like poisoned honey.

“There!” I yelled, following the song and pointing off starboard. Then the song grew louder—much louder. Nearly against our hull. “Confound it! Leftenant! We’re about to be boarded!”

“Where?” Angwin’s eyes snapped hard to starboard, rifle at the ready.

Caleb’s ship appeared out of the mist like a specter from hell. Gasbag tight, the pirate’s sails rode the wind. The second the Pearl appeared, grapple lines shot out in a swarm. Some latched onto our rigging, others the hull.

“Repel boarders!” Captain Vane yelled from the wheelhouse. “Cut the lines!”

“Bayonets! Make each shot count!” Angwin ordered his marines.

I retreated to a nearby stack of barrels for cover. Maddock stood out in the open beside me like a living metal fact of life.

Blake darted off, returning with a knife and a boarding ax. “How did they do that?”

I snatched the knife from him, testing the weight. “A Gifted. Has to be.”

Maddock hunched as two bullets pinged off his skin, slamming into the wood nearby. For every line that was cut, the pirates threw two more. Wood and rigging creaked as the Javelin was hauled alongside the Pearl. Hull slammed against hull, and it began.

The battle turned ugly in seconds. Everyone fought; no one quit. Pirates swarmed over the rails while Caleb stalked behind them. The bastard used his Gift at every turn like a knife to the mind. Crew hesitated. Orders were confused or mangled. Panic spread like wildfire.

If I said my blood turned cold, I’d have lied. Because all I saw was red. Blood-red.

“Come on!” I darted out from cover and ran right at Caleb. Maddock and Blake were on my heels.

We charged amidships. Maddock backhanded pirates aside, while Blake was a demon with the ax. I kept my eyes on Caleb Rourke.

He must have seen us coming, as he turned in our direction. Rourke snatched a knife from his belt. Maddock slapped it out of his hand. Quick as a wink, Rourke locked eyes with the tall corporal.

“You’re falling through.” Rourke’s words sliced the air like a hot knife. Maddock’s metal eyes clouded over. With a cry, he tripped over his own boots, falling to the deck in a panic. “You can’t breathe,” the pirate added.

The corporal choked, wide-eyed.

“Maddock!” I shouted.

Rourke swung around to face me. He glanced at the knife in my hand before meeting my eyes.

“That for me?” His words wrapped around my mind like soft silk. I shook my head, but that voice, those eyes felt everywhere at once. “Bring it here, Rebekah. Then follow me aboard. We’ll work things out in private.”

I shook my head, hearing the blood-song around me as my Gift pulled me in all directions at once. It was a weak shield at best, but I clung to it.

“No,” I replied, then hummed along with the blood I heard nearby.

Rourke tilted his head, holding out a hand. “That trick won’t work twice. I’m not wounded.”

Blake suddenly appeared out of the crowd behind Caleb.

“You could be!” The Scotsman slashed at Caleb with the ax.

Rourke yelped, darting aside at the last moment. His coat suffered the cost, ax cutting a gash in the fine fabric.

“Stop!” he commanded Blake.

The Scotsman grinned as he tapped the side of his head. “Sorry, what? Must have blinked when I put beeswax in my ears!”

Mesmers couldn’t befuddle more than one or two at best with their Gift; even if the attempt failed. Maddock was one. Blake was two.

I charged Rourke.

The point of my knife sliced through that fancy blue long coat like butter. Blood slicked the blade.

“Care for a song, sailor?” I snarled. Then I sang at the top of my lungs.

Caleb screamed.

The raid stumbled. Faltered. Then turned into a full rout as our people got their bearings. Pirates are brave against the weak and the wounded. Suddenly, we were anything but that. Caleb’s pirates broke and ran.

They didn’t get far.

Our Royal Marines swarmed the pirates, save for Maddock, who snatched up Caleb Rourke. As he did, I sliced a snatch of cloth from the pirate’s shirt and gagged him straightaway.

“Hobbles his Gift slightly,” I explained.

Lieutenant Angwin nodded, then stared daggers at Rourke.

“Good to know. Corporal? Take the pirate below.”

Maddock nodded to the lieutenant but spared me a single, brief look. Concern glimmered in those metal eyes. I nodded. It was going to be fine.

“Ma’am,” he said, voice layered with more than I had time to guess about.

“Rebekah!” Rourke yelled from around his gag.

Maddock hauled the struggling pirate along by the coat collar, but Rourke held his ground long enough to give me a rough, wicked smile.

“Reunions are so hard,” he mumbled through the cloth.

Blake glanced at me with concern, and I frowned. I knew one of Caleb’s damn ploys when I saw it.

“Watch him, he’s—!”

My words caught in my throat as a ghostly gray mist swirled around Caleb like a fast-rising fog. A knife appeared out of nothing, blade slicing through the pirate’s long coat. It slashed Maddock’s hand, which did nothing more than awaken his Gift again. Maddock still jerked his hand back out of instinct.

