For the Love of Family

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven 

As their designated hour came to a close, Gerard and Levi emerged from their room, prepared to learn as much as they could. They joined the guards in the hallway, and a heavy pall seemed to hover over all of them as they returned to the main chamber in silence. 

Many faces glanced up as they passed through the entry of the large chamber, including Marin. "Have you rested so soon?" she asked in concern, coming to stand in front of them.  

"As much as this situation can allow," Gerard replied gravely.  

Marin's gaze lowered, and she nodded. He did not need to remind these people of the tragedy they had faced. "Please, come sit by the fire and have something to eat. We will tell you what you wish to know." She gestured to several benches around the small blaze, and as they moved to sit, she motioned for Elba to join them from the edge of the room. Marin and Elba shared a bench in the center of their group, though Elba's discomfort was clear from the way she stared at her hands.  

Small children walked amongst them with baskets of bread and dried meat as Marin began her tale. She spoke of a few people taking ill no more than three weeks ago, though no one thought anything of it until whispers from Devresh reached their ears, whispers of plague in the city. Unfortunately, they found out too late. The sickness had taken its first victims and moved on to strike more and more. They tried everything they could to stop it, but it just kept spreading. Ultimately, their numbers had been decimated, and the majority of the survivors were children, teens and young adults, so they retreated below ground to the tunnels used during the brutal, windy winters on these cliffs. Here they stayed, hoping the illness had run its course and that help would come soon.  

"Do you have any ill villagers now?" Gerard asked as she finished her grim story. 

"No, our last sick passed away in the night. We believe it may be gone as the symptoms come on very quickly, and no one has them. Besides, most of the people here are ones who had the sickness and survived. They cannot get sick again." 

Gerard allowed that information sink in for a moment. Only a fifth of the village's people had survived the plague, but most who did had battled the illness and won. There was some, if very little, hope in that.  

"And what do you know, Elba?" he asked kindly, noticing she hadn't said a word the whole time.  

Her eyes snapped to him, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or guilt he saw in her gaze, but in a blink of her eyes, it was gone. "I know what is happening in Devresh, at least what was happening until a little over a week ago."  

Both Gerard and Levi sat up straighter at this revelation. "What can you tell us?" Levi urged when she was silent for a long while.  

"I know the plague broke out there at least three weeks ago, but like here, no one knew what was happening at first. By the time the council knew how bad it was, the sickness had spread from the waterfront to all parts city. They closed the gates two weeks ago to prevent the plague from getting out, but word had already come that Nylot and Corcola were affected. I don't know if it spread beyond that, but I do know that Devresh was suffering just as we were here, only much worse because there are so many people. Buildings were turned into makeshift sick wards, and the body count grew so high that they were performing fire ceremonies right in the town square," she told them in a flat monotone as she watched her hands fidget in her lap once more.  

Gerard closed his eyes in unsurprised agony at her bleak recounting, while Levi and the other soldiers watched her in muted horror.  

"And how do you know so much?" Levi asked finally in a curious tone that held no suspicion.