Prince of Time

Chapter Eight - You Are Doomed

Dawn saw nobody arriving in the armoury. Maple glanced at Pepper, who nodded grimly. If the worst had happened, as Eliseo had predicted, they should act immediately. In silence, they stood up and left.

 The corridors were empty of people, all rooms silent. A creeping sense of unease spread through them, like poison. Their step quickened unconsciously, their heads lifting and muscles tensing as a feeling of dread overtook them.

  Eventually, a clamour of noise reached them. Hacking coughs, voices crying out, shouts for assistance and the clatter of metal, all muffled by passage through the walls.

“The sanatorium,” Pepper breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re not alone.”

They began to run, steadily at first but faster and faster until they were sprinting down corridors. They burst through the door to the sanatorium, breathless in their mixture of relief and fear, searching for familiar faces, for reassurance that it wasn’t as bad as it appeared.

 The sanatorium was crowded with people. The low beds were full and the spaces between them were filled with warriors lying on the floor. There was no regular pattern to it all. It was haphazard, space just enough for healers to walk between.

Maple seized the arm of a young girl, a few years older than herself, dressed in the plain black clothes of a healer. She looked harried, as if the world was cracking a whip behind her.

“What’s going on?” Maple demanded. “What’s happened?”

The girl glared at her. “I’m busy, ok? Make yourselves useful!”

“It would be quicker just to tell me,” Maple said, reasonably.

The healer jerked away from her and hurried off through the crowd, snatching a bag from the wall and making her way down the narrow pathways to where victims lay.

 The air was muggy. Maple could almost smell the infection. Warriors twisted as they lay, coughs throwing their bodies around as if they were trying to bring their lungs out. Faces were white with pain. The only people unaffected were the healers.

“Oh no,” Pepper shook her head. “This can’t be happening.”

“Excuse me,” Maple fixed her best polite yet official expression on her face. “Where can I find Eliseo?”

The healer, a middle-aged man with heavy eyebrows, stared at her.

“Who are you?” he snapped. “Why aren’t you sick?”

“I wasn’t at the gathering,” Maple explained, making the assumption that that was the cause. “I was under punishment. For the fight at the Festival.”

The healer scowled. “Can you heal?”

“Very poorly,” Maple admitted.

“Then get out of my way and try not to catch whatever they have.”

He strode off, barking an order to two boys who were measuring out potions. Maple met Pepper’s gaze and saw that her own fear was mirrored there exactly.

“I know where Eliseo is.”

Maple turned to see a small girl, less than ten-years-old, wearing healer’s black. She was almost sweet, with red-gold hair in two plaits and huge blue eyes.

“You do?” Maple sighed in relief. “Thank the gods!”

“He’s over here,” the girl told her. “He’s my father.”

Maple’s jaw dropped. “He’s your what?”

“My father,” the girl gave her an odd look. “He’s married to my mother.”