CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.

(MELIORA'S POV)

Two days after Martha had excitedly shared the joyous news of her pregnancy, I was out on the training fields working on combat drills alongside the rest of the younger warrior recruits this evening. 

The evening sun was beating down fiercely as we cycled through a series of choreographed sword maneuvers. 

Sweat beaded on my brow, but I pushed forward with grim determination, focused entirely on mastering each fluid motion.

Abruptly, a small voice pierced my concentration. "Whose Liora? Elder Emma is asking for Liora to report at the sick chamber now!"

I halted mid-swing, squinting to make out the young messenger boy hopping anxiously from foot-to-foot nearby. Lowering my practice blade, I called out, "Here, I'm Liora. Tell Elder Emma I'll be there directly."

The lad bobbed his head in a hasty nod before scampering off. Shaking out my shoulders, I turned and made my way towards the edge of the training grounds where Burke, our senior warrior instructor, was seated observing our progress.

"Everything alright?" he asked gruffly as I approached him. "I've been summoned to the healing wing to assist Elder Emma," I explained. "Do you need me to return afterwards?"

Burke waved a calloused hand in dismissal. "Go on, we're likely wrapping up soon anyway with this blasted heat. Did they say what she needs you for?"

I shook my head, trying to tamp down the small kernel of worry gnawing at my gut. "No specifics. Perhaps they just require extra hands if it's gotten busy with new patients or illnesses."

"Well, that's likely it," Burke agreed with a curt nod. "Off with you then. We'll resume training at dawn tomorrow as usual."

Bobbing my head gratefully, I pivoted on my heel and hurried back in the direction of the sick ward, my mind already racing ahead.

What if something had happened with Martha's pregnancy so soon after her joyful announcement? A plethora of potential complications began parading through my consciousness, each more unsettling than the last.

No, I cautioned myself firmly. Emma would have sent an explicit word if there was any true emergency with Martha...wouldn't she?

By the time the sick wing came into view, my strides had slowed unconsciously as I took in the small crowd clustered around the entrance. 

Tearful, distraught-looking individuals huddled together in tight knots, some outright sobbing into their hands.

My heart plummeted into my belly as dread washed over me in icy waves. Clearly something catastrophic had befallen the village to provoke such abject expressions of misery and devastation.

Swallowing hard, I pressed forward, unable to discern a path through the dense crowd cluttering the doorway. I didn't know what was happening or why they were clustered there. But they only added to the mystery. 

Finally, I simply raised my voice to pierce the dull roar.

"Elder Emma? I'm here, but I can't get through to enter!" I called out. 

For a suspended moment, there was no response except the cacophony of grief. Then the sturdy wooden door swung open a crack and Emma's soot-smudged, weary face appeared in the gap.  

"You lot!" she barked, glaring out over the masses with steely eyes. "Shift aside and quit your wailing - we only need helping hands in here at the moment, not more sobbers!"

A chorus of objections and protests arose, but Emma paid them no heed as her gaze landed squarely on me. "You, Liora - get in here now!"

"But I need to see him!" one distraught female voice rose above the rest in a tremulous plea.

I turned just as another elderly, achingly familiar rasp split the air. "You nurses, allow me passage! I must see my poor son there!" My blood ran cold as I identified the beseeching shriek of Elder Abigail. 

But before I could make sense of her impassioned cries, Emma's calloused hand landed on my shoulder and bodily hauled me through the crack in the door, shutting out the clamor with a dull thud of finality.  

Whirling to face her, I opened my mouth to unleash the torrent of panicked questions battering my mind. But Emma held up a forestalling hand, shaking her head grimly.

"No time for questions yet, child," she said in a low, exhausted rasp. "There's far too much work requiring our undivided attention this evening." She said. 

Confused and apprehensive, I could only follow numbly as she led me deeper into the sick ward. Soft whimpers and jagged, panting breaths reached my ears first before the scene came into full view.

As I entered the room, I was greeted by the sight of at least five badly injured men lying on the floor of the sick chamber. Blood was seeping from their cuts and it looked drastic. 

My jaw dropped at the sight before me. Never had I ever seen such a bloody scene before in my life and I wondered what happened. Or how they could've gotten those injuries.  

At least half a dozen able-bodied healers and assistants hovered over the stricken forms, furiously dealing with the most dire cases.

Morris was crouched at one man's side, methodically binding a makeshift tourniquet around his savagely gashed forearm in grim silence. 

Two middle-aged women tended to separate patients, sponging away rivulets of crimson and murmuring gentle reassurances.  

White noise roared in my ears as my gaze took in each heartbreaking tableau in turn. 

I looked at the injured bodies one by one until my gaze finally landed on the floor near the entryway...and the motionless, frighteningly injured figure stretched out there like a with blood from his cuts.

It was Brian - Martha's husband. My breath stilled in my lungs as I absorbed the full scope of his savagely mutilated state. 

Countless cuts were visible on his arms and chest, the largest and most ominous a jagged, oozing furrow near his jugular vein.

My knees weakened as I knelt before him trying to render some help or ask him whatever happened. My mind was spinning at the moment. "Brian...? What...what happened...?"

I asked the motionless body before me, tears gathering in my eyes.