Favoured Ones

Chapter IV

This was worse than I had initially thought.

The people here were laying in their own filth, men women and child alike, all covered in various questionable substances and as thin as twigs. I glared towards the temple, how dare they leave people to suffer like this; the temple looked to be exquisitely made and surely held a fortune inside. Plenty enough room and money to provide for all of these people. The high priest would get a damn piece of my mind when I got to him.

I checked everyone who crossed my path over, and soon gathered a small group of followers who were well enough to help me move the sick to the other end of the field- away from all of the muck.

By the time I'd reached the temple steps, I could see a large fire had been lit in the center of the gathering, its flames licking up whatever wood had been scavenged to feed it but paying back thrice fold by the heat it gave out.

Two guards, richly adorned in silver armor with great broad swords strapped to their waists approached.

"Woman!-"

"Loralie! My name's Dr Loralie Welsh, not woman for gods sake." sick myself, of being called nothing but that all day I'd lashed out.

The guards growled at me like a pair of dogs, puffing up like angry porcupines.

"Woman, the high priest will not allow anyone to pass into the temple, so don't even try. These people have invoked the wrath of the gods and so are being punished, do not even try to help them. They are unworthy invalids."    

My nostrils flared in anger, regardless of time period, this sure wasn't the way a place of healing was meant to work,

"These people are not unworthy they are sick! And you are doing nothing to help the matter by blindly following the orders of your priest, what if you were in their situation? How would you like to be ill, leftout in the elements and deprived of hope from even your gods?" I was shouting now, slowly building the volume of my voice; one of them marched closer, but I wasn't done yet, I stepped back in tandem down the steps backwards,

"These people are just like you and I, and they require help that you are perfectly capable of giving."

"They," he grouched, a step above me, "are nothing but rodents and not worth the dirt under my shoe."

I had never been in a fight in my life, thinking myself a peaceful person, but never had I wanted to knock out someones jaw so much in my life.

Luckily, before I made a fool of myself trying to take down a giant, someone did it for me. A sizable rock whistled above my head, knocking the guard straight on his nose, a resounding crunch made a malicious smirk spread across my face. I heard people cheering behind me as blood began to trickle off of the guards face.

Turning my back, I refastened the mask and said in a cool voice "Apply pressure at the bridge of your nose and keep facing down, that'll stop the bleeding, the break... not much I can do about that at the time being, you should survive."

I watched the ill being carried to the far side of the field, solemnly recognizing that the prone and still forms left behind in the systematic clearing were already gone, I was too late to help them.

Beneath my mask, my face was twisted in a grimace. How could a human being remain so closed-minded when the direct impact of their fanatical behavior is lain at their very feet.

I found myself checking each remaining body, searching for a pulse, before I went to the next person and then the next body and then the next corpse. Cold and lifeless. I kept moving, death didn't affect me nearly as much as it did before med school.

Hands stained with burgundy mud, I let my helpers continue carting off the sick as I ordered the collected water to be filtered through cloth then boiled over the large fire. The water gatherers had also comeback with a goat which, with some of the food that had been salvaged was cooked into soup then distributed among the masses.

As everyone ate I continued seeing to my patients, working my way across the now established lines of people, treating their ailments, as many of which had sores from laying on the wet ground that needed to be bound and raging fevers to be cooled with a damp rag. I sat with them, lent their fragile forms on my own shoulder as I made them sip the salted and honey-sweetened water then some nutritious broth if they could. Having them clean themselves and cleaning those to weak to do so with gentle hands.

The Sun had long since set by the time I finally sat myself down on the overhanging ledge above the temple grounds, last patient finally seen to, nibbling on a small stick of dried meat that I had scavenged from the food pile.

The people below me were almost silent, finally lured into sleep by full stomachs and the warmth of the fire. A majority of the gathering were villagers from the base of the mountain, but some had pilgrimaged from great distances away from the cities; I was bitterly thankful for their presence, for they had provided most of the provisions that would keep everyone alive.

I felt like I'd just taken on a twelve hour sift in the ER at Christmas- on my own. The grit sticking under my nails despite how many times I'd washed my hands was an unnecessary reminder of the cruelty inflicted when I could still see the burnt out fire on the far side of the field, the area around it scorched black; you need a high temperature to burn away bones. At least everything was more sanitary now, the peoples chances of survival increasing steadily.

Laying myself down, I curled up, fingertips skimming my upper arm where I'd had my flu vaccination not two month prior and distantly hoping that it immunized me against this particular strain, before heading into a dreamless sleep.