Oaths
By Jamie F. Bell
The chapter opens in a tense courtroom during a cross-examination, then moves to the city streets and a jail cell, before concluding in a dark, historical alleyway in a small industrial town during a rainy spring.
Historical Fiction Short Stories
10 Stories
The Seaplane and the Sickbed
By Jamie F. Bell
The air hung heavy and still, the kind of summer heat that made your clothes stick to your skin even before dawn. The East Main Post awoke with a familiar rumble, the 'Fort Rock' preparing for its journey. My boots crunched on the coarse gravel as I walked towards the jetty, the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke clinging to the morning air. Already, the bay water shimmered with a dull, coppery sheen under a sky promising another relentless day.
Three Questions for the Ink Weaver
By Jamie F. Bell
The studio smelled of ink, paper, and a faint, almost metallic tang that might have been the spring rain struggling to break through the city’s grey. It was the scent of creation, or at least, the raw materials of it, a stark contrast to the sterile hum of my own office. My notebook felt heavy in my hand, an analogue anchor in a world tilting towards the digital, and I wondered, not for the first time, if I was chasing ghosts or simply a good headline.
A Gust of Ill Tidings
By Jamie F. Bell
The *Sea Wolf* cut a grumbling path through the iron-grey swells of Hudson Bay, the ship's timbers groaning under the constant buffet of the autumn gales. Salt spray, sharp and cold, coated every surface, freezing to the rigging in thin, glassy sheens. Below deck, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool, stale rum, and the faint, metallic tang of iron. Above, the sky was a bruised canvas, heavy with unfallen snow, and the wind, a relentless bully, howled its grim song through the shrouds.
The Raven's Reckoning
By Jamie F. Bell
The oppressive calm of late summer hung heavy over Hudson Bay, a thick shroud that muffled the distant cries of gulls and made the air taste metallic. A low, persistent hum from the ship's timbers vibrated through the deck, a constant reminder of the *Raven*'s age and the precariousness of their venture. The sky, a bruised purple in the pre-dawn, offered little comfort, promising only another day of watchful dread.
The Chilly Northern Light
By Jamie F. Bell
The wind had a bite, a real snarl to it, stripping the last defiant leaves from the scraggly poplars clinging to the northern shores. Grey light bled across the water, making the whitecaps look like bared teeth. Autumn had deepened its grip on Hudson Bay, and the air tasted of brine and impending ice. On the deck of the Osprey, the spray was a constant, stinging shower, freezing the ropes into rigid cables. Declan, barely out of his teens, hugged his thick wool coat tighter, the rough fabric chafing his chin. His breath plumed, a brief ghost against the vast, unforgiving expanse. He squinted, trying to pierce the gloom ahead, but the horizon remained an unbroken line of grey meeting greyer.
The Grey Hunger
By Jamie F. Bell
A biting autumn wind scours the deck of the privateer vessel, the Raven's Tooth, as its young first mate, Randy, grapples with the encroaching early ice and the grim, silent tension of his grizzled captain, Davidie. The vast, indifferent expanse of Hudson Bay promises only hardship and a relentless chill.
The Chill Current of Departure
By Jamie F. Bell
The city sprawled beneath a perpetually bruised sky, its endless towers spearing into the grey. A bitter wind, laden with ice particles and the metallic tang of exhaust, scoured the skeletal structures of Sector Seven. Neon arteries pulsed, indifferent to the encroaching winter, casting an anemic glow across the slick, frost-rimmed rooftops. Every exhalation was a ghost in the frigid air, a transient plume against the relentless, cold architecture of a future unasked for.
Silver-Frost Burden
By Leaf Richards
The world was a study in whites and greys, a canvas of unbroken snow stretching into the blurred horizon of a Northwestern Ontario winter. The air, sharp and unyielding, promised no warmth, only the ceaseless, gnawing cold. Under a sky the colour of tarnished pewter, two figures moved with deliberate, heavy steps, small dark smudges against the overwhelming expanse of the frozen landscape, their breath pluming in frosty bursts that vanished almost instantly.
Glacial Handshake
By Eva Suluk
The world outside 'The Arctic Squall' was a meticulously rendered canvas of white and grey, stretching without horizon. Snow, hard-packed and ridged by winds that felt older than any living thing, fused seamlessly with the low, sullen sky. There was no sun, only a diffused, omnipresent glare that flattened every detail, making the immense frozen bay feel both infinitely large and claustrophobically close. The air itself seemed brittle, ready to crack, carrying the metallic tang of extreme cold and the faint, unsettling scent of distant, untouched ice. Below deck, the ship groaned, a live thing under duress, its timbers protesting the relentless grip of the winter.