As the blade fell, my world shattered. Not because of Caleb’s Gift; he was still gagged. It was because of who saved him.

Thin, with long brown hair pulled back in a braid, I’d know that face anywhere. It was a face I grew up seeing across the table most nights, at least until I left to join the Royal Navy.

It was my sister.

She shot a final glare in my direction before they vanished from sight, giving Caleb a wistful, adoring look.

Blake and Maddock were at my side in an instant.

“Ma’am? Who was that?” the corporal asked.

“She’s the Gifted!” Blake exclaimed, glancing around. “Leftenant Angwin!” he shouted and ran off.

“Doctor?” Maddock tried again. Then he lowered his voice, professional veneer slipping aside. “Are you all right?”

I clasped a hand over my mouth, staring holes where my sister had stood. Water welled in the corner of my eyes. Words wouldn’t come; just wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet.

Caleb had my sister. She was helping him.

A frantic search turned up nothing until I found myself lost in my work. Wounded followed wounded until I knew I’d hear blood-songs in my dreams. Hours later, by the time I was done, scuttlebutt among the crew claimed a jolly boat had fallen off the pirate’s airship. Word was it looked empty, and we were too low on ammunition to waste the shot.

Empty was a lie. I knew it in my heart.

By late afternoon, the worst of the wounded were confined to their bunks to rest. Others worked double duty as the Javelin got underway with repairs. She put down in the waters off Portlethen Bay. Those who could be spared took a jolly boat over to fishing town to help get things in order.

I leaned on the rail, staring at nothing with a tin of dried fish in my hands. A now-familiar four-legged figure squatted barely a foot away. The mottled gray-green Llamhigyn y Dŵr shifted its feet, looking for all the world like a frog-faced meatloaf with wings. It tilted its head with a curious expression, eyes darting between me and the tin.

“You’ll get too plump to fly, you know?” I said, tossing a bit of dried fish in its direction.

The water leaper caught it midair with its tongue, then happily chewed. An odd sound, between a rumble and the faint groan of a spent bagpipe, filled the air. I shook my head, then tossed another bit of fish. A shadow brushed over me, shading me from the afternoon sun.

“Ma’am.”

I gave Maddock a weary smile.

“Corporal,” I replied. The leaper tapped its feet against the wood, which earned it a bit more fish. “Sent to check after me?”

The tall Welshman leaned against the railing next to me.

“Mr. McLaren’s idea.” Maddock cleared his throat. “Told me you’d likely not rest as you should, and I needed to stay nearby in case you needed anything. Leftenant Angwin thought it was a good idea. Said you were too valuable to leave wandering about… er… without an escort.”

I wasn’t sure who I needed to glare at, but I decided to figure that out later. Instead, I nodded.

“So, I suppose I owe some explanation about what happened there at the end?” I asked.

Maddock didn’t say a word, just found the nearby clouds on the horizon fascinating. Though the flush on his cheeks told me everything. I pulled on another sad smile, then fed the leaper more fish.

“The young woman who freed Caleb?” I paused, feeling out the words. They tasted bitter. “That was my little sister, Maeve. She was supposed to be home. We were close as girls, but after my Gift appeared, coupled with Caleb, things went brittle. When I left for the Royal Navy, she was with our parents near Galway.” My voice cracked. “I never knew she was Gifted. A Fadeborn of all things, under Caleb’s sway.”

“Ma’am? I don’t know that one.”

“Fadeborn?” I smiled bitterly. “Most don’t. Another surgeon mentioned it to me. Half-rumor, half-ghost. Usually can take things with them, though a ship is a stretch.” I stared into the middle distance. “It probably almost killed her.”

“Captain Vane knows?” he asked.

“He does,” I sighed. “That won’t be the last we see of Caleb Rourke either. We’re a hospital dirigible. He steals bodies to sell.”

Corporal Maddock gave me a shy smile that made his face light up ever so slightly.

“Well, next time we’ll be ready. Hopefully, free your sister, too.”

I returned the smile.

“Next time,” was all I could say, then tossed the last bit of fish.

The Llamhigyn y Dŵr neatly caught it and chewed. Then, with a last bagpipe-like bleat, took flight. It tipped a wing in our direction, then dove for the sea.

“Next time,” I echoed, staring at the clouds, memories, and maybe tomorrow. “Maeve, where are you?”

Like I always say, all stories have a beginning, middle, and an end. This is the conclusion of Where the Blood Calls of Upon Our Seas, In Our Skies. For everyone reading, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and thank you Leanne Shawler for inviting me to do this! This… all of this… has been a great ride. I hope everyone has enjoyed it as much as I have. Like I always do, I dedicate this story to everyone who read along.

Now, is this the end?

Well, I say with a grin and a wink, who knows?

The future’s always uncertain, which is probably why I won’t say “the end”. Instead, I’ll just say… that’s all for now.

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.